Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Baby Tuesday

I've got a ton of new photos because the new camera came. Hizzah!
But I don't have a ton of time to explain them. Plus, Go Diego Go is on, so that I can type this while Kid C watches it, but it's hard to string a thought together with all that "animal rescuing."

The kids are in VBS this week. A mom at MOPS tipped us off to the fact that this one church accepts 2 and 3 yr olds. Score! Now I did have to pay, which churches usually don't have people do, but this church kinda struggles, so it's okay.

The website didn't give a registration deadline, but apparently there was one, and I was a couple days late with their papers. So they were all out of shirts. I didn't care at first, but then when I saw that ALL the other kids had them except MY kids, I had to rectify the situation.

So off I went to Michaels to buy two blue t shirts and some printable fabric. Then we came home and printed out the VBS logo and appliqued it on. I was proud of myself. And bonus, their shirts are WAY cuter than the ones they would have got in the first place.


She wanted to use a "prop" for this shot.


Note the metallic iron-on flowers. Fancy!


Another landmark moment: a visit to the huge International Swim Center pool here in Sockswithsandalsland. I always knew it was a famous place, but it wasn't until I was in the lobby that had all the plaques about the Olympic sweep that the team from here made in the 60's Olympics. Mark Spitz was from here. Crazy.

Anyway, Kid C and I didn't have an Olympic kind of visit there. The place is divided into two pools. A big serious laned pool, and a 3 ft pool. We got the latter. And it was 103° on Sunday so EVERYONE without A/C in the whole city seemed to be there. The water has not the cleanest, but I don't think any filter could have withstood that kind of population.


She was happy though. Very very happy.


It was just her and me, so good quality mommy-daughter time. Even if we were way too close to half-naked strangers.

To top off the experience, upon exiting we saw a big ol' turd (most likely dropped out of some kid's swim diaper) just sittin on the pooldeck. It was so hilarious, I wasn't as grossed out as I should have been. All the lifeguard did was put a "wet floor" tent-sign over it. Sanitary.

Oh and since Kid C wanted to take a shower in the locker room, we had to see a naked woman in there. I knew that would happen. Everyone else was "decent" but there's always someone with no shame whatsoever.
Note to those kinds of people, if you take a shower with your suit on, you wash it out too, bonus. I'm just sayin.'

Another MOPS mom told me about this free art thing up in Mountain View. I was excited to go to it because it was a) free and b) supposedly indoor.
It was over 100°, like I said, and half of it was outside and I was dissappointed. The kids didn't seem to mind.


Good ol' tissue and ink crafts.


Flower shape, one step above coffee filter shaped.


We each took our assigned child. Here Kevin is with Baby R. You can't really see him, but you can almost make out his cute little arms behind Kevin. They were making "hand flowers."


Who doesn't love a big wall of white paper and paint brushes?
She asked me to help her paint Hello Kitty and I couldn't resist.


Precious cuteness moment. They sat in there with their blankies all by themselves to watch TV.
If they were cute and good like this all the time, I would give them whatever they wanted.
I tell them that fact, but I guess being naughty is just too much fun.



The men. Baby R kinda upstaged Kevin here.


Baby R does NOT like baths. I don't know why he decided this, but it's been this way for months. Because of that I bathe him in about 60 seconds and he's unconsolable for about 5 minutes afterwards. I'll be glad when this stage is over. He loves the pool, he hates the tub. Weirdo.


Here he is trying to be so cute that I won't bathe him. It does work to stall me, but eventually he got clean. Look at him, so cute.




These are some of the first photos we took with the new camera.


I'm not sure what the "claw" was all about. But I'd be lying if I said she doesn't do that claw kind of alot. Especiallly when she's punchy.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

online bill pay preparation for the Sabbath?

I try to get any real work done all on Saturday so I can observe a real day of rest, or at least the best I can with two barnacle kids who, like any other kids, think I am their personal butler (and often times butt-ler).

Tonight I did 2 hours worth of bills. And several times I wanted to just stop and chill out because after all it's saturday night, but I had to keep going because I couldn't put it off until tomorrow.

There are a few things I put in a pile that weren't really bills and I'll work on them later this week (because I wrote them on the chalkboard, my prehistoric-style day-timer.)

But I am spent now.
Kevin came in from the garage and asked where some cord was and I could barely form thoughts, much less words. I stared off and looked confused for way longer than I should have.

I really wanted to go eat some chocolate ice cream when I was done. But it's 11:30 and that will definitely end up as neck fat. That is the punishment for late night snacking: neck fat.

Friday, June 26, 2009

thermal gun thermal fun

Kevin borrowed a thermal camera from work so he could see how our new insulation is working and what parts of the wall let in heat more than others, etc.

So of course I wanted to be photographed and then he got a pic of the little hot dogs under the table.


Can you tell who's who?



The funny thing was that after I moved away from this spot, there were little heat mark footprints on the carpet in the next shot.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

packaged deal

Back to the local pool designs.
They picked one of the four designs, and now I've expanded it. I made the shirt grey because they thought people wouldn't want a black shirt in the summer. Fair enough.





Tuesday, June 23, 2009

not sure



I bought these empty frames off eBay for 5 bucks from China. I couldn't try them on so it was a gamble. I'm not crazy about them, but it could because I have weird hair today. I haven't tried them on with my hair down.

I don't want to pay 300 for the frames I really like at a place around here. But I dont know if I like these cheap ones enough to use my vision insurance allowance to put real lenses in them.

Baby Tuesday

Our new camera is still on it's way from Tennessee, so we have a bunch of laptop photos this week.


Thursday afternoon cupcakes. She has a mouth full of frosting, and I can't fault her for it.


Sprinkle application. I bought fancy Wilton ones from Michaels.


These are random from this morning. It was no easy task getting the boy to back up. He was happy just looking at this little man body.


They were trying to showcase wearing my shoes. Baby R has my black maryjanes on and Kid C has my purple suede BCBG heels from Salvation Army.


And here is Kevin's Father's Day gift from me. It's reversed because I took it with the laptop and I'm too lazy to go in and reverse it back. But I think it's pretty cute. I made it for his cubicle at work, but I hung it up on our wall in the interim and now we kind of like it there.

Monday, June 22, 2009

more layout of the website






"I'm New Page"


"expanded" version of above page

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Baby Tuesday

Yes, I remembered. 10:30, I still have an hour and 1/2 until Tuesday is over.

The camera has still not been replaced, so not much to show. But here we go.


I took this one with my phone earlier this afternoon. This is the fountain at Santana Row.
It clearly, in bronze signage, states "do NOT throw rocks."
You know where this is going.
He was a repeat offender, so we had to get out of there.

And yes swim classes have begun. Tomorrow will be day 3 of 10. I'm sorry I don't have action shots of them in the pool. Baby R is doing so good. Especially since he cries like I'm really hurting him whenever he gets in the bath. It's the saddest thing, him in the bath these days. Hence, I let him go grubby alot.
Anyway, he's good. And his giant swimsuit is so cute.

They're modeling the suits *with* the inflatable inserts. But they wanted to take them out, and the class said no floaties anyway, so there it is. I'm glad to have them for when we're at other pools.


Not bad for 6.99 a piece at Marshalls. Baby R's is an age 4-6, but they didn't have his size. He's helft, so it's not that big on him.


The problem today was that Kid C found out that she can stand in the shallow end of the pool, which makes her less motivated to swim, because she can walk. We'll see how this all unfolds at the end of next week.

Monday, June 15, 2009

today I did this much



I'm helping re-do the current website. And this is what I have come up with.
And the page element arrangement is thanks to JP and the other designers on the team.

The bottom part has serious issues and so does the logo placement.

Plus there are going ot be drop down menus, so that takes some thinking about, etc.

But 5am-8am, not a bad haul for 3 hrs.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Baby Tuesday, on Wednesday

I knew that yesterday was Tuesday, but I was so-- tired from our frantic coastal visit, that all I wanted to do was sit in bed with my 99 cent mini churros and watch 30 Rock on Hulu.
I'm up early to make up for yesterday.

When the Año Nuevo park ranger handed me the map and said to follow the whimsical dotted line to see the elephant seals, I was naively confident that the kids would be so happy to take a "hike" that we'd have no problems.
We had problems. Before we ever reached that pond (see below), we had problems.
Namely, the just wanted to sit and look at dirt and rocks and bugs.

It was excruciating hiking with an unhappy (and quite hefty) 2 yr old on my shoulders and "sensitive" 3 yr old all the way there and back. Two miles of making promises. First, promising to see the seals, and later, that there would be our car at the end, where we could rest.
We were breaking all kinds of park rules, I gave the kids sandwiches on the last half of the trek back, and I used my cell phone twice. I doubt the seals were bothered by either one. I didn't care, and I sort of wanted to get busted so someone would help me carry the kids out.
And poor Baby R got fleas in his hair on the hike! And then when we got home I found a tick on him! (luckily it was just prowling, and not attached yet!) My baby!
I made them cover their heads with their blankies after the flea attack.

Bad idea. I will return with them after they are big enough for Disneyland. Then I will know that they can make it the whole way. The end of the trail was dissappointing, considering how much effort it took to get out there.

I wanted to see something like this:


But instead it was more like this:


I need more seal population density, people.

It made me appreciate our zoo membership all the more.


This was the only photo I took yesterday, with my phone.
We stopped at Pigeon Point before Ano Nuevo.
(I've always wanted to stay at that hostel there)



Still shots from the recital. I had Kevin give her the rose at the end.
She was confused.
She wanted a pop-tart like Baby R was eating instead.


The big "everyone-out-on-stage" deal at the end.
This was before the umbrella girls blocked Kid C's team.


Oh, my baby. (She does not like it when I call her that...but Ransom does!)


Pre-show excitement, hard to contain.


A few weeks ago we went down to Roaring Camp Railroads on a whim on our way to the beach one Tuesday.

It was surprisingly quaint and nice. And if it wasn't for the amazingly high price of the train tickets, I would have said 5-stars. But whew, those prices were steep. Just like the elephant seal debaukle, I had already told the kids what we were going to do, and gosh darnit, we were gonna do what we set out to do. I said we were gonna ride the train, and we rode that train.


I only had my camera phone so this about as good as the photos get.
This is the other little boy on the train about Baby R's age, and he said "Thomas!" several times. It was cute.


Despite the loud noises, Kid C did pretty good.
Here they are filling the engine end with water, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess later turns into steam.
Now, she did freak out that we were going to leave her brother in the mountains, when we stopped at a little picnic area at the mountain top, simply because he was walking slower than me. That's standard for her, I guess.


The train is pulling into the station here. They had this little diesel engine tug it in, and then they backed the old 1897 engine up to it.


She's looking around at scenery like this.


It was pretty neat, because Thomas on TV gets them all excited about steam engines vs. modern train engines. I never thought much about it before I had these kids. But it was neat to ride behind the actual engine that carried logs and lumber down off the mountains on those tracks 100 years ago.
Apparently Thomas does a tour every year and it's a life-size Thomas that carries the coaches up into the redwoods. I'll think about it. My friend took her boys last year and she said that all the tickets to ride were adult prices and that if she did it again, they would just look at the train and go get some ice cream and be done with it, ha.


God bless Kevin's cousins Kathryn and Lisie.
Just when I had run out of steam at his grandfather's birthday party, they took her and dressed her in their dresses and jewelry and she totally loved it. She thinks they are the coolest-- like celebrities. And they're always so nice to her. I know I wouldn't have bothered with a 3 yr old when I was their age. I'm indebted.



Here Baby R is at Kevin's uncle's beautiful house up in Orinda where the party was held. If I didn't have a broken camera (and I keep losing auctions on eBay!) I would have taken more photos. But this one is Jim's movie of the bubble liquid they put in the fountain for the kids. They had a great time. It was a good party.

Monday, June 08, 2009

working mutha'

Today we solidified that will be doubling my work hours at WG. And I was offered 40 hrs a week, and turned that down stating that my kids are little and I can't do that much.
And I really want to do more than 10 hours of work a week, I'd really rather do 20.
20 would be ideal.
But then I would have to find Childcare, with a capital C. Which would mean the kids would be with a stranger and not a high-paid stranger at that. There's a very real possibility that that stranger would be a better caregiver than me. Who knows?

But I am considering bumping it up to 20 hours a week in a year's time. Now, whether I can call that shot, I have no idea.

And I know that if they said "if you can't do X amt of hours then we'll have to give this job to someone else," I would freak out and would make drastic choices to be able to hang on to it.

I left the conversation with "if I knew solid numbers (meaning payment) I could figure out whether I would be working just to pay for childcare."

I always feel like I'm the type of mom that should be a working mom, and this is my dream job. But all the stuff that comes with sick kids, and doing what is best for them (which for many often *is* putting them in childcare with "professionals")

Decsions...

Now I have to go make Jello Pudding with Kid C...

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Baby Tuesday

UPDATE: We have the ballet recital video!


(wait for it to process)

There is this park in Los Altos with a real creek running beside it. It's a rushing river in the Winter after it rains, and it's bone dry most of the Summer, but in the Spring, it's perfect for playing in. The "Little Rascal Gang" was there too.


Kid C initiated this pose when I told them all to look at me.
She did the "buddy squeeze" hug all by herself. So cute!


Here they are heading upstream away from mom-eyes.


Yeah. I had to rescue her off that thing after I took the pic.


Wee Tom Sawyer.


Baby Z and Baby R. About one year apart. Baby Z's big sister Kid K is Kid C's blonde friend in the first pic.


Snack forum.


So here's the Wings of Freedom exposition we went to two weeks ago.
It was kind of expensive to get in, but overall, I guess it was worth it. I had never been to Moffett Field before, and that was an adventure in itself.
The price was high more because you could touch the planes and get inside and get your hands on all the equipment.
But it ended up that the kids didn't want to get inside. I barely stuck my head in before Kid C started totally losing her mind that the plane was going to suck us inside or something. My daughter, the alarmist.


Baby R did really like the planes.


Especially touching the planes.


He was the perfect height to inspect the aft end of the planes.


Happy smile.


She thought it best to hold his hand so that the wouldn't get hurt.
This lasted about 10 minutes and then he didn't want any part of her mother-hen-ness.
After that she proceded to nag the life out of him and me, telling us how dangerous it was, just walking around the planes. Incredible. I wanted to take the scarf off my head and gag her with it like a kidnapper.


Unfortunately, those cute little planes were off limits. If one were so inclined, s/he could pay thousands of dollars to actually fly in one.


This was the initial excitement. If only it had lasted a little bit longer for you-know-who.


More excitement, further away.


Up close excitement.