Rudy's observations

Rudy to Cooper at breakfast:

Why your hair is up today? Mine is down.

Nana: Ru, are you hungry?
Rudy: All of the time!

Desert Botanical Gardens

Desert botanical gardens sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, doesn't it? These gardens are certainly different than those that aren't in the desert, but it's the perfect time of year to visit the desert. Warm and sunny...and the plants are in bloom. Plus, we had the added bonus of the Chihuly glass exhibit at the gardens!

Brady assumed the role of tour guide and took charge of reading the map and identifying butterflies for us:

There was a kid station set up and Brady created his own Chihuly sculpture. He designed it to look like the sculpture behind him in this picture:

All the boy sin blue, with the blue sculpture:

Crazy cactus and beach ball Chihulys:

Ride 'em cowboy

This is what I found going on when I got out of the shower today. (And, yes, it is 4:15 and I'm just now getting out of my PJs...one of those lazy days!)

The boys don't really seem to want to play with me today. Which is fine really, considering the amount of QT we'll have on the flight tomorrow. It should be an interesting trip - we're leaving at 6:40 pm and arriving at what will be about 1:00 am our time. I'm really hoping and praying that they are on their very bestest behavior for me. Did I mention that it's just me - James is not flying with us??



On a side note, I'm not really a big fan of the matching outfits on children but I do have to say it makes it SO much easier to keep track of them in public places. It's so much easier to spot two Batman shirts than trying to remember each kid's outfit!

In other news around here...well, there isn't any lately. It's been quite nice to have a few weeks of not-a-lot-going-on. The boys visited my parents for a few days 2 weeks ago; then my parents had a free hotel night so they took the kids to DC for a night. Otherwise, it's been a lot of quiet nights here!

Couch cushions

Over the past few (rainy) days, the boys have entertained themselves for hours with our couch cushions. They've done the traditional cushions-as-islands game, of course, but have also expanded to a variety of wrestling matches and jumping competitions. Today, the cushions were just a new place to play jets.

Parallel universe, Jr.

Once Rudy saw Brady's chore chart, he had to have one of his own. Obligingly, I made him his very own Thomas chore chart and now he tells me that he likes "doing his Thomas chores."

How did I get so lucky as to end up with these two kids? Aren't they fabulous?

Here they are working together on emptying the dishwasher.

What you say?

Brady says "What say?" when he needs us to repeat ourselves.

Rudy says, "What you say?" Not "whatchu" like you might expect a toddler to pronounce, but a very clear What-you-say, or maybe even, "What you say to me?"

Some of his funnies lately have been:
-yurgoat - instead of yogurt
-shirtle, as in "Why you put that on your shirtle?" - a recent attempt at shirt and shoulder
-cereal-ey-el - breakfast cereal

Before he brushes his teeth at night, he gets a vitamin. He insists that we put out "one for now and one for after night." (I actually caught him sneaking out of his room a few weeks ago to get his 'after night' vitamin. He got in so much trouble that it hasn't happened since!)

Crazy dog

I'm not sure why this is so amusing to us, but it's provided a fair amount of entertainment to us the past few days. We figured out that the ring on our new home phone is what is making Maggie howl.

I've even watched this video several times and it still cracks me up. Maybe it's the fact that she's really not all that talented of a howler??

Happy St. Patty's Day

Who can resist two cute kids in their St. Patrick's Day shirts? These kids are even half Irish (and half German, too...so maybe we need to dress up for Oktoberfest too??).

What you say?

Funniness from Rudy lately:

• *Whenever he gathers several things (pretty much whenever we leave the house, since he feels like he needs an entire week's worth of toys to entertain himself in the car for 20 minutes), he tells me, "Hang on...I need to get all my stuffses."

• *He spilled his cereal and milk at breakfast this morning and started to cry. I told him it wasn't a big deal and asked why he was crying: "Because I'm tired of cleaning up after myself all the times."

• *Recently his I love yous have evolved into: I love you a lotta much. I love you a lotta times. I love you diiis much [holding his hand in the air]

• *Last night, after we'd tucked him in, he called me back: "I hafta tell you stumsting. I have to tell you a question." [yes, Rudy?] "The bear went over the mountain. And the birdy flew over the mountain. Tha's pretty silwy."

• *In addition to Pinchy and Crabby, we spent an afternoon last week in the company of a green fish and a blue fish. Their names, oddly, were Phineas and Fax. I'd love to know where those names came from!

• *It's better now, but for a while we heard a lot about the boo-boo on his knee. He had actually just scraped it on the carpet, I think, but he insisted to anyone who would listen that a snake had bitten him.
  

By the way...how grown up does this kid look?!? :(

Parallel universe

Someday, probably in the not-too-distant future, I will look back on this weekend and it will seem like a parallel universe...

Brady came home from visiting my parents and was thrilled with the new chore chart I had made him. Couldn't wait to start doing chores. Positively ecstatic when he got to move the first magnet over for completing his daily chores.

It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but my favorite part
is the little Brady faces in the magnets...

Yesterday, he requested that he be allowed to stop playing Leapster in his room by himself so he could help me fold laundry. (Which is not even one of his chores!)

In the last few days, he's also read an entire book by himself for the first time and asked that I make him some reading manipulatives. (Not the word he used, but they are basically homework and he loves them!)

On an unrelated note of strangeness, I heard Maggie howl yesterday for the first time ever. What could that possibly mean?!?

Spring Fever

We had some awesome weather this weekend - mid 80s and sunny. It gave us all a case of spring fever. Brady really wanted to go for a bike ride, so we loaded up and went over to the new section of the neighborhood where there are no cars and smaller hills. (We have a pretty steep hill just getting up our street.)

Sunday afternoon, Brady rode 1.75 miles and ended with a spectacular wipeout when he tried a sharp turn at a high speed. He was pretty scared after launching himself off his bike and burying his handlebars, but he still talked all Monday afternoon about wanting to go again when James got home.

So...Monday evening we loaded up again. This time, he doubled his distance and rode 3.5 miles! He was so thrilled with himself. Toward the end, he said his legs were SO tired but he didn't want to stop. He finally agreed to stop for the day though, but only after we agreed that he could bring his bike to Oma and Papa's this week.

Doesn't he look so proud of himself:

Rudy got to ride along with James...

Rudy didn't want James to be left out of the biking pictures!

Sunday afternoon we also had the "awards" ceremony from basketball. Brady was disappointed that he doesn't have any more games, but was pretty excited about his first trophy!

We knew it was going to be cooling off again, but we were itching to get our garden started. We bought a couple of houseplants for James to take into his office. (I read they help filter out VOCs, which I'm sure are plentiful in his office!)

The boys had also picked out seeds over the weekend and we'd ordered some online. We planted 6 broccoli plants;Brady got his lettuce started outside; and Rudy started his canteloupe inside. (We still have our mail order beans, peas, and carrots to start!)

The end of the trip

We spent the last day and a half lounging at our hotel beach and pool. We took our time heading out, since we didn't have any agenda for the day.
I think this was the only day we managed not to build a giant hole in the sand, but only because we were mainly at the pool!

We went back to the Greenhouse for happy hour. We got this picture of Rudy, where he looked like he'd hit one too many happy hours on vacation:


We actually went to Hooters for dinner. (hey - they had AYCE wings!) The waitress was quite friendly (not surprising, I suppose) and showed us a picture of her 6-m0nth-old boys. Later that evening, we were ready for the check. My dad asked another waitress to send our server over. She asked who it was. My dad said, in all innocence, that he didn't know her name but she was the one with the twins. Wow - did he get an evil look from the lady! :)
We fed the Iguanas one more time the last morning. (We'd been saving our kiwi and mango skins and feeding them most mornings.) The boys were thrilled with these guys and all of the other little lizards running everywhere. We must have seen hundreds of lizards over the week, but Brady still excitedly pointed out every single one!

Rudy called the iguanas "guanos". He liked watching them but did NOT want to get too close. His other funny word was "coat'nut" - he liked collecting and carting around the little baby coconuts.




We met some people at the pool on Tuesday who were supposed to be flying out that day, at least until many of the airports closed due to the snowstorm. We were holding out some hope that our flight would be overbooked and we could get bump tickets (and then come back next year), but no luck. We were all very sad to leave and come back to reality!

Adventure to St. John

For my parents' Christmas present, James and I 'gave' them a day trip to St. John. We headed out early again (early on vacation being about 9 am) to catch the ferry over. Once there, we rented SUVs. We had a long list of things we wanted to do, but the car rental place closed at 5 and we had to cut it short. We limited ourselves to snorkeling and swimming at Cinnamon Bay and the Salt Pond beach, with only quick stops at Maho Bay and Hawksnest. We all agreed that we want to come back someday and camp at the national park, with enough days to visit each beach for a full day.

At Cinnamon Bay, we first took a short hike through the forest to see the old sugar plantation ruins.
At the beach, we took turns snorkeling out to a small 'island' in the bay. The boys kept the non-snorkelers busy...you guessed it...digging another giant hole in the sand!


After a quick picnic lunch on the beach, we drove over to Salt Pond. It's not exactly a leisurely Sunday drive - the roads are insanely curvy, with the added excitement of driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh - and watching out for "wild" animals - roaming goats, chickens, and donkeys that like to appear out of the underbrush on the roadsides.
The kids were apparently pretty done with the sun by now. They were happy playing in the sand in the shade.
We did coax Brady out to climb on the rocks by the water. There were lots of little tidepools with small blennies and hermit crabs. This is what appeared to be the world's smallest hermit crab - about the size of the tip of his pinky finger:
The snorkeling here was a bit of a swim, but we saw larger fish and bigger coral. My dad found a couple live conchs and brought them back for the kids to see.
It was nearing 5:00, so we headed back to Cruz Bay to turn in the rental cars. It was a little tense, trying to find a gas station and get back in time, but we made it. We stationed me in a small park with Rudy and all of our gear (we were carting a large beach bag, cooler, snorkel gear, two backpacks, and two car seats!) while the others went to check out restaurants. Rudy was enthralled with the local man who had a little black dog and wore a hermit crab on a necklace!
We picked a quiet beach-side bar for dinner. With the prospect of a leisurely dinner and a ferry ride, I finally tried a few tasty drinks (rum punch and a bushwacker...mmm) with dinner. We watched the sun set over St. Thomas before boarding the ferry back.