halloween party preppin’

I got to work from home on Thursday so I was able to quickly whip up a batch of cupcakes while I worked. Had no time to frost them during the day, but that was ok. Dylan loves decorating!

We also made some vegan sugar cookies, some cut into Halloween shapes (ghosts, black cats, bats, pumpkins, etc) and added cocoa powder to half the batch so we could make our “traditional” skeleton cookies.

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DSC_8939
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here’s Dylan decorating the pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes for his school party. He decorated a special one for Mechelle (a vegan teacher at his school — she took care of Cameron and Dylan when they were in the infant room!). We love her.


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DSC_8932
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Cameron liked sampling! We nearly couldn’t get her to stop!


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DSC_8940
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan highlights our rapidly diminishing supply of Halloween sprinkles.


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Dylan bein’ a big brother
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan does the “big-brother” bossy thing and tries to prevent Cameron from touching a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.


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pre-K pumpkin patch day

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IMG_20101021_105240
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Was stoked to be able to take some time off to accompany Dylan and kids on their pre-K pumpkin patch field trip last week!

We have our own private pumpkin patch in our backyard — with 5 beautiful pumpkins! — but we still thought it might be nice for Dylan to join his pals on this trip.


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IMG_20101021_105321
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

He and Finley hunted around for white pumpkins….Dylan also looked for itty bitty pumpkins for Cameron (who stayed behind in the toddler room).


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IMG_20101021_111106
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Nate and Dylan rode in the wagon together all the way back to school. They were singing and laughing all the way back, making up lyrics as we trundled along…!


When we got back to the school, I spied on Cameron (she’s wearing pink and sitting at the table).

She is (still) teething and she had a pretty bad cough that day;her eyes were watery and she’d gotten so little sleep (coughing was keeping her awake during the night).

She loves Teacher Andrea, though, and now that she’s better, she goes directly to Andrea without any fuss!


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Cameron eats a green pen

cameron ate a green pen
cameron ate a green pen
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Yep, Cameron ate a pen. And when we tried to take it away, it got on her forehead, her nose, her neck…you get the picture….This green one, by the way, isn’t the first pen she’s tried to snack on and, at least in this case, the tip remained intact and she mustered a smile despite having lost possession of it during a pretty intense battle to keep it!


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anniversary dinner weekend

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L1000268
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last weekend, Tom and I celebrated our 5th anniversary with a matinee (“The Town”), followed by dinner at P.F. Chang’s.

Heather was originally going to babysit for us, but she came down with a terrible cold, so Auntie Christina and Lola offered to watch the kids for us!

Dylan was pretty excited about going. Auntie Christina was going to take him to a costume party for her godson’s first birthday (the Doodle stayed at Lola’s house), so here he is hauling his costume (Spiderman) in this nice little bag.


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spidey, MJ, and bday boy
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here he is partyin’ it up with Ms. Party herself, Auntie Christina (a.k.a. Michael Jackson).


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MJ and Mad Hatter
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Are these costumes great, or what??

Well, Tom and I enjoyed our movie and yummy vegan dim sum and cocktails at P.F. Chang’s afterwards. When we got back to Lola’s house, Dylan wasn’t even back yet (!!). Cameron had just woken up from a nice, long nap and was pretty chipper…

We had a nice playdate with Eaen on Sunday afternoon…unfortunately, no pictures because my camera battery died (yeargh!!)!

So, Cameron is doing new stuff…she can now propel herself forward on the Retro Rocket and the Thomas the Train ride-on toys, she started signing “pig,” she will acknowledge that she went poops, but if you ask her if she wants to change diaper, she’ll cut you off with a “no” before you’ve even finished your sentence!


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decoratin’

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no fear
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We decided that we’re going to spend Halloween in Santa Cruz this year, so we also decided it might be nice to put up a few decorations around the house.

Dylan is especially excited about all things Halloween this year and, as you can see, he is not afraid of all of the ‘pooky stuff we’ve been seeing around!

Cameron isn’t scared either. In fact, both kids think our little talking skeleton is a riot. You push the red button on his head (or set off the motion detector in his nasal cavity) and he cycles through a few lines. Tom’s favorite is, “can you get me a drink…pleeeease??”

I just looked at the date of this picture and it was taken on October 5th! What??? I’m shocked. Did we really start prepping for Halloween that early? Am I really that behind in uploading pictures? Did two weeks already go by??!? And, holy smokes. We need to get our costumes together!!!


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still ridin’

Cameron has finally decided she can wear her bike helmet! Her only complaint was stopping to load up the farm share. My only complaints were a) bungees that were too short! b) an expected closed gate that was a bear to maneuver through on our way home!

Tonight, Tom rode the Yuba to HAT’s house where the kids and I went for dinner (after Mandarin class)–my car smells like it’s burning rubber whenever we drive it now, so it is completely out of commission. Tom had to commute by bus today so I could have the car for Music Together and kid drop-off and pick-up and that left him without a car when he got home (he apparently didn’t get any of my messages asking him if he needed a ride home)!

Anyway, Cameron must have recalled how much she enjoyed her last bike ride because she wanted to climb right on when she saw it!

Speaking of our little gal, she continues to communicate up a storm! Now we have signs (and sounds) for elephant and ball as well as “yah’s” accompanied by vigorous, full-body nodding (we love it!), “woo woo’s” for trains, and, my favorite, “uh oh, ettio” for “uh oh, spaghettio”.

We’re starting to see a little bickering now–one kid wants Toy A, so the other one does and they say, “no no no no no” to each other and grab or try to hug it to chest to keep it at bay. Kinda cute, kinda not-so-fun-sometimes! Overall, though, they’re still into the spontaneous hugs and kisses and they still brim over with enthusiasm upon reuniting and/or waking, so it’s all pretty good…!


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Dylan’s triathlon + bdays

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DSC_8869
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan participated in his first SuperKids Triathlon this year and it was super cute! He had so much fun, he wanted to race again immediately after he finished!

This is a shot of Dylan just as he’d gotten out of the pool and was making his way over to the transition area to start the bike leg.

His smile just melted my heart! When he saw me snapping photos from the sidelines, he started running towards me and I had to quick-quick tell him to keep on running to his bike (Tom was behind him encouraging him to do the same). It was sooo sweet! Anyway, here are a few more pictures from the event.


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DSC_8847
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

He was so stoked about the body markings he got, he had me take pictures of every limb (this is a picture of limb #2). And the day after the event, he went around “body marking” people with a Q-tip!


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DSC_8854
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

For the swim portion, he went out in his swim ring and his swim cap. This is before the race, so we’re just making sure everything is good to go (and modeling it, of course!).


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Dylan and Finley
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here’s Dylan and Finley modeling their swim caps, totally stoked to be at this event together.


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Dylan and Cleo
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here’s Dylan with Finley’s little sister Cleo (who also goes to the same pre-school). She is so super sweet! Dylan enjoys playing with Cleo just as much as he likes playing with Finley!


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biking it
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We lost oodles of time in transition putting Dylan’s new Converse shoes on–as you can see in this picture, they have laces! We had to get replacement shoes at the last minute because we lost his pair of Keens (sad face)! So, here he is finishing up the bike leg!


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DSC_8878
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

And, finally, here he is after crossing the finish line!

With Cameron in tow, I couldn’t hustle over to the finish in time to catch him going under the arches. By Tom’s report, though, Tom broke off to the right to let Dylan run across the finish line on his own, and sweet li’l Dylan thought daddy-o ran away! He panicked a bit and went running in search of Tom! So, he missed the finish line the first time around, but went through it after he was reassured that Tom was still quite close by!

Overall, such a sweet, sweet event. Not just for Dylan and his buddies, but for all the little athletes who participated.


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DSC_8856
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

As for our little munchkin gal, pre-race, she checked out everybody’s bike, including Cleo’s which she discovered had a lovely pinwheel attached to the handlebars! She also enjoyed sharing a z-bar with Dylan and dragging me around while I tried to take pictures!

After the event, we took Dylan to a bday party for his school buddy, Nate. More fun times with Finley and Cleo and also Tanner, Sawyer, and Hailey! Despite all of this activity, can you believe that the kids still did not sleep up until 10pm??


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9-year old Jason
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We also celebrated Jason’s birthday this past weekend!

He had some crazy video game bus at the neighborhood park. The thing had 2 big screens on the outside where folks could play Wii games; on the inside, there was a bench that ran the length of the bus sitting opposite 3 big screen tvs with X-boxes.

Dylan and I tried a Harry Potter Legos game for a while, but admittedly, the entertainment was a better fit for the older kids than it was for him (and me!).


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DSC_8816
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

The games bus folks also brought outdoor stuff — a giant, inflatable hamster ball and gear for Booger wars (dodgeball with a twist…kids had to run to a giant nose on the opposite end of their team’s field to pick green, velcroed, booger bags out that they then threw at the other team; whoever got a booger stuck to their vest was out!). So, while the bigger kids, donned in velcro vests, played Booger wars, Dylan and Cameron played on the playground!


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DSC_8817
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here are our cutie pies rockin’ the airplane thing!

We have a few pictures from Nate’s party, too. I’ll upload them soon.

Back Log: Oh, my goodness. At this time last year, Cameron was only 8 weeks old and had already started wearing regular-size cloth diapers!

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Dylan cracks his coconut

Poor Dylan has endured chipped front teeth, a fractured elbow, and now stitches. Yep, two of them, right on his little coconut.

We spent the night at Lola’s house since Lola was going to watch the kids for us while Tom and I ran this year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half in San Jose. Everything went smoothly, well kinda — Tom and I woke up early, took the Light Rail, did the race (well, poor Tom’s ankle prevented him from finishing…everyone thinks he made the right choice in not pushing through to the end), up until we came back. After we were back, Auntie Christina, Dylan, Cameron and I were playing on the bed when Cameron decided to shoot out the door and head for the stairs, so while I went chasing her, poor Dylan rolled right off of Auntie Christina’s bed and on to the hardwood floor!!!

I ran back in and passed Doodle over to Christina who’d noticed blood dripping off of Dylan’s head — not just a little blood, but a lot…like enough to glob up his shirt and mine and enough to noticeably saturate a paper towel and a cloth napkin — and our brave little Dylan was wailing and pointing to his head!

After a few minutes of ice, the bleeding finally stopped and Dylan said he started feeling better, but we thought it would be good to take him to Urgent Care to make sure he really was a-ok (the mother’s imagination goes to brain swelling, blood clots, concussion, projectile vomiting…in short, it goes wild).

By then, Dylan was back to his chatty self, but when the doc examined him, sure enough, he said Dylan needed stitches.

Dylan was really wincing (but not crying) while the doctor was scraping hair and blood away to examine the boo boo (I think this doc could have been a bit gentler, too). So, when the doctor described what would need to happen — injection to numb the area and then stitches sewn in — steri-strips were a no-go because of Dyl’s hair — I started imagining what pain Dylan would be in and how I wouldn’t be able to manage witnessing it without starting to feel faint. So, I waited for Tom and Cameron to come back and we swapped kids.


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“whooo whooo!”
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Both boys were very brave. As per usual, Dylan got the “you are such a good boy” and “you’re my best patient so far” kudos…he really is amazing. The doctor said he did much better with the stitches than even lots of grown ups (for sure, he did better than I would have done). He did not cry at. all. while he was getting his stitches! After all that, though, no sticker for Dylan!

He was such a trooper, though. When we got back to Lola’s house, we gave him some ice cream and then he was off to make like he was a train with Grandpa Mike as his passenger.

We ended our weekend with dinner and play time at Heather’s house where Taliana, after hearing of his accident, had made him a nice heart out of Hama beads….

Tomorrow, the “cool bandanna” comes off and on Tuesday, we return to the doctor to make sure the stitches are not infected. Next week, he’ll get them pulled out. I hope, in the meantime, he is not in too much pain. He’s more or less his normal and playful self, but when we adjust his “bandanna,” we know it still hurts because he winces when we scoot it up, and at bedtime tonight, he told me he didn’t want to sleep because he was worried his head would hurt–and, it did. We gave him some Tylenol to take the edge off the pain and a nice, soft pillow for him to lay his head on….I’m very, very glad — especially glad — that I get to spend some morning time with the kids tomorrow. Hopefully, it will boost Dylan’s spirits and we’ll be able to keep an eye on him to make sure he isn’t in too much pain.


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another late post ! Just us at the County Fair, 09/19/2010

Apparently, Dylan didn’t get to spend enough time at the model railroad exhibit when he and Tom went to the county fair with the preschool just a few days earlier. We had to go back!

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DSC_8621
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

As you can see, seeing the trains made him very happy!

Cameron was also pleased! Every time the diesel came by, she’d start saying, “yay!” and clapping her hands. Dylan was so thrilled with her enthusiasm, when he was sitting next to her while she yayed and clapped, he just burst out with a “I love you Cameron!!” and leaned over to give her a big kiss!


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DSC_8623
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here is Cameron waiting for that diesel to come back around!

Other than watch the trains, we didn’t do much else. I took Cameron over to the Small Animal Barn to see the miniature this’s and that’s (horse, steer, goats, and a non-miniature Emu). She was a bit nervous around them, but seemed interested in watching other kids feed the animals some carrots.

Once Dylan had his fill of the model railroad, we headed for some rides. Cameron loves the carousel!


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DSC_8630
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan, of course, had to ride the German import train ride…twice!


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apple picking at Gizdich

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DSC_8687
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We went apple-picking “with” Dylan’s preschool last Saturday. Unfortunately, we missed everyone because we got out of the house late!

It wasn’t just because we let the kids sleep in and then have a leisurely breakfast, Cameron dropped some poop on the carpet while I was on my way to get her a new diaper (thinking she could air-dry a little!).
Tom: Does someone have gas or something?
Me:Yep, I think so (I start to hustle for that diaper thinking gas is a harbinger of more solid things to come)…
Tom: Uh, noooo. Cameron just took a crap on the rug!

Yuck is right! While Tom cleaned up the rug, I took Cameron and gave her a quick, emergency bath! And, it was this final last-minute event that pushed us too late into the day!

Luckily, Cathy (the preschool owner/director) was still there and she hung out with us for a bit while the kids played on the tractor and hay bales.


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DSC_8696
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Doesn’t she just look like a pensive and quiet little lass?


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DSC_8692
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Hey, folks! Where are the apples??


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DSC_8707
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We were experiencing record high temps — that day was in the high 90s! — so we took the stroller, but wouldn’t you know? The kids just wanted to run around and kick up some dust!


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DSC_8704
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan did carry our bucket for us…at least for a little while!


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DSC_8708
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

And Cameron was signing (“apple”), sampling and babbling!

Both kids totally sacked out on our way home


Back LogDuring last year’s apple-picking excursion, Cameron was so wee, she just hung out in the peanut shell! What a difference a year makes!

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