More pictures from the weekend!

Finally feels like summer around here....

Such a nice weekend here; the rain has hopefully left us for a while. Saw a lot of family this weekend which was nice. Vicki, Scott, Olivia and my mom had BBQ Friday night. On Saturday Sean and I did a run (w/the bob stroller) and then we did a family hike/bike up in Los Gatos. Saturday night Chris, Shannon and Lily arrived. We got to take Lily for the night while Chris and Shannon did dinner & a movie. We love Lily!! All 3 of them played so hard and had such a good time.
This morning Mom came for a spectacular brunch that Shannon prepared. Later today we took the boys up to my favorite childhood destination - Garrod horse farms. Even cooler now (as an adult) is the Cooper-Garrod wine tasting room they have on site. Didn't get to do that but took the kids to the stables to see & pet all the different horses. A number of horse owners even introduced us to their horses. Lucky for us one unknown cowboy took Kyle into the stall and showed him how to feed his horse carrots off the palm of his hand. Boys got a huge kick out of that experience.
Next we went over to Saratoga Springs, played on the bouncy houses and spent lots of time exploring the creek. On the way back we brought the boys to the cemetery in Saratoga my Grandmother May is buried in. Unfortunately did not have flowers to leave (next time), but was glad we could pay a visit. As the boys say, we enjoy our "adventures."

How do you keep two boys out of mom's hair?

It's Monday morning, mom's home and boys are "challenging." Decided to set up our tent in the backyard to keep them occupied. Problem is Kyle keeps zipping up the door while Sean is in there and then Sean freaks out. They are at that age; takes a lot of patience. We are excited to have Luke, Jared and Lane Newman over this afternoon for play date. I'm excited to finally catch up with Annie!

Light at the end of the tunnel

Last week was another intense week at work, many long days/hours but I am (hopeful) that while things will remain busy, the worst of it is behind us (for another year!). This weekend we enjoyed a BBQ with friends on Saturday night (lots of kids, lots of wine....I promise it's not as bad as it sounds). Today I gave Chad a break, took the kids down to Aunt Vicki's to visit with Aunt Lori and Sarah. We went for a 3 mile run while Kyle rode his bike (& Sean in jogger), and Hannah & Sarah walked with Vicki. It was a beautiful loop in San Martin. Finally a day without rain. The phenomenon this year is called June-uary because since the beginning of the month it's been raining - global warming I guess.
Lori and I got away for couple hours while Vicki (so graciously) watched all kids while we ran to a couple of wineries. Very fun. Rest of the day was lazy.....so nice. Here's a picture of Sarah, Hannah and the boys along with Hannah's new kitten "midnight."

Little miss Lily

Chris, Shannon and Lily stayed the night last night. We don't get to see them often enough; for some reason our busy lives and a 45 minute drive between us limits our visits....go figure. We were lucky enough to get them all to ourselves for an overnight before they left for Vegas.
The boys adore little miss Lily and she is truly the cutest thing. I'm pretty sure Sean hugged her 50 times. The boys made sure she spent lots of time in their new play house and kept her very busy. They were so sad to see her leave this morning and Kyle kept saying "I want to go on vacation with Lily." Then came the "we miss Lily," and the "we don't want to go to school today, just stay home with Lily." Such fun cousin time...need to do it more often.

One person's trash....

We had a nice Memorial weekend. Spent Friday night and Saturday in Capitola with Michelle and Cameron and then stayed at home for the duration of Sunday & Monday. Tahoe got 2 feet of snow so Chad spent Sunday at Kirkwood - a day of solitude he needed.
Today we were driving home and around the corner I spotted a pile of plastic - dirty and covered in spider webs..but resembled a kids log cabin.
I went home but it kept calling me so I ran back with Chad's truck and loaded up. Chad, Kyle and I scrubbed it with soap and water and then put it together. The end result was a real treasure and totally free!!! Kyle and Sean were so excited, what a thrill. One person's trash is another's treasure. Fun filled family weekend!

Life!

Back to trying to make a conscious effort to get back to blogging. I haven't created baby books and relied on this mechanism to log life's moments...but have let too much time pass. We're doing well and the boys are changing every day.
Kyle started riding his two wheeler bike last week (went straight from balance bike to 2 wheeler). I felt like this weekend was a milestone when I took him running on the Campbell trail with me - mom jogging and Kyle riding his bike in front of me. He did well for his first time out and only stopped in front of me 3 times and I nearly tripped over him (lots to see on that trail - especially for a highly distracted 3 1/2 year old).
Sean is a character, mostly all smiles and very charming but boy when he doesn't get what he wants it's body to the floor temper tantrums. He has so much personality, talking so much and always getting hurt. His latest was falling off the slide in the backyard onto the cement, but that's just another day in the life of Mr. Sean.
Looking forward to summer. I'm working a ton right now (HR busy season) and am so thankful to have a very involved and understanding husband, a mom (Grandma) that helps us out and in-laws that have come down from Oregon now on multiple occasions to get involved and keep the household running. It takes a village and I'm thankful to have one. The boys love having Grandpa Pat, Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Ron around the house.
I'm still running most mornings before work and that's been my "sacred time" for many months now.
We're planning a few camping trips this summer which should be fun. I'm trying to talk Chad into a late summer trip to Hawaii but it's hard for him to leave the business.
I'll write more soon. Here are a few pictures from Easter.... Kyle 3.5 yrs and Sean 20 months.

Chelsea Justine Chiala

In honor of my little niece Chelsea, I am starting up my blog again tonight. She has helped us put our busy lives on "pause" and re evaluate what is truly important - love, family, friends and faith. At 9 weeks of age she suddenly left us; way too soon. There really are no words, no explanations, no real reasons, but we will accept what life has dealt us and move forward.
She was truly the most beautiful little girl you have ever seen.
Life is so precious.
On the day after she passed away, a butterfly hatched out of a cocoon just above the last place she closed her eyes to sleep. No one knows how the cocoon came to attach on the window just days prior, but this beautiful creature appeared - blue and pink spots. The butterfly just sat on the step outside the window for a while and eventually flew off. Truly a sign from God.
We love you Chelsea, thank you for being with us and thank you for helping the babies that needed your organs to live on in your memory.
May you rest in peace: 9/29/10 - 12/4/10.

Pac Northwest Adventure - Day 2 (Seattle)

It's 6pm, I'm sitting at the RV Park picnic table, looking out on the view of the man made "brownish greenish" pond (Chad says it's natural and called a Pete Bog...I'll have to look that one up)...... with many signs reading "no swimming allowed." I'm armed with a glass of chardonnay...and all is good. Had a fantastic day in Seattle. Both kids are wiped out.
We took the jeep to downtown Seattle center. Didn't leave the motor home until almost 11am but we'll get the shower/getting organized for the day thing down as we go.
I tried to talk Chad into the city "duck boat" tour but when he saw the tour truck/boat with tourists chanting as they went by - he was basically not into that option AT ALL. So, he talked me down from that and we did our own Nelson tour of Seattle - very fun!
We started with the space needle (not cheap!) - Kyle's reaction was "oh ....my....gosh...." and had snacks up at the top and toured around. Outside the needle was a great option for young kids, lots of rides...Kyle did a few of those and loved them (fire engine ride, space ship and a crazy flying boat.)
Just a few steps away was the monorail. That's a cheap thrill for Kyle because any moving vehicle that resembles a train is like Christmas morning. The mono rail took us straight into downtown and then down the VERY STEEP hill to the Market. I had to be the typical tourist and hit that (with the other million people there) to see the Fish Market where they yell, and throw fish - there were some really ugly fish there. I made Chad walk with me down the middle of the market with our huge (and very packed) stroller just to say we did it. I only ran into the back of a few heels - no major injuries.
After that it was back to the monorail, back to the jeep (didn't have keys to unlock the door but back hatch was unlocked - phewwww) and now back to the park. Contemplating dinner but thinking cashews and wine aren't a bad option. Great day, kids were well behaved and survived our day excursion to Seattle.

Pac Northwest Adventure - Day 1

We're on our trip! We left town Tuesday night at 8 pm, arrived to Scottsburg, OR (Chad's parents) at 5am, slept for a few hrs and enjoyed Chad's birthday (8/18) with his parents. We set off for Canada today (8/19) around noon, made a stop at Costco (loaded up with goodies), drove through Portland and many small towns along the way and arrived at our RV park in Bothell, WA around 8PM this evening.
Chad did a great job driving the 38 ft motor home with jeep trailing behind. Kyle calls us a "train" because we're towing the car. This is totally the way to travel with kids - potty, fridge, microwave (all of which I used constantly) and will look forward to the washer/dryer, stove top, etc in the coming 10 days. There are pop outs so when we're parked this lovely vehicle becomes a luxury home in minutes. We are so thankful to Chad's parents for being brave & generous enough to let us experience their home on wheels. Oh, big bonus is the porta crib that conveniently fits into a corner of the motor home - so Sean does have a portable cage.
I feel like I got a workout along the way having jumped up and down from my seat six million times to get various things for kids, but all in all they did really well for the 7 or so hours we did on the road today. Don't forget, that's after 9 hrs in the car Tuesday night..but they slept through most of that.
Sean has been surprisingly good - he loves being away from home. Kyle loved the many bridges we passed over to get here. Tomorrow we'll tour downtown Seattle.
Before I leave you for the night, just have to share that I am so happy to have this break, am sitting here at the motor home kitchen table with a beer and both kids are sound asleep ( love that sound - of nothingness...and the click of the keys on the keyboard). Here are a few pics to give you an idea.

Pre Vacation

Ok, we leave tomorrow after work. In the last 24 hours I've managed to do nothing to get ready, and loose my blackberry phone. This is going to be very interesting. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted on our progress via blog. First destination is Scottsburg, OR, then Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and Montana....I'm sure lots of little towns in between but Chad does all the planning - I just show up and pray I packed enough clothes for everyone (usually not a problem).

Big Boys Wear Underwear

We've hit another milestone! Kyle has been showing signs of potty training readiness for quite some time but we've been a little on the non committal a.k.a. just pure lazy side, when it came to taking this next step. It started over the weekend, but I really held him to it on Monday. The morning started with "Kyle, you are going to wear big boy underwear today." Then Chad had to show him that he was wearing his underwear. This was followed by ongoing discussions about how we all use the potty and only baby Sean would still wear diapers. Then it was the huge fan fare every time he used the potty, and it just took off from there. I took him to the mall and we used the potty; I took him to the swim club and he used the potty, and we quickly got through a day of hitting various bathrooms (talk about germ overload).
The ironic part of this, and the reason I had to post this to the blog tonight (before I forgot) was that on our official potty training day (7/26) Chad decided to come home with a backpack from REI for Kyle that holds water, and has a tube to drink water out of (they are called camel bags - see attached pictures). I guess he thought Kyle would get a kick out of it on our upcoming vacation and while he rides his bike. So Kyle proceeded to wear it all evening, drink a gallon of water and run to the toilet every 1/2 hr. What is really funny is that Kyle doesn't say in a calm voice "I need to go potty." It's more of a panicked shriek...."mommy, I need to pee,......hurry, it's coming!!!" which basically throws me into a frenzy to find the nearest potty in the house, store, neighborhood - you name it. That's why they say you have to be committed to it.
So today (Tuesday), I took Kyle to school wearing underwear. His teacher had a confused look on her face and I explained to her that he was ready and that putting him in pull ups backfires because he reminds me that "he can pee in diapers." Long story short, he got through school today and no accidents (that I'm aware of). It was water play day, so he did come home in a change of clothes but mysteriously wearing the same pair of underwear.
OK one more story. So I get home a little late from work tonight, but I'm absolutely excited about Kyle being potty trained (hopefully he sticks with it) and I'm probably more excited than he is, so I decide at 8:30PM at night to take him to Target to pick out more underwear. Seemed like a cool thing to do. Note to self (and other parents out there). Do not take your child who has been at school all day, is exhausted and very hyper to Target. He proceeded to run down all the aisles, fall down, scream and hurt his wrist. I was an "attraction" in the store. We did make it out with Buzz Light Year, Thomas the Train and Lightening McQueen underwear, but it wasn't quite the outing I was hoping for.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Had to get all this documented because it was an interesting comedy of errors.
ps - forgot to mention when Chad went to REI (we had a great gift certificate) he got me an awesome bike too...and I love it (see picture)

New Favorites

Weeks ago I was talking to you about how Kyle loves riding his bike and all the progress he's making. Seems right now all he wants to do is play baseball. The minute I get home from work Kyle says "mom, play baseball game?" Included is a video of our so called "game." He'd rather not use a baseball T, he's all about having it pitched to him.
Regarding Sean, well he's a handful. He loves watching Kyle and his smile is so big. The minute he doesn't get what he wants, he's a very angry baby. He's got quite a temper on him. Like I've said all along, the happiest baby in the world one minute and angry Sean the next. We love our boys.

Boys

Not exactly sure if all boys have this much energy, but mine sure do. They literally do not stop. They remind me of the ferrets I had years ago (Weasley and Thomas). They would run around and play until they'd just pass out. They would get into everything to, not to mention the constant cleaning they required to keep "the stink" down. Amazing how much little boys and ferrets have in common.
I've just learned to get them outside as much as possible. So today...which is an attempt to get back to Monday's off....we will be hitting Happy Hollow Zoo. Here are a couple pictures I thought were cute. This includes: boys taking apart my cupboards, Sean eating a green bean, Sean passed out after his green beans and the boys watching morning cartoons together.

Have a good week.

More Pictures

Just realized you'd never know I was actually on the Oregon trip because I'm not in any of the pictures. This is proof I did partake - fishing and the jet ski! Also found a couple other cute pics I didn't want to neglect posting. Have a great week.