Earthquake!

Yesterday we'd just been in San Diego for a few hours when the big 7.2 earthquake hit Baja. We had just checked into our place and Dan and the kids and I were in our living room/kitchen area. We're on the upper floor with windows all along the back wall that look over the golf course. Everything started rattling & shaking & swaying and it continued for what seemed like a long time. (One minute doesn't seem like a long period of time unless you spend the whole thing wondering if the ceiling is going to fall on you and crush you.) It was Dan who first realized it was an earthquake. My first instinct was to get everyone under a table or doorway. Dan had the better instict of getting us all outside. I need to re-program my brain against what I was taught in school (get under your desk). Anyway, no damage here but it was pretty scarry for a few minutes.

We've been getting after-shocks as well. They only last for a few seconds but it's weird to be lying in bed and feel like you're on a wave. I felt two or three last night, one of them was during the middle of the night and it woke me up. I probably should have followed my mom's advice and put shoes next to my bed. The thing is, if there were a big one during the night, my feet would be the last thing I'd be worried about.

April Fools!

No, this is not an April Fool's prank. This is the view from our front porch today. I'm not joking.

There was no shortage of pranks around here today. We were having so much fun playing April Fool's jokes that we were late leaving for school. Each year we get a little more sophisticated. This morning we found celophane taped over the toilets (Jolie), tissue paper stuffed into shoes (Tristan), Jolie and a classmate have been scheming for weeks in order to prank their teacher, and after Tristan and Jolie were off to school Gavin used April Fools Day as an excuse to do all sorts of naughty things, mostly to me. We'd gone outside to take a couple photos of the snow and I found myself locked out of the house (I was in my robe). He also soaked baby wipes in ice cold water and stuffed them into my shoes and he put celophane inside the computer (???). I was surprised when Fruit Loops came out of the Corn Flakes box a little later on (Jolie).

There's been no shortage of surprises today!

Happy V Day

Happy Zillionth Day of Winter!

We celebrated the zillionth day of winter this week by firing up the jet bath. I don't know that Mia has ever had the experience. You have to be pretty hardy to be in there. The water is deep and the bubbles even deeper when you mix bubble bath and high speed jets! Add Mr. Gavin doing cannonballs and it was quite an experience (Gavin's idea of a cannonball, at least in the tub, amounted to him sliding off the steep incline directly into the deep water and yelling "cannonball!" There's no doubt that Mia's going to be a tough little chick.

But then again, watching her in nursery, we already know that.

Sisters

Mia adores her sister. She follows her around when she's home and asks about her when she's gone. Yesterday Mia started crying when Jolie left for school. We usually drive Tristan and Jolie to school in the morning but yesterday my dad picked them up because he was going their way. Mia was absolutely heartbroken to see them walk out the door!

Jolie also jumps at the chance to play the role of adoring sister. It usually takes me a couple minutes to get to Mia when I hear her on the monitor. Jolie, on the other hand, jumps up the minute she hears her, "I'll get her!" Jolie has a special motherly voice she uses with Mia (for which I'm grateful because she often wakes up grouchy). She's always loved showing Mia off. When we've gone to help in her classroom she's paraded her around like her proudest possession. All the other little girls have played right along, oohh-ing and ahh-ing and telling Jolie how cute her little sister is.

Mia also loves to dress up in Jolie's clothes. He favorites are the ballet outfits. Not long ago, Mia actually pulled Jolie's skirt off her body after she arrived home from ballet (and immediately put it on herself). I'm constantly finding Jolie's shoes in the middle of the floor. When it's the snow boots I know that Jolie left them there. When it's her sparkly or fancy ones or her soccer cleats, I know Mia's been playing dress up.

How exactly Felicity (Jolie's $100 American Girl doll) obtained her recent hair cut, is still somewhat of a mystery. Jolie swears that she didn't do it. She blames her little sister. Although it seems to be something Jolie would be tempted to do, she's never lied to me so I tend to believe her. Mia, on the other hand, when asked about the incident, took full responsibility. (Then again, if you were to ask her if she shot Lee Harvey Oswald she'd take responsibility for that, too.) Nonetheless, I think this may be a case of one sister covering for the other.

*Photo taken the Sunday before Christmas. We came home from church early because one sister had a meltdown and the other is 100% unruly on a good Sunday*

Who Else Would Allow This?

Yes, this is my living room. And yes, that's newspaper, timothy hay, brussels sprouts and two guinea pigs (whom, in case you're not familiar with the species, poop a little black pellet every 10 seconds).

I think the fact that I didn't freak out when I came upon this scene this afternoon, not to mention the fact that I allowed it to continue, qualifies me for mother of the year.

O Holy Night

Make a Smilebox greeting

An Image of Greatness

Tristan's ELEVEN years old today!

I can see a lot of changes coming down the pike. He's suddenly very concerned about his hairstyle, his clothes, and how he is perceived by his peers. We have an almost daily battle over his refusal to wear a coat to school. He says he's not cold but I've noticed that a lot of ther fifth grade boys are walking around in the cold without coats like idiots, too. I have a friend who used to teach fifth grade and she assures me it's all normal fifth grade behaviour (the peer awareness thing).

Tristan is the only 10-11 year old in town that I know of who wears skinny jeans. He had a meltdown when we went school shopping in the fall and I tried to buy him jeans from Old Navy or Children's Place where I've always bought them before. He insisted that he'd look like an idiot in them (I believe there were tears involved in the discussion, too). We ended up going to the teenage store in the mall where one can find skinny jeans. It's a good thing that he's a tall kid, otherwise I don't know they would've had his size.

A few weeks ago I attended Tristan's "Images of Greatness" program at school. He chose Frank Lloyd Wright as the subject of his project (more about the reasoning for that later). Anyhow, when I arrived, I walked over to where the kids were sitting, waiting for the program to begin. I thought I'd let him know that I was there and ask him if he had everything he needed. You'd have thought I'd committed a horrible crime by doing so. He gave me that look that we've all given our parents... go away, you're embarassing me. Yes, that look. Apparently, he didn't want anyone to know that he had a mother that day.

So when Tristan was trying to decide on the subject of his project, he went back and forth between Caesar Chavez (my suggestion), Gus Grissom (Dan's suggestion) and Frank Lloyd Wright. It had to be someone "gifted" who made a contribution to society. He eventually decided on Frank Lloyd Wright because he knew that I'd read a biography about him and he'd heard about some of the tragedies that befell him. That's another thing I've learned about 10-11 year old boys: they're intrigued by violence, tragedies, and the like. **On a sidenote... guess who was just made Cubmaster? I guess I'll be learning a whole lot more about boys =)

Back to Tristan... I have to mention the hair. I had no idea that boys were so concerned about their hair! We've had a couple other melt downs in recent months over my insistance that the boy have his hair cut. I'm talking crying and knashing of teeth in the car on the way to the place. Fortunately, we've found some great stylists who've been able to leave the length of his hair long while cleaning it up along the neckline and thinning it out. He goes through a whole ritual in the morning when he's getting ready. It involves "man" shampoo and combing it all forward. It's not my favorite look on him but Dan and I both agree there are more important things to battle over than hair.

Tristan is a character and definitely his own person, but we love him all the same. I've learned a great deal over the last eleven years, a LOT. One of the most important lessons Tristan has taught me is that we each come here blessed with our own set of gifts. As his mom I know that it's my job to accept him, help him recognize those gifts and hone them so that he can fulfill the purpose he was sent here for. There was a time that I wanted to change him. I wanted to make him more manageable, more compliant, less difficult. I'm glad that I learned that lesson early because he's an amazing kid. He has so many gifts. I know that he's destined to be something great.

Bon Anniversaire, mon fils!

Mia's Two!

I can't believe it's been two years since our little Mia arrived. The time has literally flown by. We've enjoyed her every minute of the last two years, she's our sweetheart.

Mia is talking like crazy. She talks in sentences and paragraphs and she narrates everything that goes on. Her verbal skills developed just like Jolie's: she went from making one-syllable sounds to complete sentences almost over night. This has helped eliminate SOME of her tantrums- if she can gather her wits about her she's usually able to communicate what she needs. Ofcourse, that doesn't mean she gets everything she wants, thus there are still tantrums.

I haven't posted much about Mia's goings-on. It's a full time job keeping her out of mischief these days. She's into everything. Over the weekend she managed to un-organize two drawers of ribbon that I had pain-stakenly wound into little bundles. There must be something fascinating about pulling rubber bands off bundled ribbon. Come to think of it, there are many, many things around here that Mia finds fascinating. I spent this morning baking cakes and I certainly paid the price for that. I talked Gavin into watching TV after his and Mia's help with the cakes became unmanageable. I thought Mia was in the family room watching Dora with him. At some point I realized she wasn't and discovered she had been upstairs in my closet emptying our Cherry Hill bag (water toys, sunscreen, etc.) She had rubbed a stick of sunscreen all over the place. Then I found the trail of peat moss. She had spread little piles of dirt all over the main floor. There was a pile on the sofa, several on the floor, one in the dining room... I had put two amaryllis in the front window because they weren't getting enough sunlight in the kitchen. From the trail of evidence it appeared that she'd used her shoe to transport the dirt to different locations throughout the house. How all of this happened I can only say that I was deeply involved in baking a red velvet cake and a low fat lemon pound cake. And you guessed it... I was on the phone.

We decided to invite our family and several families from our neighborhood over for cake and ice cream. Several of them had things going on (tis the most wonderful and the most busy time of the year) but we had a fun time nonetheless. I was just grateful that some of them came.

Give Thanks

Just a few photos from Thanksgiving. I set our table with my Grandma Ivey's china. Doesn't it look pretty? I was thinking about her all day.

We bought Lego Rockband to play with the family. Mom was pretty good on the guitar and who knew that Lisa was a closet rocker, too? The (grown) men, on the other hand, were occupied with their digestion and reading the newspaper.

An Early Birthday Fete

We celebrated Tristan's birthday Friday night with 13 other ten and eleven year old boys and a Rock Band Tournament. We moved some of the furniture out of the family room and brought up the Wii and all the band equipment. I made a HUGE spread of food: 8 lbs of wings (half were spicy wings and the other half not), 6 pizzas, 12 liters of soda, a vegetable tray, cupcakes, a tub of red vines, 5 lbs of MnMs... I hear this is just the beginning of growing boys and their mass consumption of food.

About half way through the party it became evident that we were going to have to take it to a more active phase. I accompanied the whole gang to a park by our house where we commenced night games. We played kick the can, dracula, murder in the dark, capture the flag and some others I'm not remembering. I'm so grateful it was just cold and windy as opposed to super cold and windy with a foot of snow on the ground like it is today. I don't think the weather would have mattered to the boys; they would have gone regardless of the conditions (the other curious phenomenon of boys this age: they can go out in freezing weather without appropriate clothing and somehow they don't even feel it).

Our party was a huge success, I think everyone had a great time. Tristan seemed right in his element. It was an interesting dynamic as half of his guests were from his school and the other half from the neighborhood. Grandpa and Grandma also came up for a while and Gavin and Mia enjoyed having open access to large bins of candy. Dan hung out with the adults in the dining room, trying to keep Mia from making herself sick on junk food. Jolie went to a friend's pajama party so she missed the whole thing.

Sinful Popcorn

If you're looking for a tempting treat, try this Cinnamon Carmel Corn with Pecans and While Chocolate. I made some last week to take to some friends and it was a big hit. I wrapped it up in cellophane bags with some pretty ribbon and it looked like it was from heaven.

I don't, however, recommend having it in the house if you're on a diet. It will call your name from far, far away.

Halloween

Where do the weeks go? I've been trying to get to the computer to post our Halloween photos for weeks.

It was an exiting one. Tristan went with his friend, Evan. His warewolf costume was one of the scarriest in town. Mia couldn't be in the same room with his mask without breaking into blood-curdling screams. He consulted our neighborhood map days ahead to plan his route. Ofcourse the objective was to get as much candy as possible and to hit the houses that give out the best stuff.

Jolie spent part of the evening ahead of us with her friend Megan and part of the evening with us. Even with her wart I think she was the cutest witch around.

Gavin's costume was very fitting. He played the role of cowboy well. It's probably all the practice he's gained while pretending he's the Lone Ranger. He likes to watch the into sequence of the show. He's not interested in the dramatic episodes themselves, just the intro which he asks me to rewind over and over again. His holster is one given to us a while back by my grandmother. My dad and my uncle used to play with them when they were kids.

And then there's Mia the butterfly. What else can I say? I love this age for Halloween. She was just mesmerized by the whole affair. Who could have guessed that you can knock on doors and ask for treats over and over again? I loved watching her take her time to take it all in. In a few years she'll be in a race for the most candy, too.

Pinks and Greens

Just showing off a project- a baby quilt for my friend Sarah who is expecting her fifth(!) baby in December. This was a fun quilt, I can't wait to give it to her.

It took some courage to start this project- I haven't quilted since we moved here. That, cooincidentally, was about the same time I became a mother of three. It seems that many of my hobbies evaporated around that time

Fall Break in San Diego

We spent last weekend in San Diego with Nana and Papa. Now that we're over the worst of the swine flu (everything but the coughing), I can give my photos the proper attention that they deserve.

While in San Diego, we picnic-ed at the grassy knoll, we took the kids to Legoland, barbequed on the beach and roasted marshmallows, explored tide pools and a cave in La Jolla, and my dad took Jolie and Tristan to their first Padres game. We also saw the Blue Angels who were performing at an air show at Miramar naval base.

The best part was staying at Nana and Papa's house. The kids explored the orchard, Mia found all of Nana's little treasures around the house, Nana made us pancakes, we did some reading, Tristan watched baseball with Papa, and it wouldn't be a visit to Nana's without fireworks, hot tubbing and blowing bubbles.