Miekka: December 2009 Archives

12/03/2009

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LIA TURNS ONE!!

Lia's Brithday.jpg
This photo was taken by my sister in law, Jenni. Check her out at Apple Green Photography

My baby girl turned one mid-November.  She spent the day motoring around while I made her birthday cake.  In the afternoon the mail came and she got a card from Grandma Jean.  I ripped the envelope open slightly and then let her do the rest.  When she finally got the card out and opened it she said, "Oh, wow!"  It was so cute.  She doesn't really talk much yet, so I was pretty surprised by it.
 


I made her a deliciously gooey chocolate cake, decorated with a cute squirrel.  I got the idea from a really cute shirt my mom had given Lia.  It wasn't as fancy as some of the cakes I've done, but it tasted great and wasn't too complicated to put together.
 


We had a dinner that night with some of the Lance clan.  John, Courtenay, and Joseph all came.  It was a nice little party.
 




The next Monday we had a party with my side of the family.  Another dinner and more cake were served.  Amy made the cake that night and it was pretty cute too.  Lia enjoyed all of the wrapping paper and a few of the gifts.
 


Lia is such a joy!  She is almost always happy.  She has been teething lately and so has been a little bit cranky, but it's usually nothing a little snuggling and/or tickling can't take care of.  She loves to pull things out of drawers, boxes, cupboards, etc.  All my kids have gone through this stage, but Lia is different in that she almost always puts away whatever she has taken out before moving on to her next adventure.  I hope that means she's going to be a tidy child.  I could use a little tidiness around here. 

Lia with hat.jpg
This photo was taken by Jenni too

She is starting to make more noises that sound like words, her favorite right now is to toss something off her highchair tray and then say "Uh-oh".  I was also feeding her some M&M's today and when I didn't give her one as fast as she thought I should, she frantically began doing the hand sign for "more".  I have been trying to teach her that sign for a while now, but it didn't seem like she was catching on.  I guess I underestimated her or maybe she just needed the right incentive (a.k.a. chocolate).  She is so adorable.  I know moms always say that about their kids, but she really is!!



LEGOLAND

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we packed up the kids and the car and headed down to Southern California to take the boys to Legoland.  It was a great theme park for them.  Seth is just the right age to really enjoy it.  He was tall enough to go on all the rides and none of them were scary for him at all.
 


Jacob could ride most of the rides and really enjoyed himself too.  He was very sad that he was too short to ride on the Dragon roller coaster, but then later on we found the Dinosaur Coaster and he was happy as a clam to be able to ride that one.
 


Legoland has some really strange height requirements and Lia was not able to ride a single ride, even though most of the rides are more tame than any of the rides she's been on at Disneyland.  The boys had both been doing chores and other things to save up money and were able to buy a Space Police Lego set.  Buying the Lego was apparently Jacob's favorite part of the whole day.  Legoland is a nice park, it is small, uncrowded and caters to really young kids.  We rode almost every single ride in the park in less than 7 hours on a Saturday.  I was really worried that we wouldn't have time to do everything, but I think we only missed four rides.  Seth can't wait to go back again.  I think Legoland is something we might do every other year or something until the boys lose interest, although we may go again in the next year because James and I got free return tickets.  All I can say about it is that it's definitely not Disneyland.  There is no "Magic" there!
 


THANKSGIVING

After Legoland, we headed North to spend Thanksgiving with James' Grandma and Grandpa Lance.  It was a wonderfully relaxing week!  No cleaning, no cooking, free babysitting, good conversations, great food, and beautiful weather.  Pure Heaven!

On Monday we took the kids to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.  We've been there several times, but this time they had a new seahorse exhibit that was really fascinating.  The boys really loved the gigantic tank with the Hammerhead sharks in it.
 


Tuesday and Wednesday were just spent kicking around.  Lia developed a fever on Tuesday night and was not her usual cheerful self for three days.  I suspect it was just a teething fever, because she had not other symptoms and a little Ibuprofen was all it took to make her happy again.  Seth and Jacob got to play with Josh and Julia who are James' cousins, but Josh and Seth are only 4 years apart in age.  Josh has a lot of Legos and was therefore dubbed the Lego King.  Seth and Jacob would have to loved to just play at Josh's house the whole time.  They did get to have a sleep over and they even made up their own secret club together.
 


On Thursday there was a flurry of activity as four sets of cooks tried to all work at once in Grandma's kitchen.  Eventually, everyone was able to cook everything they had planned and we were only slightly late for the beginning of the Thanksgiving festivities.  We ate outside, which was extremely strange for me.  It was a gorgeous day!  Dinner was served in stages with a little bit of entertainment between each stage.  Appetizers were first, followed by a reading from a Pilgrim's letter and the "Thankful Game" in which each person gets three kernels of corn and has to tell something they are thankful for for each kernel.  Seth and Jacob were so cute and both, un-prompted, said they were thankful for their brother.  I had my turn right after them and kept getting choked up because they were so wonderfully sincere and innocent.  Then came soup, salads, a nice break to chat and then the big meal.  Of course most of us were so stuffed, that I'm not sure we did the dinner justice.  Thank goodness for leftovers!  After dinner we had more conversations, games, and sang some Thanksgiving songs.  Dessert was great and we had multiple yummy selections to choose from.  It was the busiest day of our whole trip, but also the nicest. 



On Friday we had another down day where we just hung out mostly.  I went to one store for some Black Friday deals, but I didn't even leave the house until nearly noon, walked in, found what I wanted and then only waited for about 10 minutes to check out.  Next year I might have to do my shopping like that too, it was much nicer than getting up at 4 in the morning and fighting the crowds.  I did miss not being with my mom, aunts and sisters though.  Lia and her Great Grandma Jean enjoyed some bonding time at the piano too.  The picture below is just one of those moments that you want to freeze in time and even the photo doesn't quite capture all the meaning of the moment.



We had originally planned to leave on Saturday so that we would have plenty of time to get home if we hit any weather, but when we looked at the weather reports it was supposed to snow over Donner Pass on Saturday and be totally clear on Sunday.   Needless to say, we decided to leave on Sunday instead.  So Saturday we went to the beach in Monterrey because the kids had been too tired and cranky to go on Monday.  The ocean was really rough due to a small storm that had come through on Wednesday.  There were a bunch of surfers out taking advantage of the great waves.  The tide pools were also really fun.  We saw a sea cucumber that was almost completely covered in shells, some hermit crabs, and some sea stars.  The boys had a great time running on the beach and carving maps into the sand.  Just before we were about to leave Jacob got some sand in his eye.  He kept trying to rub it out, but his hands were covered in sand too.  I took him a little way into the water to rinse his hands off, of course a big wave happened to hit while we were out there.  As I was trying hold Jacob out of the water and walk backwards quickly to get away from it, I lost my balance and fell down.  Man, that water was cold.  Luckily, Jacob didn't get any wetter than he already was, but I was pretty much drenched from the waist down.  Soggy jeans and a cool breeze don't mix very well!  I am really thankful that our car has heated seats and I wasn't too cold on the way back to Grandma's.  



Our drive home was nearly uneventful, although we did have our first throw-up-in-the-car-on-a-trip incident.  Luckily, it wasn't stinky throw-up or it might have been an even longer drive.  Another first for this trip was Seth and Jacob fighting in the car.  I have memories of monumental car fights from when I was a kid and I guess I just took it for granted that my kids just didn't fight in the car, because they never have before.  Then we made the fatal mistake of moving Jakes to the back seat next to Seth so they could both hear the book we had playing on the portable DVD player.  It was all "Mom, he's looking at me!", "Mom, he's looking out my window!", "Mom, he's touching me!", "Mom, he won't let go of the middle seat belt!" from there on out.  We moved Jakes seat back up to the front, the first chance we got.  I guess my kids are angels in the car only because they usually can't get too close to each other! :)

ONE FUNNY SETH STORY

The day after spending Thanksgiving with James' cousins, one of whom is named Jordan,  Seth had a revelation.  He came to us and said, "You know that guy in the green shirt last night?  His name was Jordan."  We said, "Yes, his name is Jordan."  Seth replies, "That's just like where Grandma Debbie and the Punkles live.  In Jordan."  We said, "Yep, his name is just like the name of the country."  To that Seth says, "So why don't you just call me "America", and Jacob "South America"."  We were laughing so hard.  I'm sure the hilarity doesn't quite translate in the telling, but it was sooo funny.  What a Goofball!