No more training wheels!!

Ben spent the afternoon practicing riding his 2-wheel bike today. He went up and down the block, back and forth for a long time. Hannah joined him at one point on her tricycle. He loves it. He has a bigger bike and will be riding it without training wheels soon. He's just getting comfortable and used to it on his little one for now. He's so excited to go biking with his Daddy. Just like Daddy.

It's safe to say...

that Ben is potty trained!!! He still can't make it through the night being dry but during the day he's got it!! We can't be happier...well we will I guess when he is dry all night too, but we'll get there.

Happy birthday!

Noah is 3 months old today! Time is flying by so fast!! He cooes and talks, tries to giggle and squeals all day long (well, when he's not sleeping).

Dinner....

We had chicken burritos this evening for dinner served with all the fixings! I bought some guacamole from Trader Joe's as an extra. Ben loves avocado but didn't want any with his burrito. Hannah wanted to try some so she asked for it "I want some maca-moleee!!" Aaawww....

artist...

Maybe Hannah will be an artist. She asks to paint all the time. Today she was in tears when I told her that she needed to wait for me to get it ready. I guess she didn't understand that she could but I needed to do something beforehand. She loves it, and gets busy as soon as it's all set up. I think that we need a little paint corner for her so that she can do it any time she wants. I think she'd like that...but where to put it?

The cow...

We have a little gym that we put Noah under during the day. We also just put him on a blanket and read stories to him and have him do his exercises (lay on his tummy, grabbing toys...). We have a cloth book that was given to Ben when he was a baby and it has cows on the cover and inside throughout the pages. I think it's called something like Discover the Farm-or something like that. Noah is really interacting with us and cooing and 'talking' to us. Sometimes it looks like he's getting tickled and he crunches his legs up and rolls slightly to the side while smiling. When we show him this book he focuses on it and smiles and talks to the cows! Every time. It is so adorable. He loves the book so we read it to him often.

pop my eyes?

We went to Cuyamaca today and went on a little hike at Green Valley Falls with the kids. They had fun running around in circles close to the river. With every circle Corey and I nearly jumped out of our skin thinking they would slip into the rushing ice cold river and end up with hypothermia or a broken bone. They never fell in. On our hike we found acorns and holes in the ground. They wondered what types of animals lived inside the ground and decided that it had to be mice, not squirrels, rabbits or snakes.

We stopped at another campgroup area to see the snow that had fallen the night before. The kids and Corey had fun making snowballs with the little slushy snow on the ground and throwing them at Corey and I. Noah slept through the entire snowball fight in the car. When their littel fingers got too cold we got into the car and headed home...it was getting late.

While driving home the kids watched Finding Nemo on our little portable player. As we were driving down the mountain Ben said that he couldn't hear the movie. I tried to turn it up but the volume was already at it's highest. I figured the elevation loss was the problem and he needed to equalize his ears. I told him to try to yawn or chew. He looked at me with such innocence and said "to pop my eyes?"

New stuff!

We went to the Carlsbad outlet stores today (as we do every couple of months). Hannah is wearing a size 3T now and Ben needed new shoes. He really does a number on his shoes. We don't mind going up there. It's a nice drive and it's good to get out of the valley ;0) Anyway we found shoes for both of them and some clothes for all 3 of them! This time of the year is when all the great clearance sales are so we took full advantage! They even got some new sunglasses.

Sick-ey...

Ben had an eventful night of emptying his stomach so he didn't feel like doing much of anything today. Hannah on the other hand was more than excited about going to Nanny's by herself! I think it was the first time that she went alone. She had fun too. Nanny had a new toy that she could play with. Ben stayed here with us while we cleaned up that last bit of Christmas that was lying around the house. We also did a lot of cleaning of sheets and blankets from last night. Pretty un-eventful but we were still very busy!

Vomit...

Yep tonight we had a vomit episode. Benjamin complained that his tummy hurt a few times after dinner. He showed me that it was right under his belly button and we kept telling him that mabye it was because he had to go to the bathroom. He kept trying and telling us that he didn't need to go. He got ready and went to bed. Corey was lying between Ben and Hannah for a few minutes and all of a sudden there was a huge commotion and they went to the bathroom. He threw up all of dinner and some lunch. I know this because it was all over the bed, comforter and pillow. And it stunk!

He felt so much better and really liked the attention he got for it. He just wanted to "stay up all night" to see if he would have to throw up again. Hah!

Hiking

Today we went on a hike together. Corey had to go back to work today and I took all 3 kids on a hike. We went on what I thought would be a short loop for the kids, but it ended up being 1.4 miles! Yikes! We thought we wouldn't make it back to the car. It took 3 hours for us to walk that at a kids pace. We did stop a few times for a break and a snack. We found a big oak tree and they had more snack and water and loved to climb it. They were little monkeys! We had fun.

Happy New Year!!

Last night we went to the Lunas house in Coronado for a few hours. It was drizzling throughout the night and we didn't know if it was going to get any worse. We also didn't know how many people would show for the party. By the time we left it was getting to be a full house. Ben and Hannah dissapeared upstairs with the kids the second we got there and Noah fell asleep so afterwards. We left early and to bring in the new year at home. As we were leaving the kids were saying goodbye to everyone. Hannah didn't want to leave because they were just starting to get a game out (Cranium). I had to tell her that the game was for bigger kids, but that we would bring a game over for them all to play~like Candyland~or something that she could play.

She was brokenhearted!

She crawled up into my arms with sad teary eyes (no cries though) and said "OK". It was so sad, I thought I might cry. She wanted to play with the big kids and understood that the game wasn't for her...poor thing! We came home, she had forgotten all about it and we played Candyland tonight with them.