Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was pretty amazing this year.  Andrew and Owen had the time of their lives and Eric and I enjoyed a very relaxing five days.  

We split the drive to Sacramento and stopped for the night at the Paso Robles Inn.  The drive was slow and we arrived around 6 pm in the dark with a light rain.  We went straight up to the room and Eric ordered food from the restaurant.  (On the this drive we confirmed that Owen does indeed get car sick and we again stopped at a random exit on the way to get him cleaned up.  He threw up again just after we arrived at the hotel. Lesson learned - no car movies for Owen.)

The next morning we were up bright and early.  Since the weather was drab, we decided not to linger any longer than necessary. We had a yummy breakfast at the coffee shop, went across the street to the town center park to let the boys run around a little bit, then loaded back up into the car around 8 am.  Day two of driving was very slow. The Interstate 5 was closed at Harris Ranch and we detoured around. We finally arrived in Rocklin around 2 pm.

Christmas came early for the boys.  A few minutes after we arrived, they were opening presents from G-pa and GeGe- a perfect assortment of trains, tracks and books for Andrew and balls, a farm toy set and books for Owen.  They were mightily entertained the entire trip.  The boys went on night time flashlight walks in the park, learned how to use a leaf blower, fed the birds and got to walk the dog.

Thanksgiving Day was relaxing with family, bikes rides, walks, and very good food.   Friday was another epic day for the boys.  Tim had the fantastic idea of heading to downtown Sacramento to the Railway Museum.  The museum had a special program this week and was hosting train rides (real live big on-real-train tracks rides lasting 45 minutes) with Christmas songs and a visit from Santa.  I thought Andrew was going to explode with excitement.  The museum has huge trains inside that you can walk through, many model train displays and a special area devoted just to Thomas.   Andrew loved it all.  (And the boys we're fine when Santa came up to talk to them.)

The entire trip was filled with good food: ham, sweet potatoes, tomatoes with kale and macadamia nut torte on Wednesday, Smoked Turkey with all the fixings on Thursday, lunch out at Fats City Bar and Cafe  in Old Town Sacramento. Friday night Eric and I had a date at Paul Martin's American Bistro.  We're still recovering from all the good food.  (This week we'll be having soup and salad in a effort to balance it all out.) 

Sunday we cleaned up and headed back home around 9am.  We pulled into the garage around 7pm.  A fine drive home, just very slow with all of the holiday traffic, nobody threw up!

Andrew

Andrew in his element, originally uploaded by leslie_capron.

Andrew is doing lots of new things these days. Andrew is becoming very comfortable navigating his way around computer games. We've found www.nickjr.com which has online games featuring his favorite characters, Deigo and Dora, etc. He's learned to play several games (his favorite being Deigo's train animal rescue), and click his way around the web site. At first we would launch the game for him and help him, but now we can just bring up the site and Andrew can click, and drag and find new games to play on his own. Often Eric and I will set him up and come back and check on him to find that he's figured out new features that we didn't even know the site had. Yesterday he launched the little radio application and was listening to Diego tunes. I love how independent he is and how he's trying new games and is figuring things out on his own. It also reinforces my desire to have the computer in a common area so I can keep an eye on his web surfing!

The online Diego train game features a railroad track that's all messed up and the player fixes the track by clicking on the misaligned pieces. Andrew now will take his Thomas train tracks and mess up the pieces and proceed to fix them, just like on the Diego game (see picture). He is so happy when pulls the track pieces apart then puts them back altogether correctly.

Andrew's become a little sneaky too. Since Halloween, Andrew's been allowed a piece of candy after dinner. Now, Andrew will ask for candy throughout the day, but I always remind him that "trick or treating" is for after dinner. I minimize temptation, I put his Halloween candy away in a closet. The other day Andrew said "i need to go potty", so he went to the bathroom and shut the door. Several minutes later, Eric asked "where's Andrew?", he'd been in there a while so we went to check on him and we caught him red-handed. He'd found his candy and was chewing away on some Starbursts. Eric and I couldn't help but start laughing and I couldn't believe he'd been so sneaky! The candy's on a much higher shelf now.

Andrew is talking a lot and this week has really started to enjoy singing. He likes to sing through his repertoire on the ride home from Kindercare: Old MacDonald, the theme from Thomas, and he makes up his own songs too.

Andrew is now sleeping regularly in his own bed these days. Eric's been home during the week and three's definitely a crowd.

He still doesn't eat robustly and unless dinner is plain pasta and watermelon, he doesn't eat.

Brotherly bonds are strengthening - last night Andrew said "come on Owen let's go to the bathroom", this is typical since Andrew prefers an audience when he goes potty. Then Andrew ran out of the bathroom and grabbed a book and ran back to Owen and shut the door. What were these boys up to? I knocked and the door opened and Andrew said "mama, you need to go, we're reading" and shut the door. So cute.

There are lots going on around here and every day Andrew surprises me and amazes me with all the things he can do.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary, originally uploaded by leslie_capron.

Eric gifted me with a new camera for our sixth anniversary. More photo taking options for me! I think this little camera will be much easier to take along on quick outings, it fits really easily in my pocket.

Baby number 3

Baby number 3, originally uploaded by leslie_capron.

Please don't blame me for the lack of posting, blame her! We're so happy to say that we're expecting baby number three in May!

This little person has been wrecking havoc on her mommy however. I've been so sick this time around that I've had zero energy for much more than just getting through the day. Oh, and I decided to back to work full time - I'm officially crazy.

We had an ultrasound this week and everything looks great. The ultrasound tech asked if we'd like to know the sex and she did say that its only about 80% accurate at this point, but she thinks its a girl. We're not buying anything pink just yet, and we'll be excited with whomever pops out.

I'm starting week thirteen. I'm really hoping that since the second trimester is fast approaching that I'll start to feel better very soon.

I'll start posting the belly pics too, there's definitely a belly!