Costumes, etc.

Sorry for the delay in posting Halloween costume photos!  Bill and I thought we'd get the perfect, adorable photo with both kids posing in their costumes, but who were we kidding?  There was some confusion about whether to trick or treat Saturday or Sunday, with most churchgoers going Sat. night but most 'purists' going on Sunday.  We started our weekend at Red Butte Gardens on Friday night, where they have a "Garden After Dark" Halloween event.  We got there before it got dark, but still had fun. :) Freddy got to paint a pumpkin and make a cool mask and some magic potion.  Lots of cool lighted butterflies and flowers, Chinese dragons, and storytellers.  And this is about the only decent photo of our little fireman and fire dog.

Some of you know that Bill and I have been doing these cyclocross bike races on Saturdays for a couple of months.  Sadly, we don't have any sweet photos of ourselves, but Freddy has been riding in the "kiddiecross" category and really loves taking his bike.  He decided that his superman costume (thank you, Alex) was better than the fireman costume for bike riding.  Liza loves hanging out and eating dirt.  This weekend, there was a double-header event both Sat and Sun.  After we took the kids on Saturday, neither one wanted to nap that afternoon (and Liza had skipped her morning nap too), so Freddy got a very abbreviated trick-or-treat outing in the pouring rain with Daddy while I got to put Liza to bed early.  The weather was much better Sunday (although the bike race was pretty muddy and slippery), so we swapped rides and kid-watching so they didn't have to get quite as muddy or tired.  Bill got extra points for playing hockey that evening, and since the game was a little earlier, I took the kids and skipped a second night of trick-or-treating.

A fun weekend...a little exhausting, but we squeezed a lot in!

Happy Halloween (almost)

Ahh, pumpkins.  I honestly love them.  I love carving them, roasting the seeds, and putting them on the front porch.  Every year, I manage to forget what a pain it is to separate the seeds from the pulp for salting and roasting.  It turns out that it's especially hard with little pumpkins that probably never ripened all the way.  The seeds are paper thin!  But they get especially crispy and yummy in the oven, so at least there's an up-side.  Freddy is really into his pumpkin (and "Liza's") this year - but we still have one huge one left to carve.

An Eventful Day

Yesterday marked our first snow of the year, and we woke up to a few inches of very heavy wet white stuff on the ground.  Freddy was THRILLED and excited to make a snowman and throw snowballs...starting at 5:15, right after he threw up in his bed.  I assume it's this bug going around that Liza had last Friday night, but it could also have been a) a result of his recent nighttime coughing or b) a bad reaction to some veggie juice he had last night as a special treat.  Always nice when the throw up is bright red.  Lovely way to start the day!  I set Freddy up on the couch with some towels and a big pot "just in case", but luckily he didn't need it, since Liza had a better time playing in it.

So Freddy stayed home today, and ended up feeling fine the rest of the day, as far as I can tell.  We played outside this morning after I dressed Liza in her marshmallow snow outfit and monster snow boots (no, she could not move), and we did build a tiny little snowman with a carrot nose.

While Freddy took an epic 4-hour nap, and since Liza only took a pathetic 1/2 hour nap, Liza and I made chocolate chip cookies.  Actually, she worked on destroying the kitchen and den while I baked.  I made the mistake of giving Liza a tiny fingernail-sized piece of cookie.  She has been pointing a lot lately, and you can figure out from this picture that she knew right where those cookies were and was not going to rest until she got more.  When he woke up, I offered Freddy a beater from the mixer with cookie dough, and he turned it down.  What?!? Liza is going to be my spoon-licking kid.

Happy Birthday Freddy!

As I watched Liza draw (for the first time) on a closet door with a blue crayon, I was prompted to write a blog post because it illustrates (ha) the difference between my two kids.  Freddy just turned 3 and has NEVER drawn on a wall, door, etc.  Maybe on a table, if the crayon went off the paper by accident, but never on a wall.  And not because I told him not to - he just didn't.  Hmmm. What are we in for with this one? :)

Freddy turned 3 last Thursday!  We had a nice pizza and cupcake evening at home with a few nice gifts (thank you, friends and family!) and then had a big, 5-kid party Saturday night at a friend's house for Freddy and his friends Hayden and Maddox (twins, 3), Charlie (4), and Tripp (5).  Bless Tripps' mom Robin for hosting the party.  We had two big bouncy slides ready to go in her backyard, and it thunderstormed ALL DAY.  Robin, of course, probably has the cleanest house AND had just re-painted the entire inside.  And we had 70 people confirmed to come (including about 40 kids).  Needless to say, she was a little nervous.

But the kids had fun inside, and eventually the weather cleared for a little while and the kids basically played slip 'n slide on the big slides.  Lots of cold wet feet, but everyone had a good time - including Freddy!  He is not a fan of bouncy houses or, usually, bouncy slides, but as you can see - he got over his slide fears that night.  :)  How fortunate are we to have this handsome, witty, funny, smart little guy as part of our lives???

Everyday Objects

Turns out all we need are empty boxes and toilet paper to have a good time out here in Utah.  Come on over!

You'll notice Freddy's sweet undies!  We went pretty much cold turkey with the potty training a few months ago (no pull-ups), and now he's all underwear, all the time (naps and nights, hooray)!  Now we might need a big-boy bed, though, since Mom and Dad are getting a little tired of the 1 or 2 a.m. "Help! I need to pee-pee!" calls.  The question is, will he figure out how to go by himself if he can get out of bed alone?  Hmmm.

Liza is getting some big ole' teeth!  She has a giant gap between the top two, so I'm hoping the others come in quickly so they get pushed together.  She's enjoying chomping on anything crunchy these days...and some things not so crunchy (like me).  Ten months a few days ago - man, she is growing fast.

Both kids are excited to meet their new cousin Susannah (assuming that's still her name after she's born), who is already five days past due!  Good luck to Billy and Megan (Geier) and big sisters Victoria and Helen - we can't wait to meet the new addition when we go home to VA in November.

It's finally feeling like fall here in Utah.  Billy is being a hero dad these days, having been in charge for 3 days last week while I was at a board meeting in Montana (which was supposed to be 2 days but changed when my flight out got canceled!), and being on deck for this coming weekend as I travel to Chicago for Christine's baby shower there.  I can't wait to see that little baby Gowski belly!

Halloween Preview

The danger in ordering your child's Halloween costume a month early (and then letting him see it) is that he will want to wear it every day leading up to the actual holiday events.  Here's a little preview. 

Our weather here has been unseasonably warm lately, although the nights are finally cooling down.  Liza is getting her top teeth, which combined with her already not-great sleeping habits, is making for some long nights and early mornings.  We finally had her sleeping from about 7 pm - 5 am (still too early!), but then we had a 3-hour middle-of-the-night crying spell the night before last.  Ugh!  I guess you never appreciate what you have until you have something worse - Freddy was SUCH a great sleeper!

Liza is probably going to look funny with two big old front teeth. ;)

Looking forward to a nice weekend of bike rides, a nice wine and cheese party tonight with friends, and maybe a hike tomorrow morning.  The leaves are changing in the mountains here, and we don't want to miss it!

Then and Now

 

Here are a two photos taken of my kids doing about the same thing...Freddy was a few months younger than Liza when he first started pulling up on things, so it's not apples-to-apples.  But how fun to think about each of their developmental stages and to think that they are bound to look at least a little different!  We know Freddy will look just like Billy, but Liza?  Who knows!?

False Start, Trip to Jackson

So I guess that last post was a little premature. ;)  Weekly posts, that's the goal.  But then we went away for 5 days.  Hmmm.

On Friday, I drove 5 1/2 hours up to Jackson (WY) with the kids.  Freddy had NOT previously known that we had a built-in DVD player in the minivan, but now the secret is out. I actually debated whether to use our portable DVD player so he'd never know about the one in the van, but then I realized that I'd have to face the music eventually.  In case he asks you, the DVD player only works on car trips longer than 2 hours.

The point of our trip was to meet Billy at the end of a very long bike ride/race on Saturday.  Called LoToJa (short for "Logan (UT) to Jackson"), it starts at about 5:30 on Saturday morning and ends sometime before dark that day.  Bill's goal was to make it in under 10 hours, which he did!  But he had a rough day - one of those days when you're just "off".  But he made it, and that was the end of the summer of biking.  Sort of. At least until next spring.  I'm guessing this isn't the last LoToJa race we'll be involved in.

Good friends Dan and Annie Cantrell (who live in Big Sky MT) met us in Jackson for the weekend, and it was so good to see them and their friend Megan, who lives in Jackson.

The kids were great.  Freddy would have ridden the tram up the mountain every day if we let him, but instead we hiked to Hidden Falls at Jenny Lake and to Phelps Lake near Death Canyon.  Freddy turns out to be a really fun hiker, and Liza was great in the backpack.  We extended our trip by a day because we were having so much fun!  The weather was INCREDIBLE, too.

I'm back, finally!

Ok, I know there's no real excuse for abandoning this blog almost a year ago.  After all, I didn't even go back to work after Liza was born!  But here we are, August.  2010.  One kid in big-boy underpants (well, except for naps and bedtime) and the other crawling, so it's time to get back into regular updates since we have things to share!  When I have a few more minutes, I'll put together a little slide show of the last, oh, nine months or so to bring some of you up to speed.  But for now, here's Freddy and Liza in from mid-July in Virginia, below.  More to come!