Christmas Candy

I found Bella coming out from behind a bookcase in my parents home the day after Christmas. When she saw me she got a very guilty look in her eye. I asked what's up Bella? She showed me the empty wrapper from a hug chocolate Santa. I stopped myself from lecturing her for eating so much chocolate and telling her how it is not good to eat so many sweets. Instead I sat down with her and talked to her. I told her she does not have to sneak candy and I expected her to ask me. I explained that she needed to ask me first because I need to make sure she does not eat to much and make herself sick. I also told her that if she asked I would probably say yes because we don't usually have candy around. So the rest of the day she asked me for chocolate, candy and other Christmas treats that were around the house. To make my point and so she would trust me I said yes about 85 % of the time. That night we both learned a lesson. Bella learned to much chocolate will give you a stomach ache and I learned that saying yes to your four year-old to many times will give you a sleepless night.

Nutcracker Performance

I Won't Eat That!

Sydney and Bella were up extra early Thanksgiving morning to help me stuff the turkey and get it into the oven. Once they saw the bird naked in the roasting pan they both swore they would not eat that. When dinner time finally arrived they did taste it and it was exclaimed by Sydney that she DID like it, "it tastes like chicken!".

Turkey Day

Why do we spend five days of planning and three days of cooking to finish the whole meal in less than 30 minutes? Well for me I had two reasons. First this year it was because Todd's family was coming to our house for the Thanksgiving feast and second because my girls were sooo into it. Sydney and Bella have been learning all about the FEAST we are to have for Thanksgiving. Their schools had mini "feasts" and Thanksgiving projects going on for the past two weeks. As you can see from this picture of Sydney her kindergarden teacher got way into it. Sydney is dressed in a turkey costume that her teacher made.

I wish I would have had a camera on Tuesday when I took all three kids to the store to pick-up the fresh turkey I ordered. They were so excited you would have thought it was more like Christmas morning. When they lady at the store opened the box the turkey came in Bella exclaimed "I saw its beak!" (there was no beak). They each had to ride on their own side of the cart so they could keep an eye on it, just incase it moved! We caused quite a scene. But at least one women thought it was so cute she did take a picture!

Happy Turkey Day!

Pre-Halloween Fun!

Our ward had the annual Trunk-or-Treat party the night before Halloween. We had such a great time with ward members and our kids. The activities committee did a great job setting up all the activities for the kids. There were carnival games for the kids, a nice dinner and a chili cook-off contest.

I have to take a minute to brag about myself. I won 3rd place in the chili contest! I had entered when the sign up sheet went around primary weeks ago thinking I would do my standard chili, ground beef and beans, but when I made it a few weeks beforehand as a trial run I didn't really like. I don't know if my taste has change or what but I found it to salty and bland. Then with the fires and all it was not till two days before the evening I started to frantically search for a new recipe on-line. I was lucky enough to find this website http://allrecipes.com/Default.aspx and a recipe on it that looked good. I did tweak it a bit to fit my taste, so I was really surprised when I won 3rd place. I know it is a silly ward party but it was still alot of fun to be involved!

The kids loved going from car to car getting all the candy! And as you can see they also liked hanging out in our decorated trunk!

Pumpkin Carving. Yuck!

The kids were so excited to carve pumpkins before Halloween. As it turned out they did not enjoy getting their hands dirty. These pictures best tell the story. There was alot of noise and talking while we got set up. Once the tops of the pumpkins came off the noise was replaced with face pulling and gaging noises.

I of course only got as far as cutting the top off of my pumkin before I found myself busy cleaning out the girls pumpkins for them. Because as you can see it took all the courage they had to take a few handfuls of the gunk out. And there was of course the problem with the girls being to young to handle knives. I hadn't really thought the whole pumpkin carving thing out to well!

Evacuation

As most of you know we left our home on Monday because of the fires in San Diego. The smoke and ash coming from the fires east of us was to much for Bella and we knew it was only going to get worse. It took about 4 1/2 hours to get to Palm Springs but once we were there it was like arriving at an oasis. We were even happier we had left when our neighbors called to say they had been told to evacuate at 9pm.

We stayed in a little one bedroom villa at the Weston with a great pool perfect for our kids. Todd's office was closed due to the evacuation, so for two days we hung out with the kids, swimming, visiting with other evacuees and hoping our house was safe. Inbetween moments of panic and dark thoughts, Todd and I enjoyed this impromptu vacation. The kids were blissfully unaware of any danger to the house and therefore had a great time swimming and playing with their friends. Through out the week we were comforted by reports that none of our friends lost homes and were safe.

We are back home now and are trying to get things back to normal. We came home to a very dirty house. It took Todd about 3 hours to clean the outside of the house which help a lot with the smell.

Todd and I had a lot of time to talk while we were in Palm Springs and we realized how lucky we are to have so many friends and a family that cares so much about us. Our wonderful friends the Hatches offered us hotel rooms if we should need to move from the hotel we were at and anything else we might need. Mary Alice was also there to talk at midnight when I was panicking a little. Todd's father offered to come to Palm Springs and help with the children at any time. We had countless calls and messages from friends around the world wanting to see if we were ok and offering any help they could. We felt very blessed and comforted by all of you. Thank you.

Padre Game With the Whole Family.

If there is one thing almost everyone knows about Todd is that he LOVES baseball. He can watch an entire game and then some if he has some free time (which is pretty rare). Being a baseball fan and living in San Diego he is of course a passionate Padre's fan. So to be able to indulge in this love and not neglect his family he will almost always take one of the girls with him to a game and have a fun daddy daughter night. It really is a win-win because the girls have such a great time with him and he gets to teach them about a game he has played starting in his childhood through college. The girls have enjoyed this time so much that they will now even watch a game on TV with him!!

Todd had one goal this past baseball season and that was to get Preston and the rest of the family to at least one game. So he finally made it happen on the last game of the season here in San Diego. So I will admit I was resisting the family outing to the ball park because I thought it would be allot of work and that Preston was to young. I can now admit I was wrong. Let me say it did helped that Todd got bleacher seats. At PETCO park the bleacher seats are situated behind outfield with a huge sandbox between the bleachers and the outfield fence. The sandbox is off limits to adults by the way! The kids had a great time watching the game, dancing to the music, eating hotdogs and playing in the sand. We did not last the entire game but we did make it to the 7th inning. I'll end by saying that I would definitely do it again. Score one for Todd!

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Only a few weeks into our new Fall 2007 schedule and I have started to complain. I'm constantly in the car due to three kids in two different schools which are 20 minutes away from eachother and have very different drop-off and pickup times. On top of that we have after school activites, soccer, ballet, and music which I'm driving everyone to and from. So I find myself complaining about the driving, not seeing the kids enough and wishing we could just stay home in our PJ's all day. Well Thursday morning my little Bella awoke with a tummy ache and a sore throat which got worse and worse as the morning progressed till I felt I had to take her in to be checked out. To do this I had to pickup Preston from his little preschool class early and put Todd on notice that he might have to pickup Sydney from kindergarden for me. After a quick strep culture it ended up that Bella only had a red throat and probably just a cold virus that is going around. I said "Great! At least she is not throwing up!" We left the Dr. office, I called Todd and told him I would be able to pick up Miss Sydney and we headed to the elementry school. We were just about to the school when I heard a terrible sound coming from the third row of my beautiful shinny, black leathered, tricked out mini van. Yes you guessed it, Bella throwing up all over herself and her car seat. Bella was such a trooper and didn't complain at all that we had to wait 10 minutes till they could bring Sydney to us and we could go home to clean her up.
Well back to being careful for what you wish for. Needles to say Todd left a few hours after above events for a conference in Utah. Those of you who are close to me know that this had to happen with Todd going out of town. So I have been stuck at home with a very sick little girl and my other two VERY healthy children for two and a half day's now. Bella has hardly moved from the couch and has not really thrown up again. She does not want to eat anything and has no energy. Each time she has moved herself from the couch to her or my bed she rests on the floor every few feet. Just so no one worries, I checked in with her doctor again and he said this virus is going around and kids are acting just like that for about 5 days! So I have about 2 1/2 days to go till freedom! So without Todd around to relieve me we are having ALOT of mommy and me time.
I don't think I will be complaining about our schedule again anytime soon.

First Day of Kindergarden

Sydney started Kindergarden on August 27th, which is also Todd's birthday. Sydney was so excited and ready to go by 7am. I on the other hand was very reluctant to go and sad. My sadness started the Saturday previouse when I took her clothes shopping. She figured out that there was an alternative to me bringing things home and she wearing them. I got a glimps of what the future holds for me as the mother of two girls who LOVE sparkly shinny things when Sydney brought me chetta patterned shoes with jewled bows and a pair of $90 dollar 7's jeans she wanted because they had crystals on the pockets! Once we "negotiated" through those choices (she got the shoes) we had a great time shopping and talking about what she thought kindergarden would be like. Having gone to Hanna Fenichal where playing dress-up and doing some amazing art project's each and every day, I felt I had to prepared her that there might not be as much, if any dress-up and the art projects would be a little more simple. She was fine with it as long as she was going to learn to read and walk to school.

The weekend before school I was looking at her baby pictures when I realized that what all those old ladies and strangers who had stopped me while I was struggling with three babies over the past 5 years had said to me was TRUE. It had all gone so fast and I have forgotten so many of the baby moments I thought I would never forget. I can hardly remember her being so small, or her baby laugh. I was so glad I had those pictures though.

Back to the first day of school. Todd, Sydney's Uncle Nate and I walked her to school. We took about a few hundered picuters of her and I took a deep breath and walked her into her classroom. She sat down on the mat with her new class, said goodbye to us and never looked back. It just about broke my heart...

Smelling the flowers...

On Saturday I had some long overdue one-on-one time with both the girls. Sydney and I went to the mall and to the soccer store in the morning and Bella and I went to Big 5 and Baskin Robbins in the afternoon. It definitely doesn't happen enough - the one on one time - and even more rare is having that time AND not being stressed or preoccupied with work or other matters.

Bottom line - the blackberry and cell phone are always gonna be there, but these moments won't. A few classic quotes just from our day around town on Saturday:

"Dad, your car is so dirty we have to take it to the dry cleaners...really."

- Sydney (as we got into my car to leave for the morning)

"Well, I am five and I wear size five clothes. Bella is almost four and she wears size four clothes...so I think we should get Mommy size 32"

- Sydney (when I asked her what size outfit we should get Katy when shopping for her b-day)

"Dad, I'm not afraid of fighting cheetahs...I'm not. And I'm not scared of bears either, I will fight them to, I will."

- Bella (totally out of the blue as we were driving home)

Ballet - hitting the stage

Sydney and Bella have been practicing for months and all the hard work paid off as they took the stage for their ballet recitals. Katy and I were in Europe and missed the big night (we did see the dress rehearsal, but yes, we still feel like horrible parents). Katy's parents were in town watching the kids while we were gone and made sure the girls were ready for their big night - including flowers from Grandpa Lowe right after the show (which were a big hit with the girls). More pictures later...

Bella always has a good time up there and is no stranger to the camera. Sydney nailed her routine to and showed lots of confidence on the stage. Grandma and Grandpa said they both did great and really enjoyed their performances. Awesome job girls!

London Calling

Living in San Diego now it's hard to imagine wanting to live any place else - much less a place like London where the it's rarely sunny, way more expensive than here and so far away from friends and family. With that said, I'd say at least once a month we talk about our time living there and what it would be like to be back there with the kids.

In June, Katy and I had the chance to spend a couple of nights there on our way up to Scotland. We stayed at a hotel a block away from the flat we lived in for 3 years...so it was kinda like going back to the old neighborhood.

I had been back to London a few times for work but it was Katy's first trip back since moving away in 2001. Fun to be back there and it brought back lots of good memories. It also gave us a chance to visit a few of our favorite local hang outs.

Nothing better than heading up to Wagamama's on High Street Kensington for a little ebi katsu and spicy chicken ramen on a foggy afternoon in London. Think we ate there 3 times in our 3 days...

Other highlights:

Spamalot - Got tickets last minute. Katy hadn't seen it yet and for me it was just as good the third time around...have to be a real Monty Python fan to fully appreciate it.

The Abingdon - Met our good friends the Sayers for dinner down the street from our old flat.

Da Mario's - Went to Da Mario's for lunch our second day. It's just across the street from our old flat on Palace Gate. Apparently this place was Princess Diana's favorite pizza place so they've got her named etched in the stairs. Kind of a funny place - definitely a family place but at night the basement turns into a disco. Katy and I probably ate here twice a month for 3 years (don't think we ever did the disco though...).

Hyde Park /Kensignton Palace - Went for a walk in Hyde Park first thing after we dropped the bags off at the hotel.

21-23 Palace Gate - Our flat for 3 years. Looks pretty much the same. The window in the top left corner was our living room.

Trafalgar Square at night - Had never really been there at night, very cool with a great view of Big Ben.

Harvie & Hudson - Best shirts in London. Got hooked when I was working in London and my office was on Jermyn Street right next to all the famous shirtmakers. Gotta make a stop here whenever in town (an excuse to spend the few pounds left in my UK bank account).

Boots, bugs and tattoos

The weekend was pretty mellow around our house this weekend (first one in awhile) so we spent most of our time hanging out in the backyard or attending the kids' friend's birthday parties. Here are a few pics:

Who said rhinestone cowgirl boots aren't cool to wear in the summer? Bella wears them well.

We won't pierce their ears just yet, but getting a tattoo is fine as long as it's either a princess or a unicorn...here's Bella showing off her big muscles and unicorn tat.

Bella striking a pose (who said she had attitude?) and Preston ready for lunch.

In Preston's world there's nothing cooler than playing with a potato bug or an ant ...except for maybe squishing one...


"Dad is home!" I just went outside to check the mail...imagine what it's like coming home after I've been gone on a business trip for a week! Dad doing his best tree house impression.

Sydney Graduates from Hanna Fenichel

Big day for Sydney today - she graduated from her pre-school and is headed off to the big world of Kindergarten after this summer. The ceremony was at a park down by the beach in Cardiff by the Sea. All of the families stood in a big circle and then each child was called up to the stand one by one and a teacher shared a few words about each of them. "Sydney Wilson - our class Designer. We will remember you for your elaborate designs and for always making our classroom beautiful. Thank you for being such a good friend at Hanna Fenichel".

Sydney will sure miss her teachers, especially Jenny. It won't be her last time at Hanna though since Bella and Preston will be there in the Fall.





Freshly minted Hanna grads hanging out at the park. Who needs a cap and gown as long as you get the diploma?!

A bird in the house (again)...

A month or so ago I got a panicked call at work from Katy: "there's a huge bird in the house and I can't get it out!! Are you coming home to get it out?". I could hear Bella totally cracking up in the background and saying "Dad, there's a bird was in the house...and its pooping all over". I guess this gigantic bird flew in through the back door and was too freaked out to make an exit. Eventually Katy got it out using a combination of a broom, window screen and brute force. Bella talked about the "bird in the house" story for a week straight.

So fast forward to last week when I was home with Preston on a Saturday. As I walked in the dining room I saw something out of the corner of my eye - yep, another bird although just a little guy this time. I told Preston to come check it out and he got very exited. It was so little I figured it would be easy to catch - but the little guys are always the fastest ones. Preston got a real kick out of watching the bird get away every time I was just about to catch him. It flew between the kitchen and the living room about 5 times and at one point Preston and I just about had him cornered by the dinner table...but it went underneath his legs, which was by far his favorite part.

Eventually we caught him in a dish towel and took a real up close look. Preston got a total kick out of it and didn't want to let him go but we turned him loose in the backyard. He got away just fine, minus a few feathers that we're still finding in the house...

Spring Fling

A couple of weekends ago Katy and I went to the annual Hannah Fenichel (Sydney, Bella and soon to be Preston's pre-school) "Spring Fling". This is the school's annual fundraiser which was held at the Turf Club at the Del Mar racetrack again. All in all a pretty fancy affair, especially with the masquerade theme this year. Katy was looking pretty sweet in her cute black dress and authentic Venetian mask (how much did you pay for that by the way?). I on the other hand, looked like a working stiff with a mask that was too small for my face. But that's ok, the mask gave me glimpse into what it would feel like to be a superhero.

The kids class projects are always the hit with parents. Sydney's class decided to refurbish and an old bird bath and Bella's class made a cool bench. They both worked really hard on them. Katy and Althea (Natalie's mom) also painted and decopauged (sp?) a picnic table with all the kids footprints on it and an ocean theme - turned out very cool. All in all, I think the school made a few bucks and everyone had a great time.

P.S. Sorry we didn't get the bird bath Sydney, daddy tried!

Ski Trip - President's Day Weekend

So the posts here might be a little out of synch as we play catch up on things so yes, you're right, President's Day is not in early May...

We had our our first-ever family ski trip to Utah back in February. Overall it was a great trip, despite 5 extra hours on the road trip there due to traffic and potty breaks (16 hours to get there and only 10 getting back). Lesson learned - drive at night if at all possible (but pull over to sleep before you start seeing imaginary dinosaurs on the road (Katy).

Too much to write so here are a few of the some highlights (by the way, you can click on the pictures to expand them):

Skiing: We signed Sydney up for the "Bambi" program and Bella for the "Fawn" ski school program up at Deer Valley. They thought it was pretty cool to get ski clothes and really got into the action. They both actually did really well and the good news is that they want to do it again next year - mission accomplished. More photos to come...

Scout: The kids are always excited to visit Uncle Nate and to chase Scout around. Preston hasn't quite figured out that as fun as kittys can be, they actually have sharp teeth and like their personal space...Bella on the otherhand has worked out her own relationship with Scout - if this picture doesn't say "mutual respect" I don't know what does.

BBQ at Nate's: Nate's got a cool deck and isn't afraid to fire up the barbeque from time to time (salmon being his specialty...). Here's Bella getting a few tips from Uncle Nate.


Cousins:
Adam, Jessica and Page came over to Libby's house for a visit. Forget expensive toys and gadgets, all the kids needed for entertainment was the steep hill in the backyard. No snow, but plenty of dogpiles.

Fresh snow: It snowed on the last day of the trip - we woke up to 6 inches of fresh powder on Grandma's lawn. Here's Sydney giving it a test run in her uggs.

Mom's House: With the basement finished, we were right at home at mom's house in Draper. She had the rooms all ready for the kids and showed us her recent work on "baby books" which was very cool to see. Preston jumped right up to the piano, which was cute at first but it was obvious he was just showing off after his third Beethoven piece in a row...

Party at Silver Lake Lodge: Katy and I drove up to Deer Valley Saturday night to see Jess and Mary Alice at their every-other-year President's Day party. Always fun to see them and other friends we don't get too see as often as we'd like. Good times. We talked and hung out until the place shut down but not without hitting the dancefloor for the last song of the night.

Easter Fun

We colored eggs at home for Easter and on Saturday morning we went to the Easter egg hunt at Torrey Hills Park again this year. Seems like the crowd gets bigger every year and we usually see lots of neighborhood or church friends there.

This year Preston was in the mix and got down to business right away filling his basket to the top.

Bella was in the 2-3 year old group and took my advice to run to the middle of the park (instead of taking ones right in front where everybody would be) and loaded up. There was a 10 egg maximum which Bella blew by within 30 seconds, literally. That basket looks pretty full to me...



Sydney on the other hand, would put one egg in her basket at a time and then would pause to count each and every one to make sure she didn't have more than 10. Every time she put an egg in she stopped and started counted over again (I was worried the other kids would get all the eggs while she was counting...). And if she had too many, she'd put one back - way to play by the rules Sydney!




Katy had the girls all dressed up in their Easter best on Easter Sunday. Preston was looking sharp to but he got a little surly after Dad wedged him in between his two sisters for yet another photo...

"Beesbah"

One of Preston's favorite thing nowadays (next to throwing spaghetti) is watching the Padre games at night when I get home from work. He'll point at the screen and say "beesbah". I think he inherited my baseball watching gene - I can watch an entire 9 inning game on TV and never get bored. I actually love it but most people can't stand baseball on tv for more than a few minutes. But to me it doesn't get much better than a settling in with Preston or the girls for a good "beesbah" game in HD.

Email from Sydney #2

follow up email from Sydney. Now it's "Todd", not "Daddy"...

"Todd- I love you, I miss you, I really made you a prince hat with a star on it."

Love,
Sydney

Email from Sydney

As I was scrolling through my crowded inbox at work yesterday I came across a very cool surprise - my first-ever email from Sydney. She seemed pretty sad as I was leaving for work that morning so I told her that she could always call me at the office if she was missing me or wanted to talk. So she must have told Jenny (her teacher at Hanna Fenichel) what I said and then together they decided to send me an email later in the day. Here it is:

"Hi Daddy,

I miss you! What are you doing? I'm making you a present. It's
something that you find at the beach. And it's shaped like a square
and it has a color. I'll give it to you when you get home."

SYDNEY

"Here are my friends' names so that you know how to spell them:"

ELSIE
EMILY
CALVIN SETH
WILL PASCO

Very cool! Probably only a matter of time before she's asking for a cell phone and/or Blackberry...

First Post

Long day at the office, can't wait to get home to see the kids. It's 6:45 p.m. so they've probably had dinner now and all 3 are probably splashing around the tub at this point. Preston always wants to get in first and Bella likes to get out last. Once the water has been drained, Bella likes to slide from one end to the other on her tummy. Sydney is happy as long as she has her space in the tub and as long as she can rinse her own hair...

Better hop, want to get home in time to tuck them in...