And of course a Halloween post

A photo montage of our Halloween activities (okay, and with some commentary too):

Joshua loves puzzles as of late and decided weeks ago that he wanted us to save the pieces that we carved out of the pumpkins so that he could play with them like a puzzle (take out the eyes, nose, mouth, put them back in, repeat). Here he and Daniel are doing "pumpkin puzzles" contentedly for quite some time:



Here is what our jack-o-lanterns looked like. Joshua was very certain that he wanted his to have a grumpy mouth. We tried to counter-balance by making Daniel's very cheery:



Trick-or-treat!



In the morning I took the boys to the library in their costumes for Halloween activities including spooky story time, Halloween crafts and trick-or-treating. After she read the stories, the story lady invited all of the kids up front to give them a treat. When it was Joshua's turn she gushed over his costume, "Oh what a brave knight you are! I've been waiting my whole life for a knight in shining armor! Are you my knight in shining armor?"

Joshua paused. "Trick-or-treat?"



I had wanted this to be a nice picture of Daniel and me smiling at the camera so that you could all see him in his full lion cuteness, but it turned out to be one of those pictures that exposes what's really going on:

Maybe he'll be a pilot

Recently, Joshua has been flying an imaginary plane -- in the sink.



I have to admit that I am impressed by his creativity. The faucet knobs are his controls, the drain stopper his flightstick, and the nightlight next to the sinks is his fuel light. He imagines elaborate scenarios; needing to refuel while trying to maintain control of the plane, fighting with other planes, etc.



It wasn't until we went to the Air & Space Museum at Balboa Park on the free Tuesday that I began to notice a trend...





Notice the look of intensity on his face in each of the photos. That was "seat of his pants" flying, complete with sound effects, of course. Anyway, what a fun new phase!

And here's a picture of the boys playing in the fountain at beautiful Balboa Park. I love San Diego!

Lunchtime Coiffure

Daniel made an amazing discovery at lunch today:


Peanut butter and banana makes great hair gel!

My kind of laundry!

Here is a picture I took the other day that was just too cute not to share!

Like Father, Like Son(s)

Daniel has recently begun climbing onto our dining room chairs, wanting to be at the table like the rest of us instead of in his high chair. He also frequently finishes his dinner before we do (since I try to make sure he's fed before I eat), and wants out to wander around. If I get up to get something, he'll occasionally steal my seat now.

Leslie tells me that a couple of days ago he climbed up onto my chair and stood looking at her from it calling "daddy, daddy". It made me feel good that he wanted to imitate me and I also liked the imitation. Joshua's imitation at that age had been to sit on the computer chair and bang on the keyboard while saying "daddy, daddy". It was embarrasing to have Joshua make a reference to the amount of time I spend on a computer, where it's rewarding to have Daniel reference the amount of time I spend with the family having dinner together. Family dinner is a tradition both Leslie's and my family had and one which we intend to keep.

I'd feel much better blogging about Daniel's "daddy" imitation if it didn't involve me on the computer chair, banging on the keyboard...

Pumpkin Patch!

Yesterday we took a field trip with our little preschool group to a pumpkin patch. For those of you familiar with the area, it was very near the Wild Animal Park - a beautiful area. Enjoy these pics!


The adventure began with a hayride!




They also had a little petting zoo. Joshua loves feeding goats and is quite good at it from prior petting zoo experience.


Daniel learning for himself that pumpkin shell is not very tasty.


The boys coloring their souvenir coloring books about how pumpkins grow, etc.

All in all a wonderful field trip! I love this season!

Things are sprouting

Here is a picture of Joshua holding the container of seeds he planted in preschool a few weeks ago. He's very excited that something actually grew! He has been watering it faithfully and giving it lots of tlc. Look closely toward the front righthand side to see the shoot.



And even more important (speaking of sprouting) Daniel had his 15-month check-up today and it seems that he has had a growth spurt himself! I am so relieved that he has recovered some of the growth that he lost for some mysterious reason at around 4 months of age. I couldn't even get his pediatrician to worry about it with me, but when it's your baby who plunges from the 50th percentile down to the 3rd for no explainable reason, any other high-strung mother would agree that this is cause for concern! Now he is up around the 25th percentile. Hooray!

What the smock?

*warning: this post is not for the easily offended!

For the past month and a half, I have been through an ordeal trying to order art smocks for our preschool. After all this time, I still have no smocks, but what I do have is a headache a mile wide (how hard is it to order 6 smocks anyway?!). I will spare you all of the truly boring details, but it has been a very frustrating experience and almost had me beat until I realized today that the word "smock" makes an excellent expletive. Not that I am one to use expletives, but it works so well, I couldn't resist. Try it, it's fun!

Some examples:
"Who the smock do you think you are?"
"What the smock is going on here?!"
"I don't give a smock."

My head is feeling better already...

Uncle John

Right after Daniel was born, Jake and I noticed that he looked a lot like my brother John. My brother John, however, was not convinced. I would like to present further evidence of Daniel's "Johnness" from last night at the dinner table. Here is a picture of Daniel chowing down on his fourth helping of Dennison's chili!


For those of you who know John, no further explanation is necessary. For those who don't, John absolutely loved Dennison's chili growing up, and as far as I know, still does. Often he would receive a can as a birthday or Christmas present and be really happy about it. Anyway, suffice it to say that Daniel couldn't get enough. Now I'm just waiting to see what it's going to do to his digestive system....

Baby Talk

Daniel can say his name now: "Dando". This morning, he's also making a dinosaur walk around and growl like I showed him. My growl was "Arrr," but Daniel's is "Owww". I was wondering if he was hurt before I realized he doesn't pronounce his r's yet.

On occasion, when I bring letters in from our mailbox Joshua declares, "We got email!" In further demonstration of the vast difference in technology from when I was his age, Joshua was playing in the bath three nights ago with some foam letters which stick to the wall when they're wet. After sticking a bunch of letters up, he declared "It says joshua.com!" I had to laugh. This is the kid who refers to an old Fisher-Price record player that I had as a kid as a CD player.

Off limits

The computer area in our front room is strictly off limits to the boys. Unfortunately, they don't seem to know this yet. Jake is constantly trying to devise new ways to prevent access to this area. Let's look in on how successful his latest attempt to keep the boys out of his stuff has been...

Hey Daniel, check out this neat stuff to play with!


Uh oh, we're caught!


Nya nya!


Hmmmm...well, looks like it's back to the drawing board!