67% Occupancy Rate

As we recently mentioned, we needed to get a new carseat for Clara. We were a little concerned they wouldn't fit, so today Meghan took them to the highway patrol and got them installed. Though it wasn't easy, the trooper did get them all installed, so that is great news. Now we have three in the back seat of our car.  Tomorrow we need to be able to take Clara in the car, so today I got the straps sized correctly for her. Joshua wanted to be part of the fun, so he casually lounged in his seat while I got Clara's seat set up for her.

More

I have not really taught my kids baby sign language. I am not that type of person even with one kid, but with two I think it would definitely be too hard. Joshua can talk now anyhow so it isn't an issue. However, he does know the sign for "More". We think the Becks taught him this because we aren't sure where else he would have picked it up. It's really cute because everytime he asks for "More" (which is a word he knows), he also does the sign for it. Here he is requesting more peaches. The only bad thing is he is a little confused about what "more" means. He thinks it means that he would like "some", either as a second or first helping. So a fair amount of the time he asks for more when he hasn't had any and I have no idea what he wants and I ask him what he wants more of and he just says "More". So it can be a guessing game, but usually it's not too hard to figure out since he has a few favorites and is also open to suggestion.

Fringing Again

Although Meghan and I went to the Kansas City Fringe Festival a couple years ago and the several years before that, we weren't able to go last year (although it was because we were lounging in Hawaii and Vegas, so that wasn't a bad alternative).  This year we squeezed in the chance to go to one day of the festival, which was today.  We went to three different shows in three different venues, one of which was really great, and we then went out to eat at La Bodega afterward.  It was a really fun day, and hopefully we can do it again next year.

Good to the Last Drop

Joshua's a little more picky with food than he used to be, but some things never change, and ice cream is one of them.  Tonight we had homemade ice cream for dessert, and Joshua wanted to get every bit of his so much that he turned his bowl completely upside down.

New Haircut

Today I took Joshua with me to get his haircut when I went to get mine done. Jason had previously been taking him to a barber shop and they did a good job, but Jason just doesn't have the time to bring him on a regular basis as the barber shop's hours are limited. Last time he tried bringing him to Great Clips, which is where Jason goes, but it didn't turn out very well. Christa did an excellent job on his hair. She point cut it so that it could be shorter, but still keep his curl, and gave us some products to try too. As always, Joshua was pretty somber during the cut, but he seemed happy enough with the experience. And he got a fun kid cape, which he seemed interested in.

Delight with Dog Water

Terrence and Natalie have yet to master the art of getting a glass from the kitchen cabinet, filling it with water, and drinking out of it.  As a result, they're currently getting their hydration via a bowl of water on the kitchen floor.  Joshua has always been interested in the bowl of water, and we usually have to move it up to the kitchen counter when he's playing nearby to keep him from splashing in it, spilling it, and trying to pick it up and carry it around.  Recently we decided to make an effort to teach him to leave it alone, and we'd made decent progress in that area.  However, we now have another crawler in the house, and she happens to love water and especially the dog water bowl.  As soon as she sees it, even from across the room, she'll turbo-crawl straight there.  Usually we'll notice and pick it up in time, which makes her cry in sadness.  Today, though, I was distracted, and both kids made it to the bowl and started playing in it.  Before I moved it up to the counter, I snapped this picture of the two of them enjoying a quick forbidden splashing session.

In a Box

I am not a big fan of infant carriers as I find them heavy, unwieldy, and my kids hate them even though I see all these other kids who are just totally content in them, so not sure if ours is uncomfortable or what. They are really handy for the first couple of months when the baby sleeps so much, but it has been quite a few months since I have carried Clara anywhere in hers so we decided to upgrade her to a convertible car seat. We also plan to use the carrier for the new baby and, since our car is not huge and it is very difficult to fit three rear-facing carseats across one row in most cars, we wanted plenty of time to get the carseats installed in case we had to exchange one for a different style to make them fit. So today Clara's new carseat came. Joshua always gets really excited about packages even though they are rarely for him and today was no exception. And he actually got to play with the box for awhile, which he really enjoyed. Unfortunately, being empty, it wasn't quite sturdy enough to jump off of, which is his favorite thing to do, but he still had plenty of fun getting in and out of it and hiding in it.

8 Months

Today Clara turned 8 months old. She is getting to be a very big girl. She has stood up for a split second once or twice without first pulling up, so we think it won't be too long until she can do it for longer. She has zero interest in cruising, but then again Joshua was never into that either, so maybe it won't be her thing. She is starting to make responsive noises to communicate. She loves her big brother, except maybe when he takes her toys. When she wakes up in the morning, she is super excited to see him every single day. She is liking more and more foods, though she still gets most of her nutrition from formula. She absolutely loves drinking water. She can drink out of a short straw and we are working on longer ones like they have at restaurants. She likes puffs and corn and most fruits. She can self-feed okay, though she still isn't big on the pincer grasp so that makes it a bit harder to get the food in her mouth. She holds her own bottle or cup except when she is really crabby or tired.

Daddy and Daughter

I recently came the the conclusion that I don't have enough pictures of me with Clara.  So I decided to take one tonight during our bedtime routine.  Clara was pretty tired, but she was sort of dazed and amazed by the camera in front of her and could do nothing other than stare straight into it, which worked out pretty well considering I was trying to take a picture.  Here we are in what turned out to be a pretty cute photo.

Safari Maze

I check woot.com almost daily, and one of the subsites is kids.woot.com.  Recently I noticed an item that I couldn't pass up.  It was a safari maze, or at least that's what it was called.  The pseudo-animal print patterns apparently qualify it as "safari".  "Maze" also seems like a bit of a stretch, because there are no wrong turns, but whatever.  It was being sold at a steep discount (which is sort of Woot's thing), and it seemed like the kind of thing Joshua would like.  I checked the reviews to make sure other people said it would stand up to rough kids (Joshua's not known for being gentle with his toys), and all my concerns were addressed, so I ordered it.  It arrived, and I set it up, and at first Joshua wasn't sure what to do with it, but once I showed him, he was pretty excited.  Clara also got into the act and enjoyed crawling through the tubes.  So far, it's definitely a good purchase.

Almonds, and Other Words

Every parent wants their kids to eat healthy snacks.  We've been lucky, because Joshua's favorite snack is almonds.  While they're not as healthy as, say, broccoli, they're way better than most things kids might want.  Here he throws down some delicious almonds as a late-afternoon snack.  Because of his love of them, he learned to say "almonds" so he could request them from us.  I realized since the last time I posted about his words, his vocabulary has grown dramatically.  We're no longer keeping track of every word, but some ones I can think of that he can now say in addition to the other ones are: sip, bite, eat, almonds, cheese, cracker, marshmallow, yogurt, fruit, soup, more, all done, down, hot, window, grass, bug, car, ride, dogs, baby, Clara, Natalie, Grandma, Grandpa, music, paper, again, right now, big boy, light, night night, diaper, blanket, hand, feet, tummy, teeth, eyes, ears, and nose.

Just Standing Around

Clara recently learned how to pull up on things, and now that's all she wants to do.  She'll crawl to the nearest object, pull up on it, and then just stand there holding on with one hand.  Sometimes she looks around the room for someone to give her validation.  Othertimes she's just happy to stand there and hang out, like she was doing when I noticed her chillin' by a kitchen chair.

Pseudo-Eco

Last night I stayed in a hotel that was recently renovated to be a Marriott.  When I checked in, they told me it was an eco-hotel, and I would have to put my keycard in a slot when I got in the room if I wanted the lights to work.  Not sure of what this meant, I went to my room, and sure enough there was a slot right next to the light switch for me to insert my keycard.  After doing so, I was able to turn on the lights by using the switch.  This sort of seems like a good plan, except they give you two keycards when you check in, so there's not much motivation to do anything other than put one in the slot and leave it there during your stay, and then just use the other one to go in and out as needed.  So I'm not sure this accomplishes a whole lot.  Because my mom taught me to turn the light off after I leave a room, I always do that anyway if I'm going to be gone for more than a minute or two, so I suppose I'm not their target audience.  Anyway, I'd be curious to see the energy usage difference with this system implemented and how long it's in place before it finally offsets the cost of buying and installing everything.

Our Almost Walker

Clara is very interested in walking, though she can't do it yet. But she has figured out how to use the walkers we have to be able to toddle along while holding on. She seems to be very proud of this new accomplishment.

Self-Service Sipper

Clara recently started being able to hold her bottle on her own, at least when it was partly empty.  Since she's taken interest in feeding herself, we broke out one of Joshua's old sippy cups for her to try.  She was delighted to be able to grab it and drink on her own.  She recently has been eating some solids on her own too, such as the Puffs that are easy to grab off of her high chair tray.  This is positive news for us, as it's soon going to be even more important that we have kids who are self-sufficient in some areas.

Temporary Goodbye

Since I quit my job, today was the last day for the kids to the spend the afternoon at the Becks. It was a little sad since they always have such a great time there and Joshua especially loves it and some of his early words were "Rylie" and "Ellie". Once I have the baby, we plan to have them go again, at least for awhile, since I am sure I will need some help while we are settling into a new schedule with three. Today they went outside. Clara was having a good time in the swing until she just couldn't keep her eyes open anymore and fell asleep and Joshua had a fun time in the sprinkler with his friend Kaitlyn.

End of Kickoff

As always, Kickoff was a long and grueling, yet also very enjoyable, time.  Not much sleep was had by many, but that was largely our own choice.  Today was the last day, but it's mostly just a travel day, as we had breakfast meetings this morning, and then everyone headed for the airport.  But because I flew from Palm Springs, the flight options weren't ideal, and I ended up taking a three-segment flight.  Here I am in the Minneapolis airport as I wait to board my final flight of the day.  Combined with the time change, I'll get to KC late tonight.  Tomorrow is Monday, so it'll be right back to work.  I do love Kickoff, but I wish it didn't take up the entire weekend.  Fortunately, it's usually the only weekend of the year that I have to give up for work, so I feel fortunate to have a job that almost always leaves my weekends free.

Movie Night

Jason is out of town all weekend for work. That hardly ever happens, but it's really hard when it does because it's very tiring for me to not have much of a break for two weeks since he also has to go back to work as normal on Monday. Since I still wanted us to have a fun weekend even with Jason being away, Joshua and I had pizza for dinner tonight and we also watched the last 30 minutes or so of The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith. This really held Joshua's attention as it was mostly the climactic championship match and Joshua loves watching sports. He was pretty into it and even clapped when Jaden Smith won. He actually temporarily lost interest in his pizza so he could focus more on the movie, so that tells you it was pretty compelling. Previously he hasn't shown much interest in TV except for sports so this was one of the first times he has shown interest in a show or movie. Even though I missed the first 3/4 of the movie, I feel completely confident that I understand the entire story line fully, so really it was a big time saver to watch only the end.

In My Dreams

Every year at Kickoff, our CEO does something crazy either as a sales incentive or reward.  A couple years ago, the first sales rep to make his or her sales quota received a Ducati.  The year before, it was a Harley.  This year, he decided to somewhat randomly award a prize to someone in attendance.  The prize was a weekend rental or either a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, whichever the winner chose.  The car would be delivered to the winner's home on the weekend of their choice.  Both cars were in the room with us.  Sadly, I did not win.  But that didn't stop me getting my picture taken while sitting in the car, in what might be the first and last time I get to sit in a Ferrari.  While it was my dream car as a kid (specifically the F40), it turns out it's not very practical in real life.  Oh, and not so affordable either.  I really love my RX-8, so I'm pretty happy with what I drive, but I wouldn't have turned down a weekend with the Ferrari.

Close to Two

I cannot believe it, but somehow my baby isn't anything like a baby anymore and instead is a toddler. Today he is 1 and 3/4 so only three months away from being two years old. It didn't seem like that big of a deal when he turned one, but I think I will be a little sad when he turns two because it seems so grown up compared to one. Joshua has been talking up a storm in the past few months and knows so many words and understands even more. He remains very active and still wants to go outside every single day, even when it is over 100 degrees out. We have had some sharing issues with Clara as he has taken more ownership of his toys and she has also become more mobile, but overall he is a very loving brother to her. He really likes to share food and drink (either as the giver or receiver) and here you will see him hold one of his megablocks. Not only does he like building with these, but he considers them cups and likes receiving sips of my water in the block to drink. That is probably his favorite way to share that doesn't involve a special treat. He has recently gotten a little bit more engaged in the books we read, which is exciting since I want him to love reading, but it has been a struggle to get him to want to read books rather than throw them. He has a renewed love of climbing, which we are trying to redirect that energy as he has recently been excited to climb the cabinets in the kitchen to better reach the counter-tops and also is trying to climb the refrigerator. His favorite toys are his megablocks, play dishes and food, and any ball, but especially his K-State football. His favorite foods are any kind of fruit, yogurt, and marshmallows. He really loves almonds as well and begs for them, but he doesn't always like chewing them since they are a crunchier food so sometimes they become a snack for Terrence.

Kickoff in the Desert

My company has an annual kickoff for the Sales and Marketing departments to start our new sales year.  This year it's in Palm Springs.  I'm assuming this is for the purpose of saving money, as no one voluntarily goes to Palm Springs in the summer because temperatures are similar to what they are now.  Yesterday, it got up to 119 degrees.  Not the heat index, the temperature.  119.  Crazy.  Today, though, it was a weak 110 degrees, though it had cooled down to only 102 by the time I landed.  They actually have a mostly open-air airport here.  I realize that it doesn't rain much, but it's as if they forgot that precipitation wasn't the only consideration.  In the Caribbean, it's fine to have airports like that, as the temperatures are reasonable.  But here, it seems like an indoor air-conditioned structure wouldn't have been a bad idea.  I was actually hoping it would still be 119 when we got here, as I was actually curious to find out what that would feel like.  Would I be able to feel my skin actually melting off the bone?  Who knows.  That was probably the closest I'll ever come to that experience, unfortunately.  Anyway, we'll be here for five days, mostly in the air-conditioned hotel, so the heat probably won't come into play too much anyway.

Stars at the K

I don't get many opportunities to watch TV at this point in my life, but I really try to make time for certain sporting events, and the MLB All-Star game is one of them.  This year it's in Kansas City for the first time since 1973.  I would have loved to attend, but ticket prices were ridiculous, and I just couldn't justify spending the money.  So I watched it on TV like the most of the rest of America.  It's a really big deal for KC to host the game, as we rarely have marquee sporting events here, given that the Super Bowl isn't coming (thanks a lot, Jackson County voters) and the Chiefs and Royals haven't exactly been championship contenders lately.  My Royals shirt was in the laundry today, so to commemorate the day, I wore my Kansas City Wizards jersey.  It's from a different sport of course (and is an outdated team name), but it's blue and says the name of our city, which is good enough for me.

Marshmallow Pug Vultures

Sometimes for a snack Joshua gets a mini cupcake liner with a few mini marshmallows.  He knows to go sit at his little table and chair set while he eats them.  The dogs know this represents an opportunity, as Joshua is sometimes generous with his food. So as soon as he sits down, they go in vulture mode and lurk near the table waiting for a marshmallow to accidentally or intentionally come their way.

PolyShading

Now that Clara's room is done, we're focusing on Joshua's room. However, the one thing that is still left for Clara involves me staining her dresser a new color.  Minwax makes a product called PolyShades which is a stain/polyurethane combination.  So I'm using that to darken the wood of the dresser, the drawers, and the mirror.  I did the first coat today.  So far it's looking pretty good, but it's going to need a couple more coats before it's done.

Sunshower

Today was another blazing day outside, but suddenly in the late afternoon a sunshower broke out. Joshua was excited to go outside, so we went out together. For about 15 minutes a heavy rain poured down on us while the sun still shined brightly. Joshua loved it, and we continued to play in the backyard even after the rain finally stopped.

Thumbs Down for Heat

The heat has been fairly ridiculous lately.  Today the temperature got up to 105 degrees.  Even when we were out this evening it was still 102 as shown on our car thermometer.  Here Meghan shows what she thinks of temperatures this hot.

Unexpected BBQ

Today I took the day off work and was running errands with Joshua.  While we were out, my friend Jeff called me and said he was in town and wanted to see if I wanted to go to lunch at Gates.  Joshua and I were done with our errands, so we met him at the Gates on State Line and had some good barbecue, though I still prefer both Oklahoma Joe's and Jack Stack above it.

Family Fireworks

Now that Julie and Andrew live in Olathe, it's easier for us to do things with them.  Because both of our families were planning to go to the same fireworks show (at the Great Mall), we decided to make an event of it.  They came over in the evening, and we grilled and had time to hang out, and then we drove over to the Great Mall for the show.  Even though there were already tons of cars there, we were able to find a great spot that had room for us to set up chairs and also gave us an excellent view of the show.  Joshua was a little scared at first, so he and Meghan went to sit in the car for a few minutes, but then he got brave and wanted to sit outside again.  Clara enjoyed the entire show and watched intently, unfazed by the noise.  Because that's how Joshua was last year, we're guessing next year will be Clara's turn to have a little time in the car.

Dance, Then, Wherever You May Be

Joshua continues to love music.  We have a CD player in our living room that we sometimes use to play music for him.  Our most common selection is a Christian kids music CD that Jeff and Josie gave to us.  The songs are really fun and catchy without being cheesy, so even Meghan and I enjoy them.  After Joshua eats, he tends to have extra energy.  After breakfast this morning, the music was playing and he went over to it and did some pretty serious dancing for awhile.

Cozy Coupe Kids

Joshua really likes his Cozy Coupe, although he's not very good at the Flintstone-like method of propulsion and instead asks us to push him in it, and we usually comply.  He's also not really into sharing.  Today I put Clara in the car, just to see how it would go.  To my surprise, not only did Joshua not immediately demand that she vacate his vehicle, he decided the right thing to do would be to help her by gently pushing the car around so she could have a little ride in it.  We were proud of him for sharing his toy and for doing something nice for his little sister.

One Down, One to Go

Today I finished my projects in Clara's room, so we are pretty much done with her room now except Jason is still working on her dresser. We did an owl theme. I didn't buy her a comforter set as I did with Joshua since I do plan on moving her to a toddler bed fairly early since it went so well with Joshua. I just sewed a wall hanging and bought some sheets instead, which was substantially less than a comforter set. This makes a lot of sense especially since it is a SIDS risk to use bumpers so those are a waste anyhow. I am fairly happy with how her room came out. I am really pleased with the letters, though not quite as thrilled with how the wall hanging came out. Next we are starting on Joshua's room.