Elf Yourself

A couple years ago, I saw this funny thing on Good Morning America called "Elf Yourself". You upload photos of yourself or others and your head gets put onto a person's dancing body. I had forgotten about it and was reminded of it recently, so I did one for fun the other day. They have a lot more choices of songs/dance styles now and I just thought the hip-hop one was pretty funny.

Flossing

Luke's dentist recommended we get little disposable flossers for flossing Luke's teeth. I looked at all the various kinds when I was at CVS and they all had pretty sharp picks at the ends. I figured that probably wasn't good for Luke since he might end up poking himself, so I ended up getting these:

They were a little more expensive than the regular ones for adults, but I just couldn't get past the thought that Luke would probably poke himself, and I had no idea how he would react to flossing either – I didn't want him to freak out and try to grab it out of my hand or anything. Turns out though, that Luke is very cooperative with flossing! He's still getting used to the fact that he needs to keep his mouth open for me, instead of biting down when I'm trying to maneuver it in his mouth, but he hasn't complained once.

Being silly

I had this empty bag on the floor and Luke decided to walk around the living room with it on his head. I'm surprised he didn't bump into more things.

Outside decorations

Here are the decorations we have outside the house. It's kind of hard to see, but there are 2 reindeer (with heads that move back and forth) and 2 candy canes there. I bought those last year after Christmas when they were on clearance. I think Mark is worried about what I'll bring home after this Christmas when I go shopping. Haha.

Christmas tree

We got our first "official" Christmas tree this year the day after Thanksgiving. We never really had a tree of our own because in our other house there really wasn't a good place to put one, and last year when we moved into our current house we figured it wasn't worth it to get one since we would be up in northern CA. This year though, Mark and I are staying in town to spend Christmas with his family so we decided to get a tree. We went to support our family friend, Jerry, and his business, and bought the tree from him. We were his first customers of the day and we got a beautiful tree.

Luke had some fun running around.

  

These are just a few other decorations that I set up around the house.

 

I hung this garland over the doors to the backyard.

This is our little tabletop tree that acted as our Christmas tree in the other house. I got the tree and decorations for about $3 from the Target dollar section. Haha.

The one bad thing is that Luke has kind of been a pain with the tree. He's always messing with the ornaments and turning the lights on the tree on and off. We got a foot pedal to turn the lights on and off more easily, and I realized I should have set that up when Luke was napping because he saw me setting up and how it worked. Live and learn I guess.

We also set up some lights and decorations outside the house that I need to take pictures of still. I'll try to take the pictures soon.

I've been busy

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy with work for one of my clients, and during a lot of my down time I was working on these.

Last year I received a couple of inquiries about whether or not I sell these, so I decided to try selling them this year. I didn't really push for selling them, I just asked a friend who works at Village Properties (real estate company, for those of you who aren't from around here) if the realtors wanted any to give to clients. A couple of agents had wanted them last year, but it was way too late for me to make any more. A few agents ended up buying 23 houses. Not that many, but it's something.

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

A friend posted this link on Facebook today, and if you're like me and hate to see people misspell/misuse these common words, you'll appreciate this too.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Dentist appointment

Luke had a routine dentist appointment this morning and he did surprisingly well. He didn't cry or freak out when Dr. Mascagno was looking at his teeth, like he did at his previous appointments. He wasn't exactly the most cooperative with opening his mouth wide or anything, but he let the doctor do what he needed. When Luke got down he headed straight for the balloons that were off to the side for patients to take. We had to go in the next room to take an x-ray though, so I had to direct Luke away from the balloons. He didn't cry or throw a fit, but I guess he had a sad face because the assistant said, "Aww, look at that face!" Haha. He got the x-ray taken of his bottom front teeth, since he still hasn't had that fourth front tooth come in. Turns out he just doesn't have that baby tooth at all. Dr. Mascagno said the x-ray was a bit fuzzy, but it looks like he has all 4 of those permanent teeth that will come in later. The only time he sort of cried was while trying to do the x-ray, but even that wasn't too bad. He happily took a balloon after that though. The doctor said that all of Luke's teeth are in and everything looks good. His teeth didn't have much plaque on them, so he didn't need a cleaning this time, but he did say to start flossing his teeth now. Not sure how flossing will go over with Luke, but I guess we'll see. He's really good about letting me brush his teeth, so I'm hoping it will be the same for flossing after he gets used to it.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we all went down to Brandon and Karan's for the day. They ordered Thanksgiving dinners from Marie Callendar's and Mimi's Cafe that we ate at their house. All the food was good, but I think most of us agreed that the food from Mimi's Cafe was better. I feel like I didn't get to fully enjoy the food though, because I got carsick on the drive down so I didn't feel completely normal the rest of the day.

I didn't take very many pictures, but here are a few of the kids playing.

Luke loves to jump off of anything and everything, and he kept jumping off the blue rocking horse you can see in the picture above. After seeing Luke do that, Kaitlin and Austin kept jumping off it too.

Luke kept picking up Kaitlin's doll and kissing it on the lips. He would pick it up by the head, kiss it, look at it, then throw it on the floor. Brandon said it's a sign Luke wants a sibling. Haha!

On the way back home that night, we drove past the Camarillo Outlets around 11:15pm, and there were A TON of cars getting off the freeway there and in line to drive into the Outlets for Black Friday shopping. It was crazy because all the parking that was visible from the freeway looked packed!

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving, and if you were one of those crazy Black Friday shoppers, I hope you found some great deals! :)

Bathtime fun

Just having some fun with Luke's hair during bath time.

Lazy morning

 Can you guess what he's watching on TV while lounging here?

Harry Potter 7

Alyssa and I went to see it last night, and I loved it! I bought the tickets the morning before and even though we got there about an hour and a half early, there were about 20 people already in line. Since that didn't seem too bad, we went and grabbed some coffee at Starbucks real quick, and when we got back outside, there were probably another 10 people who had gotten in line. We even had to wait in the rain for a while – it was a good thing I brought a couple of umbrellas for us! The movie was 2 1/2 hours long, but it didn't really feel that long to me. I can't believe we have to wait now until July for the second part to come out in theaters!

Goleta Beach with Aaron & Abby

Alyssa and I took the kids to the park at Goleta Beach a couple of times recently. There aren't any baby swings there, but Luke sat on the big kid swings for a little bit anyway. The boys went back and forth between the swings area and the playground set.

 

 Look at Abby go!

 The boys playing with the musical bars.

 

 This is from the second time we went:

 

Abby was content just playing at the bottom of one of the slides.

Luke saw Aaron go down this big, curly slide and looked like he was going to follow, but then he chickened out. The slide looks more intimidating than it is because when Aaron goes down it, he almost has to scooch himself down. Even on the smaller slide, the kids seemed to get stuck going down. My mom said that when she was younger, she and her friends used to rub wax paper on the slides so they could go down faster. Maybe that's what needs to be done to these. Haha!

It's nice going down to the beach, but the times we've gone there are always at least a few single men who hang out around there. I know they're men probably just taking breaks from work, but it's still kind of creepy – they should hang out farther away from the playground. This second time we were there, we ended up leaving because there was some weird guy who decided to actually go on the playground set and the swings. Can we say, inappropriate?

Legos

Before Luke got so addicted to his Yo Gabba Gabba! show, he would play with his Legos a lot. One day I saw these sitting on the entertainment center in the living room.

I thought they were parts of something that maybe Mark had built with Luke, but it turned out Luke did them all by himself. I was just amazed because up until then he would just stack the little square blocks into single towers.

Mark & Mom's birthday weekend

Brandon and Karan came up a couple weekends ago to celebrate Mark and Mom's birthdays. On Saturday night we all went out to dinner at Holdren's Grill. The service wasn't the greatest that night, but it was nice to all be together.

On Sunday morning Mark and I took Luke to Tucker's Grove to run around for a bit. He liked jumping off of the steps and got so excited each time he did it. For some reason when he gets really happy or giddy over something, he ends up grabbing his crotch. Haha.

 

 

 After the park we went over to Mimi and Poppa's where all the kids played together.

Actually, it was mainly Austin and Luke playing together this time. Poppa was tickling them both for a little bit here.

Then Luke and Austin were messing with Mimi's jukebox CD player. They look like a couple of troublemakers, don't they?

 Luke found Mimi's magnifying glass and he just looked so funny holding it up to his face.

Austin wanted to give it a try too.

Luke acted like a maniac and kept jumping off the ottoman.

 

Then he just decided to jump around wherever he felt like it.

 

Sunday night we ate BBQ'd tri-tip at Mimi and Poppa's house, and then played games and just hung out before Brandon, Karan, and the kids all left to go back home.

Happy birthday!

I have a bunch of posts to catch up on, but for now I just wanted to say...

Gerber contest

Gayle had told me about this Gerber contest and I entered Luke last month. Voting just started today, and you can vote for him by clicking here. You can vote once a day until the end of the month.

Pet peeve

One of my pet peeves is when people don't use "its", "it's", "there", "their", "they're", "your", and "you're" correctly. Seriously, why do so many people not know how to use the correct forms of those words? Whenever I see them used incorrectly, it just jumps out at me. I couldn't believe it when I saw a mistake on The Biggest Loser. There is a sign with a quote from Bob on one of the walls in the gym that says "its" instead of "it's", and I see it in just about every episode. It drives me nuts seeing it. Haha. I mean, it's a major national TV show – how could something like that go completely unnoticed?

Slide

The last time Eve and I took the boys to Tuckers Grove, Luke still spent a lot of time on the swings, but then he discovered the slide. He just kept going down the slide then climbing up the stairs over and over again.

The first few times he wanted to hold my hand while he slid down, but after a while he was fine on his own.

For a few days around this time, Luke kept imitating part of a dance game from an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba! That's what he's doing at the beginning of this video where he's saying "bee-dee-beat-beat" and clapping his hands on his knees.

 

He was having so much fun going down the slide that he didn't want to leave, even after Eve and Jackson had left. It's good he ventured away from the swings because he was always hogging them.

Halloween

When we were searching online, trying to decide what Luke should be for Halloween this year, we came across a Yo Gabba Gabba! DJ Lance costume and it was so hilarious that we couldn't pass it up. In case you don't know what DJ Lance Rock looks like looks like, this is him:

 

When the costume first arrived, I tried putting it on Luke to see how it fit, but he wanted nothing to do with it. He kept saying "no" and trying to push it away. We tried to get him to put it on for a couple nights, but he would just cry and say "no". So finally we just put it on him while he was crying, and after he had it on, he was fine. This was right after we forced it on him. Haha.

And then shortly after, he was running and playing around the house in his costume. He even asked to wear it the next morning!

I had read reviews about the costume, and the only complaint people had was about the hat. For some reason they made it so small, that it won't actually fit on any kid's head. We couldn't pull it down very far on his head, and it kept falling off whenever he ran around.

I ended up splitting the seams on the sides and then adding pieces of orange felt to make the base of the hat wider. It still looked a little funny, but at least it stayed on his head a little better.

On Halloween night, Auntie Tommi, Uncle Dennis, Eve, and Jackson stopped by to trick-or-treat.

 

We only got about four groups of trick-or-treaters between 6pm and 7pm, and it seemed pretty slow, so we packed up and headed out to make our rounds. We stopped by the Simonsen's house first. Andy and Aaron were out trick-or-treating, so we unfortunately missed them, but we got to see adorable Abby in her ballerina costume.

Then we went over to see Grandma and Grandpa. Luke watched a little bit of Yo Gabba Gabba! while we were there.

Then we walked over to Mimi and Poppa's, and Mimi and I took Luke to trick-or-treat at Grandma DeeDee and Grandpa Tim's house. We told Luke to put on his glasses, and he put them on upside down – he puts all glasses on upside except for his own sunglasses. The DJ Lance glasses actually stayed on his face better when they were upside down though.

 

Then we headed back and went inside Mimi and Poppa's house, where Luke snacked on some Cheerios.

Luke really wasn't into the whole trick-or-treating thing, but maybe he will be next year. Maybe he'll actually like candy then too!

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!