Grayson turns three!

Yesterday was Grayson's birthday, so since we were in San Francisco, we took him to Ghirardelli square and let him loose on a big, fat, hot fudge sundae.

Today, my baby had his 3 yr old birthday party. What do you do for a birthday party of three year olds? I figured they'd get a little lost in the bounce house, so we decided to have it at home. They ended up playing all on their own without any parent involvement, so I'm glad I didn't stress over organized activity.

Since his birthday is so close to Christmas, I knew that none of the kids needed more candy in their goodie bags, so since the the theme was the Paul Frank monkey (Grayson's fave), I put a banana, tangerine, and bag of fruit snacks in their bags with a small puzzle. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes

GO SEE IT. It's fabulous. The acting is perfect, as is the direction. I was soooo surprised with Watson's character. Not that I remotely remember the old Sherlock Holmes movies, but I do know that my stepdad loved them, I thought they were boring, and Watson was a doofus of a sidekick. In this movie, Watson is actually interesting and valuable. Holmes is a fantastic badass, good at just about everything from boxing to science.

No, I haven't read the series, so I don't know much about the history of the characters. I'm sure some geeks out there will find flaws and inconsistencies with the original story line, but as some kid off the street coming in to see a good movie, my socks were definitely knocked off and I can't wait for the next one.

San Francisco

All Gray wanted to do was ride the cable cars... so that's what we did.

Christmas!

My latest obsession

Since we're trying really hard to go all veg, I was looking for a better way to pack the boys' lunches. Gray and Wy only take lunch once a week, but for Jake, it's every day. That makes it hard to be creative. I stumbled onto the Vegan Lunchbox book at the library and just fell in love with the bento boxes from the cover! They're at laptoplunches.com and come in all sorts of different colors. This will make packing lunches MUCH more fun!!! I even ordered one for Jason (although I'm a little worried about the size).

HP-HBP

We bought the new Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince on blu ray and Grayson was playing in the play room while the other boys and I watched part of it.

Gray looked at the screen and goes, "LOOK!!! Lava girl!" Wyatt said, "No Grayson, that's Dumbledore." And Gray says, "Does Professor Steak kill Bumbledork in this movie?"

You have to admit, those are some tough names for a 2 yr. old.

Battleships

Jason took the tiger cubs to Oakland to see the USS Hornet and they LOVED it. He got some great pictures of the crew!

Christmas Lists

I just asked the boys what they'd like to ask Santa for for Christmas and here are their responses.

Jake: I don't care. If I can't have the Lego Death Star, just tell Santa to find something cool.

Wyatt: The magic set from Costco and an EZ-Bake Oven Cupcake Maker.

Grayson: A tiger. A real live one. That's purple.

Wyatt's haircut

To waste some time, I took the boys out for haircuts. I asked which hair cut place they liked best, and they all agreed on the one with the biggest lollipops. So, we headed to Great Clips and each boy did great. At the end, the ladies asked if they'd like some gel in their hair, and they all said they did.

Two hours later, it was time for karate, and Wyatt decided that gelled hair was NOT appropriate for karate. He went to the bathroom to wash it out, but it was fairly strong gel, so he went for the scissors. Yes, Wyatt now has a nice bald patch right on the top of his head. Great.

New Alphabet Soup

I came up with a new alphabet soup recipe and it was really good! The boys ate everything in their bowls and then Jake and Wyatt had seconds! Believe it or not, even Grayson finished his dinner for a change. The ingredients are listed below and to recreate it, I'll have to play around with it I guess.

1 can vegetable broth

1 can garbanzo beans

3 large carrots, peeled and sliced

1 small onion (ok NOT the whole onion)

2 small zucchini squash

2 small yellow squash

4 stalks celery

swiss chard

2 small tomatoes

some leftover peas and corn

tsp. salt

tsp. pepper

pinch of basil

1 bag alphabet letters

All for Ainsley

Today we walked for Ainsley!!! It was the Step Up for Down Syndrome in Sac. It was an honor to get to hold the precious girl (and put her to sleep doing so). I learned so much about Down Syndrome and was just amazed by the love and support Ainsley has.

Side note... so I was at LB's house one night and Ains had just turned 1. To celebrate, they had all the decorations from her hospital station on the mantle. Her parents are awesome, so her baby cart card had been saved (the one they put on the cart AS SOON AS THE BABY IS BORN) and I thought I'd had too much wine because the name read "Ainlsey."

I looked at the name several times and finally thought I was safe to ask how you really spell her name. Turns out, LB + family (father in law is a doc) hadn't ever realized the name had been misspelled.

H1N1

There have been some concerns lately about the H1N1 spreading through the schools. I totally get it. No one wants a sick kid, and we should not take lightly the case of the sweet 1st grader who passed away.

I am guilty of pulling Jake from school today. I didn't really do it because there were a few kids in his class who had confirmed cases. I didn't really do it because I didn't want to deal with a sick kid. I didn't really do it because it would be an imposition to keep him away from his brothers for 5 days.

I took him out because I missed him. I thought about how precious life is and how precious he is and I missed him. I thought, "What a great excuse to get my Jake ALL TO MYSELF for a little while," because that just doesn't happen very often any more. And to heck with school for a few hours. We played battleship, legos, and did a few puzzles before it was time to pick Wyatt and G up from school.

Shame on me, right? Somehow, I feel like it was the right thing for us that day.

Soccer friends

So, Jake hasn't been the happiest camper when it comes to soccer. He doesn't like having to go to practice and isn't really thrilled about games. But THIS week, he played a team where he knew several of the players and was extremely excited to see them.

Instead of actually playing, he spent most of the time yelling, "Mom look!!! It's Ricardo! And Nate! And ..." And when one of his friends was near him, he'd completely ignore the game and ask them questions like, "Remember that time..." Unfortunately, his friends' heads were in the game.

This is a great shot of Jake actually getting into the game.

Blackmail

I can't wait for Grayson to have a girlfriend in high school. I have such good dirt on him, I don't think we're going to have ANY problems with him. Too many of these pictures involve him in his birthday suit, but I love the belly in this one.

buttons

jake has a friend over this morning and the kid says, "you wanna see something yucky that your mom has?" they go through my drawers until they find my underthings... they start pulling them out and giggling and wyatt says, "they're for my mom's buttons! i like to push my mom's buttons."

tonight's party mix-mix

i kinda randomly pulled out a couple of songs, ran genius and it came up with a mix list... not bad. so here it is for tonight ladies (although it will shuffle and not be in artist order like it is now)

Unbreakable

Gives You Hell

Say This Sooner

It Hurts

Peacebone

Crooked Crown

Wake Up

Lions And Tigers

Angels

Girl

Steal My Kisses

forever

Day After Day

Triggering Back

Just A Friend

99 Red Love Balloons

Into The Ocean

Capn Kirk

Getting Better

God is My Friend

Blessed

American Dream

What If His People Prayed

Human

Clocks

Drivin' Me Wild

Tobacco Road

Chan Chan

Grey Street

Rain Down

People Are People

MOVE SHAKE DROP

I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight

Big Jumps

Wade in the Water

Sealion

Angels and Girlfriends

Textbook Love

Let It Die

Silver City

Sad Sad City

Beatific

Feel Good Inc.

High and Low

Ohh Ahh

Hollaback Girl

Far More

The Way I Am

Blame It( ft. T-Pain)

Jane Says

Beware Of The Boys

Come On Closer

Jenny From The Block

Walk By Faith

Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

Ring of Fire

Equally Skilled

Don't Stop Believing

Losing My Way

Sexy Back

Wavin' Flag

Human

Mr. Brightside

girlfriend/boyfriend

Use Somebody

Belly Love

Goodbye

Force Of Nature

Everything

Lollipop

Polyester Bride

Heart Attack

Hanging High

World Town

Paper Planes

Breathe In Breathe Out

Time To Pretend

New Low

You Don't Know

The World At Large

Polar Opposites

Space Lord

Hysteria

alimento de la ViDA

I Am

Say It Right

Recovery

Lock Sprot Krock

Love Is Trouble

Smells Like Teens Spirit

Amsterdam

I Know You Want Me

Tamacun

Creator

L.E.S. Artistes

Fire Burning The Dancefloor

Lazy Eye

You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb

You Only Live Once

Not Tonight

Mansard Roof

A-Punk

Pork and Beans

My Doorbell

So Long Goodbye

wyatt james

last year, wyatt wanted to have a BEN 10: Alien Force birthday party. the problem was, the party suppliers hadn't quite caught up to the demand of my 4 yr old, and i could not find ben 10 anywhere except through a British party supply store (the dollar is down, the euro is up... you get the picture)... he had to settle for a mylar BEN 10 balloon and black and green plates and napkins.

well this year, he wants a super mario galaxy party. not mario kart. not super mario brothers. super mario galaxy. so i am taking suggestions and ideas. i found the most awesome cake in the world, but will NOT be spending $800, so. any ideas?

tooshy run

courtney and i went to target for the big cereal sale and when we showed up at the house, gray was so excited that he took his shorts off, grabbed the lucy charms, and took off down the street... naked.

after chasing him down and taking the pictures, i came back to hear jake having this conversation with kayla, a little girl in his class who live across the street:

kayla: i’m having a bike race. you wanna come?

jake: nah, we have plans.

kayla: i didn’t tell you when it is.

jake: well, we have plans like every day. so i’m not going to be able to come.

fiction family

Last night, my good friend Courtney and I saw Fiction Family (a collaboration of Jon Foreman of Swithfoot and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek) at the Independent in San Francisco. We started the night out at herbivore and my food was WAY better than hers - therefore, we shared :)

I was a little surprised Courtney even ate because she was SO fired up about seeing her hero Jon Foreman - the girl’s hand were literally shaking at several points. Just about every song started with Cote saying, “this is my other favorite...”

The songs were great, the presence was brilliant, Sara Watkins was a royal treat, and talking with SeanJon afterward was over the top. The funniest part of the night might have been the cover of Weezer’s Pink Triangle. Or possibly, Jon Foreman pretending to be Celine Dion on Courtney’s phone.

Thanks, for the great night friend!

tgif

Jake’s school has an after-school program called TGIF (Thank Goodness it’s Fun) and Jake was asking me questions about it -- what do they do, who gets to go, etc. I explained that it is for kids whose parents work... so that they can have fun and be cared for after school.

Jake replies, “Is it also for kids who bother their parents? So the parents can do stuff at home without their kids bothering them?"

american idol

we were watching the tivo-d american idol and apparently the judges were asking one of the contestants if his hair color was natural. the guy replied, “the carpet matches the drapes.”

jake thought that was hysterical. he kept laughing and saying it over and over.

of course he has no idea what it means, but let’s hope he’s forgotten in and doesn’t say it in school today!