Long Thanksgiving trip to Portland

Deirdre and Mark were great this year in being willing to host Mormor and Morfar for a few weeks, Ada, Seth, and I for ~10 days, and Ty for a bit as well. We had a great visit!

Ada's first plane ride without a carseat in the CARES harness. It made flying with both kids without Ty doable. I did get help through security and at the gate from sympathetic older parents. Our flight was about 30 minutes late, so took off at 9:15 pm. Seth went to sleep about half hour into the flight, but Ada was too excited about juice and cookies so she stayed awake the whole time and was chatty and great (other than I didn't get to sleep on the plane and possibly talking loud enough to bother neighbors). 

Day 1 - Rainbow!!

Also the first day, Seth had trouble sleeping in his room so fell asleep on my lap. 

He was tired enough that he slept too long for me to hold him so I transferred to Morfar and he stayed alseep yay! He looks huge in the picture though, not a baby anymore. 

Saturday night Deirdre and Mark took Mom and Dad to the symphony so I had all 4 kids. Popcorn and Cat in the Hat made it pretty easy. 

Mark did so much great cooking that we made 2 trips to Costco. On the first trip we decided to get all the kids out of the house and into shopping carts, and fed them pizza on the way out. 

Morfar supervising the bubble machine

San Diego kids needed to get outside whenever it wasn't raining

Family resemblance? 

On the way to the park while Mark and Deirdre were working. Kira and Ada really wanted to push Seth and Claire by themselves! Making for fun attempts for the adults at keeping the strollers on the sidewalk

Seth, where are you?

Seth eventually decided that it was cold enough that he would leave a hat on 

Ridin' the boat

I took both pairs of kids (older here and younger the next day) to the library story hour. the older girls enjoyed it, the toddlers probably would have been ok skipping.

Tinkertoy stethoscopes - the doctors are in!

Ada's outfit. She fell and scraped her hip, so her pants were uncomfortable. My tank top made a surprisingly cute jumper.

Fussy kid after nap, so I took him outside, always a win.

As soon as he saw the Dalarna horses, he kept pointing and saying horse. We eventually let him check them out with Mormor 

Mark brought the slide inside; it was a lifesaver for entertaining the kids.

Looking outside

Mormor, Morfar, and Grandma Nancy were nice enough to watch the kids all day on Friday so we could all go wine tasting in Willamette Valley. It was nice to get away, and we got lucky getting early to one place so we could to do a tour which was pretty educational and fun.

A little out of focus, but the last place we went to (Fairsing). Deirdre was a fan. It was high, would be very cool to go back in the summer for the view. 

Cheers! This one was a private tasting with paired bites. 

We all liked it so we convinced Ty to sneak off with a case

Glooooooo-ria! Time to decorate the new tree!

By the end the kids and Deirdre got all the best ornaments up and the tree looked great.

The first day back in San Diego, Ada wanted to wear her kitty Christmas dress from Mormor. Super cute. 

November in San Diego

First part of November was relatively uneventful, but a few pretty cute pics anyway!

Little builders. Such great teamwork...for at least 3 min. before conflict.

They didn't quite think their cunning plan through and pretty much literally boxed themselves in

Ada mada box. Ada got tuckered out, but seems pretty satisfied with her work. 

La Jolla cove, where Rachel does her open water swims. It is usually inundated with sea lions which often tag along with the swimmers. 

A local restaurant (Farmer and Seahorse) has some pretty awesome toys for the kids, including super Jenga. Even though it is a light-hearted, fun game, Seth seems to be contemplating the life decisions that led him to this point (he was still pretty happy most of the time).

Andy, Rachel's supervisor, had a little one-v-one soccer session with Seth. Andy prevailed in this one, but Seth vowed to train every day of his life and one day return to destroy the giant kicky monster.

Art, another of Rachel's supervisors took a less competitive approach to bonding with Seth.

Loading up the alphabet to go make some words. Seth is gaining a lot of words a week these days. They seem perfectly clear to his little ears, but we often have to work pretty hard to figure out he wants. 

Cutest little monkey in our jungle.

Sometimes Seth seems to like his daddy... 

 

...and we have to include this because coordinated good smiles are sometimes hard to come by.

The month of the Pumpkin Patch!

There weren't really major events in October, but it was busy with Pumpkin patches and Halloween activities. 

Always-helpful pushing on UCSD campus after Ada's gymnastics class. 

 Our unheated pool was still tolerable in October

Way up in the air! Seth loves the water. 

Ada likes to go in the pool

Too bright!! Mama! Too Bright! 

Hey, check out these socks.

Playing in the toy room at swimming lessons (Floaties), still sporting fancy socks

This was a great evenimg. All 4 of us took Ada to gymnastics because we went to swimming, soccer, and didn't have time to go home before gymnastics. Soccer is a girls' game; my boss got roped into coaching his daughter's team and Ty is very generously helping coach, especially the keepers. Anyway, after gymnastics we were walking through campus back to the car and it felt really nice out. I made a comment that it would be great to stop at the beach and watch the sunset, so Ty pulled over at the Torrey Pines Gliderport. It was really nice. Unfortunately we didn't have food so we couldnt' stay until sunset with the kids, but it was really nice anyway. 

Grumpy Seth in the tunnel at the close park with Happy Dad. 

More grumps. Have to include these for realism. 

 Mira Mesa Pumpkin Patch! We drive by this one on the way to Gladys's every day, and in the car when she sees it, Ada yells PUMPKIN PATCH!!! And ask to go. So one Sunday we walked the 2 miles from home (via a park stop) and played at the pumpkin patch.

Posin' with the pumpkins

One ride picture. Ada got to do this one with me and with Ty. More fun but not shown are the bouncy houses. There was actually one that was an obstacle course ending in a slide that was great; Ty and I got to chaperone the kids through a few times. 

Ada cut this mask out of a kids magazine (thanks Mormor and Morfar!). Love the pose. 

Munching on kale chips (hurray!) 

Ada said "yay, kale chips" when I brought them to the table. A far cry from the usual response to whatever we're serving for dinner so it was pretty exciting. 

Biggest motorcade I've seen. Obama went golfing at Torrey Pines, across the street from where I work. We saw the motorcycles line up so we went outside...

And were rewarded. Got to very briefly see Obama wave out a tinted window.

Pumpkin patch #2! This one was Del Mar with the preschool. I got to chaperone. It was pretty fun, though crazy keeping track of all the kids (or mine and the other who rode in my car). 

The kids all got to do 5 rides, 2 were bounce houses that Ada loved. Well all the kids did. Their ticket got them 5 rounds but they went as fast as possible until the worker stopped them. 

Ada and Vihaan, my 2 backseat drivers

This pumpkin patch came with a petting zoo 

In the bunny cage, which was also popular. 

Picking out the best pumpkin to take home! 

Concentrate...

Been workout out up in the loft. Sometimes one or both kids joins in, which usually results in chaos. This day Seth started out busily playing really well. 

He eventually had a little melt down. 

But a little mama time helped

I don't think Batman ever smiles, but if he did there is no way he would out-cute this little bat.

Ahhhhhh....spiders! Thanks to our neighbor, Fran, for throwing a fun Halloween party for the kids. She made these spider hats that lasted all of 30 seconds after snapping this pic.

Another Halloween party at (other) Rachel's house.

Nap time for all. Dad usually takes the mattress crease and doesn't make it out sometimes when he falls asleep before the kids.

Soooo...many things to vote on this year. Death penalty, weed, taxes, condoms for porn stars, reality star for president. What a weird year. 

Bat signal spotted! To the Batmobile!

A cloud of bats.

All the kids from trick or treat night after eating chili on the lawn. Although, the neighborhood was mostly dark, we found a few enthusiastic houses that got to hand out candy to this parade.

Ari, Shawna, and Ada tasting the sugary spoils

...end of night sugar crash