Pick Up Game

Hannah is getting so big and is now almost kind of like a kid rather than a baby. One of the things I expect Joshua to do is help clean up toys. He is by no means competent at this, but I do require him to at least pick up one group of toys, such as legos, cars, or mega blocks. He seems to be able to focus on that better than all toys and I assume that he will be able to do more as he gets older. Today Joshua was picking up mega blocks and Hannah decided to help. She put several in the bag without being prompted, which is more than we can say for the other kids in our family. She seemed to enjoy putting them in and get a sense of accomplishment out of dropping each one.

A Climbing Rite of Passage

Hannah has been crawling for awhile now, and she pulls up on everything and will even cruise a little bit, but she still doesn't have much interest in standing on her own.  So today we were a little surprised to see her, on her own accord, take on the difficult challenge of climbing up the slide.  Given Joshua's propensity to climb everything, if we would have had the slide at the time, I'm sure it would have been one of the first things he conquered.  Clara, too, decided on her own to scale the orange mountain.  And now Hannah has joined the club, as it only took her a few tries to make it to the top.  She seems to take less pride in her accomplishments than the other kids did, and when she got to the top she just looked at me like "Yeah, of course I'm here.  It's not a big deal.  What did you expect?"

35!

Today I somehow turned 35 even though it really feels like I just graduated college a few years ago. I had a really nice day. In the morning, Jason took Clara and Joshua to Olathe's Parents as Teachers Art Day so I was able to get some things done around the house. It's very easy when I just have Hannah because she likes following me around, which doesn't take a lot of effort on my part and it also means she is easy to supervise, as opposed to my other children who are more into running from me.

After the kids got home, we had some lunch and then we had family birthday time. Jason got me a tres leches cake from a nearby Hispanic bakery. We had really enjoyed it in Puerto Rico and he thought it would be fun to have it again. It was a really sweet thought. Unfortunately the cake was awful. Even Joshua wasn't loving it and Joshua is something of a cake fiend. It mostly tasted like milk (sidenote -- I hate milk) so maybe they forgot the all important sweetened condensed milk, not sure. Though it was not the best cake ever, I really enjoyed celebrating my birthday with my kids. I got something I really wanted.

This is a terrible picture. But I really wanted a three-stone pendant. I had wanted it for our anniversary, but then we didn't do big gifts so I thought I probably wouldn't get it so I was really happy to receive it for my birthday. I love it.

After the kids' naps, Jason and I went out for date night. We went to La Bodega and then went for ice cream at my favorite place. We had a lot of fun and I had a super great birthday.

The Helping Tower

Early in 2012, Meghan approached me with the idea to buy an item that would allow the kids to have something safe to stand on to allow them to help with things that happen at the level of the kitchen counter.  It could be "helping" with the dishes or during food preparation or watching us cook or whatever.  She found something online that we could buy, but she also found a DIY website that had some instructions to guide you if you wanted to build it yourself.  I have almost no free time, and my carpentry skills are mediocre at best, so buying it made the most sense.  But despite that, I decided I wanted to take it on as a project for myself.  I knew it would take me awhile and that it wouldn't be perfect, but in the end I would have something I could give to the kids knowing that I had built it by hand for them.  I worked on it little by little when I had time, and by Christmas it was pretty much ready, and we had it out as a gift on Christmas morning.  At the time it was done except for the polycrylic coating.  But I decided to tweak it a little more before doing the poly.  This year has been super busy, so it took me until last month to finish it.  But I'm really proud of it.  The purple platform slides into any one of the sets of rungs to adjust the height.  I designed the layout and hand-painted the words on the sides.  And it took some precision work on my part, but I even added a modification with 16 hinges that fold at the perfect angles to allow it to fold flat for easy storage (if you take out the platform).  Here are some of the pictures from when I was working on it as well as the picture of the helping tower's debut tonight so Joshua and Clara could help me with the dishes.  Yes, it took me a long time, and no, we probably didn't save much money in the end after all of my supplies, and no, it's not perfect, especially on the curves I cut by hand, but it was made with love, and I hope it's something we'll be able to use for a long time to help us do more things together with the kids.

Ring Bling

When I was growing up, I remember noticing my Grandpa Hall's wedding ring.  It had diamonds in it.  I also noticed my dad's wedding ring.  It also had diamonds in it.  So I grew up thinking that men's wedding rings had diamonds in them.  As I got older I learned that rings like that were in the vast minority for men's wedding rings.  Most men had solid bands, often yellow gold ones.  When it came time for me to pick out my own wedding ring, I wanted one with diamonds in it to match Dad and Grandpa Hall, and also because that was what I'd had in mind for much of my life as to what a man's wedding ring should be.  Meghan and I shopped for rings, and she suggested the one I ended up with.  It was a little more modern design than I had in mind, but it quickly grew on me, and that's the one I chose.  I've always loved it, because it matches the family tradition of rings but also because it's different than most.  The plain yellow gold band is beloved by many for its simplicity and tradition, but to me it's clichéd.  I've always felt that Meghan is someone very special and unique and different from all the other girls out there, and I like that my ring is also special and unique and different from all the other rings out there.  So it not only represents our marriage, but it represents her to me.

So I was pretty upset this January when my ring disappeared.  I was sick that day, so I was out of my normal routine and hadn't put it in its normal place, and the next day I couldn't find it anywhere.  I figured it was in the house somewhere, but I scoured everywhere and came up empty.  I hoped I would find it someday, but I sort of thought it would be years before I found it, if ever.  I bought a cheap replacement so I'd at least have a wedding ring to wear.  But earlier this week I was digging through my work backpack and found the ring at the very bottom of one of the sections.  It must have fallen off my nightstand into the backpack without my knowing it.  I'm very excited to have it back.  This particular ring is special, and no replacement could ever match it, so hopefully I'll still have this exact ring on my finger for the rest of my life.  

Way Back Wednesday: The Day That Started It All

I haven't done a wayback since our anniversary, so I thought I would share a couple wedding pictures. In some ways it feels like so long ago, but in others it seems like hardly any time at all. But seeing how incredibly young we look, definitely makes me realize that it was longer than it seems.

We have had such a great first decade, though it was not without struggle, especially the first couple of years. I do feel like I have earned my fine lines and am lucky that most of them are smile lines. It's hard to imagine these next ten years topping the first, but I really look forward to trying.

On the Open Road

As I've mentioned before, I love my car, and I love driving in general, and I especially love driving my car. Today I had a business trip in St. Louis, which is well within driving distance. The weather is great this time of year too, so it made it an easy decision to drive. I know I'll have ot trade in my car at some point for something more family-friendly, but for now I still have my car, so I'm enjoying every second of it. Here I am cruising down I-70. There was a hint of a storm for awhile, but soon that threat dissipated and rays of sunlight broke through the opening in the clouds, resulting in a picturesque scene.

Hands Off My Mike

One thing that has surprised me of late about Hannah is how much she loves the microphone. This is a fun toy that Christine and Eric got us and all the kids love it. When Clara was about Hannah's age, she just heavy breathed into it and thought it was hilarious. Hannah, though, really likes talking into it and just sits there going "Ah. Ah. Ah." repeatedly. She loves it and gets really mad when Clara (or less often Joshua) tries to take it away from her. It's particularly cute and surprising because she isn't that much of a talker yet. She has a few words and growls a lot, but doesn't babble a lot like some babies do. But give her the mike and she wants to make her voice heard.

Sisterly Love

Today we dressed the girls in some new fall clothes, and they were so cute that we wanted a picture of them together. Sometimes they are willing to sit next to each other and be so sweet and smile for the camera.

And sometimes they aren't. This is Clara tackling Hannah. In a very loving way.

Car Seat Change is Coming

Car seat regulations and recommendations are changing all the time. Even since we adopted Joshua, they changed the recommendation to be that kids should stay in a rear-facing car set until they turn 2. But nearly every study says that rear-facing is better, and that ideally you should keep your kid rear-facing as long as possible, if the kid still fits. We followed that advice, but Joshua is pretty much now too big, so we will soon be turning his car set around to be front-facing.  This morning we went to the park, and I realized it would be one of the last times the three kids would all be in car seats facing the same direction.  We love looking in one of the back doors and seeing all three little faces peering out at us.

And since it's a gameday, Joshua is wearing his new K-State jersey.  He really wanted to run and play, and not pose for pictures, so this was about the only picture I could get of him wearing it.

Belated Birthday Celebration

Because I decided I didn't want to celebrate my birthday on the actual day, tonight was our main celebration.  Meghan's mom is in town, and she watched the kids which allowed Meghan and I to go out to a nice dinner by ourselves.  I wanted to try a contemporary Mexican restaurant, Frida's, that we'd never been to before tonight.  The weather was nice, and we ate outside and had a great meal.  When we got home we did birthday time with everyone.  I got a new razor, which I desperately needed, and a curved glass thing with pictures of everyone on it.  I love it!  I'm going to venture a guess that the creative force behind that was none other than the girl I married.  She constantly impresses me.  It will go on my desk at work, as the current collage I have there is outdated.  It was a great day, and it even included a relatively relaxing day at work, which made it all the better.

Big, but not the Biggest

Have you heard the phrase "Everything's bigger in Texas"?  Of course you have.  Because the state of Texas has done a great job of marketing it.  As a kid, and even now, I'm annoyed with the whole concept.  I spent four years of my childhood in Alaska, and I developed a lot of pride in our 49th state, and anyone who has lived there knows it's the biggest state in the US.  Others, though, often forget just how big Alaska really is, as it has more than twice the area of Texas.  I'm not the only Alaska defender to be annoyed by Texas' arrogance and bravado when they aren't even the biggest state.  There are several places online where you can see examples of people wanting to put Texas in its place, even if they might have minimized Texas' size slightly compared to the actual size, and some were so desperate to make the point that they actually unnecessarily increased Alaska's size to make the comparison more dramatic.  The fact remains that Alaska is more than twice as big as Texas.

All of this was inspired when today, while in Dallas, I came across a project by the City of Dallas' tourism department to encourage people to take their picture as the I in BIG.  I played along for the sake of having a fun photo, knowing it would give me a chance to make my feelings known on the Alaska/Texas rivalry.

Oh, and you've also heard the phrase "Don't mess with Texas!"  Well, fortunately for Texas, Alaska won't mess with it, because it isn't nice to pick on someone less than half your size.

A Visit From Grandma Williams

This week my mom was able to stop by and visit us for a few days. The kids had lots of fun with Grandma (including Hannah and Clara, though you wouldn't know it from this picture. We had some issues even getting the kids to look, much less smile. They were happier than they look) and we were very glad to be able to have her here for awhile.

Not an Ideal Birthday

Today is my birthday.  I've known for several days that today was going to be a rough day.  I have a huge presentation tomorrow in Louisiana, and it's taken me many hours to prepare.  I had to spend all day yesterday in Chicago, limiting my prep time.  I only got a couple hours of sleep on Sunday night (I had a super early flight Monday morning), a couple hours last night, and I'll probably only get a couple hours tonight, if any, before I have to get ready at 3:30am for my 6:00am flight tomorrow morning.  So knowing this was going to be a bad day offering me no time to really enjoy a birthday celebration, I told Meghan I would rather do cards and gifts this coming Friday when I knew I would be able to enjoy it.  She didn't want my day to pass with no celebration at all though, so she made little mini Rice Krispie treat frosted cakes, which were delicious.  I did spend the evening with my family before getting back to work after the kids went to bed, so at least I had a small respite and a nice little celebration as a break from my grueling day.

Ice Boats

This week, Joshua and I have been reading about oceans and boats. So for our project today, I made ice boats. I had hoped that we could play with them outside in our water table, but it was kind of drizzly today so it didn't work out. We played with them in the sink instead. He enjoyed the water and ice and colors, though he really wanted to eat the boats. I don't think he believed me when I said they weren't popsicles and didn't taste good (though to be fair, he really loves plain ice so he probably would have liked them I guess).

Green and Delicious

When the Smiths were at our house recently, we had a tasty drink made with lime sherbet and limeade.  We still had some leftover sherbet, so after dinner tonight Meghan decided we should all have another round of the drinks.  We're a little more lax about sugary things for Hannah than we were with the others (Third Child Syndrome), so everyone got to indulge in our delicious dessert drink.  Joshua and Clara decided straws were for suckers and very slowly used their spoons to drink most of it and to scoop out chunks of sherbet.  Here's a montage of our family and our green drinks.

Fun in Antioch Park

 Today I had a date day with Clara. Like my recent date with Joshua, we started it at Hobby Lobby, because why not. Clara was kind of amazed by how many different types of things were in that store. I sort of feel the same way. That is one store I just cannot get out of in less than 30 minutes.

 After that, we stopped by Sonic and got a snack. Since Clara is incredibly picky, I had brought her a granola bar, but I also got her a juice, which she enjoyed drinking while dancing to Radio Sonic in the front seat.

After our snack, I decided to take her to the park since it was such a perfect day. We went to Antioch Park, which is a little farther north than I usually go. We had a really fun time. Even though all the kids and I go to the park together a lot, she gets to have a lot more fun when it's just us. She got to walk on her own a lot because I knew I could catch her without the others to also watch. We walked around the lake and she liked watching the ducks.

After our walk, we went to the playground, where she had a lot of fun. She gets a little intimidated by big kids and the park was super crowded, but she had a lot of fun climbing and going down the various slides. She hasn't yet gotten old enough to be afraid of all that much, so she was willing to climb almost anything she could get her feet on.

We also went and played in those little buildings they have there. She liked walking on the boardwalk and looking out the windows and doors and running through the buildings. In a few years, that will be a lot of fun for the kids to play hide and seek together. After our fun at the park, we enjoyed a lunch at Panera and took a cookie home to share with everyone else. We had a really fun day.

Waiting for Kibbles

Terrence and Natalie are decently smart dogs.  They're not morons, but they're also not going to win any spelling bees anytime soon.  When we got them as puppies, we took them to a dog training class at PetSmart.  Terrence did reasonably well, and he learned to sit, stay, and lay down based on hand signals alone.  Natalie never learned to lay down from a hand signal, but I think it was because we didn't complete all the sessions.  Anyway, that's about the extent of the "tricks" that they can do, with the exception of one that I decided to teach them, which was to wait to eat their food until I tell them it's okay.  They get fed three times a day (at breakfast, early evening, and late evening), and after I put their bowl of food in it's normal spot (they eat on opposite sides of the island to avoid fights over their food), I say "Wait!" and they will then wait to eat.  I vary the amount of time so they have to wait for my verbal okay, not knowing how long it will be.  Sometimes it's a second or two, and sometimes it's maybe fifteen or twenty seconds.  While they wait, Terrence will almost always look at me, partially pleading for me to let him eat, and partially staring a me scornfully for torturing him.  Natalie will almost always just stare straight down at her bowl.  After whatever period of time I decide on, I say "Okay!" and then they chow down.  Terrence usually has his bowl empty in a matter of seconds, while Natalie takes her sweet time, making Terrence seriously consider trying to steal what's left in her bowl from her.  Incidentally, Meghan never makes them wait, so they'll start eating the second the filled bowl is in front of their face, but they know I'll make them wait every time.  Here they are this morning patiently waiting for their tasty breakfast.

Now We're Cooking

 Today while Joshua was at school, I took out the play kitchen I had bought awhile ago. Clara and Hannah enjoyed playing with it for awhile.

 But then Clara found the phone it came with and, like so many of us, realized there is no reason to cook when you can order delivery. Phones are among her favorite toys and this one has buttons that beep so she was pretty excited.

Later in the day, she realized that the microwave also beeps, after seeing Joshua push the buttons on it. Unfortunately, she is pretty short. So we got her a step stool for her kitchen and now she can reach everything and she is a happy girl.

Resting with Grandpa

Mom and Ron watched the kids today, as they do almost every Wednesday.  The kids stayed later than normal today and had dinner there, so it was close to bed time when I went to pick them up.  While Joshua and Clara had plenty of energy, Hannah was quite tired but was not yet ready to fall asleep.  Ron was holding her, and Hannah wanted nothing more than to rest on her Grandpa's chest while the rest of us chatted and casually watched the baseball game on TV.  Here the sleepy little baby looks up at me while contentedly spending her time with one of her favorite people in the world.

Cruising

While we were away, Hannah started pulling up even more and actually started to cruise a bit too. Since we have been back, she has been proudly showing off her new skill and also becoming more adventurous. Here, she seriously thought about climbing a stair before deciding to stick with cruising and using the stair as a support.

Home At Last

 Today we flew home. It was very non-eventful, which is exactly how you want a flight home to be. Even though I have loved our trip, I did miss the kids a lot, so I was really excited to come home and see them.

First we stopped by the vet and got the pugs. I missed them too, but I did not miss riding in the car with pugs on my lap and this was not the highlight of my day.

 What was the highlight of my day was seeing the kids again (Yes I did change my shirt. You would too if you had that much pug hair on you). It made me really happy to go to sleep with our whole family, including Alex who is not pictured but also stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, under one roof, which has not happened in quite some time.

An Almost Perfect Day

Today was our last day here and it was pretty much perfect. We started the day with brunch with a view of the water.

As soon as we got back to the hotel, we went back down to the beach. Today there were no more lovebugs, so we had several hours of enjoyment and just being out with books and drinks.

At the very end, we walked along the ocean and also went in. We finished the day by eating dinner and watching a movie, which may not sound exciting, but we never watch movies. I have a goal of watching six movies per year and it is always questionable if I will meet the goal and I do include kid movies in that number.

The only unideal part of the day happened at about 11pm or so when the fire alarm in our hotel went off and we had to evacuate and stand outside for quite some time waiting for the all clear. You can guess how I felt about that. Except for that, it was a wonderful last day.