Cambria

Took a whirlwind trip to Cambria this weekend (between XMas and New Years) to see Keith Vine get married to his girlfriend from Poland. Beautiful wedding in the Vine house on the cliffs overlooking the beach in Cambria.

Avery and Connor did SO well on the traveling end. We got a 9" DVD player for the car for xmas -- that thing works wonders! On the drive up there, we stopped halfway at Christine's mom's house. On the way home, we jammed - from Cambria to Carlsbad in 5 hrs. The kids took a nap at the start, but then powered through 2.25 movies and we only stopped once (bathroom break for M&D). Toy Story 2, Little Mermaid, and part of Monsters Inc.

Avery is getting so smart. When she says something smart:
Dad - "Avery, how'd you get to be so smart?"
AP - "do some whaut o puzzles" (doing a lot of puzzles)
Now a variation on that tonight:
AP - "do som whaut o puzzles....and eat pizza" (we were at Pat & Oscars eating pizza and breadsticks at the time)

Connor has such a good memory. When putting him down for bed over a week ago, Jamie was BBQ'ing some dinner. She used that as the excuse why she couldn't lay with Connor in bed too long. Tonight when going down for bed, mommy walks into his room - his immediate inquisition:
"Mommy no doing bbq - lay with mommy?"

Avery Cereal

Dad was leaving for Reston, VA (aka "geh-gin-ya"), and wanted to get a goodbye kiss to the kids at the breakfast table. They were busy eating cereal and watching the Wiggles (morning ritual).
Daddy: "Love you Avery P"
Avery: "Avery wuv cereal" !!

Avery Be Boy Next Time

"avery be boy next time?....just like connor?"

Avery threw this out of the blue when going down for bed one night. She has SO many friends that are boys, that she thinks it would be fun to be a boy like her lovey brother Connor --- "next time" :)

Jamie taking the kids to the San Diego zoo today, trying to meet up with Suzanne Hall who works there with the Pandas.
Avery went through the list of animals she is anxious to see: tigers, eh-phants, zeebas, monkeys, snakes, etc.
Daddy says, "Avery, are you gonna see COWS?" -- AP answer: "no cows, not a farm dad!"
Apparently, Jamie and the kids already talked about that earlier in the day -- that the zoo is not a farm, doesn't have the standard animals, only exotic ones! LOL

Whoops

As the kids continue to absorb tremendous amounts of information every day, they sometimes get stuck trying to describe stuff to one of us that we just can't understand. This usually happens to Dan, when after a work-week worth of time that they've spent with Mommy, then they try to relate that to Daddy, who doesn't know the context.

It happened this past weekend, when Jamie was gone for a night up in Long Beach. Anyway - Avery at the end of dinner was saying "wick dingers Dad?", saying it over and over, until I could do something about it. I finally figured out that she was wondering if she could/should lick her messy fingers (after dinner). Of course, when Jamie got home, I said, "wick dingers", and she immediately responded: "Lick Fingers" :)

I'll try to add more funny pronunciations and sayings here as I can remember them.

What else they're up to

Connor is all about Bob the Builder. Everything from the tv show, video tape, books, small plastic replica toys from Target, etc. Bob, Wendy, Muck (red), "Rot and Roll" (green roller), Lofty (blue crane), and his favorite - Scoop (yellow). They both loved watching Alberto (aka "Beedo") do all the landscape in the yard. Connor especially loved the tractor (small front loader) they drove around all the time moving dirt. Avery started to show that she's scared of loud noises, when the tractor would drive by, or even when the trash truck comes around. The funny part - when something loud is nearby, she'll cover her eyes - "eesh, too loud, can't look".

Avery is into puzzles, books, stickers, computer. She's actually starting to understand moving the mouse on the table and associate it with the onscreen cursor. When she comes down in the morning, for the past 2 weeks when Grandma "Baba Ann" has been here, Avery immediately goes into the "payroom" to start doing puzzles and stuff with gma.

They both have the gmas/gpas down pretty well:
- Baba Ann, em-pee
- Ancy, Tiff

Took them to LegoLand with gma/gpa Hanan last weekend. Avery still claims to be not into the big boat ride, but then when we get her on the boat, she's pretty ok. At the end, by the octopus band, she covers her eyes, cuz it's "too loud, can't look". Connor was afraid to tell the "man" at the duplo building area that the earthquake shaker thing was not working. Daddy suggested they tell the man that it doesn't work -- the rest of the day, Connor was saying "no show man" -- maybe he thought he would get in trouble.

Big Kid Beds

Last night was a big day for the kids - it was the first night they slept in "big kid beds" !! A few weeks ago, Jamie took the kids to the bay area, and Connor experienced napping and "night-night" on a "big boy bed" at Unlce Bob's house. Ever since they got back, that's all Connor can talk about. He's protested various nap times, demanding to sleep on mommy and daddy's bed.

So, finally, this week, they went to the matress store and got some big kid beds. We were not sure what would happen the first night - not being trapped in a crib any longer. Will they just walk out of the room? Will they fall out of the bed?

As it turns out - they did REALLY WELL !! Connor was in there talking and doing who know's what for a while (almost a couple hours), but finally went to sleep. When we peeked in on him before going to bed, he was laying on his tummy, laying diagonally towards the side wall, with his feet towards the pillows!

They both made it all the way through the night, and didn't come out of the room! Now we're wondering when they'll figure out that it is an option. Hopfeully, they understand that they shouldn't -- but we'll see. Connor had a short crying episode at 430am, but daddy went in there and laid with him for a bit and he went back to sleep.

Red Wall Paint

"de-day dack a-em home us new house mama baint"
translation: Cheri, Zack, Adam come home to the new house with us show them mommy's red wall paint (in living room).