Beach Day

If any of you have read Ken and Tris' blog lately, you'll know that we had quite the adventure last week!  Me and my amazing planning skills....I had invited Tris et al. to join us at the Discovery Museum on Monday, without realizing that the museum is actually closed on Mondays!  As we were driving through Larkspur I started getting the horrible, sinking feeling so I called the museum to just make sure and was HORRIFIED to hear that they were closed.  Luckily, all was not lost - we made a detour over to Muir Beach for the morning and that turned out to be perfect.  Actually, I think we both ended up being glad it happened the way it did since it was so beautiful out!  We did make it to the museum later that week, so it ended up being double the fun :).  Here are some pictures from our beach day:

I guess Parker's not so sure that he loves sand anymore?

I just had to post this picture.  Tris, you look so sassy and, dare I say, glamorous!?  The second best part about this photo is that Corban is trying to pull Avery's hair and she's trying to evade his hands.  So funny!

Parker still loves the beach!  He and Corban were amused the whole morning and that's hard to accomplish (at least for Parker!).

This picture reminded me of a picture I took of Landon in Hawaii about a year ago.  I can't believe how big he is now!!

Anyway, thanks for being such great sports guys!  You, too, already know that we're really going to miss you when we go :)

Landon and Charlie

We were able to spend some real quality time with our friends Sarah, Kramer and Charlie this week.  We went to the little farm and then to the Acadamy of Science in San Francisco.  Landon and Charlie are best buddies - they have so much fun together!  They've basically been around each other since before they were born, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised :).  

They held hands like this all the way across the parking lot.

Of course I could only get pictures from the back since they were always looking at the animals. 

I haven't uploaded the pictures from the Acadamy yet, but it was AMAZING!  Definitely a worthwhile trip!  

On a personal note, Sarah and fam: I know you already know this, but we are really going to miss you guys.  Thanks for getting me through long work days at Shorenstein (haha) and for being such great friends to us and our kids!  I know we'll see you again before we leave, but I wanted you to know that we love you guys!!

Sharing

I think this video pretty much epitomizes my life right now.  We gave Parker his birthday present early and this was the outcome.  Parker loves it - and so does Landon.  Enjoy!

Quotes of the Day

Well, we have a lot of pictures to update you on, but here are just a few quotes from yesterday:

L: No, Parker, that's MY Mommy!

P: Wee Wee!!! (meaning Birdie...he says this about 300 times a day)

After Scott came home and gave me a hug:

L: No, Mommy, don't hug Dad!  You're my Mommy!

M: Landon, Mommy and Daddy love eachother - we can hug ok?

L: No.  You not married anymore?

M: What!?

L: You not married anymore.  I want you Mommy!  (Scott was slightly creeped out by this one...haha)

L: I so excited to go on the big train Dad! (jumping up and down)

Belated Halloween

After getting back from Disneyland we celebrated a second Halloween with Len and Kit!  Of course we carved pumpkins.  Here's Landon trying to carve his...he ended up coloring it :)

Parker loved the yucky pumpkin guts!

Here's Landon's pirate pumpkin - he's trying to light it:

He loves pumpkins!

He kept mimicking his pumpkins "mean face"

Donalds waddle:

Our little bear!

We got to go trick or treating with Bailey this year!

Enjoying the suckers afterwards.  

We loved having Len and Kit here (Landon especially loved Papa Len!).  The time change made for some interesting melt downs, but we think everyone had a great time.  We love you guys!

Green Smoothie

Ok, I've heard variations of this from different sources and always thought it was totally gross.  However, in my desperation to get my kids to eat fresh, raw vegetables I decided to try it and *shock* it's SO good!  This is the recipe I've settled on and I swear that you can't taste the greens.  Even Scott loves it!!  I add yogurt and a bit of apple juice (the source I got this from added plain yogurt and herbal sweetener, but I'm not that hard core...).

In your blender:

1 single serving cup of vanilla yogurt (I use Trader Joe's)

1/3 c or so of apple juice

Fill blender with kale (I use black), spinach and collard greens (or any variation of greens)

Blend until smooth, then add:

1 ripe banana

1-2 c of mixed berries (frozen)

SO SO good - you can only taste the berries and banana and it gives you at least 5 servings of fresh, raw greens.  AWESOME!

Landon Quotes

L: Mom, you move away from me for a second?  I just want my Dad.

(He now insists on calling us "Mom" and "Dad".  I can't figure out where he picked that up!?)

While watching Sleeping Beauty:

L: Whoa!  Maleficent is really mad at her piggies!

Parker said "baby" today and "peep! peep!", so we're quite excited :)

Happy Birthday Adele!

Before Halloween we went to our other "opto" friends house in Fremont for Adele's birthday party.  It was a prince and princess themed party and I must say that it was quite a hit with our boys!  Thanks Emily for all of the effort you put into making this party so fun for the kids!

This is Landon decorating his crown.  He still wears this almost daily (loves the jewels) and Parker always tries to wear it too!

For one of the party games the kids had to slay Sleeping Beauty's dragon.  Landon LOVED this part and really got into it.  I'll have to post a video...

Parker enjoying the spoils.  The pinata was filled with "Pirates Booty" and the kids loved it!

Landon and Adele were sword fighting for quite awhile.  I think we were all grateful that the swords were inflatable!

At the end of the party all of the kids got to wave their wands at a pumpkin to turn it into a cake.  They LOVED yelling "bippity boppety boo!" over and over.  Landon kept begging to take Cinderella home - he thought those little princesses were really cool :)

It was so fun to see Adele and co. - they've been on a few rotations out of state so this is really our last time to hang out before we leave!  I'll be calling you soon...

Just as an update, here are Parker's new words:  Eyes, Hi, Dada, Mama, LaLa (Landon), Bubbles, Bubba (Bryson - how does he know you!?  Whenever he sees your picture he gets excited and says "Bubba!!"), Bubble, Moon, Moo!, Baba (bottle), and Wawa (water).  His favorite song is still Itsy Bitsy Spider :)

Election Eve Humor (ok, Humour)

With all this serious talk, I thought a few jokes would do us all good. Here's one we heard from a friend last night:

While trick-or-treating a group of kids knock on a neighborhood door. A man comes to the door and they say "trick-or-treat" (obviously expecting candy in return). The man says "Hmmm, it looks like you've got a lot of candy there. Why don't you give me 50% of it so that I can distribute it evenly among all of the lazy kids who didn't come out trick-or-treating tonight.". One of the kids leans to the other and says "Ah, crap. It's a Democrat".

Ok, and just to be fair, here are a few Republican lightbulb jokes:

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One for the labor and one to borrow a billion dollars for the materials.

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?
260. One who already wants to change the light bulb, and 259 politicians to make a law forcing him to do it.

HA! Happy Election :)

A Letter

A friend of mine posted this on her blog and I thought it worthy of a re-post. Whether you're for or against Prop. 8, this brings compassion and light to the issue (in my opinion). Click here to read:

http://kenandtris.blogspot.com/2008/11/proposition-8-clear-message-from.html

Disney oops...

Ok, I accidentally drafted the Disney post before the last quotes page I did, so scroll down for pictures!!