In Absentia

Unfortunately, Uncle Brian's long awaited guest post will have to be postponed. He spent the last third of his visit sidelined with the stomach bug just like Porter & I had earlier this week.

In his absence, we took Gia to Ikea to plan her kitchen remodel and out for Mexican food. Keeping in mind his great love for it, we did choose to avoid Poquito Mas out of respect for Brian.

Back at home, we gave Gia a sewing demo and created a new spinny skirt for Matilda. Then we topped the night off with another yummy meal, introducing Gia to fattouch salad.

Visitors Day 2: Zoo, Cemetery, Observatory

Porter needed a nap to keep up with all the fun.

Climbing

We went out to Vasquez Rocks today for a picnic and lots of rock scrambling. Matilda was fearless tearing around the place & Porter found lots of delicious rocks so we all had our hands full keeping up with the kids.

Goofing off with Uncle Brian.

Spotting some crows.

I think Aunt Gia might have nightmares tonight about keeping up with M.

Porter gets a ride up the rocks.

Our poor sun starved visitors all ended up with sunburns since they haven't seen any rays in 6 months. It was a really fun outing and everyone crashed hard tonight, long before the skaters were on.

Flight Post Mortem

So flying alone with the kids all went fairly smoothly in both directions. The trip home was a bit terrifying because Porter & I both got some awful GI virus in Ohio, so I expected Matilda was going to start puking any moment on the return trip. Somehow, she escaped the germs (poor grandma Marge did not, sorry!) and is instead in some sort of growth spurt and ravenous at all times. This morning she ate three huge bowls of cereal and was then pestering me an hour later for snacks, which she devoured.

The secret to travel with kids: tv and lots of snacks. Our planes both had the individual screens for each seat so Matilda had a solid 4 hours of television (thank you Nick Jr.) each way to keep her occupied. Porter relied on snacks, a few short naps and magazine thrashing to keep himself entertained. The most tense moment was when Porter reached over to grab Matilda's little Hershey bar that came in the snack box. She was lost in a tv-land and absentmindedly holding the half-wrapped bar. Her panic, combined with the fact that she was wearing headphones, resulted in a very loud "NO!" I tried my best to stifle my laughter and instead encourage appropriate volume for the cabin.

I Hate You NBC

Why, when the Olympics are in my timezone, do I have to stay up past 11 pm to see the skaters finish? Damn you Bob Costas.

Stella Likes Frosting

We helped Stella celebrate her birthday today with party hats and cupcakes. Look at this happy birthday girl!

Porter tries to thwart Matilda as she goes for a "love-pinch" of his soft neck. He has plenty of practice at this as she's always pinching his neck and chin. Too much loving, she'll say if I tell her to lay off him.

Fountains of fish add to the birthday fun!

Stella works on opening her first present. She carried the wrapped package around for a long time before anyone could convince her to open it.

Porter enjoys some birthday yogurt to celebrate.

Sarah attempts to conduct the birthday present opening madness. Matilda was, as ever, eager to assist.

The Snow Zoo

Grandma Marge took us to the zoo today, which despite the cold was a huge hit. We headed for the section with some cold weather animals and saw some bears and a bunch of wolves really close. Here Porter gets close to a Mexican wolf named Mitzi. Over lunch Matilda found a new way to entertain/quiet Porter. Then we warmed up (sweated our butts off) in the rainforest exhibit where there were a bunch of insects, monkeys, water exhibits and some really awesome bats!
Throughout it all we stopped many times to appreciate the snow with a good round of snowball throwing. Next up tomorrow: ice skating!

Duet

It was deafening.

Llama Wrangler

Rather than ride the llama, Porter prefers to rock it like a crazy fool.

Snow Fun!

After an uneventful flight, with very cooperative kids, we made it to the land of snow. Porter is a bit bewildered by it and Matilda is in heaven. She's already been out to snow-romp enough times to go through half the outfits we brought. She's also becoming a pro with the shovel! Grandpa Chris might just decide to keep her around for snow clearing duty.

Crazy Hair, Two Ways

Wet, in the bath:

Dry, with attitude:

Sports Fan

Porter shows he is a big fan of the Olympics. He's also a big fan of how we lowered the tv (making our big, heavy tv slightly more earthquake safe) and hightails it right over anytime we turn the set on.

Matilda watched some ice skating with me the other night and said she liked it because the ladies looked like princesses! Between the Olympics, and the broken camera situation here posts may be a bit light. But we have a trip & then visitors coming right up so soon I can regale you with tales of flying alone with two kids. Not recommended, I am sure!

Forget the Ears

Today Matilda asked me if, when she was bigger, could she get her nose pierced?

Satisfied Customer

Matilda left her classmates birthday party yesterday with a sparkly unicorn and a lollipop.

It doesn't get much better than that.

My Valentine

Isn't he cute? Of course he wasn't my valentine back in 1977 when this picture was taken. But he has been for most of the years since then.

Be Mine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't eat too much candy or the sugar bugs will get your teeth.

Back to her Old Self

Last night Matilda ate FOUR pieces of the pizza we made together. She then claimed she was tired and actually went to bed a bit early. She slept 12 hours and woke up this morning in such great spirits. I am choosing to attribute her mood to the food/rest, rather than the fact that she's going to her classmates Cinderella party today.

Blog as Baby Book: Verbal

Porter seems to really be turning it on lately with his communication skills. He parrots lots of sounds but has many words that he is really starting to use appropriately. The two most useful items in his repertoire seem to be "all done" and "more." As you can see in this video, he says "all done", but more he usually signs. It is one of the few sign language signs we taught our kids.

In the video you also hear him say "Da." That particular intonation of da is Porter's word for nurse. He has lots of D sounds (Dada, dog, doll, down, dat=that), but maybe only Tim & I can really tell them apart right now. Just yesterday, he finally started to say Mama! It seems appropriate that since Matilda said mama long before daddy, that Porter should say both Tim & Matilda's names before mine. I'll try not to be too offended that he also learned how to pant like a dog this week BEFORE he started saying my name.

Here are some other words he's saying, for the record:

kitty cat

Dan

girl

sea gull

Matilda (til da)

Mama

Dada

that

down

Nap First or Lunch First? Too Hard to Decide

Not Snowed In, but Sicked In

I have other pictures I wanted to post also, but poor Porter is miserable with fever and is a bit high maintenance currently. I must go lay next to him so he can sleep, which is fine by me. I am terribly behind in blogging, sewing, AND sleeping because he needs to be on my person at all times. These are from our trip to the Science Center with Matilda's best school bud, early in the week.

Encore

I think their version of Float On sounded better the first time around.

No Longer Singing Along

They've graduated to some unrecognizable, trashy something upstairs. I am less amused now. The only thing protecting them from my wrath is that often my child screams for extended periods between the hours of 2-5 a.m. resulting in my strong reluctance to ever file a noise complaint.

Alright Already

The Super Bowl party upstairs has morphed into a very loud karaoke/Rock Band party. Porter & Matilda are both sleeping through it. I am currently singing along to Float On. Rock on.

Our Linebacker

The boy put on his jersey today to celebrate the ballgame.

First he studied his playbook.

Then he tossed around his nubby orange football.

He clearly has more football spirit than the rest of the household combined!

Sewing Update

I did finally attempt those button holes and they came out o.k, although Stella's not convinced. Here she sports her new "Christmas present," that I will complete for her just barely before her birthday! My latest sewing obsession are these super easy twirl skirts. I have been making them like crazy including Matilda's new "watermelon skirt" which she loves and this one for Gracie. Not sewn by me, and infinitely cuter, is the huge pile of Fabindia goodies Sarah & Gaurav just brought back for the kids. You can't see any of the greatness here because the kids were too busy wrestling, but the colors all look so nice together and complement their dirty brown hair well too!

Feelings

At school they were talking about feelings all last week. Today Matilda asked me what makes me feel happy, what makes me feel excited, and a few others. It was a really nice back and forth conversation over dinner prep and I feel compelled to record Matilda's responses:

• I feel happy when Porter does a crawl chase with me.
• I feel angry when Bunny Rabbit eats the duct tape. (I think this must be related to something a teacher said at school.)
• I feel frustrated when getting on the dress-up clothes. (Matilda has ZERO tolerance for getting tangled up in clothes. The moment she gets even slightly hung up taking something over her head she freaks out.)
• I feel excited when I get a new Polly Pocket piece. (We've been doling out these little dolls & accessories for good behavior rewards lately.)
• I feel loved when Porter slimes me. (Drools on her)

Penmanship Drills

This year Matilda is signing her own cards! The letters are all there, we just need to work on the spacing. Maybe time to break out the green lined paper of my youth?

Die Schlümpfe

Tim's mom recently found his long lost, childhood stash of Smurfs and sent it to him as a surprise. He & Matilda had a field day when they opened them this afternoon.

It was so fun to witness Tim pawing through the pile and rediscovering them all.

Biker Gang

Porter & his biker girls made a move to claim some new turf in the courtyard today. Porter likes sitting on this baby rider thing o.k. (he hasn't figured out how to push himself on it yet), but really prefers for you to sit him on Matilda's radio flyer trike & drive him around. That makes his day!

However, this morning he figured out he can use the rider as a walker and made his way all around the courtyard, chasing the gals.