2015 Recap

Filled with ups and downs, 2015 was a quite the year. One thing it lacked was consistent blog updates. Sorry. Elaine and I will try to a better job moving forward.

Portland continues to fit us and we to it. So much so that we bought a house and closed right before Thanksgiving. The house is a 90 year old beautiful home filled with charm, large windows, hard wood floors, and a fireplace (much needed on a day like today). It’s needed very little from us and have given us a lot. We still are in organizational mode with boxes around the house and finding ideal homes for things but the whole process has been incredibly smooth.

The boys love running in a circle around our main floor often chasing each other or just to run. They started a preschool a couple months ago and love going to it. It’s been fun having them come home with crafts and hearing about their day. Their superhero interest has yet to peak and there aren’t many days that go by without me getting blasted or joining in a story about heroes and villains. This year’s Mason’s days have revolved around playing outside, watching Wild Kratts (learning crazy facts about obscure animals that he’ll randomly spit out), dancing, and being silly. Caleb does his best to keep up with his big brother in every aspect. He usually is tied to his yellow blanket, loves watching Pup Patrol, likes crafts, and I’ve recent learned that he has a unique interest in Star Wars and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Ruby misses our old house and giant yard, but I’m guessing that she will love out backyard more in the Spring and Summer. She continues to hog the couch, carefully monitor everyone’s food, and has a nack for finding the sunshine in the house. Mason has become her best friend “needing” her to sleep in his room every night. Pretty cute indeed.

Elaine and I do our best to keep up with the world moving around us. Things get crazy at times but overall we are loving life and each other.

Cheers to an action packed year and here’s to 2016, more blog updates, and lots of smiles.

(photos coming later)
Mark

 

Super Heros and updates

Sorry that the blog has been on the back burner recently. The days start early, Elaine and I often wish that we went to bed earlier, and then it repeats. The days, weeks, and months have flown since we moved (11 months!).

The kids are all doing so well. Mason has grown and changed so much in recent months- losing more of his baby face, stretching longer, and chatting up a storm about whatever is on his mind (more on that later). Caleb is a little sweetheart and big copycat. He follows Mason around everywhere and needs to be doing everything that Mason is doing. Yes they push each other’s buttons at times, but they are very sweet to each other.

Which leads up to superhero…Mason’s current fixation. He found some small videos on youtube of adults playing with superhero action figures and then began binging on them. Then throughout the day he began talking about them. Next he requested that we tell stories about superheroes. Pretty soon Mason’s universe became D.C. and Marvel. We got a lot of Batman, Superman, Ironman, Joker, Wolverine, Robin, and Catwoman. But it continued to grow and seriously the kid was talking about villains and superheroes that should be C level for a 3 year old; Solomon Grundy, Captain Cold, Falcon, and Scarecrow.

This brings us to a couple of weeks ago. Elaine was out of town (a training in Chicago for her NEW job!) and Mason starting talking about wanting superhero costumes. It a little time, energy, and creativity Mason and I made some superhero items out of cardboard. Needless to say he was so excited and refused to take the Wolverine claws off to go to bed. It was a great weekend and fun to see him so excited and be able to explore his interests.

Boys weekend was a hit… superheroes, ice cream, and lots of play!

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

What Mason Enjoys

I like to ask Mason questions. Usually they focus on dreams, the best part of his day, and his favorites.
Tonight he was standing on a chair in the kitchen so he could watch me prep some dinner and we were chatting. I asked him about his favorite food and he immediately responded “watermelon”. Now typically his favorite food is whatever is in front of his eyes, but this time the watermelon was in our fridge out of sight. I got it out and started slicing it. Before it even fell to the cutting board the giant slice of juicy watermelon was in his hands. He inhaled a few pieces and the jokingly began eating from the larger main piece I was cutting it from. I caught a few photos, but they really don’t do his juicy smile justice.

Playgrounds are another favorite. Even though we didn’t go to any today here are some photos of swinging from the weekend.

Another favorite is making tents. Usually these happen during the day but tonight Mason asked for a tent right before he went to bed. He’s never done this before but here is his bedtime tent. He’s a fun kid…

Oops!

A little nod to all you teachers out there… This is what happens when you don’t proofread before hitting publish 😉
Check out that post again to see the correct captions matched with the correct photos.

Caleb’s Photo A Day

Photo an Hour ((starring Caleb)) ((and two months late))

I’m a blogging slacker. It’s officially a fact. I am two months late with my day of hourly photos of Caleb. This is a bi-annual tradition started when Mason was 6 months. You might remember Mark’s posting of Mason’s day back in March. My posting, which I had every intention of posting a day or two later, has now arrived.
It’s kind of funny that the first time we do the hourly photo with both of our kiddos we happened to be in different cities. Mark and Mason were home in SB and Caleb and I took a little road trip up to Oakland to visit our friend Jules who had flown in from Nashville and was staying at our lovely pals Jaclyn and Michael’s place. We had a great few days! A surprisingly smooth and happy 6-7 hour car ride, and some exploring of the Bay Area. Oh, and not pictured, but some truly delicious food too!

7AM: a freshly woken baby in mama’s lap

8AM: Out for a rainy walk down the street. Some soft, chewy, garlicky focaccia bread at Arizmendi, followed by a Serendipitous stroll through the Lake Merritt farmer’s market (following pigeons, graffiti art and the colorful produce. He napped most of the time, and peeked out from the wrap underneath a borrowed hat the rest of the time.

9AM: Back at our weekend home and looking sleepy eyed.

10AM: Yep, those were definitely sleepy eyes. Mason would wake up mid sleep and SCREAM at the top of his lungs if his blanket ended up over his face when he was this age, but Caleb loves pulling the blanket up over his head, cozying down. I think this was a long nap. Jules had a meeting to go to that took a few hours and left me with some much adored downtime to eat some leftover thai food.

11AM: Right on the hour, I went upstairs to take this photo and cracked the door to little eyes peeking out from the covers.

12PM: Diaper changes, tickles and giggles.

1PM: Another nap and the trip out to do some spontaneous shopping.

2PM: And a shopping trip cut short because of big alligator tears.

3PM: Awake again and snuggled into a papasan chair, hanging out with mama and auntie Jules, briefly before she went to pick up Jaclyn from the airport.

4PM: Oh the days where naps happened in abundance! Another short snooze, as we sit on the floor and watch a Netflix show.

5PM: Up and ready to play.

6PM: As it started getting dark, this guy was practicing bounces and learning how to sit up on his own. Propped with pillows on the couch after a couple tumbles on the floor!

7PM: And the final snooze. Down for the count.

Our next Photo-An-Hour post will be in about 4 months. I can hardly believe that these two kiddos of ours will be 1 and 3 years old!
But as we ease into the summer, I will try and will time to slow down and spread out into some lazier and more spontaneous days.

Dinner Peek-a-Boo

Just after dinner I caught this video and thought this would be a good place to share it…

As you can see, Mason and Caleb are doing a great job of playing together. Yes, they have their moments, but they light up whenever they see each other. It’s really sweet and here you get to see some of their spontaneous play. 

Mason in photos

Here is a quick photo update of the previous few days..beach time, watercolor painting, movie watching with a friend and of course Olvera Street. Mason is featured in the photos as Caleb was strapped to my chest for most of our adventures. We will get more photos of him up soon!

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Our week…

Thought I’d share some photos from the last week… some beach time, park games, Caleb’s first food (hummus) and painful trip to the ER due to finger slammed in the door.

Thankfully Mason’s finger is okay with no broken bones. He was super brave and is now sporting a green splint and some surgical glue for the wound. He’s adapted quite well to his club thumb and has been quite curious on where his thumb is hiding. Funny now, but in the ER we were all a little scared.

Mason Q&A

A while back Elaine and I did a blog post where we answered questions on behalf of Mason. We did this before he could fully talk and it was a lot of fun to answer questions and think of things from his perspective. His days of grunts and small words are long gone and we thought it would be fun to include him in the process. For the Q&A we each answered questions independently. You’ll see the dialog below…

What is your favorite shirt?
Mark “solar system shirt”
Elaine “that one with the helicopter and ambulance on it”
Mason “the Spider-Man one”

If you could go on a trip to anywhere in the world where would you go?
Mark “the Natural History Museum”
Elaine “the Natural History Museum”
Mason “back to the hive” (he has a book about bees that concludes with all the bees going back to the hive)

What is your favorite toy?
Mark “blocks”
Elaine “blocks or Coco the horse”
Mason “the baby turtle”

What is your favorite food?
Mark “berries”
Elaine “something from the freezer”
Mason “it’s the grapes”

If you could only grab one thing from the house to take with you and leave the rest behind, what would it be?
Mark “his blanket”
Elaine “his blanket or his bluea (pacifier)
Mason “oh, my dump truck”

What do you want to do for work when you grow up?
Mark “firefighter”
Elaine “to ride horses”
Mason “I want to fly”

What is your favorite book?
Mark “Dr Seuess’s Big Flap Book”
Elaine “Dr Seuess’s Big Flap Book
Mason “Papa, please get the moon for me”

As you can see, Elaine and I often think alike about him but we are clearly not Mason. When talking with him he only hesitated for the favorite toy question. The rest of his answers were very stream of consciousness and were given without deliberations.

It was great to get his opinion on these important topics and I imagine that we will do these Q&As a little more often. Let me know if you have any suggestions for questions

Mark