oily mess.

the other night, i was starting to get some things out for dinner when, out of the corner of my eye, i noticed tad flopping around on the kitchen floor.

what the..?

NOOOO!!

tad had somehow gotten our vegetable oil bottle open and was now swimming in a ginormous puddle of oil on our kitchen floor. it was everywhere!

i snatched him up and quickly plopped him in the kitchen sink. but, as i started stripping him down, i realized he was poopy too. so i call to chet to get the wipes. fast. and toss ever the oily mess to me.

chet hustles for the wipes and tosses them... right in the oil.

gaaah!

oil and poop everywhere. it was all so bad. i picked up my phone and called matt, on the verge of tears, to hurry home. i can't do this!

unfortunately, you don't hurry home from work in LA. matt showed up long after the mess was cleaned up. but, at least he tried!

long story short, i cleaned up tad, plopped him in his crib, and listened to him cry while i scrubbed our floor like 80 times. oil is relentless!

from now on, oil will be stored at the very top of our pantry.

boy update.

my boys!!

at the kidspace museum.

national walk & bike to school day.
the kids got escorted by police on motorcycles!

at a pumpkin patch.

and another pumpkin patch, with chet's class.

library craft.

passed out after a zoo field trip.

(those are matt's pants..)

waiting for swim lessons to start.

who needs toys?

at our favorite park.

movie date with friends.

holden's future girlfriend, delphine.

spelled his name at the library.

they only have capital letters, but he got creative and made some lower case ones too.

how did he get so enormous?

tad went for a check up the other week.

he is 14 months old now.

he weighed in at 21 lbs (50th percentile)

he is 29.75 inches tall (20th percentile)

and his head is big. (80th percentile)

we are at that stage where he is too dang heavy to carry around in his bucket seat, but i am not ready to give up the convenience of having a seat that i can transfer when he falls asleep in it.

tad has 8 teeth now - 4 on the top, 4 on the bottom.

he has absolutely mastered crawling. so fast!

he has just barely started pulling himself up to stand. like, i think he has maybe done it 3 times!

he is a good sleeper. although, he doesn't get as many structured nap times as i would like (due to being number 3!)

he sure likes to eat.

he is a fruit freak (like holden) and loves meat.

he has acquired a sweet tooth. he loves when we give him little treats like chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, or little bites of other sweet things!

he loooves water. he thinks baths and swimming are the best!

he likes swings, going on walks, climbing, putting stuff in and out of boxes/drawers/bags and playing with his big brothers.

sometimes i think he says 'chet', but it hasn't been confirmed. so, for now his only words are 'mama' and 'dada'.

tad is seriously the happiest, most easy-going kid..
but he has so many annoying things that he loves to do lately! haha

for example...
he makes vacuuming im-poss-i-ble - i can't vacuum when he is sleeping for fear of waking him up. and i can't vacuum when he is awake because he literally has no fear of vacuums and basically rides ours around when i'm using it!

he is also at that frustrating age where he loves watching things fall. so he throws everything on the floor! and, ask my kids, i HATE hearing things drop on the floor! "STOP. DROPPING. TOYS!", is a common thing i say to my children. i'm mean, i know.

tad loves playing in tanks water bowl. and that is seriously water i would never want to play in.

and he is obsessed with getting in the bathroom! ahhhh! does he not know how germ-o-phobic i am!? we have a very strict always-shut-the-bathroom-door rule in our home. but, the second someone accidentally forgets to shut a door, tad is hustling for that door at full speed!

ok, so i am done bashing tad now. even though i just made a long list of things he does that drives me bonkers, he is still just theee loveliest little fellow around!

***

holden has been taking swim lessons 2 times/week for the past 3 months and something finally clicked last week! he gets it now! and he is just loving being able to swim on his own and dive down for toys. i am so so proud of him.

holden and i (and tad) still go to lots of storytimes throughout the week and sit down and learn a few things at home each week.

i think he will do really great in kindergarten next year..
if i let him leave me!

holden is growing into such a nice boy. i love watching him play. he has a great imagination and loves to talk and sing to himself as he plays.

he is such a good big brother to tad - gets down on the floor and crawls with him, "reads" him books, steals bites of his soggy snacks (so gross!), fetches him toys, and loves to play peek a boo with him!

he is such a supportive brother to chet. he thinks all the things chet gets to do at school are so neat, and is always so excited for him. every day, when we pick chet up from school, holden takes a toy or a snack for chet to have on the ride home. so thoughtful :)

***

i met with chet's teacher the other week for his first parent-teacher conference of first grade. his teacher had nothing but nice things to say, which i loved hearing! she said chet is super easy going, always does what he is asked, and is a good friend to his classmates. she also said he is learning new concepts well, and isn't afraid to ask for help when something doesn't make sense to him.

i can't get over how quickly he is learning how to read, and spell, and add. it's all so exciting!

school is tiring for chet though. some days he comes home from school and is a total emotional wreck. (i wonder where he gets that from..? haha). i try to be patient when he is feeling that way. after all, he does have to endure long days of always listening and obeying rules.. and spending time around obnoxious first graders!

chet is part of his school's junior choir. he loves it. i am excited to go to his concert in decemeber.

we got the proofs for chet's first grade pictures back yesterday and i can't believe how grown up (and handsome!) he looks in them.

life feels very busy lately, but we are so happy!

ULCA game

the pasadena school district was given 2 tickets for every 1st-5th grader to go the ulca/utah football game at the rose bowl this past weekend.

we snatched up a couple extra tickets so that our whole family could get in for free.

matt and i were pumped to go to a college game, and thought our boys would think it was pretty cool.

but, alas, we were wrong. again.

our boys whined the entire time!

it didn't help that it was ridiculously hot that day - like, people were being treated for heat stroke all over the place. and we were all sweaty messes. and chet drank all the water i packed before we even got to our seat! (typical chet)

but still, they didn't have to have such painfully rotten attitudes.

from the moment we got there, the boys just wanted to get treats. and, when we did got to get treats, they refused to agree on the same ones.

needless to say, we only stayed until halftime.

matt might not agree, but i still found some enjoyment in being there. even if i don't follow the game, i find all sorts of fun in watching the cheerleaders/band/fans/the big screen/vendors/behind the scenes people.

next time we go to a game, though, it will be kidless!

the day i crashed. by: chet leavitt

when i was pregnant with tad, the boys and i got in a teensy little car wreck.

a wreck that was not my fault at all!

i was going straight through a green light and a car going in the opposite direction turned left in front of me.

i slammed on my brakes, but we still collided.

our car ended up needing some minor repair work.

to this day, the boys talk about it often - like it was the huge wreck that *I* got them in.

and matt loves to jump on the bandwagon and give me a hard time every time they bring it up!

i am always pointing out that it was not my fault, and that i am still a good driver, but no one ever believes me.

today, i went to chet's school for a literacy celebration.

i got to read some books that he wrote at school. (without the help of a teacher for spelling or content).

i couldn't help but laugh when he read one to me.

the book is called 'the day i crashed' and, i am sure you can guess, is about that dang car wreck.

chet's teacher laughed when i explained the background of the story, and said has heard lots of interesting versions of stories in her career!

oh chet, i sure love you :)

***

the day i crashed

by chet leavitt

my mom was taking me and holden home. we crashed!!!!

we go-ed to the police station. it was time for bed.

we go-ed to the mechanic the next day.

worst parents ever: boy scouts edition.

although, in the end we are terrible people, this post starts out with us being really great parents..

we wanted to get chet involved in an extracurricular activity but, since he isn't really into sports yet, we thought boy scouts might be fun.

matt has fond memories of the time he spent in boy scouts in his youth, and really wants our boys to have a love for camping and the outdoors.

sooo.. we got in touch with the scout pack in pasadena, attended the first pack meeting, got chet his scout uniform, and even went to the first function. (i will tell more about that later!)

without going into all the details, after all that, we ended up feeling like boy scouts wasn't actually the right program for chet right now. and that the fees and time were more then we wanted to commit to.

even though we had attended a few things, and gotten chet all pumped for boy scouts, we still hadn't officially joined the pack or paid the fees and were therefore able to back out.

..and we did!

worst parents ever, right?

ahhh. we were so nervous to tell chet the change of plan but, when we finally got the guts to, he was totally fine with it.

we promised him we would plan a family camping trip soon to make up for it, and that won him over.

so i took back the uniform when he was at school one day (excpet for the hat that he really likes for some odd reason!) and we are now on the hunt for a different extracurricular activity!

he did look so cute in that dorky uniform though..

as for the funcstion we attended.. it was seriously so terrible! haha

we woke up at like 3:30am to drive to a town in the middle of nowhere, called Trona, to attend this thing called gem-o-rama.

the town is sooo stinky. i honestly don't know how people live there!

the stink comes from the salt fields that the town is built around, and which the reason we were there.

we got right in the salt and brine to search for crystals, called pink halite.

some people were so good at it but we were NOT.

it didn't help that we had the worst digging tools ever!

we brought a hammer and a small crow bar - and we were competing against people with 6 foot long steel spears. not fair, really.

the boys did enjoy themselves, and i swear i wasn't so pessimistic in the moment (matt might disagree!), but we definitely won't be attending gem-o-rama again!

see those salty legs?

one of the crystals we found:

how long will it last?

we have all 3 boys in 1 bedroom.

partly because we love them sharing a room.

but mostly because we only have 2 bedrooms and have no other choice!

matt built chet and holden a bunk bed a couple years ago and, not long after it was built, we ended up just taking out the bottom bed because the boys allllways shared the top bunk anyways.

years later, they still share that same twin bed.

i love listening on the monitor and hearing them giggle themselves to sleep every night, or whisper good morning to each other. 

but, sadly, it is getting a bit snug up there!

i wonder how long it will last..

nudey.

it is officially fall. but it sure doesn't feel like it!

like, it's still hotter then it probably ever got in calgary this summer!

of course, i am loving it.

the thought that i won't have to worry about/drive in/shovel/bundle up for/play in/look at/or even exist in snow this winter makes me so happy!

like, sooo happy.

but that doesn't mean that we aren't feeling the heat.

we are too cheap to turn our AC on unless it is deathly hot in our house.

for example, the other day our thermostat read 92F.. so i turned it off. haha.

(normally we don't let it get quite that bad!)

but our boys spend a lot of their days nearly naked to prevent getting sweatier then necessary.
and sometimes completely naked.. as soon below!

(i will be the first to admit that it's super weird that they were riding around naked on plasma cars. it started out because i had trimmed up chet's hair for his school pictures and it made him all itchy. and then it just escalated from there! but don't we all secretly wish we were confident enough to do that?! haha)

cheapskates..

we have taken advantage of a lot of free activities around pasadena this past week.

last sunday, we went to the 60th anniversary part of the gamble house.

we toured the gorgeous house, played some fun games on the grounds, and signed our boys up for a free woodworking class on a school bus that had been converted into the cutest little mobile workshop.

on tuesday and wednesday, holden, tad and i went to our usual storytimes.

on thursday, we got to build a kaleidoscope (that actually works!) at a library in altadena.

and this morning, we participated in one of those workshops that home depot puts on for kids.

the boys got to build a firetruck and there was also a real firetruck for them to explore.

this coming week, we are going to the kids space museum for their free night.

i now how a resolve to seek out all the free and/or cheap things we can participate in.

heck, why not?