Boo!

Happy Halloween!

Proof that my kids are like their Dad in pulling faces. "Smile normally," said Ben, as he snapped this shot.

Jilly loves Princesses and Evelyn got her scary witch costume. I think she's just cute, not scary.

My friend's little boy dressed up as Max from where they wild things are. I think he's had the best costume of any kids I've seen this year!

Nature's Playground

The other night, Evelyn said, "Thank you for the beach," in her prayer. She is genuinely excited to tell me, "Jesus made the earth beautiful!" That He did, my dear.

Some friends from our old ward in Utah moved here last week, and the girls were excited to play with a familiar face. It was a little bit of a cloudy day, but still nice.

tidbits

Life is finally starting to slow down a little bit. It's been really nice. I don't handle having to be gone out of my house every single day very well. It just falls all to pieces!

Here are some thing we are enjoying lately:

Gordon's growing independence. He's mobile and loves it. He loves his food too, applesauce and white grape juice being his favorites. He also has started 'singing' himself to sleep. I hum songs to him while he's going to sleep, and now he's humming back. It's so sweet.

The library. I'm reading Austenland right now.

Jilly is finally liking nursery, mostly because the older nursery kids are going to primary for part of the time. She is slowly finding some more friends her age. She has latched more quickly onto Mommy's friends than kids her own age.

Pumpkin desserts. (Did you know there's a pumpkin shortage?)

Evelyn's got lots of boys to play with. She's sort of becoming a tomboy. ("NO mom! I do not want pigtails! Only a pony-tail!"). I need to find her some girls to balance out the testosterone.

The beach.

A date. (This is a big deal for us). We went out to Chinese for our 6th anniversary, probably the first real Chinese food I've had, and then went to walk on the beach. The moon wasn't out though, and it was kind of cold. We'll plan better next time for the full moon.

College football. We have 8 sports channels here, but only watch about 3 of them. Still, it's a lot of football (for me). ESPN's College Gameday was in Provo today, and they panned the scenery, and we both shed a tear for nostalgia's sake. We'll both be okay though.

But this little girl...

She has asked about every day for the last 10 days to "take down her bed and take it back to Utah." Poor kid, she thought we were on some sort of glorified vacation. Both of them have said they want to go back to Utah when we're all done with Daddy's school. We'll see!

P.S. Mothers of little boys: what diapers work best on your boys? Gordon is leaking out of his during the night about 80% of the time. Do you just buy a bigger size? I can't do Huggies or their off-brands (Kirkland) because he's allergic to them.

The new and improved skill

Here's a video showing Gordo's crawling ability. More like army crawling. But I haven't had a kid this mobile at 6 months. He doesn't care about sitting up (he can't do it yet) because he can get around and vacuum the carpet. He's my cute and very wriggly little boy!

California...

...isn't so bad. It doesn't look like we're having a terrible time, does it?

Today our friends Jared and Emily showed us the way to Balboa island. You can take the ferry over, and the kids thought it was great our river-van-car got to go on a boat.

Jill is still Captain Reluctance with even touching the ocean. We went last week to Corona del Mar, and she says the ocean is too big for her and she'll go in the water when she grows up. So she sits at our little camp, eating snacks and collecting bits of sea shell. But hey, she's happy.

Evelyn would spend all day watching the waves come in and wash her feet.

This hat is actually child size, but I was able to shrink it down for this kid. He's so gosh-darn cute. And teething. (One of his lower canine teeth are coming in first. WEIRD.)

My 'pose for the camera' child.

Ben 'graduating.' He's actually graduating in December, but since we won't be in Utah then, we got a graduation gown and took pictures anyway. He spent 5 years at the Y, so he may as well have something to show for it.

We had a whirlwind last two weeks in Utah, and got a lot of over-due visiting in. We did not have our camera for all these visits unfortunately. Moving kind of puts your brain into a box as well. So if your picture is not here, we still love you! :)

Our friends Chad and Ashley and their kids; we've known them since shortly after we were married and have been able to watch our families grow together. It's been fun and special.

Playing 'babies' with Graysen.

Feeding the real baby. Evelyn loves helping with this. She's even making the 'open-wide!' face.

Jill and her buddy Savannah. Jill misses her Utah friends, and hasn't really warmed up to any kids here yet. At the playgroups we've started going to, she just sits next to me and digests what's going on. After about an hour, she politely asks if we can "go home now."

We're liking things here thus far. There have been the usual minor culture shocks though. One of the unsettling things when we first got here were all the rich cars. (It's strange being poor college students in a rich area. But we feel safe, so whatever). Toyota is the bottom of the line. Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus are everywhere. We passed a Bentley and Aston Martin dealership today going to the beach. It's just weird.

Kids are novelties. Going grocery shopping is like shopping for compliments; the cuter and more well-behaved they are, the more 'oohing' and 'ahhing' you're going to get.

I look 'really young for my age.' I haven't even told anyone my age yet. When people see me carting around just one kid, they ask how old, if I have more, and I mention 'three,' they say I look young. It's assumed I'm 37 or something.

City street speed limits are typically 45-50 mph, even though there are tons of stoplights. So people floor it from one light, and slam on their brakes for the next one. If you don't follow suit, you'll get honked at. This is where all of America's oil is going - to bad southern California gas mileage.

We really like our ward so far, it's pretty big and there are quite a few young kids, so there is no shortage of playmates. People are quite friendly too, so it's been a much faster social adjustment than when we first moved to Utah in 2004.

We're still trying to find our routine, and hopefully when that happens the girls will be a little less psychotic when we're home. And I can blog more often!