Conversations with Kids

Overheard at our house recently:

T: "Norah, where's that dog leash? I want to use it as a whip and pretend to be Indiana Jones."

...

N: "Mom, is heaven underground?"
Me: "No."
N: "Is heaven up in the sky?"
Me: "Not exactly..."
N: "Then why do we bury people when they die?"
Me: "Well...(My poor attempt at 6 year-old theology) You don't take your body with you to heaven. You get a new one when your soul gets to heaven. So we bury people here on earth and their soul goes to heaven."
N: "OK."

...

N: (whining from the backseat) "Moooommm, Toby won't let me read The New Yorker!"

Playing Catch-up

It would be overwhelming to post pictures of the year I've missed on the blog. So I am just going to ignore the fact that 12 months have gone missing (we'll blame it on user error--my inability to juggle too many things at once).
Here are a few pictures from the last month or so.

Norah at Kindergarten Promotion!

Toby played a month of post-season little league!

#18. He played every position, but pitching. He liked catcher best.

Toby got baptized on June 8th!

Carmel River State Beach--I had just dropped Toby off for a day at summer camp when I snapped this picture. I was a little jealous of his 2 weeks at summer camp!

Norah at open house, where we went on a tour of her classroom. She worked so hard this year!

My Mystery Trip

We snuck out of town one weekend last month and ended up here:

A view from an elevator.

A pit stop for pizza.

Toby tries out the camera phone.

We rode on interesting public transportation.

We played in the park.

We saw a ship in the harbor. And behind that ship, a prison.

We saw a very long bridge.

We stayed up late reading among the city lights.

We stayed just long enough to get a good taste of a wonderful city. We'll be back, I'm sure.

My Spring Time Activities

While the Philosopher has been working up in San Francisco this week we've been keeping busy at home, enjoying Spring.

On Tuesday we went to the beach after school.

 

 

On Wednesday we dined at Luca, stuffing ourselves on pizza, spaghetti, and gelatto. The kids shared their window seats with some friends, Ozzie and Little Dog, and they shared bites of their gelatto. It was determined before we ordered our meals that Toby would have chocolate and Norah vanilla.

 

We pulled out a box of old toys to have some quality block-building time.

 

And on Thursday we cheered on Toby at his game in Carmel Valley. The weather was just wonderful. (This was a picture of his last hit of the day.)

 

My Little Slugger and My Little Mudder

At baseball today Toby got three hits, and one was a double! It's so cute because he is still learning the rules of the game and how to make plays. I apologize for my craptastic video skills, but the sun was in my eyes while I was filming this so I missed my little guy running for first, as well as the first base coach telling him to keep going! But hopefully you get the idea.

And while Toby was swinging away (the nice thing for these kiddos is that the coach pitches until the kids get a hit), Norah was digging away in the mud.

My First Baseball Season

Playing catcher at practice.

A pause in the line up.

Opening Day practice inning.

Playing catch with teammates on Opening Day.

Toby is a Carmel Volcano! He has a buddy from class on his team (whose dad is the coach), and he loves to hit, throw, and play catcher. We're looking forward to a good first experience with baseball (although we're already lamenting the loss of those slow Saturday mornings!). Here's a video of his first hit in his game last week:

My Little Guy Got Glasses

We knew this day would come.... And he's super excited!

Toby's teacher emailed us a few weeks ago and inquired about getting Toby's eyes checked. She said he politely asked if he could move closer to the board so that he could see what she writes.

We took him to a great eye doctor, and then filled his prescription right away. He picked out two pairs of glasses (the ones above are blue with a white stripe and he also got some black flexible-wire ones).

He is so careful about taking care of his glasses and cleaning them. He is very proud to wear them and he feels like he has a super power now that he can see the board! (When he put them on for the first time and we walked through Costco he said, "Now I can see everything." I didn't realize he was missing so much!) We had our spring parent-teacher conference this past week and it seems like his lack of ability to see the board didn't hold him back from any of the activities or academics in the day to day classroom. He's doing an outstanding job in class, according to his teacher. We'll see how the "super power" of clear sight adds to his classroom experience! 

Norah wanted to see how her big brother was doing the first day he wore his glasses, so she staked out a position and watched her brother play. Then she came back to me to report.

My Intro to Wine Country Weekend

We finally did it -- we experienced the smallest sliver of California wine country. And we got to tag along with some wonderful friends, Chris and Katie, and their dog too!

We traveled to Sonoma and stayed in a house on a hill.
Beautiful views (which helped to erase the memory of the hour-long traffic delay we had on our drive up) and gorgeous weather for the whole weekend made for a relaxing, wonderful time.
We spent Friday night through Sunday afternoon in wine country, with the kids in tow, and we just played the whole time. We went to 4 vineyards on Saturday and two on Sunday. We had coupons for the tastings that we split with our friends and so we ended up trying a little bit of all kinds of wine. (The kiddos either played outside with Chris and the dog, Nevis, or they stayed inside and played on our phones. One time they stayed at the house with Chris and Nevis while we went with Katie to other wineries a bit out of town.)
It was so much fun to feel like we were on a real vacation, not just visiting a place on our way across the country (like when we saw the arch in St. Louis or driving through Yosemite last summer). Actually, we packed so much in our car Norah started asking questions like, "Are we moving?" and "Will it take days and days to get there?"
We ate in every meal except one, and we even had the owners of the rental house over for dinner on Saturday night.*
The favorite part of the trip for the kids? Definitely the hot tub! The Philosopher and I really enjoyed experiencing a different area of our new home, and we feel like we only just broke the surface of the exciting places that are just an afternoon's drive away.

The cheese tasting was more memorable than some of the wineries!

Strawberries and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

This kiddo wanted to eat his weight in cinnamon rolls. He had to settle for waffles.

A pool with a view!

A picnic at a winery -- with built-in pets for the kids! (There were lizards in the rocks.)

*So, our friend Chris is from small town Iowa. The owner of the rental house was from small town Iowa. It turns out Chris' aunt married a guy named Denny who is cousins with the owner. Small world! We invited them over for dinner with us on Saturday night (the Chef made roast tenderloin, potatoes, and broccolini) and enjoyed hearing about the locals' view of Sonoma.

My Weekend Should Always Start with a Beach Day

We had such a busy weekend! The Philosopher was philosophizing at a conference and we booked ourselves solid for the whole weekend.

On Friday we went straight from school to the beach. It was such a gorgeous afternoon. We found a little spot in a cove that blocked the wind and we hung out for hours. The kids dug holes (we really need some good shovels) and played in the trees and the moms just chatted. 

Then we came home and "enjoyed" some homemade pizza. I am working on my 2013 goal to eat pizza as often as possible, but I am on a mission to find a good dough recipe. I used a no-knead recipe and one from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. They both turned out really dry. I'll have to keep experimenting. Just because the dough was dry doesn't mean we didn't eat almost all of the pizza, though!

Saturday was completely booked. We made crepes, then ran errands in the morning (Toby needed cleats for baseball as well as uniform stuff and a batting helmet), which led into a birthday party for his classmate in the afternoon. The kids had so much fun!! The birthday girl's family booked out the entire Carmel Youth Center and so the kids could play games, do crafts, and even watch a movie in a mini-theater!

Once the kids were loaded on popcorn, soda, and cupcakes we went home for a brief rest before going to another friend's house for a really neat house concert. Some (newly) local musicians played folk-Americana music for a few hours, and there was even a babysitter for the kids.

On the way home from the concert Toby said, "I am so tired I just want to brush my teeth, get in my pajamas, and go straight to bed!" He heard no complaint from me!

Sunday was full of relaxation and chores-catch-up in the morning and baseball practice in the afternoon.

Some weekends are so busy that we (almost) look forward to a slow and easy weekday routine!

My Kids Fall Asleep in Weird Positions

Norah wanted to go back to a crib. This was her solution:

No, she did not spend the entire night in that little box, although she wanted to, and was disappointed to discover upon waking that she was in her bed.

Toby likes to read before falling asleep. Sometimes he's so tired that he falls asleep while attempting to turn out his book lights.

My Night to Cook: a journey in photos

We made an attempt to cook the fish one Tuesday, while the Philosopher worked late. It was... interesting.

I made this loaf of bread first:

Then Norah helped me bread the fillets.

 

I had to document each kiddo trying a bite of fish:

 

And after all that, this is mainly what we ended up eating for dinner:

From now on we're letting the Philosopher handle the fish frying (and baking and stewing and ... everything else).

My First Aquarium Visit

We are so excited about our new aquarium passes!!

I went for the first time with the kids this week, and we were able to take my cousin and his family along too. It was so cool! There were touch pools and sharks and an octopus just like the Mystic Aquarium. But there were also tons of jellyfish, turtles, a play area, and lots of places to explore (and get lost in.... Thankfully we all stuck together on this trip and we didn't lose anyone!).

 There is a really neat area where you can experience being "in" a wave. Norah and I spent a while there, watching the wave crash over us.

We also (of course) spent time being goofy for the camera. Toby's cousin, Tova, is adorably in love with whales, and they even got to see some grey whales while they were here on vacation!

After a few hours at the aquarium we worked up an appetite for huge plates of chicken fingers and some fish tacos. Wahoo!