Every kid needs to see what they looked like as a baby taking a bath, right? And, when you’re kid #3, sometimes that picture doesn’t happen until you’re practically 2. Sorry Chloe!
-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
Pages
mandatory baby bath photo – 1/13
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on mandatory baby bath photo – 1/13
new year’s day
Well, New Year’s Day was just gorgeous outside and Cameron actually wanted to ride her bike! Always happy to comply with requests like these (to run, bike, or just generally get out and get active), we packed some snacks and drinks and headed across the street to bike.
I just love this girl’s smile.
Tom thinks that she is just about ready to transition to a 2-wheeler although she hasn’t practiced very extensively on the balance bike!
The kids always like to take breaks to play on the play structures.
Watching them come down with sticky-uppy hair from the static on the slides was fun!
We actually did hook up with HAKT on New Year’s Day. Our kids can’t go for too long without seeing one another!
And did we mention that Chloe knows the word, “selfie”???
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on new year’s day
a quiet new year’s eve
Normally, we spend New Year’s Eve with HAKT, but this year, Tom threw out his back in LA and we got back home only at about 3am. Tom and I were beat. I didn’t think I’d even make it to midnight! However, the kids kept on. We opened up some of their holiday gifts and tinkered with them. This included Cameron’s Roominate kits as well as the new Lego Duplo blocks both girls got.
Dylan got very interested in the wiring projects and made a couple of “elevators” while Cameron got busy decorating the walls with stickers.
Even Chloe make it all the way until about 11:30!! Once she settled into my lap, I started fading, too and Tom had to keep poking me in the side to keep me awake!
In the end, all but Chloe made it to midnight! At midnight, we clinked and drinked. 🙂 And, finally, we went up to sleep!
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on a quiet new year’s eve
in LA between Christmas and New Year’s
We continued the holiday revelry with a short visit to LA to visit the rest of the family. As you can see by this girl’s smile, it was an enjoyable time!!
We were actually especially lucky to be able to see Rocky practice ballet! She clearly has a very serious and excellent teacher and Rocky is already such an impressive dancer!! It’s such a shame we can’t just come to a performance at a moment’s notice.
Cameron was incredibly patient during the long rehearsal…and interested…and she reminded me often that she wants to start ballet class.
Everyone is so nice to Chloe.
The kids loved playing with Eli and Rocky, who are really so sweet to and so good with our little ones!
You can always tell how much fun they’re having by how much mess there is. And Grandma Sharon and Papa Willard are so patient and forgiving of the instant mess (and noise!) that these kids create!! In just a few short minutes, they’d pretty much turned 2 bedrooms into cluttered play areas. Plus, the kids managed to practically empty the closet of maybe every spare blanket there was (all in service of fort construction).
Uncle Michael was in New York, but we did see this lovely couple.
I also got a chance to get out there and run–it was my final run and the one I needed to do in order to make my mileage goal (800 miles) for the year. I ran up to Mulholland Drive and then continued on until I got to the Mulholland Overlook.
I understand this is a pretty nice view — and lots of Hollywood Tours trucks kept on passing me by, so there must be lots of worthy stuff to see up here — but as expansive as this view is, I really do like seeing ocean! So, I’m spoiled. Regular visits to LA allow me to get the best of both worlds.
As always, we enjoyed seeing everyone and will look forward to our next visit. But until then, here are a few more pictures from our visit.
Posted in los_angeles
Comments Off on in LA between Christmas and New Year’s
Christmas Day
Christmas Day came and went in a flash. Dylan woke up first and I videotaped his super sweet reaction to seeing the stuff under the tree. He inspected the stockings, the plate of cookies and the gifts under the tree.
Dylan was so patient! Christmas Eve was such a late night that the little girls both slept in! Chloe woke up about an hour after Dylan, but Cameron slept all the way until 9-ish!! That had poor Dylan declaring that she’d never wake up! But, of course, she eventually did….
Santa always brings an off-list surprise!
Chloe wasn’t quite as excited about Santa gifts. She initially used her’s as a seat!
Dylan finally stepped in to help her. He was pretty stoked for her — Lego Duplo play house! They’ve been enjoying this present every day! It’s awesome to see the little girls building (and Dylan, too, of course!!). Chloe especially likes the swings but it’s still a little tricky for her to get the people on there so she says, “I wanna fing, I wanna fing. Can you help me?” That last phrase, “can you help me?” is especially clear. Survival instincts honed!
I continue to have an especially keen interest in exposing the girls (not just mine!) to engineering and science. To this end, I caught sight of a video that went viral around mid-December–an advertisement for Goldie Blox set to the tune of a Beastie Boys song. It was very compelling — how to get girls interested in engineering — and catchy! It showed an amazing Rube Goldberg machine that went from inside to outside and back inside the house, all to turn off the television set (the Beastie Boys ended up filing a copyright infringement suit but that didn’t actually keep me from buying it!
I was pleased to see even Taliana taking an interest in the toy.
It is not my goal to have any of our kids actually become engineers (that will be their choice); however, I would love to encourage all of them to develop analytic, logic and design skills and an enduring curiosity and interest in understanding both how things work and how to make their own creations! Also, programming is, to me, less about authoring software than it is about developing problem solving skills and learning how to work with technology…it is important to me to at least introduce the kids to it!
It is still also true that women continue to be under-represented in science and engineering — there are fewer role models, etc….I could actually go on and on about the gender gap, but won’t. Suffice to say that I am especially interested in encouraging my girls (and all young gals) to explore STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
Dylan, of course, is already an amazing engineer–I now go to him for suggestions on finding solutions to our everyday problems! He is extraordinarily innovative and analytical and he seems to genuinely have a knack for this stuff (last night’s dinner conversation included a lengthy discussion on how we could design a pulley system to haul stuff up from the garage. He saw our lazy Snudda and said we needed something like that (and then he thought of the Sky Glider at the Boardwalk) as a cog/gear. Indeed!
Lately, he’s been tinkering with his Snap Circuits, independently wiring up his own home-cooked projects–I have explained that each project requires a resistor of some sort (a lamp, an integrated circuit or a switch) to prevent short-circuiting and damaging his stuff. He got the concept immediately and has been building away without destruction for days!
Santa also got Dylan a Lego motor, an infrared receiver and a battery pack for his Lego Hogwart’s Express (purchasing a motorized Hogwart’s Express Lego kit actually runs in the $1K range, I kid you not! So a DIY solution was needed).
I examined the train and wondered aloud how we would fit the necessary components on the train. Dylan immediately went to work to find a solution. He built a new train car (matches the look and feel of the existing train pretty well!) and figured out how to connect everything up. He already had a remote control from his Lego City train and it can control multiple trains, so we set up the channel for the Hogwarts and got the thing up and running!
After opening gifts at home, we headed to Christina’s house for brunch and more presents.
Chloe loved the little Santa band beneath Christina’s little tree. There is a little miniature carousel and she just loved watching the horses go up and down!
My nephew Rob made these amazing woodcuts for each family and together they make a whole! I am so proud of this guy. We just recently found out (at last weekend’s celebration for Chris’s bday) that he completed his AA degree, all on his own, with very little help from Cindy!! Not only that, he won first place in an art show and won an Android Tablet for his efforts! Phenomenal!
The picture above is of his wood cuts put all together and the one below is our family block.
Ty and J are still all about hockey! Glad to hear that the hockey trading cards we got for them continue be a hit!
In total, the girls got something like 5 new dolls this year. Of course, one of them had to be one that poos and pees!
In the evening, we headed to Cindy’s house for dinner. There is always a nice set-up for the kids, complete with activity!
Mom continues the tradition of getting new matching PJs for everyone! Love it.
And then boom, just like that, Christmas came and went! So much busy-ness, but so much time spent with loved ones! It is still my favorite time of the year.
Posted in christmas
Comments Off on Christmas Day
Christmas with the Claussens
We delayed our departure to LA for a day partly because we needed a bit more breathing room between unloading the car from Christmas and reloading for the trip to LA! But also, David (Heather’s younger bro) was in town … AND we always like to have a little celebration with HAKT (our extended family!).
Given everyone’s schedule before Christmas, we were unable to find time to do it until 12/26!
It was a relatively brief celebration, but it was a very nice way to conclude this year’s holiday festivities and we are so grateful to have Heather’s family in our lives as well!!!
Posted in christmas
Comments Off on Christmas with the Claussens
bundle of joy – 1/14/2014
The big kids bundled up the little one. She is still their favorite “toy!”
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on bundle of joy – 1/14/2014
a hot day in january
It was so hot (unfortunately!), that Dylan tried to cool me down with his self-crafted snap circuit fan. He really is so creative and thoughtful!
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on a hot day in january
Christmas Eve at Candice’s
As in year’s past, we spent Christmas Eve with Cindy’s in-laws. It is always so nice that we’re included in their celebration! This year, it was at Jeff’s Aunt Candice’s house, which is a few very short minutes from our house (as is his sister Jennifer’s house).
I wanted to use this picture in the holiday card, but Tom refused. Oh, well! It’s cute though, right? That little skirt that Chloe is wearing was crocheted by my mom. Where did she learn these mad home-ec skills??
Every year, we sing Christmas carols. Jeff is a pretty talented musician (back in the 80’s he recorded an album where he played all of the instruments and he called himself Jeff Saxxon. I always get a chuckle out of this, but it’s actually fairly impressive!) so he just figured out the chords on the fly and strummed along with us.
Jeff’s sister Jennifer has 2 daughters. Madison is the eldest and is getting pretty close to finishin up nursing school at CSU Chico.
It’s all fun and games until his reading glasses break!
The kids ended up going to sleep pretty close to 11, which meant that Tom and I were on an extremely late last-minute gift-wrapping shift! We worked until 2 or 3am, but at least there was very little risk of even Chloe waking up!
holiday train – 12/23
We didn’t realize we’d be so crazed by 12/23, so we bought tickets for the Holiday Lights train. We filled up our thermos with hot green tea for the grown-ups and soy hot chocolate for the kiddos and headed to Neptune’s Kingdom to board the train.
When they announced that Santa was coming, Dylan looked very, very skeptical. He eyed the guy up and down. After he left, he said, “that wasn’t the real Santa.” And then had a fairly lengthy explanation on his reasoning. For one, he only gave out candy canes. And another thing, he didn’t look like the guy at my company holiday party (and that guy looks the same every year — as, indeed, the brilliant ladies at work have the hook up with the Real Santa and that same guy comes every year…along with Gideon the balloon guy and the chef who makes us special vegan stuff!!).
I just love this kid. I hope the magic lasts forever even though I know it won’t….
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on holiday train – 12/23
