Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at our friend Jen's with her family and our other good friends the Nazworths.

It was a great time of food and watching all the kids (6 in total). The biggest hit amongst the three 2 year olds were the xmas lollipops.

Here is Noah enjoying his.

Lucas with his.

And Lucas, Brandon, and Noah all showing theirs to each other.

Polar Express Train

Every year the Railroad Museum in old town Sacramento does a Polar Express Train ride during the holiday season which includes an hour long ride along the river with the story being told and cookies and hot chocolate served. There is also a visit to the North Pole where Santa comes on board and delivers bells to all the children "who believe." In order to get the boys ready, we watched the movie several times (which I must admit I still didn't completely understand) and the boys happily call is the "polar conspress."



Here are the boys with their bells (ans yes, all the kids were encouraged to wear their jammies). Here is Noah on the train with our good friends the Kornaks kids Max and Alex sitting across the table from him

Here are the boys coloring at the station while we waited to board the train.

Here I am with Lucas in old town in front of a train (yes, it was quite cold out!)

Christmas Tree

When I was growing up every year we would go the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. This year for the first time we did the same with the boys. We joined Jen (our surrogate & good friend) and her family (daughter Casey, baby son Shawn, her Mom Joyce and her fiance Larry).

Thanksgiving

Sorry for the long time between postings, not really sure where the time has gone :)

For the first time we hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and were lucky enough to have my parents and sister & family all over for 2 nights. The four cousins (l to r: Noah, Lucas, Melina, Kai) had a great time playing together.




They all also had fun having Grandma and Grandpa read them the Curious George books they brought over and over and over and over...

Boy's 1st trip to SF

During Popo and Yaya's trip with us, we decided to go to San Francisco for a day trip. We thought that the boys would really enjoy seeing the big bridges, the tall buildings and hopefully catch a glimpse of a trolley car or two. We help up fairly well during the trip there - even mom who managed to squeeze into the car's 3rd row seats (we all know how spacious those are).

For those of you who have been to San Francisco's chinatown - you all know its a bustling place. Lots of people, lots of cars, and lots of little shops and restaurants. The running joke in our family when German's parents are in town, is that they insist on going to the same restaurant every time they come. Its been nearly 25 years since his parents first ate there, its likely changed ownership and even names many times, nonetheless its the place we always end up going to. Yes - even when its just us, we somehow find ourselves eating there too - guess we're just carrying on the tradition

Here are a picture of Lucas snacking on a bun.


And on Monday, it was Popo's birthday. We celebrated with a surprise cake (anytime we tell the boys we have a surprise for them they say "birthday cake?". A few pics of the boys helping to blow out Popo's birthday candles.

Home Depot Project

For the 2nd month in a row, German took the boys to Home Depot's kids project day (1st Sat of every month). Popo went with him and they helped the boys to make wooden fire trucks (pretty cool!!)

Pumpkin farm

Spent the morning at Bishops Pumpkin Patch - thinking we'd beat the weekend rush only. Turns out weekdays are a good time for the little kids to take field trips as you can see from the numerous yellow buses in the background. Here's Lucas enjoying the tractor tire play area and Noah spending quality time with "Popo"

We also got a chance to go on the train and hay rides through the pumpkin patch to pick our very own pumpkins. When we told Lucas last night that we were going to see pumpkins today, he said "at the grocery store?" - absolutely adorable.














Of course - we're always looking for a photo-op with the boys and trains.

And lastly, some good 'ol horsing around in the hay.

See you next time...

Meeting Up With An Old Friend

German convinced me to get on Facebook about a month ago and I have since become reunited with friends from both Jr/Sr High as well as college. I was thrilled to hear from my dear friend Monika Delson who I knew from elementary/Jr/Sr High. It was fun to learn that she has twin girls who are about 8 months younger then my boys.

Last Sunday we stopped by her house in Orinda and met the family. The kids had fun playing why Monika & I caught up on what we had been up to for the past 15 years or so since we last spoke.

Pictures of 2 toddlers is hard and trying to get a pic of all 4 of them nearly impossible, this is the best we got (from l to r, Charlie, Sammy, Noah, Lucas).

Trains, Trains, Trains

After getting advice from our friends the Kornaks, we went ahead and became family members of the Railroad Museum in old town Sacramento. We took the boys there for the first time today, and let me say it was $50 well spent! The boys loved both the museum and excursion train ride (all of which was included in our membership making us $32 closer to paying off the $50 annual fee). German & I were amazed at how HUGE the engines were, which means they must have seemed twice as big to our boys.
Here we are on the 6 mile excursion train ride along the Sacramento river, we even got to see the engine go by to re-attach to the cars when we reached the midpoint and had to turn around.

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All Aboard!!

The boys obsession with trains continues and we lucked out and grabbed some cool Thomas the train stuff at our neighbors garage sale, one being a cool conductor's hat, though they only had one, we were happy the boys cooperated and took turns trying it on.

Conductor Noah with Thomas (that makes chugging sounds when you roll it).
Conductor Lucas.
The boys also had fun with their buddy, Brandon (our Intel friends, Dave & Katrina's oldest), at a labor day BBQ we hosted. We didn't quite get the camera quick enough because all 3 were sitting in the sandbox, here you can see Noah making his exit.

Summer Fun

I know I haven't posted in forever... sorry.

Here is a pic of the boys playing in our blow up pool in the backyard, they love it!
For some reason one morning they both wanted to get in the porta-crib and I wasn't gonna complain, it was actually a good place to take pictures.

The first week in Aug we went on our 2nd annual trip to Capitola with my parents & sis and her family. The boys LOVED the beach! Notice the tongues, they were really concentrating!

Grandma (forever the preschool teacher) led them in a sand castle art project. Their favorite part was painting on the glue.

Summer Fun

Now that the smoke has cleared, one of the boys favorite activities is to play in their new swimming pool. The eagerly put on their swim diapers (which they ask for) and go nuts bouncing on the side, sliding down the zebra slide, and splashing in the water. Once day when Lucas was in one of his typical toddler moods, he kept getting upset because the slide was wet but he wanted to play in the pool, how do you rationalize with a 2-3 year old that the whole point of playing in the pool is to get wet???
There other current favorite activity (which got us through all the smoky days) is riding there trikes that they call bicycles. We recently took the gates down so they have a nice circle through the kitchen and around the hall. They have fun playing hide and seek with each other and Mom. If they get stuck and can't start going again, they will ask the other for help who will get off and give his brother a push to get started, too cute :)

Fun at Fairytale Town

A few weekends ago we ventured to Fairytale Town in Sacramento to meet our firend Heather and her 2 kids, Abby & Gavin.

The boys favorite thing was the train and we spent much of the time on it, but they also had fun running around checking everything out in this toddler sized park.

New adventures

Its been a while since we've posted - so this one will cover a bit of ground.

With summer getting started soon, we're finding ourselves outside more and more - spending afternoons in our backyard and visiting all the nearby parks.

Here they are enjoying painting - warshack style. Is that a buffalo and an ostrich :)
But when we are inside, we find time to be silly also. Watch the boys get silly in this video - that Lucas in the foreground and Noah in the back.

Today, we visited the Folsom zoo. The boys had a great time looking at the chickens, peacocks, and deer. We even saw a few tigers and mountain lions on our visit - its really amazing, how quiet they are as they move around in their cages. But best of all, we were just glad we can run around.

After the visit to the zoo, we took a ride on the train and had lunch at the nearby park. We love all kinds of trains - even more so if we get to ride it.

The boys really took to the rock climbing wall on the play structure - won't be long before dad gets to take them to the rock gym.

After a busy morning, the boys are quietly sleeping. Got to get some "me" time now :). Enjoy the post.