It's Winter!?

This is a California winter. It is almost eighty degrees outside and the sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky. Daddy came home from work early and decided to play catch and kickball with the kids. Jack is learning to throw but still has to learn how to catch just yet.

Alex is a good kicker and can retrieve the ball when you throw it too far, but mostly he just hands it to you instead of throwing it to you. It is nice that we have so many days like this here so that the kids are not kept constantly trapped in doors doing sedentary things all the time.


I try to get them outside for at least an hour a day, sometimes longer, but never shorter. We even have had enough rain to make the grass grow again so the backyard is not just a large dirt pile full of rocks. It is a nice little backyard that is big enough for them to make up adventures and discover all things dirty.

Truly, these are little boys.

Growing too fast!

Alex does not even seem like my littlest baby anymore. He is so grown up looking and looks more and more like a little boy rather than a little baby anymore. He can do so much more now then he could a month ago much less a year. Now the time is almost here for him to enter the terrible two's. I think that they are named this not so much for the way he will act but because of the horrible age that you realize your baby is no longer your baby anymore, but a child with a mind of his own ready to go out and conquer the world.. or at least the back yard.

He has learned how to undress himself and to put his pants on by himself. He understands and follows directions (sometimes) when I tell him to put his toys away or his clothes, shoes, etc. He knows that when Mommy puts on her shoes that he must find his if he is able to escape to a world that is different then that he is used to. He has added new words to his vocabulary like tur-tur (turtle) and ear and eye and toe, yet is still smart enough that he knows he doesn't have to say too much because Mommy and Daddy and brother will understand what he means and will get him things without having to use words.

He is a smart little boy that is trailing right on the heals of his brother trying to mimic and learn from him. He likes what he likes but likes what is in his brother's hand more. He is not too old to throw himself on the floor for a tantrum, but is too old for Mommy to rock him like a baby (unless he is hurt). He thinks he is the most hilarious comedian the world has to offer and I tend to agree even though I don't know what he is laughing at most of the time. He loves the tickle monster and being chased. He loves to be picked up by his ears (he grabs onto my arms and hauls himself up while I hang onto his ears) and he loves to go outside and get dirty.

He is the smallest thing in the house with the biggest amount of love to give and receive. He is growing up and all I have are pictures to remember how little and cute and helpless he was.

At least he still lets me hug and kiss him and tuck him into bed at night.

I Love Brother Love

There is nothing I find that provides me with more joy then when I catch my two little angels being angels together. It is hard trying to take care of them between going to school and work and trying to get in a little me-time too, but this was just too good. Mommy was trying to work on some scrapbooking and Jack and Alex wanted to just spend time with me so they pulled up a chair and a blanket and read stories to each other. (Not really reading, but Jack would look at the pictures and make up a story very similar to what the book said.)

Here they are taking time out from fighting and running amok to enjoy a corn dog together and watch a little TV. Still amazes me that they can even sit still for that long.

This one has to be the best picture. I always tell each of them to apologize,hug, and kiss the other one when they do something to hurt each other, but sometimes they will just do it because... and this is one of those times. Alex is a hugger and he likes to hug Jack all the time, but sometimes Jack does not want or doesn't sit still long enough for Alex to deliver his love. This time was just perfect and it was not even me who told them to do it.

This will be the picture I show them when they are teenagers and hate each other and wonder why they have to be related at all. Proof that once upon a time they did care for each other enough to show it in a physical form.

Now if I could just get a picture of them listening and obeying Mommy and Daddy.

Jack turns 150 million... and four!!!

Jack turned four years old. Four years old! I can hardly believe that someone has entrusted me with the life of such a small and fragile thing as a child, much less two of them. How did I even manage to keep him alive and and in such a cute condition when I can't even take care of a plant and keep it alive. Yet here I am with a four year old who loves me despite the fact that I make him pick up his toys and put him in time out when he is naughty.
So to celebrate this special occasion of my little Jacko'boy turning into a four year old, we took him to see some of his favorite creatures in action. Back from the Mezozoic, Jurrasic, and Cretaceous period, dinosaurs came roaring into life at the San Diego Sports Arena. Just let me say that it was an awesome experience and that photos do nothing to show how big these things were and how loud and lifelike they looked and sounded.
We bought tickets on the upper level on the very front row where no one would block Jacks view of the dinosaurs. I thought that bringing Alex along might be a little scary for him, but he did fine throughout almost the entire show. Nothing has kept their attention for so long like this show did. It was nothing short of amazing.
Jacks favorite dinosaurs were the long necked bracchiosaurus and I got about a five minute video of them fighting an allosaurus. It was a little difficult to get good pictures because of the lighting and the fact that cameras were not even allowed at the event at all, but I managed to get a few decent ones. I saw many other flashes going on around the arena, but I found my pictures came out better without a flash.The best part of the show and the part that pushed the excited little Alex over the edge was the end when the Tyranosaurus Rex came out to defend her little baby. I really wanted a video of this but my battery in my camera wasn't strong enough to support another video.

When the Taurasauras and the anklysaurus were pushing around the baby T-rex you almost thought that the show would end without seeing the mammoth monster, but while you were busy watching the baby dinosaur get herded by the bullies, the Mama T-rex made her presence known. And was she loud! I especially liked this picture because it showed how big this beast was compared to a man.
When the T-rex roared the first time I did not notice that it sent poor little Alex into the corner by the stairs in front of his daddy. The second time she roared, Alex screamed and cowered into the corner until his daddy pulled him onto his lap. I don't think the dinosaur scared him so much as the noise was so deafening. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. The rest of the show, however, Alex was right up against the railing pointing and talking and yelling at me to look.
It really was amazing the way they made these animals looks so real. If you look closely at the Utahraptors you can see that there are people inside them that make them work. You can see their legs inside the dinosaur legs. All of the bigger dinosaurs are on these cart like mobile things that bear the weight of the machine and allow the legs to move more easily.

After the show ended we had promised to take Jack to the toy store so he could pick out a dinosaur for his present. He picked an Imaginext dinosaur that moves around with the touch of a button and roars. He has one already that is a T-rex and he says he got the new one to fight the old one.
Of course, that is not the end of Jack's big birthday. We still had to give him his little party and he got to open his other birthday presents. We got him an ice-cream cake and he blew out all four candles on it and made a wish. Twice. Mommy didn't get a picture the first time.
He got a themed series of presents from his Grandparents Konlock. Numbers that is. Number puzzle. Number train. Number book. Number game. Start counting Jack. He is actually good at counting but has trouble recognizing what the numbers look like.
There was also a big Star Wars toy from his dad (notice a trend?), a Screaming Banshee (from the short in Cars the movie), and some little Cars for the Screaming Banshee to munch up. No wonder Jack thinks Christmas is more then once a year.
Jack said this was the best birthday ever. It is probably the only one he remebers to date, but still, that is a compliment from a four year old. Happy Birthday Jack. Mommy and Daddy and Alex love you very much.

Kids love Christmas (even big kids)!

I know this is a little late and that Christmas has come and gone, but I think it might still be acceptable to share a piece of our Christmas with everyone else.

We were not able to go anywhere for Christmas this year like we have in the past, due to both my job and Andy's job and not being able to take time off. I guess it is about time I shared the load at my job as I have not worked a Christmas since I moved here almost five years ago. This was largely due to the very favorable California laws concerning pregnancy and maternity leave. It almost makes me want to keep having kids if pregnancy hadn't been so completely awful for me.


Anyway, the point being, we stayed at home for
the holidays and made our own little Christmas here along with my little brother Jared who had been living with us and helping take care of the kids while Andy and I had to work.

Lucky for me, even with all the mandatory overtime going on at work, I managed to keep Christmas Eve night off and Christmas Day so that I could spend it with my family.

As noted in a previous post (Poofyhead came to town) we had visitors and a small pre-Christmas so we could celebrate with Mark and Natalie. Now it was time to celebrate the first half of our Christmas with the kids and Jared.

Despite the fact that both Andy and I had agreed to not go overboard on the presents for the kids this year, something went wrong and we ended up with a ton of toys for the kids. So instead of overwhelming them all at once with everything, we decided to give the presents from family (i.e., grandma's, grandpa's, and parents) on Christmas Eve and wait for the morning for Santa to deliver his gifts to the kids.

So Christmas Eve we got out all the presents that Andy's mom and dad sent and also the one's from my mom and dad and let the kids go wild. Jack and Alex and even Andy loved the fruit leather that my mom made and their attention was pulled every direction by the amount of toys that they were receiving.

Alex got a special plush turtle from us which is the first word other then mama and dada that he has been able to say that others can understand. Unfortunately for the turtle, who is so cute and soft he is just begging to be loved, Alex is currently attached to a Velvateen bunny looking plush toy that he loves to carry around and sleep with at night. So when the boys each got to choose a present to take to bed with them, Alex chose his bunny and Jack chose his little Wall-e and Eve action figures. I honestly do not understand why that boy would rather sleep with action figures and robots then with nice soft toys.

Mommy warned the boys that they had to go to sleep and stay in bed until a reasonable amount of light outside so Santa would have plenty of time to deliver their toys. Alex is not generally the problem as he will wake up in the morning and come directly into our room and climb into bed with us to sleep a little more. Jack, however, will get up and go get himself a Poptart and go to the big room and turn the TV on all by himself sometime between the hours of five and six thirty. They are both very early risers much to our sleep lacking dismay.

We let the kids open on epresent before getting breakfast and waiting for Jared to get home from work so we could open presents together.

There was still so many presents to open that it took a good portion of the morning to get the kids to open them all. The big present for Jack was the big transforming Wall-e that Jack had been asking for forever. Everytime he saw it in a book or ad or on TV he would ask if we could go to the store and get it. When I tell him I don't have any money, he says "That's ok, we'll just use Daddy's." Smartypants.

Alex got a racetrack for two cars that makes racing noises among other things. He carries the track around the house and really understands how it works. One of his favorite things to do is play with his daddy and brother and have races against each other.

They also got little bed tents for their toddler beds. Jack got Wall-e and Alex got Cars. They love that every night is like a campout and I love that I don't have to drag out the actual tent and set it up in the big room (it takes up a lot of space and Jack always wants me to be in it with him).

Santa was very good to the boys this year and I do not recall them being so very good the entire year, but who am I to question Santa and his list?

We tried to set up the computer so that we would broadcast on the Yahoo messenger, but even though I could see it, nobody else could. We did have a nice phone call with Andy's family and my own. Even Alex got on the phone and said a few things that no one else could comprehend.

It was a really long day and we were all very tired when it was finally over, but it was very nice and the boys seemed pleased with everything that they got. Jack did ask when Santa was coming again for the next week or so and didn't seem to understand that Christmas doesn't happen every day.

All in all it was a very nice Christmas, but we still wish we could have had more family around. Maybe next year.

Free time

Just for something fun to do with the kids, since we rarely do anything outside of the home, we decided to get ourselves in the Christmas spirit by going to Balboa Park where they had all kinds of Christmas-y things set up.

The very first thing we saw when we arrived was a cute little choo choo train and I just had to take Jack for a ride. it wasn't anything spectacular, but Jack had never been on such a thing and he loves trains.


The ride wasn't very long, maybe three minutes, and it wasn't too scenic, but we did get to go through a tunnel and over a bridge and the train made chugga chugga noises and toot toots too.

It was very impressive to a three year old who is impressed very easily. Plus, it only cost two dollars per person. Poor Alex wanted to ride but he stayed with Daddy on the sidelines and took pictures as we drove by.

The train was even all dressed up for Christmas with a little wreath hanging on the Engine. It was a really good way to start our little adventure.


The park was all decked out in holiday cheer and had Christmas from around the world. There were booths set up from all different countries where you could purchase traditional cuisine from those countries. We stopped and got something to eat, the kids and I had American (I know not very adventurous, but they can be picky) and Andy from Poland (he likes the bratwurst).

We had a nice little picnic on the park grounds with ten million other people who decided to take that Saturday as a day to enhance their holiday spirit too.


We walked all over the park and found things to do in the future for other family outings. We are particularly interested in the many museums that Balboa Park has to offer, including a Train Museum that, as previously mentioned, would be a great thing to take Jack to. Even Alex, who has learned what a train says and can say it on command, would enjoy an outing like that.














One day, unfortunately, is really not enough to explore all that Balboa Park has to offer. This really neat tree caught our eye as it reminded of us of our trip to Hawaii and the beautiful giant trees there that are really just one tree growing in and out of the ground. Of course, I also had to take a picture of the most photographed building in San Diego, or so I've been told.

To end the day we stopped by the giant old fashioned carousel and, once again, Jack and I took a nice, if somewhat dizzying, ride in the park.

It was really nice to spend such a good time with my husband and children and really put us in a good mood and got us in the spirit of the season. The only drawback is that we did not have others there to share it with us; however, they will be
coming at a later date.

St. Nicholas Day

In Andy's family it was a tradition that his mom, Ann, started that Christmas stockings would be filled with all kinds of goodies on St. Nicholas Day. I assume this was to appease the kids with smaller gifts to tide the long wait until Christmas when the real presents were brought by Santa Clause. I do not know this for sure, all I am sure of is that Andy is worse than a child when it comes to Christmas and the excitement he gets in his eyes when shopping, wrapping or opening presents.
Lucky for me, this is something he does entirely on his own and sometimes without my knowledge. I believe this is something he truly enjoys and it makes it all the better that the kids get oh so very excited at finding some wonderful surprise in their stockings before Santa has arrived.
So on this day that is a holiday somewhere that I do not know (although it does show up on our calender, perhaps it is a Wisconsin thing), Jack and Alex were taken to the living room and revved up with Andy's excitement (as was I) and given the giant stocking filled with who knows what.
There was gum shaped like coal and books from Grandma and a video game for Jack's leap pad computer and candy and Transformer toys. Even Mommy got some really good stuff. I love the Burt's Bees stuff and Andy got me a whole slew of it.

So the tradition lives on through a man who becomes a boy again during the last few weeks of the year. I don't even know if he can help himself. It is a little contagious.