New Year, New Hair

During 2010, I grew my hair longer. Which, of course, meant that I spent most of 2010 with 'transition' hair. Fortunately, my hair is now long enough to pull back in a pony tail which makes it more manageable than the sticking out at the sides 'transition' style.

Here is a family picture from the Fall at the Wilderness Park. Because the kids live in a suburb of Los Angeles, sometimes we have to take them to dedicated parks to expose them to nature.

Kroboths among well-groomed 'wilderness'

I was even able to wear my hair in an 'up do' for the first time in a long time. I did express my concerns to my stylist as to whether an 'up do' was even appropriate for my age or if it would be too prom-night-was-more-than-a-decade-ago. She reassured me that it would be ok.

Well-groomed Kroboths

You may notice that I am slouching and trying to move my feet apart as much as possible in order not to tower over Dan here. It's a funny story...

I needed dress shoes to wear with my shiny dress. I had to wear the shiny dress because the company Holiday Party was being held at the Hollywood Magic Castle. So, the morning of the event, I went shopping. As Dan was at work, I took the kids to Nordstrom's Rack with me. At Nordstrom's Rack, the shoe department displays one of each shoe on the shelf, then you take the shoe you are interested in to the desk and they find its match. So, the boys managed to behave well enough, even helping me to look for shiny silver or red shoes. Then, we found a great shoe, I tried it on, it fit, and we went to get its partner. Unfortunately, things were slow and we were in a hurry. I tried on the other shoe, it fit, and we quickly purchased them and left. I forgot to try on both shoes at the same time and realize that they made me about 6'2" tall. I kind of towered over Dan. Fortunately there were still 2 people at the work Holiday party who I was shorter than, Jeff and Matt. But I did spend most of the evening hanging onto Dan for balance and staying close to the walls of the Magic Castle. Fortunately many of the hallways throughout the castle were narrow (walls close by) and the stairways had (oddly-low) rails.

So in summary, longer hair, taller shoes.

Bill Nye the Solar Guy

So a while back, Bill Nye the Science Guy stopped by work. I swear he looks exactly the same as I remember him from TV all those years ago. He's also just as goofy in real life as he is in his show.

When I got home that day, I went to the TiVo to set up a recording for 'Bill Nye the Science Guy.' I think I had watched it previously with the kids, but the concepts were a bit too much for the little guys. Unfortunately, the show wasn't currently available so I set up a wishlist to record all Bill Nye shows. It turns out that Bill Nye is on the 'Living with Ed' show. That is a show about Ed Begley, Jr and his quest to be super green with his house. Bill is Ed's neighbor who competes with Ed to be the greenest guy on the block.

It happened that our hot water heater had started to fail as all of this was happening. One of the 'Living with Ed' shows demonstrated Bill Nye's solar hot water heating system. Thinking this is kind of cool, we got some quotes to replace our hot water heater with a solar one. Along with those quotes, we got some solar electricity quotes.

A couple of years ago we had looked at getting some photovoltaic solar panels. At the time it didn't quite make sense. But, during our current investigation, we determined that adding some panels to the south-facing side of our garage roof would work out. Right now the state of California is offering a rebate on the panels and the Federal Government is offering a 30% tax credit. The rebate and credit cover about half of the panel cost. Then, the system pays for itself in 5-7 years with energy savings. Plus, adding the solar panels increases the value of our home, I believe more than the cost of installing them.

The solar hot water part wasn't nearly as cost effective, so we got a regular, but smaller than the previous one, new hot water heater. The kids loved using the box as a house.

Painting the Box House

Of course, the reason the kids were in swimsuits while painting is because we put them in the kiddie pool right after to try to get the "washable" paint off.

We had the same company, Moore Solar and Green Construction, install both the hot water heater and the solar panels. During the hot water heater installation, they were also doing the drawing for the solar panel plan. Dan was hanging out during the process since he had built the new stand for the hot water heater. Gas hot water heaters in garages need to be elevated and our stand had suffered some nasty water damage from the leaky hot water heater. Dan got to chatting about inverters and stuff and found that you can get micro-inverters, one per solar panel to better monitor individual panel output. So now we can monitor everything! Dan has taken up solar output monitoring as his new hobby.


The boys have taken up residence in their new, bigger-than-the-hot-water-heater-box house. It was the one that had solar panels in it.

Skylight Installed in this Box House

It took a while to get everything approved for the installation. In the city of Los Angeles, it takes about a half hour to get the initial plans installed. However, here in Redondo Beach, it can take up to 8 weeks. Fortunately, during the process, the mayor stopped by our house to talk about Measure G which was coming up in the November 2nd election. So I inquired as to the staffing level of the city planning office. After an email or two, we were promised expedition of our process and things finally got going for the install. However, we are currently waiting for final approval from the electric company before we can turn the system on and reap the benefits during the cloudy winter. Hey, at least we didn't do this at the beginning of the summer expecting lots of sun. As this past summer was one of the coldest on record, and one of the most dreary, maybe we are in line for a super sunny winter.

Summer Visitors - Dad and Lee come to California

Dad and an excited Alex

We had a great visit with Dad and Lee as they came to enjoy our warm weather... wait, no, that's not it. We have actually been having quite a cold summer. You know, about 70, maybe 75 degrees during the day, a little overcast, generally pleasant. You would think that living in Southern California would be hot all the time, but it is actually just nice. Yes, all the time. While that means that we have to tell any of our guests who visit that they should bring a jacket when they travel in July, it also means that we can grill in our backyard in February. I absolutely love living here.

So, Dad and Lee visited. The kids were so excited to have their Grandpa and Grandma at their house for about a week. What did we do while they were here? Somewhat of a repeat of their trip just a few months back, we went to the Getty. But, not exactly intentionally. You see, everything we need: work, school, shopping, beach, restaurants, Starbucks, etc are within three miles of our house. So I don't drive around a lot. I don't avoid it, but I have a limited view of where I am and where Los Angeles is (it's north). So, I got on the highway going north and didn't make it to the Science Center. That's off the 110, not the 405 which I took northish. So we went to the Getty. Will has enjoyed going there since he was 2 months old, fascinated by the artwork.

2 month old Will

Now, he and Alex are more fascinated by Holes in Rocks.

It was hard to get the kids to hold still for a picture since there were so many rocks around to sit by and climb on.

Wiggly Kids on Grandpa

Soaking their busy feet

Climbing on Rocks

Everyone making sure Alex doesn't fall into the fountain

If you too want to visit us and go to locations determined by picking a random highway and driving toward 'destinations' please let us know and we find something to fascinate a 4-year-old and a 2-and-a-half-year-old. And perhaps you too.

Raising Boys - Unique Challenges (and Benefits)

I'm very much in favor of experiencing the trauma of raising young boys and forgoing the hormonal mess that is dealing with 13 year old hormones of girls. And sometimes I just have to smile about it.

For you see, back during Spring Break, my boys were hanging out with some friends who have a house over in the exclusive Manhattan Village Community. It's a place that is popular with celebrities because of the fairly successful locked-down gated community with guards and such. Not terribly giant houses, but quite secure if you should do a lot of traveling but want a place close to the studios here.

So during Spring Break, quite close to Easter, my two boys ended up doing an Easter Egg hunt over at Manhattan Village. That's where they were when I went to pick them up after work. I managed to get in (walking) and found them at a wonderfully fun event with a bouncy house, magician, tasty sandwiches, and lots of chocolate in eggs. They were totally sugarfied. Given that it was getting close to dinner time, I attempted to convince them that they needed to take a walk back to our car which I had parked outside the zone of gated-ness. Oddly, they agreed, happily carrying their stash of chocolate in cutely decorated bags along the path.

At this point, Alex was still in pull-ups, so all was well there. However, the change in the routine of the week had caused Will to have a few accidents the days prior. So, as we walked along the green path, the whiny words, "I haaave to go potty" came from Will. And, since, after four years of having kids, I haven't quite learned how to translate my sarcasm into kid-friendly advice and because I was tired of Will having accidents, I said, half serious, "Why don't' you just pee standing up by this bush." Fortunately Will rejected this idea.

Well, he rejected the idea until about 20 feet further along the path when we weren't near any bushes and he had to go potty even more. The idea had sunk in that he should drop his pants and pee on the grass.

I showed that I was a good parent by resisting the urge to snap a picture with my camera phone. And we continued the evening without an accident or citations related to indecent exposure in a fancy community. :)

An Actual DAng-Adventure

That's right, we have children, but we escaped on our own adventure without them!
(Of course, when the kids get older and read this.. Kids, it's ok, we actually love you very much. Just because mommy and daddy want to take a trip every once in a while without you doesn't mean we don't enjoy spending time with you.)

Dad and Lee were in town between Christmas and New Year's. Yes, we do enjoy spending time with them too, but really, we hadn't spent time away from the kids overnight since July 2007. Oh wait, that was away from the kid, singular. It had been that long.

So Dan and I went to San Luis Obispo to stay at a gaudy hotel with a mediocre steakhouse.

The Madonna Inn is quite kitschy. But of course, since Dan and spent our honeymoon at similarly kitschy places, your stereotypical honeymoon spots of Niagara Falls, the Poconos, and oh, yeah, Fermilab, we had to try this place out. It is known for its 110 different theme rooms. There is a Caveman Room, a Victorian Room, and various other rooms. We stayed at the Hide-A-Way. It had rock walls, but that was really about it. It was no Poconos apple room.



We opted to have dinner at the on-site Madonna Inn Steakhouse. It was fully decked out in flocked Christmas Trees. The service was good, but it was kind of weird that our baked potatoes came still wrapped in the tin foil that they were cooked in.

Dan at Gaudy Steakhouse

After dinner we went to a movie. At a theater. Because that's just not something you can do with kids. We even saw the PG-13 movie, Sherlock Holmes. And since "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" was the last movie I previously viewed, it was quite enjoyable. Afterwards, we ended up back at the on-site Madonna Inn bar for desert which was also underwhelming with terrible coffee on the side.

The next day, Dan and I took a morning swim in the lovely outdoor heated pool which was part of the spa aspect of the Madonna Inn. It was steamy as they keep the pool at 80 degrees, but the outside air was quite cool. And it had a great view.

View at Madonna Inn

We skipped over to San Luis Obispo for a tasty, non-gaudy breakfast, then continued our adventure to San Francisco. We had considered going back home to manage the kids, but they were having a blast with Grandma and Grandpa at the Getty, so we kept going north. On the way, we made a pilgrimmage to TiVo World Headquarters. They were closed and didn't seem to have a gift store. I tend to have bad luck visiting the world headquarters of large technology corporations, like the time Neal and I went to Microsoft and couldn't get a tour.

Neal Wondering Where the Tour Starts

Before we left TiVo, we got this nifty picture of Dan there.

Dan at TiVo

San Francisco was neat. It was an exciting trip for Dan. We got to see a fungus store, and a very steep hill.

We also got to see Coit Tower, like on Little Einsteins. Plus, here is what Haight Ashbury looked like.

Thanks to Mike and Liz for the tour and entertainment!

Child Testing

No children were harmed in the creation of this post.

It is commonly known that about 4 years ago, I had close to zero experience with children. They were sticky, touchy, and loud. Now that I have sticky, touchy, loud children myself, I am fascinated by some of the things they do. Therefore, I feel compelled to perform Child Testing.

Inspired by Rocketboom's report about the NOM NOM meme, I searched for NOM NOM on YouTube from our TiVo. It came up with a video montage of NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM with some hamsters and broccoli. So I gave the kids broccoli and turned it on. Here is the result:

It amuses me that Will blindly follows what the TV tells him to do, stuffing the whole broccoli into his mouth while bouncing up and down and making NOM NOM noises. Alex tastes the broccoli initially, caught up in the emotion of the meme, then realizes that he has the ability to question the establishment and reject the broccoli.

And the thing is, it's not because Alex doesn't like broccoli as shown here in this video where the kids insist on eating more broccoli.

Are there any other memes that they should be exposed to? Hamster Dance has been ingrained in their minds.

Hello World!

Ok, so I have been lazy in posting to the blog. A terrible side effect of Facebook micro-blogging. (Side Note: It would be crazy if Will had his own facebook page for the sole purpose of playing Farmville!)

What are we currently up to? We are writing our Christmas letter. Yes, I realize that we have only a few days remaining to make it a Christmas letter prior to Christmas. We are trying really hard. It is likely that it will get written prior to Christmas, and possibly mailed after Christmas.

In the meantime, to keep things interesting, here is a picture from earlier in the year when we celebrated Alex's 1st birthday. Yes, it is sad, as a second child he didn't get posts about his 1-month birthday or his 100-days birthday or his 6-month birthday with a giant Bristol Farms 3-layer cake, or even, if you go back to check our January posts, his first birthday. This is just one of the things that I will try to blog about as the year closes.


This picture is great because:

• The Look on Alex's Face "What?"
• Lava Letters, "Happy Birthday Alex"
  
• The backwards 1. Backwards to everyone except Alex!
• We had to make a frosting lake because we had water dinosaur figures.
  
• There had to be more than 1 candle, because we needed more fire for the volcano. Just in case you couldn't figure it out, yes, volcano cake. It was Will's idea. Seriously. I was talking about how tricky it would be to make a dinosaur cake for Alex's dinosaur party and somehow my then 2.5 year old came up with, "Mom, we should make a volcano cake for Alex's dinosaur birthday party."
• Creative use of dry ice. Smoking Volcanoes!
  

Perhaps as we finish our Christmas letter, we will look at the things that we included in it and then do some catch-up posts. That is my Christmas wish. To post some blog entries. Let's see how it goes!

The Overuse of Technology

One of the core values of our household is the overuse of technology. We have various desktop and laptop computers with terabytes of harddrive space. We have an excessive number of TiVos (notice I didn't enumerate them, I lost track of the count a bit ago). We have had a SlingBox since 2004. We are connected to our iPhones and believe that every conversation with a question should end with a concrete answer provided by Wikipanion.

Of course, as Dan and I get older, we have started to realize that we are losing our edge in the realm of early adoption of technology. For example, we are committed to the un-jailbreaked version of our iPhones and didn't even really consider taking time to acquire and make the most of the google phone.

However, one of the advantages of being parents is that we can make our children pick up where we leave off in the area of technology adoption. We started to realize this when we acquired Will's laptop. Yes, Will has a laptop. Why? Simply because he needed one. Yes, he needed one.

As you may know, Will is 3 1/2 years old. We got him the laptop shortly before he turned 3. What were our motivations?

• Will has his own MP3s - I didn't want "The Wheels on the Bus" on my laptop / iPod. In addition to your typical kid's songs, he also has my favorite kids' songs. Specifically, "Beep, Beep" about satellites and "Friction." They can be found at Singing Science Records website. They were actually from old records, so be careful when you let your kids learn about the planets and Pluto is still listed. Perhaps you should get this shirt, just to make sure you have a way to explain the whole planetoid phenomenon to your kids.
  
• Given that Will has his own MP3s, he has his own MP3 player. It's one of those SANSA kids' players that you can shake to change the music. So it made sense to have a laptop. MP3 Player + music = need place to store MP3s for transfer to MP3 Player.
  
• Digital Photos - As his digital camera does not have a lot of space on it's memory card, Will needed somewhere to store his digital photos. Enter need for laptop. Yes, Will has one of those Fisher Price digital cameras. You know, the ones with the picture on the package of the camera bouncing down the stairs. He loves to take pictures of his stuffed animals, his brother, his books, and, yes, pictures of his parents. All pictures have the perspective of a person who is 3 feet tall. Will got his camera back in November of 2008 and even has some of his pictures printed and framed for the wall in his bedroom.
  
• Computer Games - Who among us doesn't like computer games. Will has a few that we got him back in last December. We haven't quite figured out how to set him up to play them on his laptop as he has a netbook without a CD-ROM drive, but that will come. Until then, internet games from kids' web sites work well.
  
• Video Conferencing - Will likes to video conference with grandpa. With the built in web cam in his laptop and the use of ovoo software, he is ready and able.
  
• You Tube - Will loves YouTube, especially the video of the cat batting at the printer with the shotgun sound effects. He also likes LED Sheep. But oddly, his favorite is a video about Solid State Drives that Samsung makes. He will watch it 10 times in a row if we let him.
  
• Movies and TV Shows - Even though it doesn't have a DVD drive, we are still able to transfer over movies and TV shows. Enter the magic of TiVo and video encoding. Dan does this part and it was quite useful on our road trip last spring to Baseball Spring Training in Arizona.

So, what kind of computer did we get? Originally we thought, we have tons of computer parts in the garage, including two bins labeled, "computer guts," why don't we build Will a computer? Then we realized that we would have to acquire a stable, non-flat screen monitor and find a location for the bulky computer. And let's face it, Will doesn't need his own home office... yet. So we went for the netbook. Given the choice between two different kinds that Dan was researching, we went with the one that was more "sturdy."

What crazy overuse of technology is next for our kids? Well, Alex will probably not end up with a laptop, or if he does, he will get Will's old one when Will gets an iPod touch. Hopefully not anytime soon. :) Until then, perhaps we will get them a theremin to develop their muiscal talent.

Cooking Kids
(Product Placement Post)

The kids love to cook. It is calming to them, it seems. What do they cook? Here, they use an apple bread mix from Trader Joe's.

Mixing Apple Bread

It worked out really well. Since one box makes about 12 muffins, I didn't want to make 2 batches, one for each kid. Instead, I split the box between the two guys. We easily separated the milk and melted butter into two parts, plus, the recipe called for 2 eggs, one for each bowl! As with most quick breads, this one warned against over mixing, but the kids love mixing and thoroughly mixed the top layer of their batter. They even paid attention when I told them the melted butter was hot and almost completely complied with the 'don't eat raw eggs' instruction.

After the kids were done mixing, Dan took the two bowls away to combine them and make sure there wasn't any dry mix in the bottom while the kids put cupcake papers in the muffin pan. Then Dan demonstrated how to fill the papers. The oven temp and cooking time need to be adjusted a bit for muffins as compared to the instructions on the bread loaf box. they turned out a little dark. However, we will do this again after our next trip to Trader Joe's. The muffins are good for dessert and breakfast the next day!

What else do the kids cook? Well, since Alex has decided the correct answer to "What do you want for dinner?" is "PIZZA!" we have tried making our own starting with some Boboli pizza crust. Here he is with his own creation:

Yummy! Even Uncooked

Ok, so most of the pepperoni and some of the crust bypassed the pizza on the way to Alex's tummy, but he basically got the idea about putting ingrediants on the crust. Here you can see two kinds of cheese and some brocolli. I like brocolli pizza, so that's what the kids get.

Will has also cooked cupcakes in the past and apple pie. What should we try to cook next?

Will's First In-Theater Movie

I have ruined my child for all future movie experiences. I took him to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" today... with an IMAX screen... in 3-D. And it wasn't even with the cheesy paper 3-D glasses either. The glasses looked like actual sunglasses and had big lenses so that you didn't have to keep adjusting the paper nose piece of other glasses every 2 minutes when they tried to fall off. Or when you moved your head to dodge the cheeseburgers that were raining down from the screen.

Of course, I remember my first movie theater experience. My family went to see "The Care Bears Movie" in 1985. It was at Studio 28, I believe, and was not in 3-D. I was nearly 10 at the time, and Robin was likely 7ish, so while there was a scary part of the movie, I don't think our parents were as concerned as I was today about the potential for needing to leave the movie theater with a distressed child.

Will did amazingly well during the movie. It helped that, unlike Disney films, there was no real villain. It was more of a story about someone wanting to be liked by others and gain his father's approval. It's tension came from the disaster movie part of it where a food storm threatens the small town and the world. There were none of the topics that Will has trouble with, such as getting lost from parents or just things getting lost in general. Oddly, the topic of attacking giant gummy bears was acceptable.

So, even though I wasn't able to capture any cute pictures of Will in 3-D glasses and post them here, I figured that I would blog anyway since Facebook is making me lazy.


And no, Alex doesn't get to go to a movie in a theater before he turns 4. Not because he is a 2nd child and unspoiled like our beloved 1st child. Unlike Will, he just doesn't have the attention span. Or perhaps he just isn't addicted to TV like our little Will.

I will try to blog again soon. Perhaps about the un-related, but matching eyebrown +stitches injuries acquired by the kids.

Our $5.47 worth of Fourth of July Fun

The longer we live in California, the more we realize that you really can't do much here. While most people view California as a laid back sort of place, it's really quite restricted by lawyer-induced regulation. One of those restricted areas happens to be fireworks. At least in Redondo Beach.

When we realized that Will was not going to take a nap today, we also realized that there was no way we could keep him up until 9:30 to see the start of the fireworks, much less later than that. So we went to Target to buy some last minute fireworks, thinking we would light them off in our backyard.

The guy at Target: "I think we have some sparklers over here" when I inquired as to whether they had any fireworks. Not that I would ever let my kids play with sparklers. I mean, they are burning magnesium at like 1000 degrees. But I figured, if they sell something dangerous like sparklers, certainly they might have a few cone-type fireworks that we could light and watch sparks fly up in the air while the kids maintain a safe distance?

This is what they had...


It's your typical, mild-mannered Party Poppers on the right. And on the left, it looks like cone-shaped fireworks. And something that says TNT on it? Surely these must be great, right? Oh, but wait, they are actually just slightly bigger Party Poppers. Yeah.

Fortunately, our kids are 3 and 1 years old and therefore easily impressed.

One of the Successful Pops (there were some duds)

Both kids enjoyed the "fireworks" and want more

The kids were ready for bed around 7:30 (yes, Will picked his bedtime outfit himself). Maybe next year we will see live fireworks. Or maybe we will hang out at home and watch the HD presentation of fireworks on TV like we ended up doing this evening. Clearly, we won't be finding any awesome legal personal fireworks. :)

The Best Home Improvement Ever

In our house, there is a lot of whining. I think it has something to do with having a 3-year-old who copies the 18-month-old who thinks he is now a terrible 2-year-old. One of the whining things that happens a lot is when Will wants to go to play in his room or go to the bathroom...

It's daaaaaaaaaaark!

Finally, the solution!

We installed these kid light switches. In the same week, we also started letting Alex sleep in the bunk bed. (No, we did not put either of the kids on the top bunk. The bottom bunk is a full-sized bed, so there is plenty of room for two little kids.)

For the last 3 years and 3 months, our mornings would start with yelling from the kid(s) room. Will has always woken up crying, probably because he was lonely. Alex is a much calmer waker. When they were in the room together, Will in the bed and Alex in the crib, the mornings would be somewhat calmer, with less crying, but still with the "mmmmommm, mmmmmmommm, mamadad!"

Now, with the kid light switch and the sleeping in the same bed? Mornings are much more enjoyable. Will gets up to turn on the light and start playing. Alex wakes up and gets out of bed to play too. They are not silent by any means, but are sometimes quiet enough to sleep through for a few more precious minutes. It's so much more peaceful than rushing to the room of crying/yelling kids.


And, since the light switches allow Will to turn the light on for the bathroom and his room when they are dark, less whining! Now, if we could just get the kids to find breakfast on their own in the morning.

Update: This morning, July 4th, they wandered out of their room, found apples to eat, and pillaged the "Hello Panda" cookie supply.

Mounting the TV to the Wall Project

The kids didn't nap today, so we put them to bed at 7:30pm.  This meant we had the whole evening free to do a project.  We mounted our TV to the wall, then pulled all of our "components" from the cabinent that had been under the TV.  This is part of the extraction results:


Notice the pile of wires in the background.  I got the job of separating them into individual wire units.  We had at least 8 ethernet cables and 3 routers in the stack of stuff.  We had all sorts of audio visual cables, including 5 cables that I had never seen before.  Somehow,  in the end, we had 9 left over wires and 2 ac adapters.  

Some organized wires

While sorting through the pile of wires, I felt like I was on some sort of "So you Married a Geek" reality show and this was one of the challenges.  You know, the wife decides to acquire a new piece of furniture (our old one was made for a corner, this one is much more streamlined) and the husband geek must deconstruct his entire electronic component set-up and reconstruct it on the new piece of furniture while the wife plays some sort of useful role.

Not Quite Finished

So that's what we ended up with.  I think it still needs some conduit or at least zip ties for the wires.  Also, we might put up some sort of shelf or backboard for wire concealing.  You may notice that we only have 2 TiVos and 1 Verizon DVR set up here.  Why would we use so few TiVos?  Well, let me explain.  While we do own 8 TiVos or so (it's hard to keep track), the TiVos shown here are special.  Or at least the one on top is special.  It is a series 3 and can record in HD.  It has 2 tuners so it can record 2 shows at once.  Plus, it has the Wombat drive to the left which stores an additional 500 gbs of shows.  So that's why we only have 4 DVRs (2 TiVo in living room, one in bedroom, one Verizon DVR in living room) running at this time in our house.  

Also, we get to try the same thing with the TV above our bedroom dresser.  There is only one TiVo in there which will remain on the dresser, so we won't have to assemble a cabinet of any sort.  

One step closer to organizing our house!

Picture Time!

As the children can now play for a few minutes by themselves, Dan and I have started on the 'home improvement project.  What do we have in mind?  We would like to do some of these things:

• Install skylights in our odd dropped ceiling.  It is in our dining/dan's desk area of our living/dining room space.  It looks like a school ceiling, complete with eerie florescent tube lights.  It needs some updating.
  
• Install solar panels on our garage roof after re-roofing it.
  
• Replace our carpet which seems to be taken out of a "My Name is Earl" episode when they have the flashbacks to growing up in their parents' house in the 70s.
• Remove the ugly kitchen wallpaper.
• Replace the tile counter top and maybe even the whole super low kitchen island.
• Paint!  So far we have only painted my office (orange), Will/Alex's room (green), and recently, the guest bathroom (sky blue).  Everything else is icky white.
• Mount TVs on the wall.
• Hang Pictures.
• Organize Kids' room. We have some toy bins ordered.  We anticipate them working better than the dumpable toy boxes and drawers they use now.
• Get some sort of playground surface for under the merry-go-round.  Right now we have those connectible work mats.  They help to protect the kids from scraping their knees when they fall down, but it would be great to have something that doesn't blow apart in the wind. 

Right now, it is picture time.  I was thinking about buying some sort of artwork.  

We wanted to start with the bathroom since we just painted it.  But then, I thought, why not just print out some of our travel pictures and put those up.  So last week at IKEA, we bought a picture frame to try out.  We sent some pictures to Costco.com to print to 20" by 30" size.  We bought more IKEA frames.  And now, we have 4 large framed pictures with which to decorate our walls.  Yea!

Here are some pictures of the framed pictures.

Snowy Tokyo Park Scenes

California Wave and Kauai Lighthouse

Yes, they look much cooler in person.  We are thinking about putting a set in our guest bathroom and are not sure what we will be doing with the other set.  We have many blank walls, so I think we will come up with something.  

So then, I got to thinking, in the grand scheme of organizing the kids room, we will be putting up pictures on their walls too.  We have a picture of Katsushika Hokusai's "The Great Wave".  We have a glass picture of a fish.  But what else to put on the wall?  More of the pictures that Dan and I have taken?  Nope.  Since Will has his own camera, we thought we might try letting him use some of his own pictures to decorate his room.  He gets excited about the process of moving the pictures from his camera to his laptop with the USB cable.  Then he talks about sending them to the printer.  What kind of shots did we end up with for hanging?  Here is another IKEA picture frame, but this time filled in with 3 of Will's pictures.

Will's pictures are interesting.  What he chooses to photograph and the angle he shoots at just can't be duplicated.  Some of Will's other shots include me pouring dishwasher detergent into the dishwasher, pictures of his llama and his puppy posing, and pages of books he likes to read.  Then, there is that time he ran into the bedroom when I was getting dressed... we deleted that one immediately.

The Alex picture is funny because whenever Will takes a picture of Alex, it is always blurry.  They just can't both stop moving long enough at the same time to get a clear shot.  Maybe we will have to try some outside in bright light.  

Will actually chose the Alex picture above over another one.  He said that Alex was doing something funny and that he also thought the bib was silly.

Wiggly Will

In an effort to post things to the blog, I offer Will... trying to wiggle his nose.

Nothing Happening?

Perhaps you were wondering if our failure to post on the blog means that nothing is happening here in Southern California. On the contrary, we have now had two medium sized earthquakes in the last couple of days.

One on Sunday Night that was 4.7.

And one during work yesterday that was 4.0.

Now we do have earthquakes on a regular basis, but the thing about these recent quakes is that they have epicenters that are about 5 miles from us. Close enough to cause some adrenaline and send us towards a safe place under a table.

The kids slept through the Sunday Night quake, Alex not even stirring when we took him out of his bed. Our original nighttime plan involves us grabbing Alex and joining Will on the bottom bunk of his bed since it would probably be a reasonably safe place to be. However, that evening we experienced a tough time of getting Will to bed, so during the quaking we changed plans to shelter in a different place. Waking Will up would have been unpleasant.

For the second quake, the kids didn't really care either. When I picked Will up from school and asked if there was an earthquake, he said, no, there was just a bell and they were practicing their earthquake drill. Alex had no discernible comment related to earthquakes.

Other things going on? I'll post soon, I promise.

Alex's Word Quiz

Back in September 2007 when Will was about 18 months old, we posted his first 50 words. Now, as we are continuously comparing our children, we realize that, according to Dan, Alex seems to be into sentences. So, I thought I would quiz Alex on words even though he is only 15 months old.

Will only words in blue. Will and Alex words in red. Alex only words in green.
hey, hi, hello, bye bye
dad, mom, baby, dude, Asha, Sidney, Alex
ball, box, block, truck, book, bubble, balloon, slide, swing
go, shoes, up, down, door, this way, outside, step, open
car, key, airplane,
llama, bird, dog, puppy, bee, bear, dinosaur (di-di), duckie
no, mine, me, you, oh-oh, oh no, thank you, please, more, yeah, I, all done
bump, ding, beep, pop, crash, dance, boom (the sound dinosaurs make when they walk)
bath, shower, towel, blanket
nose, eye, ear, teeth,
chair, food, hot, eggs, cheese, banana, cracker, water, milk, fork, cup, straw, bib, bowl, bottle, apple, melon, oatmeal, snack, eat
drawer, rock, dirt, hat, pen, phone, book
that, there, yea

48 words so far. And, since both Will and I can sign some words, Alex has actually learned how to sign apple, cheese, all done, wind, cold, more, and hat. Although I have to give credit to Zimry for teaching him more.

I have to say, my favorite word that Alex has learned is "yeah." Oddly, Will didn't learn a positive yes word until much later. With Alex, we can actually ask him if he wants something and he will say "yeah." In fact, when he wants anything, he will sometimes point to it and say, "that, yeah" but most of the time, I find him simply nodding and saying yeah over and over, not quite sure what he wants. It's also funny when he vehemently shakes his head "no."

Alex has also figured out what duckies, frogs, birds, vehicles, dinosaurs and puppies say. The puppy part is mostly due to the fact that Will has developed his first imaginary friends. He has a group of imaginary baby puppies that go places with him. He made me open the car door to let them out after I got him out of the car the other day. We quiz him on how many there are, "a lot" and what their names are, "they don't have names yet." Although today he named one of them Max. Max joined us on a walk to Starbucks. Will is also convinced that he is a puppy, making the rest of us "mommy puppy," "daddy puppy," and "baby puppy."

Here is an example of Alex explaining what dinosaurs say.

Oddly, Will has switched from calling us mama and dad (or mamadad collectively) to mommy and daddy. I think he learned this at school. He is also quite sophisticated in his language usage, effectively expressing his displeasure about many things.

The two kids together have taken up syncronized activities. These include nodding and saying, "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." They also dance, spin, and they stick their tongues out together. Plus, as an added bonus, we have syncronized throw-yourself-on-the-ground-tantrums. Fortunately Alex doesn't quite understand what he is doing and Will does understand that he gets sent to his room if he does this.

Sometimes they are in sync, but sometimes they disagree. For example, when they watch YouTube together, they want to see different videos. I'll see if I can upload the video of them watching YouTube to YouTube. Because that is what comes next. YouTube videos of people watching YouTube.

No Longer Picky

Did you know that being picky about food is like any other behavioral habit? While it is difficult to quit "cold turkey," you can try to stop over time. Or, you can use a substitute to the picky-ness to get you through the process.

For those of you who have ever had a meal with me, you know that I am one of those people who order food, then modify the order and ask for special sides. Then, when it arrives, I send it back if it is not precisely what I ordered. Being from the Midwest, I tend to be a "food racist" and only eat the white food (chicken, mashed potatoes, corn).

No more! I have decided not to be picky anymore. Now, before you pull out some butter sauteed mushrooms dipped in vinegar with a side of sushi for me to eat, there are limits. and they are basically that. I am still not going to eat fungus. It's not really a food anyway. And uncooked meat? I'll pass for now. Vinegar? I'll eat it if it is in a nice vinaigrette (previously avoided) which happens to come with my meal, but I won't go out of my way to eat it. I feel that these remaining restrictions are OK.

How did I come to this realization that being picky was just not worth it? It sort of started when I was pregnant in Japan. I got used to the idea that food was not going to magically appear in exactly the way I wanted. Now, this did not stop me, at that time, from buying super expensive chicken breasts at the store and cooking them to satisfy my white food craving. It also did not stop me from visiting many of the TGIFs in Tokyo or visiting the Best El Torito in the World in Omotesando (which I believe, sadly, now is closed). However, I got used to the fact that at official company dinners, the person in charge of ordering (Kishi-san) would order every chicken dish on the menu for me which were never made from white meat. And I would eat them anyway. Good thing I was pregnant and had that "excuse" to limit me to the non-fishy chicken dishes or I might have offended Dan's co-workers and caused International Badwill.

Since being back in the United States (for three years now), I have happily gone to Japanese restaurants to eat tempura, katzu dishes, soba, and sometimes teriyaki. Sometimes I want Korean bbq. And, since I now eat more fish, I sometimes order fish at restaurants, always cooked, of course.

And, with my recent decision to not be picky about food, I have even branched out into things like feta, olives, pine nuts, and other Greekish food type items. I am not rejecting goat cheese. I even ate a few onion rings last night at the Red Car Brewery in Old Town Torrance. While this might not seem extreme to you, since onions were not something I ever embraced, it was quite the step.

What next? Perhaps we will visit Japan again and I will actually search out different foods to enjoy. :) Until then, I will order things from menus. Without annoying modifications!

Our First Miniatures Exchange

Will still needs a globe. He keeps asking me where Singapore and India are since that is where our Miniatures Exchange share partners are. Many times I say that they are far away, but when a map is available, we look for them on the map. We saw a globe at Barnes and Nobel that we might get, basically I am looking for something that is a real globe, not one of those plastic kids' globes. I'm not sure where I am going to put it, so I am considering a floor globe, maybe one on a stand.

Anyway, what is this Miniatures Exchange? I posted about it previously with a picture of my sound pocket for "W". It is something that a blogger mom in Japan set up. Our swap partners were in India and Singapore. Here is what we got!


India: Postcards (the Himalayas, India Gate, and Taj Mahal), M - Mirror that folds open to a stand, A small Taj Mahal, P - Puppets (soldier, women), O - owl coin purse, K - kites, S - Stamps, F - flag, hand-made paper envelopes, B - small round pink box, D - Die, E - Elephant, C - Coins, shape shifting toy. There was also a smiley face pin, but Will snatched it and put it in our "H" sound pocket for "happy". I was especially impressed by the little Taj Mahal sculpture. Will loved the mirror and the little box, trying to put the coins and the die in the box. The coins fit.



Singapore: Chinese paper cutting for the year of the ox, Postcards (Clarke Quay, Merlion), F - fish, F - Flower, O - ox, O - orchids, H - house, D - Chinese doll, S - stamp, D - dragonfly handmade using Chinese knots, M- merlion key chain, B/R - Bow/Ribbon, key chain from Sentosa, P - peanut, B - bottle, I - ingot, C - coins (old Chinese coin and Singapore coins). I loved the dragonfly and it was neat to get a little ox, from Singapore, in the year of the ox. I also liked the tiny bottle because it is an actual miniature. That is, I want items for the sound pockets that are small, 3 dimensional versions of real items. Will hasn't had much time to sort through these items yet as we received them right before nap time and he was really cranky. If he actually sleeps today, we will probably be looking at them again after nap.

Most of the items will go into our sound pockets. I'm thinking about getting a photo album, one with the peel back pages, for the postcards and stamps, so that we can start up a book of things from different countries. I'm open to ideas though as I also need somewhere to put the coins too because Will asked if they are for his gumball machine. So far, the countries I think Will should learn about include India, Singapore, Japan, Italy, Austria, Cameroon, and Canada.

Another Option
So if you think this is a neat thing to do, but you don't have sound pockets and want to do something more simple with your kid? Sign up for the postcard snack recipe swap before March 15 and get all sorts of neat snack ideas.

The "Say Crazy Things" Age

Yup, Will is at that age.  The "Say Crazy Things" age.  This is documented in the raising your child books, right?  Oh wait, I gave up reading back when I gave up eating meals because two kids suck away all of your time.

Will's crazy things range from embarrassing to insightful.  On the somewhat embarrassing side... we were at a restaurant eating and the hostess was seating an overweight woman nearby.  Will tried to explain that "that mommy has a baby in her tummy."  I tried to distract him from this statement.  the woman ended up requesting a different table.  

On the more insightful side... Will was in the office at my desk yesterday since they didn't let us drop him off at school because of pink eye suspicion.  He watched my computer boot and commented on the flags.  

Me: "Yes, Will, the flags are the symbol for Microsoft."

Will (pointing to coffee cup):  "What does this say?"

Me:  "That says, McCafe.  And look, under it is the symbol for McDonalds.  Do you want to learn about corporate logos today?  Look, here is the Dell symbol on my monitors."

Will (trying to say McCafe and failing):  "What does caffeine mean?   

Me (laughing, figuring he is close enough):  "Yes, Will, that says caffeine."

Will:  Does caffeine help you when you are tired?

Me:  Yes.  That's exactly what it means.

I see this conversation as lending creedance my claim about the statement Will made when I was contemplating Alex's upcoming birthday cake back in December.  You see, I was trying to figure out how to make a dinosaur cake.  I figured I could make a cake in the Pampered Chef batter bowl and maybe stick a dinosaur into it or something.  But, I swear, Will said, "We can make a volcano cake for Alex's dinosaur birthday party."  And yes, that's what we did.  

Forget smarter than a 5th grader.  Are you smarter than my almost 3 year old?  I'm sure I could keep up if I got more sleep.  But you see, I am in a Catch-22 there.  If I got more sleep, maybe I could convince Will to sleep more, but I don't get enough sleep because Will doesn't sleep enough. Zzzzz....

Got to go, need to consult Will about how to pull off his 3rd birthday party next month.  It's April 5th.  I'll send out the evite soon.  If you don't get it, drop me a line, I was too tired to remember to send it to you.  :)

Update:  I almost forgot to mention another outlet for Will's saying of crazy things.  You Tube.  You see, we can play you tube on our TV.  I almost have Will trained on the use of the remote.  Until then, I get to be the one to do the searches for Will's whims.  It turns out that not everything is on You Tube.  For example, "I want to see koala bears in the ocean"  didn't quite work out.