Siblings

I don't know what I did to have kids that love to snuggle but when they are not snuggling on the couch with Joe or I, lately I have been catching them snuggling a lot with each other. It may just be a means to an end, as in "hey it's kind of cold this morning, let's gather up close to stay warm while we veg out to cartoons" but regardless the reason, I can't pass up a chance to capture the moment.

Of course, I have to be stealth because Jake has recently decided he does not want his picture taken and he tries to hide when he realizes what I am doing. My DSLR is quick enough to get him most of the time, my iPhone camera, not so much.

The other thing the kids have been doing a lot of together is play wrestling, tickle fights and giving each other the cheese touch (see again, Diary of a Wimpy Kid). Like on this morning:

But don't get me wrong. While Jake and Jadyn are incredibly close and get along well most of the time, they still have their typical sibling fights. Like when I came home on the same day as the above picture was taken to find these signs posted on each of their doors.

Joe assures me it was only a brief time of bickering that led to the making of the signs and honestly, it gave me quite a good laugh.

Yes, they are definitely siblings.

Mother and Son

Awhile back I had alluded to an impending post about finding it difficult to spend quality alone time with Jake. So here it goes....

Jake has always been quite a Mama's boy. He was very shy when he was a toddler and needed lots of cuddle time with Mommy. I was so happy when preschool helped him become more social and break out of his shell and when Jadyn was an infant, I planned special dates for just the two of us. It was a good balance.

As the kids have both gotten older, I have found it harder and harder to find things that I can do with just Jake. Many of the ideas I come up with are things that Jadyn wants to do too, and frankly Jake gets along so well with his sister, he usually wants her to come along. The other thing that complicates things is that as Jadyn gets older, we have even more in common. I can take her with me shopping or go for a pedicure. Even if it is at home, she loves to help me cook, clean or do arts and crafts - none of which really interests Jake. Add to that the fact that Jadyn and I get 2 hours alone together 5 days a week because as a kindergartener, she gets out 2 hours earlier than Jake. It just really starts to feel uneven between the two of them and the kicker is that it only really seems to bother me. Jake is unfazed.

In fact, when I was recovering from surgery and even more restricted in what activities I could do, I found Jake giving me major attitude. When I tried to talk to him he admitted that he didn't like that I couldn't do anything and it didn't really make him want to be around me. Ouch. That hurt. But I have to respect his honesty. It was then that I started talking to some of my other friends with boys of similar age and found that I was not alone. While that doesn't solve the problem, it did make me feel better.

My solution was to get involved in something that he really liked. There was no way I was going to learn to play war games on the Xbox (urgh!) so I settled for learning how to shoot a Nerf gun and participate in a Nerf battle. It turned out to be a really fun family activity and Jake's demeanor toward me immediately changed. It was an important lesson to me that I can't always expect him to want to do what he used to like or what I think he would like. Sometimes I have to make the effort to meet him halfway. In turn, he was then more willing to do things with me that I enjoy more like playing board games or getting frozen yogurt together.

Last week, another opportunity to spend quality time with just Jake presented itself when the school hosted a mother/son put-put social. It was the companion event to the father/daugther dance, which is pretty funny because even Jake said, "No fair! All Jadyn and dad got to do was go to a dance and we get to golf!". Of course, Jadyn was quite pleased to get dressed up and show off her daddy but Jake didn't see it that way.

Jake and I went to Sonic together for dinner since Daddy had taken Jadyn to her t-ball game. I can't say the evening was a complete success - Jake is a man of VERY few words and trying to have a meaningful conversation with him is like pulling teeth but he did enjoy golfing, except when he got frustrated because I was beating him. So yeah, it wasn't a perfect night but it was fun.

Now, if you are on Facebook, you have probably already read these but some interesting tidbits concerning Jake came out on this particular day.

1) Jake's teacher made me aware that a girl in his class has been turning in all her assignments with Jake's last name. I know the girl - she was in Jake's class last year and has admitted to me that she "likes" my son. I actually feel sorry for her because Jake is still completely clueless and uninterested in girls.

2) As mentioned above - Jake is still a sore loser. I had been talking it up all week how I was going to beat him when we played put-put but apparently he didn't believe me. Then I went and got several holes in one, a few very lucky ones that impressed even fellow moms and sons. Jake didn't take it too well.

3) We have seen Diary of Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules FAR too many times. Jake and I were signed up to clean up after the event. Jake did what he could and then was on stage with a classmate while the parent group, myself included cleaned up the food. The principal had music playing, which the boys were dancing too (so stinkin cute!) and offered them the microphone to say something. So in front of the principal and esteemed members of the parent group, what does Jake choose to say??? "Somebody farted!" I don't actually know how many heard him and how many were just being polite by ignoring him but I couldn't have been prouder of my son than at that moment (NOT!)

As the kids get older and go through certain stages, our relationships are bound to change and evolve. My goal is to be the best mother I possibly can, be there for them, guide them and make the best of it, even the ages and stages that are not particularly my favorite. I feel like the past few months with Jake have been a challenge for me but that we and our relationship are going to make it out the other end even stronger for it.

Ketchup

Wow! I knew it had been awhile since I blogged but when I actually sat down to try and rectify that, I realized it has been (gulp) a full 2 weeks since I last posted anything. Whoopsie! I'm going to attempt to get caught up and hopefully not stay away this long again.

So as I left things, we had celebrated my birthday, gotten sick and then well, redecorated the office and started gearing up for baseball season.

We celebrated Dr. Suess' birthday with lots of reading. And yes, that weekend we went to see The Lorax, which was pretty good. Here is Jadyn reading "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish":

The following Saturday found both kids with preseason baseball games. How cute are they together in their uniforms?:

Jake's game was up first. I tried to get a picture of him in action but he managed to hit the ball on his first swing! I hope this is a good sign of things to come because he really struggled with the pitching machine last year. I did get a picture of him and I together after the game. I am serving as team mom for his team again this year. It's a lot of work but I do enjoy it.

Jadyn's game was later that afternoon. She was put at first base at the very start of the game and when she realized that meant all the balls fielded would be coming to her, she ran off the field in tears. Daddy and I gave her a little pep talk and got her back out on the field, although not playing first base and she did great the rest of the game. I do think once she gets more used to it, she will enjoy t-ball as much as she does soccer. The real test will come when she starts having to make tough choices between continuing dance or organized sports.

Reciting the Little League pledge:

And running her little heart out after a good hit:

I am just going to apologize now for all the posts and pictures about baseball that are sure to grace my blog over the next several months. That is of course assuming I am diligent enough to keep up with my blog, which I am really going to make an effort to do, although I do believe I ended my last blog post with a similar proclamation.

Project 365 highlights

On February 19th, we went to Grandma Anita's to celebrate her husband Ken's 80th birthday. He was kind enough to also let us celebrate my birthday, which was the following day. It is SO hard to get a picture of all the cousins together but since most of them were enjoying ice cream treats, I was able to get them to cooperate minus Paul and Teah (who was sick that day):

No wonder we all keep getting sick. We keep going back and forth between great spring-like weather and freezing cold and wind. Two Saturdays ago it was short sleeves and the ice cream truck. The kids were quite excited:

And speaking of sick, I snapped this picture the first day Jake was sick. He felt so miserable he fell asleep sitting up on the couch. They never look more little and innocent then when they are sleeping and especially when they are sleeping and sick:

Last weekend was the monthly kids workshop at Home Depot. They had built a special ramp for the kids to race their completed Joey Lagano race cars. Jake was in heaven. He could have stayed there all day. Jadyn got her face painted so she was also pretty happy:

Both the kids have started practices for baseball season and this week we got their game schedules. It was different for soccer as ALL their games are on Saturdays. This is not the case for baseball with both weeknight games as well. I plopped it into Google calendar and took a snapshot of one of our busiest weeks. The purple are my activities, the green Jake and the pink Jadyn. Of course I am not at school with them all day BUT all those activities in the evening - yep, mama taxi is going to be BUSY this spring!

Where have I been?

I seem to have dropped the ball on my blog at about this same time last year. At least this year I have a somewhat good excuse. The sickies entered our house and right after I had been knocking on wood for weeks while telling people how lucky we have been all winter. I guess I should have just kept my mouth shut.

Anyway, everyone except me got colds. Jake's cold caused him to get an ear infection and then before he was even better from that I got the flu and gave it to Jake. The flu was by far the worst. I was down for the count for 4 days and Jake had to miss 3 consecutive days of school including his class field trip, which was a huge bummer for both of us as I was supposed to chaperon.

I had been pretty busy away from the computer before that too. I got into an organize/clean everything mood and got a wild hair to make some changes in the office. We got rid of the treadmill since I never use it anymore and Joe put up shelves to help us store Lego sets that are already put together. I also reorganized the arts and crafts. This lead to a decision to paint and from there it kind of snowballed. Joe REALLY surprised me for my birthday. Not only did I get a new laptop computer but on top of repainting the office, he purchased and put together new bookshelves in white. Now all we need is a new white desk and something on the walls and our new office/playroom will be done.

What started it all. I reorganized the arts/crafts using these Sterlite clip boxes from Target and decided the green on the handles would make a pretty paint color on the walls:

And only 7 paint samples later, we finally found the color I was looking for. I don't know how Joe has the patience for me sometimes:


Yes, we have THAT many Legos:

I just had to throw this in there. The kids were playing "school" on the easel. It just made me smile. It was one of my favorite activities as a child to play "school" and again, I am always blown away by Jake's neat printing and I was very proud of Jadyn for trying to sound out her classmates names:


But my clean/organize/decorate mood is still in overdrive so I suspect this may just be the beginning not to mention some other changes that are in the works for the Funny Nose clan.

I will be trying to catch up on the blog and not make it a habit to be such a stranger but I make no promises.

Our Day in the Snow

Being from Southern California and now living in the desert, snow is definitely a novelty. Yes, we occasionally get some snow and even more rare, sometimes it actually sticks but it is not the norm. Last Wednesday we got some snow flurries. I didn't say anything to the kids at the time but I was secretly hoping that our long 4 day weekend for President's Day might get extended by an extra day but by morning any snow that had stuck in the yard was already melted.

Talk about novelty though - it figures that we actually had somewhere to go Wednesday night. We went to Back to the Ballpark night to meet the kids' baseball coaches for the season and then to the school's science fair to support the participants and look at all the cool entries. Some flurries were coming down when we left and I kid you not, I had never driven in falling snow before. And at night, it is actually quite a pretty sight. Jake said it was like we were in hyperdrive from a Star Wars movie and you know what? It was a pretty accurate description. So here are the hills above our house the day after it snowed as I sadly took the kids to school, my hopes for a snow day dashed:

So we didn't get any snow. Bummer. But I really like for the kids to get to play in the snow at least once every year. Last year we took the Palm Springs Ariel Tramway up into the San Jacinto Mountains for some snow play. This year we took advantage of our Friday off and went up to Big Bear. We stopped at a snow play area and spent almost 3 hours tubing. It was a blast! I am sure for those who get snow regularly during the winter, driving to and paying money to play in the snow probably seems ridiculous but again, for us it is quite the novelty. Jadyn throwing snow while waiting for Jake and I to come down the tubing hillAnd now it is her and Daddy's turn:

Here the kids both stylin as they go down the "bunny slope" for tubing:

Jadyn and I demonstrating our favorite tubing position:

Our little tube train - Jadyn on my back and Jake in a second tube holding onto my feet. Super fun!:

Another advantage of going somewhere to play in the snow? The convenience of not having to climb the hill before tubing down it. This snow play area had a covered moving walkway. We rode up in style!:

The kids and I:

Another advantage of driving to the snow is coming back down the mountain to do some shopping and have an early dinner before heading home and finding the temps hovering in the 70's. Gotta love So Cal winters!

Birthday Meme

Yes, it is my birthday. Taking a cue from Joanna, instead of adding on to 30, I am going to start subtracting from 40. Therefore I am now 40-2. The idea behind this concept is that in 2 years when I actually do turn the big 4-0, it won't seem like such a big deal since I will have essentially been trying it on for the 2 years prior.

Anyway, LauraC tagged everyone who read her blog post to answer the following 11 questions and (no pressure here) challenged everyone to be the most entertaining by bribing them with a Starbucks gift card. So while I highly doubt I can be the MOST entertaining, I sure as heck am going to try anyway. Besides, it's my birthday so why not do a post that is all about ME!

1. What is your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Okay, so not as unique an answer as someone who has never had a Girl Scout cookies but don't kill me for admitting, I am not a huge fan. Forced to choose, I would say Thin Mints but what I really love about this time of year is the limited edition ice cream that Dreyer's puts out - Slow Churned Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint ice cream is worth stocking up on now to ensure you have plenty during the warm summer months.

2. What is the one item on which you always splurge? My hair. I gave up a lot of splurging to stay at home with the kids (totally worth it!). I rarely get professional mani/pedis and gave up 99% of the products I used to use from department stores or salons, not to mention name brand clothes BUT I still get my hair highlighted and cut professionally every 6-12 weeks depending on how blonde I am at any given time. Furthermore, not only do I budget for this splurge, I travel 88 miles to get it done by the same hairdresser back home that has done my hair for 15 years now. Kris is amazing and totally worth it and it is a nice reason to have dinner at the in-laws every 2 months or so.

3. What's the best book you've read in the last 10 years?It wasn't the best book but the one that has the most sentimental value for me is Twilight. Before you roll your eyes, please understand that prior to reading Twilight I had somehow lost my love of reading. Between only reading textbooks and research while completing my degree, getting married, moving multiple times and having kids, I hadn't read for pleasure in as long as I could remember. With Twilight, I rediscovered something that is now once again an integral part of who I am.

4. What is your favorite summer drink? June Bug. Total foo-foo tasting girly drink that packs a powerful alcoholic punch. It contains Malibu Rum, Midori, banana liquor, sweet and sour and pineapple juice.

5. Spring or fall? Fall. Love the colors, activities, holidays and sports associated with the season.

6. If you are not doing your dream job right now, what would it be?Write anything, counsel others, either high school or college-aged young adults not sure what path they want to take or young military wives needing assistance as they learn more about the culture they have married into.

7. Is there a better movie role model than Maude?Better, I don't know. How about Alice from Alice in Wonderland? A role model for me would be one that doesn't give a shit what others think of them but still takes the feelings of those they care about into consideration. A delicate balance indeed.

8. If you had $100 to spend at Target, what would you buy? Ahh. This is stressing me out. I love Target. I could seriously blow an entire paycheck there in the bat of an eye. Right now it would definitely be home decor and organizational items for my office.

9. Have you ever tried boxed wine? If it was good, what was the brand? Not that I am aware of but that doesn't mean I haven't.

10. If you could meet one blogger who would it be? Cacey is the first of many I still hope to meet including the WAHM group from BBC.

11. If I could photograph you doing anything, what would it be? I triple dog dare you to get a candid of myself that I actually like but seriously? Posed and candid shots of my family and I up in Joshua Tree National Park.

My Funny Valentines

I know I've said this before but I happen to like Valentine's Day. Maybe because it's the holiday closest to my birthday or maybe because I enjoy any opportunity to show those I love just how much I care, even if I do try to make that effort daily anyway. Now that we have kids, and I know Joe would agree, I think of it as more of a family holiday than a romantic one. Yes Joe and I do exchange cards but we don't usually go out or get each other elaborate gifts, again probably since my birthday is so close.

So anyway, here are my funny Valentines before going to school. Again, Kuma insisted on being part of the picture, which is just as well since he is essentially one of our kids:

Last week we did some early Valentine celebrating. Jadyn got a new Build-a-Bear, a special pink heart kitty she named Bella Hearts. Jake got a treat too but somehow a new army helicopter and landing pad just doesn't scream "VALENTINES!" in quite the same way:

The next day Jadyn did a good majority of the work in helping me make these Valentine themed cupcakes, which I served at the inaugural meeting of my new book club later that night:

The kids came home from school on Valentine's Day hopped up on sugary treats each with a full bag of cards and even more candy. To say they were excited would be an understatement. And since it was my regular day to volunteer in Jadyn's classroom, I actually got some extra Valentine's myself, which I thought was super sweet.

In the end, all the red and pink and chocolate in the world can't compete with the pure sweetness of spending quality time with the family and capturing moments like this:

Just like Harry Potter

Last Saturday I took the kids to the town's family fun day. This particular event had a theme of Wizards and Magic and with the kids love of all things Harry Potter, I knew they would have fun. We saw the same magician perform that we had gone to see over the summer during the library's reading program, Joel Ward. Jadyn and I took our picture with him and one of the doves he uses in his act. I had to comment to him that I also caught him on an episode of Tosh.O. Quite a jump to go between performing in front of families and small children and then being on a comedy show that is most definitely adults only.

Some of the other activities included wand-making and potion making. Jake made brainiac brew and Jadyn made liquid luck.

We also watched them put together a Muggle Quiddtich tournament. It seemed kind of confusing to me but it was a cute concept and the kids enjoyed watching it.

Overall it was a fun event. It also made us want to go home and have a Harry Potter marathon. But we didn't.

Project 365 highlights

I'll be honest - I have failed miserably at taking at least a photo a day. However, having said that, my project 365 has continued to serve its purpose as I have found myself taking more candids of the kids and pictures without human subjects as the year progresses. Therefore, although I may not end up with 365 pictures, I am continuing it anyway. Here are some highlights from the last several weeks.

Oops! Didn't mean to start with a picture of me. Anyway, I took this because I was showing off to a friend that I can sometimes step out of my comfort zone and wear colors that work together despite the fact that they don't match. Kind of an inside joke but I am big time into matching:

Kuma and I ran into this guy last week during our daily walk. Scared the crap out of me initially but he was just an innocent gopher snake and Kuma was completely disinterested. It did remind me however, that with all the walking through the fields we do, Kuma should probably be given the 2 shot series of rattlesnake vaccine, just in case:

Plenty of other grocery stores have these but they are new to the local grocery store we frequent and now the kids are suddenly fighting to go with me to the store. So stinking cute. And yes we are in the produce aisle but as you can see from Jadyn's cart we were heading into the weekend and stocking up on the boys favorite chips:

Kuma running around at the dog park with one of his two best friends, Jack. He is a German Shorthair Pointer of similar age and energy level and they seek each other out whenever we go:

The kids testing out new baseball equipment for the upcoming season at the sporting good store. They meet their new coaches tonight:

One of my favorites thus far of the 365 projects, this is a really cool window that is in the restroom no less shared by the yoga studio I attend and the best new pizza joint in town, Pie for the People:

Adventures with Flat Stanley

Last Saturday was BUSY! After the Home Depot workshop we did something that was long overdue. We went up into the national park. The reason for visiting Joshua Tree was twofold. First of all, the kids LOVE rock scrambling and we have not been nearly enough during the cooler days of fall and winter. Second of all, we have our visiting Flat Stanley who we wanted to show some of the sites that are unique to our home. The scenery of Joshua Tree National Park is about as unique as you can get.

Jake's day continued to get even busier. After going, going, going all morning and afternoon, he went with his best friend Kyle to go bowling in celebration of his birthday and then spent the night at his house. We had our neighbor Adriana come over and hang out with Jadyn so she wouldn't miss her brother's absence quite so much. We capped off the weekend with a Super Bowl party at Cruz and Tara's. It was a really nice weekend.

One last thing I wanted to show our visiting Flat Stanley before preparing to send her back was the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, which includes 3,100 windmills that can be viewed along Interstate 10, Highway 62 and parts of the 111 - all routes that our family travels frequently when going to what I fondly refer to as "civilization". I was headed that way Monday after taking the kids to school, so I brought her along for the ride.

I think we showed our visiting Flat Stanley a good time. I know we enjoyed showing her around.