It's the Great Pumpkin Andrew and Zane!

Maybe it is just me, but one of my absolute favorite parts of the holidays is all the fun specials on TV. I am not talking about the adult type ones, I am talking about Charlie Brown, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Grinch. What is Christmas without the Grinch I ask you!!! So, you can imagine my delight when I saw that It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was on last night! My boys stayed up to watch the special and the follow up (You're Not Elected Charlie Brown, I think). It turned out to be quite a late night for everyone but how could I deny my own kids one of my favorite parts of the season!



We got both guys all scrubbed up in the tub and dressed in PJ's. Then we sat on the couch and watched the shows as a family. Crystal even sat and watched the shows with us. I can't wait for the Thanksgiving specials to start!

Thoughts of Spring

I know that it may be a little too soon to be thinking about spring but I bought a whole bunch of bulbs at Costco this last week and planted them all this weekend! I am very excited to see all my tulips, daffodils and crocuses pop up next spring. I told Eric that I would wait one year before I did anything to the yard and it has now been one year and I was itching to put some more sping color in the front yard. For those of you that know me you realize that gardening is not my deal but I can handle bulbs. They pretty much take care of themselves! That is my type of gardening. When my yard is in its full glory next year I will be sure to put some pictures up!

New Connection Type

I got DSL. My new RAM did not have the anticipated speed for uploading that I was looking for so I decided to upgrade my internet conncection. Let's see how it works for pictures! (in case you were wondering it just took me 2 minutes to upload this pictures, rather than the 30 it was taking me to do each one! AWESOME!!!)

Just as an FYI this was the first time that Crystal ever held a cat. I guess they don't have cats as pets in Hong Kong very often. They are more of a puppy kind of country. She was a little put off by how much they wiggle but I think she was pretty impressed!

A Room for New Baby

We spent time working this week on "New Baby's" room. The weather was so nice that we decided to take advantage of the heat and paint while we could open windows and air the place out! Andrew was so excited to help Eric and I paint that was almost driving us crazy with asking. Andrew got his own little brush (the one in his left hand was his) and was allowed to paint on the walls while Eric used the roller and I got to do all the edge work. He thought it was pretty cool, especially since he got to do it in his underwear and socks. The only thing that went a bit awry is that he put his hand on the wall while the paint was still wet and I didn't remember to paint over it so there is the imprint of Andrew's hand on the wall. You can't tell unless the light hits it just right but it is actually kinda cute to think that he marked his new siblings room, at least until we paint it again.

Here is the best picture of the room that I could take from the doorway. I just need to hang the wall hanging back up on the wall (it is going to go behind the rocking chair). I am currently racking my brain to remember where I put the brackets and the rod that go with it. Let me tell you by the end of the day we had torn the house apart looking for the mobile and the crib bumper. I knew where everything else was and I swore up and down that I had checked all the boxes in the house. Where did we end up finding the blasted things but in the room, in the one box I had neglected to look in. Lets just say that Eric was none to pleased with me since I had made him dig through all the boxes in the garage rafters, under the house and everywhere else he could think of. When we finally discovered them in the room (where they were supposed to be) he shot me a murderous look and left the room for a few minutes. At that point he was in no mood to continue the search for the missing rod and brackets. Not that I blame him. I think I would have been super annoyed too if I were him!




All in all it is nice for the room to be basiclly done and ready for a new little one to live in. I don't know if we will be able to keep Andrew from being too excited now. He really wants this little one to come soon!

Interpreter and Punching Bag

It appears that I need to add two more job titles to my ever growing resume as a mom. The first is interpreter. Zane is trying so hard to talk right now and I don't know who finds it more frustrating, him or me! He is very adamant about what he wants to say but the words just do not want to come out right. For example, if you are with him and he suddenly starts shrieking "Ti-Ti a Poo" you might come to the relatively reasonable conclusion that he might need his diaper changed. That unfortunately would be incorrect and not only would he be irate that you didn't understand what he was saying, he would fight you tooth and nail as you tried to wrestle him through a diaper change, where you would find neither "Ti-Ti" nor "Poo"! No, "Ti-Ti a Poo" is the way that Zane says Tigger and Pooh (see it makes sense now that I told you right!) and he is very fond of both of them. He also has been known to go through all the characters from Thomas (Ta Tam), Gordon (Go Go), Percy (Er-ee), Toby (Ta), James (Ame) and Henry (N-EE). This can be utterly maddening until you guess right because every time you guess wrong you get this disgusted "NO" from him. When you are finally right you get a "Yea" Like, "That is what I said, what took you so long to figure it out!"

My other new job title is Punching Bag because this new baby seems to think that all my insides are her personal gym. I was hurting so bad this weekend from the baby. Every time I breathed in it felt like someone was stabbing me in the side with a knife. I am pretty sure that this kid had punched my ribs out of joint. Let me tell you that did not feel good! I ended up at the chiropractor where Dr. Penny put me all back together again. I am hoping there will be no repeat of that particular joy of pregnancy and that part of my job title with be a one time occurrence.

Pumpkin Carving

Each of us is standing behind our very own creation!

Today we introduced Crystal to the art of pumpkin carving! She was completely disgusted by the pumpkin guts and will more than likely be sore tomorrow from scraping the pumpkin out. It did not help that the one she picked was possibly the toughest pumpkin I have ever seen. It was really hard to pierce the skin with a knife and the insides were very thick! Right now she is complaining that her shoulder hurts and I think mine would be sore too if it had taken me an hour just to scrape out the guts. She also has no plans to ever carve a pumpkin again. I think that the fun of it was lost in all the work. Since it is not a tradition in Hong Kong, she is going to pretend to be ignorant in the event of any children ever asking her about it! I think that might be a wise decision!

As you can see from the picture we carved four different ones this year. Andrew was very particular about what his face looked like and he also insisted that his have ears just like him. Unfortunately, the picture does not show off the cute pumpkin ears.

Zane wanted his pumpkin carved but he didn't seem to care what it looked like so Mom got to just make up a face for it. Apparently he was quite impressed with the results.

I am tired. I scraped out and carved 3 pumpkins in about 2 hours. Eric (lucky guy) managed to be working a Seahawks game today and missed out on all the fun/work involved in this activity. I don't think that he minds the project, he would just rather be a viewer of the results that a participant in the activity. Next year I am going to time this better so that I can be sure to have a helper. Unfortunatly Andrew can be quite insistent about pumpkin carving when the pumpkins are sitting on the front porch. It was easier for me to just do the project by myself that to fight with him for a whole day about waiting to carve the pumpkins. I am choosing to pick my battles and this was not one worth fighting in my opinion!

Corn Maze and Pumpkin Hunting

Today we went to "The Farm" in Snohomish to do the corn maze of Washington State with Crystal's exchange program group. Apparently Crystal has never been to a farm and was slightly put off by the smells and the mud. We had a lot of fun but the field and maze were sloppy muddy! Both boys fell several times and were completely filthy by the time they got done. Andrew was relatively clean except for his hands but Zane managed to slip and fall in some pumpkin slime that was very busy molding in the field. You should have seen Eric dragging him in the grass to try and get the majority of it off. It was sticky and goopy and no amount of wiping with a tissue was going to get it off his jeans. We also got pumpkins that we will be carving tomorrow so you can check in later to see our creative masterpieces!

The Farm also had a whole bunch of super cute animals to pet and play with. Andrew got to hold a kitten and he fell in love with it! He hasn't gone so far as to ask for a kitten of his own but I am sure that the day will be coming soon. He adores cats (especially grandpa and grandma meows) and always wants to pet and hold them. Eric, on the other hand, is not a cat fan and it will be up to him to break his boy's heart. I like cats, I grew up with them and think they are lots of fun. Plus it is so cute to see Andrew snuggling a kitty. Andrew actually picked this picture for the blog out of all of them because it had the kitten in it. Let's just see how tough Eric is in a few years when his little guy is begging and pleading for a cat of his own!

Sticker Charts Work!

We have instituted a sticker chart for Andrew's swimming lesson. We had such problems last session that I was ready to pull my hair out! Just as the session was ending I remembered how reward driven my dear boy is so out came the construction paper and pens. A sticker chart was in the works! All Andrew has to do is go to his class every time, get in the water, stay in the water and listen to his teacher and then he gets a sticker for his chart. Once all nine squares have been filled up he will get a special treat (probably ice cream or something like that). Hopefully that should alleviate our swimming lesson issues. I have yet to decide if we will sign him up again before our new little one arrives. We will have to play this session by ear! I can admit it, I am not above bribery with reward charts!

Car Troubles and Frustration

Obviously the pictures have nothing to do with the topic of the blog. I thought you might just appreciate some pictures of my sweet guys. We have been fighting with my van since we bought it (over 2 years ago!) over a coolant leak that Eric and his dad have chased from one section of the engine to another. Tuesday it decided to finally do in our radiator which although it was not a complicated fix it was a slightly expensive one. I would just love for our van to be finally fixed and not have anymore problems. That way neither Eric or Gene have to spend any more time on it and I can rest a little easier knowing that the problem has been resolved. I guess that is what you get when you buy used and you put a lot of miles on it. Thank God that everything so far has been fixable by the two guys. Mechanics bills are not my idea of a good time, and Eric and simply too cheap to pay someone to do something that he feels he can do himself!

A new updated picture

I decided that it was time for me to put up a new picture of my two guys. The one that has been up was from October of last year and that is just a little too old in my opinion. My problem seems to be that my guys just don't want to sit next to each other and pose so when they do I have to take the opportunity and run with it. This new picture was taken one night when they were both running around playing and for the majority of the time they were playing nice. Anyway, enjoy the pic!

Crystal and Homecoming

At long last I am posting a picture of Crystal on this blog. Last night was Crystal's homecoming dance and she and two other exchange friends (Kitty from China and Minami from Japan) got ready at our house for the dance. It was a lot of fun and very reminicent for me to my own high school dances and getting ready at each other's house (sigh, I guess I am getting old and nostalgic!) The girls had a great time and Zane and Andrew thought it was great fun to have two additional big girls over to play with and show off for!

All in all Crystal is having a great year and we are having so much fun hosting her!

Special Time with Zane

Tonight I got to have some special time with my Zaners. Eric, Crystal and Andrew all went to the high school homecoming game and Zane and I stayed home to play and put him (and me) to bed early! It was kinda wierd to just have the two of us at home. We played some puzzles and read some books but it was a very mellow night. It actually reminded me a lot of when Andrew was small before we had Zane. I think the official verdict is that even though I had so much fun with him and I, I wouldn't change back to just one kid anytime in the near future. Andrew and Zane play together pretty well and keep each other entertained most of the time.

On a completely seperate note I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and this baby is showing signs of being large already. I am only 25 weeks pregnant but my belly is already measuring like I am 27 weeks. This may not seem like that big of a deal but this is how I started out with Zane and he weighed 9 pounds 10 ounces. And that was being born one week early!!!! My only concilation is that they may decide to do another ultrasound close to my due date to try and determine the babies size and in that we might get another peek at the sex of this little one. I am wanting a more definite answer before I go and spend my life savings on a wardrobe of pink, purple and all things flowers. I guess if I have to wait until this little one comes it won't be the end of the world, but think of all the after Christmas sales I am going to miss!

New RAM!

I am very very excited to announce that our computer now has a whole bunch more RAM working for it! Not only does this mean that I performed computer surgery but also that I can load more pictures for everyone's enjoyment.

Sam the Dork

I felt that I needed to share a little of my nerdiness with all of you in the form of a picture. I have an obsession with huge stuffed creatures that some businesses (especially in touristy areas) put out in front of thier stores. It is almost a compulsion for my to have my picture taken with them. When Eric and I were first married we went on a cruise to Alaska and I indulged in this guilty little pleasure in Juneau. Once again the bug has bit and this time it was in Canada. So, feel free to laugh at me looking like a dork. It might not be super apparent but I am looking very prego as well.