Thanksgiving 2016

We left Tuesday morning on a nonstop flight across the country.  A cool 5 hours on an airplane with a two and four year old was happily uneventful. Caiden sat in his seat and watched a few shows while eating snacks. Grace has her own seat now which makes her uber happy but she doesn't watch a show for too long before she's standing up, getting on my lap, standing in the aisle, sitting on Marc's lap then sitting back down. She's all over the place...but in a good mood all the while.

On Wednesday Caiden had a haircut at Fery's salon. While we were there Grace ripped off her headband and started shouting, "My haircut, too!".  So Fery sat her in a chair and gave her a few teeny tiny snips off the back. I'm going to be so sad when she gets her first real haircut because all her original blond hair is going to be gone and it's starting to grow in darker and darker.

On Thanksgiving Day we went to the Bahrami's for dinner.  The kids had fun playing backgammon with Osi, playing pool and eating unlimited amounts of tortilla chips that were in arms reach. I love catching up with all of the 50+ people and eating the best turkey dinner!

Friday we went to the Rafii's.  Always so much fun, I love these people! The kids are almost outnumbering the adults but they are all about the same age and play so well together. They also had some leftover fireworks so we got a good show once the sun went down!

Saturday was low-key...I'll keep the details minimal.  But Grace was up Thursday night vomitting, I got it for six hours straight Friday night then Marc got two days later.  Needless to say the following day after each of these events went down there wasn't much we were physically capable of doing.  So it made for a pretty uneventful trip.

Grace got a chance to play with Fery's jewelry and she was in heaven.  She'd go to her room and come out saying, "See mommy, see!".

On the way home the pilot stopped Grace and took her to the cockpit.  He asked what her name was and she said, "Two!".

Halloween 2016

Caiden's school had a harvest festival on Thursday. They had all sorts of games and fun during the school day. 

We carved pumpkins on Friday when Marc got home from work. Caiden was so excited. He picked a Buzz pumpkin this year and Grace picked a Skye pumpkin from Paw Patrol. Grace was NOT into sticking her hand inside the pumpkin. It took A LOT of coaxing to finally get her to do it. Then she would get one seed out and squeal with excitement.

There was a lot of anticipation for Halloween day. Caiden was so excited that he didn't nap. He stayed in his bed for about an hour and then when I went up to tell him he could get out I asked him why he didn't nap and he literally said, "I'm just so excited for Halloween!"  I hear ya, kid...I hear ya. He has been asking to be Buzz Lightyear since last year so he was really pumped for his costume. Grace was not happy that she didn't have a Buzz costume too but boy was she the cutest swan fairy!

Our neighbors had their annual Halloween party before it got dark so we headed there first. Sara, Dustin and Theo joined us as well. Once it got dark we headed down the street to check out our neighbors haunted house and carnival game. This is his last year so it's a bummer because it just adds so much excitement to the neighborhood. There are always people running around, screaming and laughing at the end of the block. We hit the 15 or so houses on the way home and called it a night.

Caiden is a champ at trick or treating. He's also starting to understand what he can and can't have. He straight up told someone who only had chocolate bars that he doesn't like chocolate because it makes him vomit. That person had no idea what to think and just kind of stared at him. I had to remind him to just take something, say thank you and we'll sort it out at home.

Grace was a rockstar, too! She was so cute. If there were peanut M&M's in the bowl she would grab one and say, "Dadda, Dadda" and run to Marc to give it to him and then run back to grab one for herself. Such a sweetie.

Caiden already has his costume for next year picked out so we'll see if that makes it an entire year. Oh, and him and Grace have been wearing his Buzz costume every day since Halloween...it was a hit!

Past few weeks!

We've had a busy past few weeks.  My Aunt Sally came out a few weeks ago to visit and go to a 3-day music, art, comedy, food, wine and beer festival with us. It's only the second year for this festival, KAABOO, but it did not disappoint. We saw Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffett, Andrew McMahon, Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray, Cheech and Chong, and a bunch of other bands. We had a babysitter for the first two days and on the third Marc stayed home and just me and Sally went. It was such an amazing weekend but I definitely needed a vacation from that vacation.

The next weekend my mom came out to watch Theo because Sara and Dustin went to Germany for Oktoberfest. They stayed at our house so it was a FULL HOUSE. We had a lot of fun and the kids had so much fun seeing each other 24/7.

We did our first of many trips to the pumpkin patch on Monday! Nothing like visiting the pumpkin patch when it's 85 degrees out!

And then Grace got up from her nap on Monday and had the stomach flu. Then Marc got it the next day. Then me. It was brutal. I'll spare you the details but we are finally on the mend. Crossing our fingers Caiden doesn't get it.

Lots of "Big Boy" things happening

Caiden finally graduated to a normal bed last week. It was bittersweet for us. I could've kept him in there for a few more years, but truthfully he was just getting a wee bit big. I'd hear his legs knocking on the sides of the crib when he would try to roll over while he was sleeping and I feared that it would start waking him up. As you can imagine he was really excited at first. Then as we were putting him to bed that night reading him a book in his bed he said he wanted his crib back. Of course!

Every night (except for three nights) he's come into our room around 2am and wakes us up. We then walk him back to his room, lay him down and tell him he has to sleep in his bed. Feels like a newborn again. Then about half the time he's back in our room again at 5am and we walk him back in his room and tell him it's not time to get up. The past few nights he's slept all the way through until 7:30am or so -I hope we're on a roll!

He also took swim lessons for two weeks straight last month and we now have a pretty darn good swimmer! It was so nice just banging it out in two weeks and not going every single week for a year. He jumps in and swims to the steps or side. He swims for about 7 seconds underwater before coming up for air and now he wants us to push him to the bottom of the pool so he can touch with his hands and belly. He'll be picking up those diving sticks in no time!

Caiden's first day of Pre-Kindergarten

It was pretty uneventful -except for the rushing to get him dressed, breakfast and out the door on time by 8:15am. He's going Tuesday/Thursday at Solana Beach Presbyterian Preschool again this year and it starts at 8:30 and goes until noon. His teachers are Miss Michelle and Miss Theresa. They seem like wonderful ladies and I think he'll have a great year!

There were no tears and he ran in and started playing. Waved and said, "goodbye!" with a big smile on his face.