February 2009: The Tooth Fairy Forgot to Come

This morning I was awakened by a very sad 6 yr old who said, "Mom, the tooth fairy didn't come last night. I slept on the side of my pillow so he could get to my tooth under it." Aahhhh! How could the tooth fairy have overlooked that?

Poor little "O" was so brave when the amazingly patient, song-singing dentist yanked out his tooth. (It was suggested by my mother-in-law not to use the word "yank" in front of Owen, and I definitely agree.) He really did a great job despite his immense anxiety, although I have to hand it to this dentist, who I might add, did all her work whilest composing a new version of "Mary had a Little Lamb" in which Mary and the lamb travel to the mall. She really is an amazing pedia-dentist (is that a term?). She had Owen wiggle his fingers to relax. It worked pretty well in combination with the trance-like verses of "The lamb he fell asleep at the mall, asleep at the mall, asleep at the mall... Mary used the loud speaker, loud speaker, loud speaker, Mary used the loud speaker to ask for help to find him..."

So after all that, how could the Tooth Fairy-- who, by the way, is named Joe and lives under the stairs and builds his house out of teeth he collects--forget? Owen came to his own conclusion, having read his "Tooth Fairy Book" the night before, that he had failed to "follow the instructions" by not leaving a note for him. I tried to explain to him that perhaps since he wakes up at about 6:00 - 6:30 am that Joe came and had to leave because he woke up too early. Mike suggested maybe Joe was on vacation. Owen thankfully is convinced that because he didn't leave a note and perhaps because he or Eyan had stayed up too late, that Joe didn't come. Mike reassured him that the Tooth Fairy would definitely come tonight. I'm counting on it too!

Would love to hear any explanations you may have as to why the Tooth Fairy didn't come! Maybe this has never happened in your house, but be ready:-)

February 2009: Muffins with Mom

First off, if you haven't had a chance to take my poll and read "You are needed!", I would really appreciate your input!:-)

Owen's school has a fun annual event, Muffins with Mom, in which Owen and I enjoy breakfast together in the school cafeteria. I do have to say that I am jealous of Mike's event, Donuts with Dad. I am much more a donut person:-) Here I am with my darling boys before Owen and I leave for school.

Owen has a hollow leg. We cannot believe how much he eats. We have to monitor him or he'll eat himself sick. He can never commit to having a favorite anything, but I think his favorite thing to consume is chocolate milk. His face lights up anytime he hears the words and the characters in the stories he writes or in pictures he draws seem to always end up with chocolate milk. He drank 2 cups of chocolate milk and almost 2 whole muffins-we're talking Costco muffins. Sometimes Owen seems so "old" to me because he is my oldest and because he's so dang smart. I forget that he's the cute, short little 1st grader with the oversized backpack.

After the breakfast, he tenderly said "goodbye" to me and then went off towards the playground. I went back to my car and drove around to the back of the school where the playground is. The breakfast was before the normal school hours, so there were only a few kids on the playground. I parked my car and watched my sweet little boy run out onto the playground by himself. Mike and I wonder when this "run everywhere" phase of his will end. As soon as he steps out of the car to go to school in the morning, it automatically converts into a sprint. Its got to be those "fast shoes" he has.

That morning I watched him decide where he was going to play first. I saw him find where his class line would be and put down his new Lightning McQueen backpack. I watched him take off his jacket, only to put it back on again moments later. It made me chuckle because we go through this you're-going-to-wear-a-jacket-today scene almost every morning because of course "I'm not going to be cold Mom". Then I watched him sprint over to the playset -jacket on- to begin his school day. I lost sight of him and decided to leave. I'm not sure when it will stop for me, but I get a little pull on my heart strings every morning I watch him enter those school gates. Days like this, when I have a moment to just stop and think about my little boy are too far in between.

January 2009: Backyard Bliss

We are so lucky to live in Southern California with a great backyard. Generally speaking, this is a rare thing, at least in our area. Our backyard is near perfect for 3 little boys. I say near perfect because Owen reminds me that there is no plain dirt to dig in. We'll have to remember that for our next house, which with our record, could be sooner than we think. I love these photos of the boys outside.

I think this one has to be my favorite. Look at the glee in that little smile! That wiggly worm just made a best friend.

Here's E trying out his skates. He's doing pretty good. He eventually decided to put on the elbow and knee pads though:-)

And here is typical O, devising a way to read outside in style. I love sitting back and watching him with a plan!

Keeping the screen door closed is a challenge. The boys are constantly in and out. Here's T taking a break from the outside to line up and then realign his cars. It makes me laugh watching his methodical ways:-)

January 2009: Disneyland with the Big Boys

The main gift we gave Owen and Eyan this Christmas was a special day for just the "Big Boys" to spend with Mom and Dad. Isn't that great that they want to be with us? I'm holding on to that as long as I can:-) On Christmas they opened up a big box full of packing peanuts hiding clues of what our special day would have in store: 1. Disneyland Gift Card 2. Chopsticks 3. Tall paper chef hats 4. A ticket for each of them "to stay up past their bedtime" 5. A countdown chain until the special day Any guesses?

We spent the day at Disneyland and California Adventure just Dad, Mom, Owen, and Eyan while little Tate stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. We discovered the new Toy Story Ride-Mike's new favorite. Its like a life-size 3-D video game, carnival style: ring toss, darts, egg throwing, etc. You each wear 3-D glasses and shoot your own pull-string shooter. Of course it involves a score, which makes it fun for Mike and I. He just feels good about himself because he's won 2 times, and me 1. I've beat him a million times on the Buzz Lightyear ride, so he's still far behind:-) Our oldest little lefty, Eyan, was awesome at the games. His little arm kept pumping on that string!

This was the first time we met one of the characters. Our kids haven't really cared about seeing Mickey or anyone before. For some reason, Donald Duck has become Eyan's favorite and his little face absolutely lit up when he met him for the first time. It was so cute!

After a fun day of rides, we went on over to Benihana's. Mike's boss gave us a very generous giftcard to take the boys for dinner there. We ate like kings. I tried the banana tempura dessert for the first time-wow! Eyan was hilarious. He could not keep his eyes off the chef and his performing knives the entire time. He didn't eat at all until the chef was done cooking all the food. We had a great time!

We went home with full tummies and exhausted legs! We loved it.

December 2008: Choo-Choo Lips

I love how Tate plays with his trains and how his cute lips purse when he says "choo-choo" for train and the sound they make, "chiga-chiga". I think I mentioned this in my "Catching up with Christmas" post but I had to post some cute photos of him doing it. Tate loves to be with Eyan, or "E" as he calls him. They are really enjoying being together during the day when "O" is at school. Playing choo-choos is definitely a favorite. Eyan does the same thing his Dad and Grandpa Johnson do when they are concentrating - stick their tongue a little out and to the side. It cracks me up:-)

February 2009: Workout Videos?

Well you know who you are, you Exercise Queens! I'm looking for some suggestions for some NEW workout videos or shows.

Mike turns 35 this April and wants to be in the best shape of his life by then. Sounds great to me! I always do so much better on my own eatting and exercise when Mike is on board. So we have 8 weeks to get rockin' bodies because Mike made me wait until April to schedule our family portrait:-) I'm telling you all this so you can encourage me. I love eatting and sleeping too much. But after all, I'm writing a lesson on Believing in Yourself (if you haven't taken the poll yet please do so and read "You are needed"), so its gonna happen:-)

For me, I have found that I am in the best shape when I rotate between cardio, strength training, and yoga each week.

I do have to say that I still love Turbo Jam for a "killer" cardio workout. I've never sweat like that before in a cardio workout (and believe me, I am a complete Sweaty Betty). I never even liked doing cardio before I was introduced to it. My favorite one is Punch, Kick, & Jam with the weighted gloves, the capoeira rocks my legs. I also love the speedbag section of Cardio Party, the music is what I love - punching to "I'm gonna knock you out, Mama says knock you out!". But I'm ready for some NEW workouts, I have to constantly rotate exercise routines or I get bored.

I am definitely looking for some new strength training workouts. I think good ones are hard to find. I LOVED the 24LIFT class (used to be called Body Pump or something else, remember those good old days Kandice?!) and just doing free weights at 24 Hour Fitness, but a gym membership is not in the budget right now. The music in a workout makes all the difference to me and that's tough to find in a strength training video! Anyone got a great recommendation?

Really there is nothing like being in a yoga studio, but as previously mentioned.dot.dot.dot. I have a so many videos (most rather old now) and have fun rotating between them, but my favorites have been TV programs: Inhale on Oxygen (thanks to DVR because its on at like 2 am) and Namaste Yoga on FitTV (great 20 minute program). Love to hear the latest and greatest!

Have any of you tried the Tracy Anderson Method (photos might be a bit much)? Who doesn't want to look like Gwyneth Paltrow? I've heard great things about the Mat workout and horrible things about the Cardio one. Not sure if its worth the $. Anyone?

I have to have fun exercising and music makes such a difference. Can't wait for the suggestions to roll in!!

December 2008: Catching up with Christmas

First off: if you have a second, please take my poll and read "You are needed!". I would really appreciate your feedback! Thank you to all who have participated so far, I would love some more personal experiences:-)

To the post at hand: Hola Amigos y Familia! I'm playing a little catch-up, sorry, be patient with me, I'll get to present tense soon I hope:-)

I love that my kids are still in love with good old fashioned toys, of course they want the flashy, expensive kind too, but they are just as happy with some standards.

Owen wanted a pogo stick. We're still unsure how he even knew what a pogo stick was, but he is pretty good on it. Of course he wanted books too. He loves the Magic Treehouse series (thanks Jared!). He is currently reading Tale of Despereaux. Our goal was to have Owen read it to me before the movie came out, but...#1 the book is 240+ pages and #2 now that he is almost done, neither of us want to see the movie. We have about 20 pages left and I keep telling him that its got to get happy at the end. Its a super sad book, I'm not sure how they could make it into a kid's movie without seriously altering it. Anyone seen it? Owen also discovered his new favorite new building toy, Kinex (thanks Jackson). He constructed a motor bike by looking at a picture-no instructions, crazy!

Eyan wanted roller skates. He is generally the happiest, smiliest (is that a word?) kid. He was so excited to try out those roller skates (thanks Mom) and did a pretty great job. It was fun to try to teach him how to use them. He was so excited to receive Monster Jam ( you have to say it with a low, bellowing voice) trucks (thanks Stockton). I'm not sure if any of your kids or husbands for that matter are into Monster Jam, but it is hilarious to watch my 3 boys and Mike lined up on the couch completely mesmorized by these ginormous trucks catapulting themselves into the air and onto cars. Tate makes these hilarious "whoop whoop" sounds when he watches. Eyan will tell you his favorites are 1, 2, 3 (counting on his fingers): Batman, Grave Digger, and Maximum Destruction. Mike will have to suck it up and wear his sleeveless jean button-down to take the boys to an event.

Tate just loves to do what his brothers do. Both Eyan and Owen have bike helmets and Tate always wears Eyan's "hat". Santa brought Tate his own "hat" for Christmas. Santa couldn't get the elves to make one in Tate's size, but he doesn't seem to matter that it is huge on his head. Tate also loves choo-choos (thanks Savannah and Olivia) and biu-bius (be-yoos), which is Tatese for cars-its obviously the sound they make:-). He lines up his biu-bius and choo-choos and pushes them all along saying with pursed lips "chiga-chiga-chuga". He's pretty darn cute!

I love Christmas p.j.s. Here are all the little cousins. It is so fun to see them all together. Aren't they a cute bunch?

This year I decided to make the boys capes. They were an absolute hit! The blur you see in the last photo (I had to put this in) is my little nephew Jackson. He kept his cape on all day. I wasn't really prepared for the consequences of giving him a cape. One of the first things he did was jump off the stairs in it. It scared me to death but he landed with cat-like agility. We had to try to convince him that it wouldn't make him fly (sorry Nes).

This photo cracks me up. I am guessing this is the first my Mom will hear of this (sorry Mom). What good is a brand new custom made leather ottoman if you can't go sliding off it? Great idea Uncle Lukie! My dad said that that was the reason they picked out this kind of ottoman, so the boys could slide around on it. I think my Mom had a little bit of a different idea.

Isn't my grandma beautiful? Her and my grandpa celebrated Christmas with all of us. I hope they enjoyed all of the noise:-) I just loved this photo of my Grandma trying on her new "peace" earrings from my Mom. "World peace" would truthfully top my Grandma's Christmas list. She is a harmonious soul who is the quintessential "tree hugger" - she'll proudly tell you herself.

My Dad was thrilled that his office was beginning to resemble just that, an office, instead of a storage room. He wanted Tate to be his first interview. Mike is so jealous of his library shelves and the kids all love Grandpa's moving ladder (I have to say it was a little more scary than I thought it would be).

Here's Liz in her new first edition Polka Dot Square Full Apron, she'll be the envy of all her roommates.

Here's Jes looking debonaire in his plush Laker's robe. Watch out ladies!

This has got to be one of my faves! Mike was thrilled to receive these awesome onion goggles. Yes ladies, I am sure you are all jealous, but sorry, none of you would look this good in them:-)

Well we've come to the end of our family Christmas 2008 and after going through all of our photos, I was not in a single one, typical I guess. I'll have to documented another year:-)