Snow Day

Today we headed about 50 minutes of San Diego to go play in...snow. In San Diego. Snow glorious snow. Soft, sparkling, perfect for snowballs and snowmen snow. In San Diego. Needless to say, the Fox family is quite excited about this new discovery and will be heading out to Mt. Laguna after every rainfall we have as rain here = snow out east.

The kids were so very excited about the possibility of playing in the snow, a possibility that we did not even know existed when we woke up this morning. When we found out there was snow out east, we excitedly put on all of our winter gear and refused to take it off. Even though it was 70 degrees at home (but around 40 degrees at the snow). Whatever. There was snow to be played with! We had to get ready!

So we drove out east and talked the whole way there about how we were going to throw the biggest snowballs and make a snowman. Luckily we were able to do both, along with making a few snow angels in between.

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And every good day in the snow must be ended with a nice cup of hot cocoa.

Hibiscus

Outside on our patio we have a potted red hibiscus that we bought a couple months ago. It is really happy in its location and sends us numerous beautiful ruby red blooms pretty much every day. So, each day Teigue tells me to close my eyes and stick out my hand because he has a surprise for me. When I open my eyes I always have this delicate bloom that we must then run inside with and place in a vase. Days when he notices that there is a bloom when I am close to the bush I am forced to look away, as to not spoil the surprise that awaits me. In the morning, the first thing that he does is unlock the door and run outside to see if there are any presents for me. This morning he was aquite upset because it was raining, so he couldn't run out in his pajamas and pick the flowers that were just out of his grasp.

As a (sort of) gardener and a lover of flowers, I would love to have him keep the blooms on the bush so that we could enjoy the bush as nature intended. As a mom, I hope to never see a bloom last for more than a couple of hours, unless it is in the bloom vase on my window sill.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Finally my favorite time of year is upon us. The songs, shows, lights, merriment...I love everything about Christmas. My favorite thing about the season is by far the Christmas tree and the memories that it holds with each and every ornament that we put on the tree.

There are the ornaments that I got when I was single living in Chicago and had my own tree for the first time. The silly Elvis ornament that I bought at Uncle Fun's that is falling apart but I can't seem to part with. The dragonfly that my friend Peg bought. Then there are the ornaments that were bought on our travels. The hula lady from Hawaii, the bears from Whistler, a trolley from San Francisco, Santa Claus House from Alaska.

Tonight the kids were so excited putting their own personal ornaments commemorating something from the previous year, such as Jayno's chili peppers from last year (since she is so spicy), her dog from this year. We have an ornament from when I was pregnant with Teigue, his first pair of Vans, a train that my mom bought his first year. Each ornament holds a special place in my heart and brings us back to a time in our lives that we don't ever want to forget. They also remind me of the people that I don't ever want to forget.

The handmade ornaments from my Gram and my mom. Or the small gold replica of the church (or something that looks like the church) that we were married in that Aunt Jean bought. I love love love this time of year and am so excited that Teigue and Stella share in that excitement. Teigue is just a little confused on how Christmas can happen in San Diego since it doesn't snow here. Guess we'll have to go someplace cold!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Thanksgiving

What a wonderful day we had yesterday. For the 3rd year in a row we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house and had some of our favorite people over to share the day with. What a lovely day we had of enjoying great food, awesome friends and loads and loads of laughter. Such a great start to the holiday season.

Introducing....

Ollio!

For the last couple of days we have had a visitor coming to our house. He does not speak, he just observes. His name is Ollio and he is a elf from the North Pole. His job is to watch and pay attention to all the things the kids do, both good and bad, and then report back to Santa. He also reports back to Santa anything that the kids should want for Christmas. The first day he was here, Ollio learned that Teigue wants a T Rex and King Kong doll as well as a baseball bat. He also learned that Jayno wants the same (she shouted it right after Teigue...just in case Ollio didn't hear).

Today I discovered that although I can not hear Ollio speak, Teigue and Stella can. We learned that he is 19 years old, he likes pineapple chips from Chippies (no idea where this came from), grapes and brussel sprouts. His favorite color is red- Jayno disagrees and says yellow- and our house is the first house that he has ever been to.

We really like Ollio and search for him all day when he is not around. We get very excited when we find where he is, and become quite sad when he leaves. Luckily Ollio has very good hearing and comes back really quick when the kids are crying...since no one likes to hear little ones upset, especially Ollio.

Welcome to our home Ollio, may your stay be a pleasant and joyful one.

If you so desire to have one of Ollio's brothers come visit, go here.

San Francisco

We had so so so much fun in one of our favorite cities. I was so glad that we went because I discovered how easy the city is to navigate using public transportation. This has opened up a whole new world- we can now plan trips up here when Brady has multi day meetings and I don't have to lug 2 car seats with me. The kids had a blast riding on the buses and trains. We all had a grand ole time discovering new parts of the city that we have never explored before (and plenty more to still explore- such as meeting the bison!).

On our adventure to a new city (well for Jayno anyway...) we took our first city bus ride (I am included in that first as well), rode on a very fast train (Teigue was just a weeee bit excited about this) and looked out the windows of our bus to see the biggest BIGGEST bridge we have ever seen.

They had to share a seat so that they could both look out the window during take- off.

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We discovered new parks, and also discovered that we like them much more than our parks at home. I think it was all the soft, moist, lovely expanse of velvety grass.

We hung out with loads and loads of sea lions, tried to feed some squirrels and told the pigeons to "Beat it!" while we chatted with the ducks.

Of course we collected quite a load of treasures which, unfortunately, did not all make it back to San Diego with us.

The best part of the trip? Watching the kids in a new environment have the best time with each other and just love love love one another the whole time.

This is not the best picture, but this certainly was one of the best moments. Jayno was so tired after the plane ride and just wanted to lay down. Teigue asked Jayno, "Want to way in my wap Jayno and I'll wub your head?" As she was laying in his lap he made sure that her dog was a pillow and she was comfortable. She stayed there for about 3 minutes and he just lovingly stroked her head and sweetly talked to her. Times like these makes me so happy that I am a mom, and ecstatic that I have the sweet little kids that I have.

Vintage Love

I just found this while looking through pictures of San Francisco, filmed almost a year ago. I love how sweet he was to her then, and how that love and sweetness is still there.

Beach Trip

One of the best parts of living in San Diego is winter ocean. No crowds, beautiful surf and still warmish weather. Today after swim class we headed on down to Law Street Beach to let Nanma dip her feet in the Pacific.

I love sandy chubby baby toes

Treasures that we left for a bird to build a nest with.

Nanma Love

Grandma's in town!!! Whooo hooo!! We love visits from Grandma, or as the kids say Nanma. Loads of hugs and kisses for the little ones, free time for the older ones, and just oodles of fun times (who knew I Spy was so addictive?). Where should you take a Grandma from Ohio- where it is already freezing and yucky? SeaWorld where it is sunny, right on the bay and all the gardens are in bloom!

Although she found the eels as creepy as we do, she loved the orange fish that swam amongst them.

We showed her where Dory lives.

We tried as best as we could to have a nice family photo taken by the bay. Unfortunately, the kids just weren't having it. Too many treasures to be collected...

This is one of my favorite pictures of the kids ever. I love how I was able to capture (finally!) a really sweet moment between the two of them. Normally when they are loving each other, which is really quite often, they usually run away just as I am about to take the picture. Today they had no where to run to! Success!

Treasures. The large amount of flowers were collected from underneath a beautiful tree. Teigue said that they were for my birthday, which just so happens to be in a little over a month, just in case anyone wanted to get me anything....

Treasures

Every where we go, Teigue always needs to find the best sticks, berries, rocks..really anything..and we call them Teigue's Treasures. He is very very protective of his treasures and has a bit of a meltdown if any are lost or damaged. Like yesterday, for instance, when the large berry in the picture fell into the duck pond at SeaWorld.

Wee bit of a large meltdown, to be honest. As I was rolling up my pants and taking off my shoes to go into the sort of deep water to retrieve the berry, I was informed by a very nice lady that that would be in fact against the rules.

Umm...well you see my son dropped something into the water. I'm sorry ma'am but it is not safe for you to go into the water. Let me call someone to come help you. Oh no, really don't go through the trouble. It is just right there, I could just go in quite quickly and get it out. No one would know. I can't let you do that, I'm sorry. Hold on let me see if I can help. Oh no, It's quite alright. No need to do that...

Then this very nice lady locks up the ride that she was in charge of (the large tower in the center of SeaWorld) and walks down the very long ramp and finds a net. Thankfully the berry was saved and we were able to continue, quite happily, on with our day. I felt a teeny bit embarrassed when I had to tell her that what she was saving was berry. Hopefully she has kids.

The berry spent the remainder of the day in my pocket.

So, from now on, I have decided that after all of our adventures I will be documenting the treasures that Teigue deemed important for the day.

Another Day at SeaWorld

On some Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Teigue is not in school, I like to take the kids places that take (usually) the whole afternoon to hang out at. Wild Animal Park, Quail Gardens. Yesterday we hit up one of our favorite places- SeaWorld and hung out all day long. We had a really great time and went and saw some exhibits that we usually do not head to. I mean, I love the sharks as much as the kids, but seeing them every single time that we come was getting to be a little much.

So yesterday we smooched a walrus.

Hung out in a polar bear's den complete with actual bear growls.

Tried to tickle the beluga whales (I guess that whales just aren't ticklish...)

Sat through the whole show (the whole show!!) of Pets Rule! and giggled the whole time. (Some of us giggled the whole time at the tourists next to us that covered themselves up in the Shamu ponchos so that they wouldn't get wet...at a show about pets...that contains no pool...)

And we got very very excited watching Shamu swim under the water.

Well, one of us did at least.

While watching Shamu swim, we saw something today that Teigue and I thought was really neat (and we had to constantly run up and down the path to get good views)- we actually were able to watch a training session with the killer whales. It was really neat seeing the trainers in the water and watch how they train these huge animals. Teigue couldn't decide if he wanted to watch below the surface or above, so we did both. After it was done Teigue told me that he hopes he could do that some day when he get's bigger. He then pretended that a large rock was Shamu and he was doing all the tricks that the trainers were doing on the rock. It was quite dangerous at one point when he was off Shamu...since there were sharks in the water. Luckily he was able to swim back to Shamu and all was safe in the land of Teigue again.

Sugar High

Halloween candy + preschooler + toddler = extreme chaos.

With loads and loads of sugar kids find that jumping off furniture onto mats made of pillows is the most fun thing ever.

Your brother becomes a fantastic steam engine to your caboose as you both yell "Choo! Choo!" while running through the house and fall on to pillows. You must play this game over and over and over again.

Then, in the morning while your mother is unloading the dishwasher and not one hundred percent paying attention to what you are doing, painting your face with your yogurt is a really great idea.

Thankfully 90% of the candy has been thrown away. What remains is very far out of reach of any little hands. Even if those little hands use their step stools.

And even though it has been chaos with our little ones completely sugar highed out, I can't wait for next year.