Thanksgiving 2011

We headed to Houston for Thanksgiving again this year. Thursday I got up and did a 12 mile training run that included a 5 mile 'Run Thru the Woods' in The Woodlands. The run was great, but my one and only race picture from the event it horrible. Like, the worst picture of myself ever. Yeah, I'll pay $45 for this POS picture of myself, sure! Gross. We went to Grammy and Papaw's for a delicious meal around noon. We got to see Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Greg and Lila for a little bit before they headed out to Dallas. We watched the A&M game (Brian did, I actually fell asleep) and were thoroughly disgusted. Got up from my nap just before midnight and headed to Walmart to try and get a Black Friday deal that started at midnight. It started out innocently enough, but having tons of people swarming a pallet covered in cellophane waiting for the clock to strike midnight is not a good idea. The fact that this was at Walmart makes it infinitely worse. There was pushing, shoving and people got knocked to the ground. We 'rescued' this hysterical woman who was stepped on and who seemed to be certifiably crazy. We left empty handed. Actually I almost ran out of there I was so skeeved out by the whole thing. I'm almost certain I'll never go into Walmart again and I'm 100% certain I will not be there on a Black Friday ever again. We ended up driving past a Target because the line was too long and going to another one with an even longer line to get into the store. I stood in line. After making it into the store we had to wait in another line to purchase any electronics. It made for a VERY long night, but SO much better than Walmart. There wasn't any chaos. It was all very calm and respectful. I love Target. We got what we needed after waiting in line for 80 billion hours. Went home and slept for a couple of hours and got up to hit up Baby Gap. Um Baby Gap, you did not take 50% off of everything in store like last year. No wonder no one was shopping there on Black Friday. You lose Baby Gap, you lose. After going to the mall and finding it not crowded at all we did some more shopping. It was all very nice and orderly. I didn't get everything I needed, but crossed lots of stuff off of the list. I love getting up early and shopping on Black Friday. 4am, sure! But I do not like the deals starting at midnight. :-( Boo.

Isabel and Logan thouroughly enjoyed the new dual DVD players on the drive back to Austin. The drive was 100% more enjoyable without Logan screaming 70% of the time. He won't sleep in the car, but at least he's old enough to be entertained by movies now.

11-11-11

Since I couldn't think of a better title for the post and I distinctly remember my Grandma Betty telling me I should write a letter on 8-8-88.

Isabel is coming up with the funniest stuff these days. Brian and I will just sit and listen to her and try not to crack up. Today she was flipping through the DirecTV manual and was saying 'He loves me. He doesn't love me' as she was flipping through each page. I guess it's her take on the 'he loves me, he loves me not.' I don't know where she gets this stuff. She also said 'damn it. damn it. damn it.' at lunch today. I should have just ignored it, but it caught me so off guard that I told her that's not a nice thing to say. What does she do? She says it over and over again until she goes to time out where she says it some more. The novelty finally wore off.

We're getting family pictures on Sunday so this meant that Isabel had to get a fat lip today. I have no idea how she did it, but I think she opened the bathroom door right on her face. She told me the door hurt her. Silly girl. I think it should be fine by Sunday. I'm so glad it's supposed to be 82 degrees so that we'll be nice and properly dressed in our long sleeves and sweaters.

Logan has been trying SO hard to eat the Fall centerpiece on the dining room table and today he finally got a nice big bite out of a gourd. I hear Isabel saying 'brober's eating it.'

Halloween!

We got some serious mileage this year out of the great Halloween costumes that Grandma made for Isabel and Logan. We had the big mom's group party, paraded around a nursing home, had a playgroup party, went to Goblins in the Garden, and went trick-or-treating. Everyone loved the costumes, as usual. :) Logan was a big hit at the nursing home. He just ran around to all of the old folks, got a horsey ride on some old dude (tried to pull out his catheter), and ran around the dementia wing. Isabel clung to my leg and wouldn't let go. It was great to see the smiles on the old timers' faces and watch the kids interact with them. We're going to go back next month and sing 2 Christmas songs with bells. Should be fun!

Goblins in the Garden was ok. I read in the paper that it was free, but we ended up having to pay the $8/adult fee. Not worth $16, but oh well. Isabel and Logan both liked the guy singing and playing instruments to kids songs. He was really good. We ran around the area for a bit and then Isabel got bored and Logan was done. Brian took Logan back to the car while Isabel and I walked around some more. We were standing in line for a balloon animal, but they cut the line off and we didn't get to do that. Bummer.

Trick or treating was really fun this year. Isabel didn't understand what was going on at first and was pretty confused. After a couple of houses she was like 'we go to another house and get candy?' Then it was all fun and games. We hit around 6 houses. Luckily Izzy is still young enough not to really care about the candy, so we had no trouble tossing her entire bag. I wasn't comfortable letting her have even the 'safe' candy in a bag full of M&M's and Reese's. The only 'safe' candy is Willy Wonka stuff. It's the nasty tootsie pops, laffy taffy, sweetarts, etc. The only good candy that in those bags are Dots. I always hated the houses that gave away that crap when I was younger. Now we're 'that' house. At least it's the cheap candy!

In other news: Logan has a new girlfriend. Her name is Vidia and she lives in the 'Tinkerbell and the Fairy Rescue' movie.

Sea World Part Deux

Last weekend we told Isabel that we would take her back to Sea World this weekend and the girl has been talking about it non stop for the entire week. She talks about touching a dolphin, asks what's the dolphin's name, etc etc. Today we got up, had breakfast, and headed to San Antonio. We have our season pass thing and brought our giant mugs to refill with 99 cent refills. We 'just' had to pay for parking and the food while we were there.


First look at the dolphin pool.

First up was dolphin cove. We didn't make it over there last time, so we made sure to head over there first. We had fun trying to coax one of the 10 or so dolphins over to play with us. While they came close, we didn't get a chance to touch one. The dolphin feeding time was 11:15am, so we headed over to the shark and aquarium building and checked that out. Isabel had a really good time and wanted to look in all of the fish tanks.


Watching the sharks.


We waited in line and bought our fish to feed the dolphins. Brian tossed the fish while Isabel watched and thought about touching a dolphin. We quickly ran out of fish and Brian took Logan to buy some more. While we were waiting for the guys to come back a nice lady who bought about 10 trays of fish invited us over to try and touch the dolphins she was feeding. With the very last fish Isabel was very brave and touched the dolphin! She was SO proud of herself. Bonus: we didn't have to buy more fish! Thanks nice lady!

Logan catching the dolphin action.

Brian feeding fish to the dolphins.

Cutest dolphin face evah.

That is one happy 2 year old!

Next up was lunch. On our way to lunch we headed into some strange trick or treating area for kids after the park attendants were all excited that there weren't any lines. It was pretty cool with lots of bubble machines going, painted pumpkins and really neat costumes. Isabel wouldn't have her picture taken with any of them though. They gave Izzy and Logan bags to collect candy. I'm happy to report that the candy was of the gummi variety and bananas. No peanut m&m's or anything. We still had to get rid of some stuff that was 'manufactured with peanuts.' On our way out we saw that there was a huge line to get in. Really glad we missed that.

Trick or Treating. Strange, pretty fish.

Pretty octopus lady.

Back to lunch. We had food that was slightly better than the nastiness we had last time. At least we had grapes and watermelon for Isabel and Logan. And our drink refills were only 99 cents. Score!

After lunch we went to the Azul show. It was really really neat. Logan was pretty happy about it, but Brian had to leave to let him run around for a bit in the middle. Once the flock of parrots came out and flew around the area he was mesmerized. I must admit that it was pretty cool. You don't often see parrots flying around in unison. Isabel was in awe of the entire thing. It was a lot of fun.

Logan looking at the banners on the ceiling before the show.


Isabel watching the show.

I really wish I could be this excited about watching whales and dolphins! This one makes me so happy.

Divers!


Dancing with a Beluga Whale.


We were both pretty mesmerized.



Parrots!




Yay! Logan loved the birds.

Bye Bye Whale!

After Azul we went to the Count's Unhaunted House. It was fun. The best part was at the end there was this 3D talking pumpkin that interacted with Isabel. He asked her all kinds of questions and Isabel was talking up a storm back to him. She won't do it with real people, so it was really cute to watch her interact with this non threatening pumpkin.

The unhaunted house


Here's the talking pumpkin!

We took a quick detour to the penguin area. So cute!

Penguins!

We waited in line to ride Big Birds Egg ride. Brian took Isabel and I took Logan. Should not have taken Logan. Big mistake. He just wanted to stand up and he was required to sit strapped in. He screamed almost the entire time and it was HOT. I was getting pissed and just wanted the damn thing to be over with. Isabel had a good time though.


Looks innocent enough, right?!


Yay! We're happy and excited to be on the ride. 2.5 seconds later we had had enough.

Isabel is excited to be on her first ride.

Next up was the Bay of Play Sesame Street area. Isabel and Logan played on the playground for a while and then went to the splash area to cool off. Logan had a great time at the little tykes area. Basically 2 little splash things. Just his size and style. I took Isabel to see Abby, Telly, Cookie, and Zoe monsters. She was a little shy. We stayed to watch the Count, Elmo and Abby Halloween show. It was fun. They sang and danced to the 'Elmo Says Boo!' cd that I've been listening too since Vivian was a year and a half. I knew the words to the songs and sang along. I think Isabel got embarrassed and was ready to leave before the show ended.

Playing in the kiddie splash area.

Poor cookie monster just wanted a hug.

I don't want to touch you Abby, but I'll take your wand.

We were at Sea World for 5 1/2 hours this time. It was a pretty darn good day. The ride home was horrible, as usual. Two tired kiddos + no naps = insanity on the ride home. We popped a pizza in the oven, ate, got baths, watched a tiny bit of a show and the kids are both in bed asleep by 8pm.

This is what happens when you don't let your kid nap.

We asked Isabel what the dolphin felt like at dinner tonight and she told us 'like a rain coat.' Smart kid. :-)

Pretend play and crazy comments

I'm so amazed at the strides in language Isabel has made in the past couple of months. She's speaking in complete sentences and can actually carry on a conversation. She loves pretend play and is constantly holding imaginary dinner parties and 'decoration time.' I'm pretty sure decoration time was learned from school as she decorates her crafts. Today we put on our pretend fairy wings and ran around the house pretending to fly. After our flying lessons we had decoration time and then breakfast time at 1pm. I love this stage so much. It's so neat to see what Isabel comes up with in her mind and then acts out. After about 2 hours of pretend play Isabel put on a cape (her nap mat) and pretended to fly some more. I can't believe how much energy that one has. It's amazing. Here are some of her noteworthy phrases and sentences:

"I have a big, giant poop in my body."
"I just want to eat more candy."
"You want an orange lollipop? All right." - This is said all at once. She doesn't wait for an answer.
"I have a idea." - Usually preceded by something she's not supposed to do.

Isabel is also making up songs and sings about everything. She's said a couple of 'bad' words recently that Brian has caught. Apparently she was in the pantry and Brian told her to get out and she said 'damn it.' (Thanks Grandma). Brian told her we don't say that and she looked like she knew that she wasn't supposed to say that word. Brian said she's been saying 'butt' a lot. I haven't heard this, but I did hear her sing "My bottom.....my bottom.....it's on my bottom" in the tub last night. Brian told me she said 'butt' right before the 'bottom' song. I guess she looked at Brian's scolding gaze and decided that 'bottom' would be the correct noun for the melody. I must lay off the F bombs.

I'm pretty sure Logan (and Isabel) have hand, foot and mouth disease at the moment. Luckily it seems to be fading away. Poor Logan had blisters on his feet. Logan has discovered the word 'mine' and LOVES to use it when talking to Isabel. He still loves Elmo and cuddling.

Sea World is Magical!

About to leave....success!

Isabel meets Zoe!

Watching Sesame Street show.


Watching the sea lion show.

Enormous walrus.

Jumping and playing at the 'Bay of Play'

Shamu and her baby!

Opening the show.

Logan is mesmerized.

And they're off!

Sea World 09.25.11

I woke up this morning and had coffee and the Sunday paper in bed (thanks Brian and Isabel) and saw on the back of one of the sections a little blurb about Sea World. It said that if you buy a ticket this year you'll be able to go until 1/6/2013 for FREE! Since children under 3 are free I was pretty excited about this deal. It was still $60/ticket for me and Brian, but still, we can go for over a year for FREE! Parking was $15 though. Stupid.

Anyway, it was AWESOME! Both Logan and Izzy were pretty good on the drive up (a slight miracle for Logan) and even though we got there right at Logan's nap time, it was great! We headed over to the Shamu show first. After some snacks we went to the 'splash zone' section and waited 15 years for the show to start. It was really only 20 minutes, but it seamed like forever. Brian walked Logan around outside while Isabel and I watched the whales swim around. The show finally started with a giant Shamu flip right in front of us. It totally startled Logan, who jumped, but he didn't cry and was seriously mesmerized the entire time. His eyes were as big as saucers. He clapped and danced and had a great time. Isabel was pretty impressed with the show too. I was fully expecting to have to take Logan outside and walk with him, but he surprised us and loved the show. As I was watching Isabel and Logan enjoying the show so much I thought about how much Viv would have loved seeing the whales. After getting teary-eyed I told myself to buck up for the kids and put on a happy face. After leaving the show I saw a huge dragonfly and was reminded that Viv is always with us.

After Shamu we ate some seriously crappy food for lunch. I have no words for how bad it was. At least they had these nut/egg/milk-free cookies that were pretty good.

After lunch we headed over to the Sesame Street 'Bay of Play' area. Isabel got to meet and hug Elmo and Abby. She loved it, but I think she was a little overwhelmed as she was rendered speechless after giving them a huge 'HI ELMO!' She didn't say another word for a while. I kept Logan in the stroller because I knew he would be a little freaked out. Sure enough, Abby came over to try and say hi to him and he shut his eyes and put his balled fists over them trying to make them go away. I really wanted to tell Abby to leave, but didn't. When he opened his eyes and saw her still standing over him he totally freaked out. Luckily she left and I was able to calm him down relatively easily (for him).

There was a giant climbing structure thing that was a little too big for Izzy to play with, a playground, some under 3 stuff that we didn't see until we were leaving, and a big water/splash area. Isabel and Brian had fun getting wet and cooling off in the splash area. After that we headed over to see the sea lion show. Once again Logan and Isabel did fantastic and really seemed to enjoy the show. After seeing the baby sea lion pups we changed everyone and made the dicey decision to stay for the 3pm Sesame Street character show, since I knew everyone was getting super tired and it was one hundred and freaking four degrees. No joke. 104 degrees on September 25th.

The character show was short and sweet. Perfect. There were some songs and dancing and that was about it. Isabel worked up the courage to go to the stage and dance and the show ended. It was ok though, because she got to meet Cookie Monster and Zoe.

We packed up and headed back to Austin. Logan freaked the eff out in the car on the way home. Jesus that kid can scream. We stopped to get gas and Brian got in the back with him to try and calm him down. I guess no naps and lots of stimulation finally caught up with Logan. After dinner, bath, and 1/3 of 'Cars' Brian took Logan to bed and he said Logan actually clapped when he put him in the crib. Sweet boy.

I seriously would have laughed out loud if you told me that I would have gone to San Antonio today to Sea World and had a great time without any meltdowns. Amazing!

Oh yeah, and active military personnel and their families get in free. How cool is that?! They had active and retired military peeps stand and be recognized at the Shamu show. High five Sea World!

Please please please don't give up the nap!

I think Isabel is trying to give up her nap. I'm crossing my fingers that this isn't that case and that it's just been an anomaly these past few days. She's been really fighting going down for her nap. She now needs water, baby, baby blankie and hammie-hammie in her crib. When I put her down she asks for hug, kiss and back rub. Ok, no problem. Then she asks again. and again. and again. I used to go in repeatedly, but it made it worse. Brian and I now will go through the routine 2x's before we tell her no more and leave. Then the screaming starts. It lasts a long time. When she finally goes to sleep (around 3:45pm) I have to wake her up by 5:30pm and then she's a total cranky pants and usually cries the rest of the night. Bedtime is a repeat of the same thing. Screaming and more screaming. Last night she didn't go to sleep until almost 11pm and then was up at 7am. 8 hours of sleep in a day. GREAT! So, if this keeps up I think I'm going to have to let her give up the napping and get her to bed earlier. :-( It's my only kid-free hour of the day and I cherish it. Since I only get 5-6 hours of sleep at night my 30 minute nap during the day is pretty much a necessity. I shudder to think what it'll be like without a nap.

Potty 'm&m's' are like crack for babies

Picnic for dinner.

We give Isabel a potty m&m (used to be m&m's, but they 'may contain peanuts,' so now they are jelly beans) when she goes potty on the big girl potty. This plan has completely back fired and I'm really regretting the whole potty=reward potty training system. Basically Isabel goes potty when she wants candy. Logan has realized where the potty m&m's are kept and will go over to the oven and stand and point to the cabinet where we keep them grunting until he gets one. Isabel now needs her potty m&m and a 'match.' She's been playing a memory game and gets all excited about matching, so matching jelly beans is a must. Jelly beans are way more economical than the SIXTY SIX FREAKING DOLLAR nut-free m&m's I purchased online. Brian will never let me forget that moment of weakness (but my child must never be denied the pleasure of m&m's. It's child abuse!). Vermont Nut Free Chocolates-fool me once, etc etc.

This weekend Grammy and Papaw came into town. It was originally supposed to help us out watching the kids while we car shopped. Since we bought a car last weekend we didn't need to go on any test drives. Papaw was kind enough to drive Brian's car back to Austin and Grammy got stuck driving by herself in downtown H-town traffic on Friday afternoon to come visit. Uncle Matt took Brian's car to Houston a couple of weeks ago when he was in town and the water pump went out on his way back to Austin. The car was stuck in Houston for repairs.

Since we didn't have to car shop we headed to Jester King Brewery for a tour and some beers. It was really a fun atmosphere with great craft beer. We all know how much of a beer snob Brian is, so he was especially excited to hit the brewery. We also managed to catch a movie. 'Contagion' was good, but I thought it was sort of like an immunology for dummies class. I did appreciate that it was very real and that they didn't try to make it all Hollywood with car chases and things getting blown up. We could be very very close to something like that happening. I don't know how many people realize how close we are. I have face masks in my pantry. I could go on and on about the movie and my thoughts about it and vaccines, but I won't.

I realized that we didn't even take 1 picture this weekend while Grammy and Papaw were here. Logan has been incredibly high maintenance these past few months and it takes so much energy just to make sure his needs are somewhat being met. Thankfully Isabel is becoming more helpful and is biting much less. She's started pushing Logan, but I'll take that over biting any day. Pushing is still not acceptable (obviously), but I'm not constantly worried that she'll take a chunk out of Logan's arm 24/7. She's still working on self control, but it's getting better. Her vocabulary has exploded and she's talking in sentences and is expressing herself very well.

Logan likes to go over to the pantry and knock on the door for a snack. He's definitely figured out where the food in the house is kept. He needs almost constant interaction, so that's been challenging for me. Washing dishes, getting meals ready, doing laundry, etc are all huge challenges for me since it's play with Logan or hear screaming. I'm hoping that this is a short phase. He's back to napping 2x's a day regularly, so that's been very nice.

Christening the new car

We bought a new car on Saturday. Today the kids took their first ride in it and Isabel puked. Everywhere. I was on my way up to Brian's office this morning because during the transfer of the crap from the Forester to the CX-9 I forgot to get my wallet. It usually wouldn't be a big deal, but today is pizza day at Isabel's preschool. Pizza day is a big deal and costs $. It's 20 freaking dollars for a 5 pizza day punch card. It's apparently one of their 'fundraisers.' Pizza day at Bannokburn was $1/slice. I could have just packed her a lunch, but we've been talking about pizza day all week and I could just picture her sitting there at lunch with her sandwich while everyone else was eating pizza. Anyway, I didn't have $20 in the house and needed my wallet.

I packed everyone up and we headed up north at 8:15am. Yes, right in traffic. Around 8:45am Isabel spits up a bit and then full-on pukes. I made it to Brian's office and he had a towel from the gym and helped me clean Isabel up and try to clean out the carseat and car some. Logan was screaming, so I let him out to run around a bit. I only had extra pants for Izzy in the diaper bag because I used the shirt to clean up spilled milk last week and forgot to replace it. So here we are at Brian's office with Logan running around like a crazy person and Izzy following him topless. Brian is cleaning out the car and we have about 5000 wipes, Izzy's clothes, waffles from the morning and a puke towel on the concrete next to the car. Hello Brian's coworkers! Nice to meet you!

Needless to say, we didn't make it to pizza day.

Somersaults and School

A little apprehensive.



Warming up.

Ready to play.

Logan makes some dinner.

Isabel checks her email.

Isabel started doing somersaults by herself a few weeks ago. So fun. Now she tries to 'help' Logan out with his gymnastics abilities too. Izzy seems to really like school and we haven't had any tears yet. Isabel is exploring her singing voice. Unfortunately she's come equipped with our vocal abilities....none. She loves to sing the ABC's at top volume and Row Row Row Your Boat is becoming a favorite. She can count to 19 and loves to count her way down the steps every time.

Logan is so excited to be able to play with anything he wants on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He's very fun to be around when he's not constantly on guard for bites and pushes. He's mimicking more and more sounds and frequently knows and uses 'mama, milk, dada, uh-oh' and is starting to understand us a lot more and follow commands.