j-p,it rained last night. i am looking out the window at our wet shoes on the back patio. this is the first day we've stayed inside. my grandma and i have been reading jane austen books, watching jane austen movies, shopping, and drinking blueberry soda from trader joe's.
is there a trader joe's in china? i don't think i can move there if there's not.
last night grandma instigated a dance party. you would never guess she is in her 80's. ian went crazy. he LOVES to dance. almost gave himself whiplash. max did a few half-hearted dance moves. he hasn't been himself this week. still misses you.
oh, and ian is now 14 months. he is picking up new words everyday. things like "oatmeal" (oh-meal), "avocado" (acado), "car", "truck", "drop it" (as he drops food on the floor. and laughs), "banana" (nana), "nose", "neck", etc. he's a total genius. well, either a genius or fortunate to have a chatterbox brother talking (yelling?) at him all day long.
i am so exhausted by the end of the day i can't move. but that's not the only reason i miss you.
be safe. and don't eat pork.
je t'aime,
m-a
Dear J-P,
My days begin promptly at 5 a.m. I endeavor to put the baby back to sleep, yet to no avail. He is wide-eyed, increasingly talkative, and laughs at my vain attempts. It is impossible to stay mad at him, however, when he showers me with kisses, hugs, and spends his morning playing, laughing, and dancing about the room.
Max misses you. Immensely. He has been acting out in the most atrocious ways. No doubt a direct result of your absence. Before your next trip you must teach me the dump truck song, the fire truck song, and the big rig song. He is deeply vexed by my inability to carry a tune, and even more disturbed when I am unable to comply with his request for a backhoe loader song. As a result he is on a nap strike. Yesterday he spent an hour and a half jumping up and down in his crib while screaming "NO, I NOT TAKE A NAP!" over and over through tantrum-style tears.
The weather is absolutely divine. We spend the better part of the afternoon outdoors. Today the forecast predicts another perfect 78 degrees. Great-grandma McDonald is enjoying her stay and has been obliged to read to the boys, giving me a much needed break from the truck books.
Please make haste in returning to us, as the children find me a dull, insipid playmate in comparison to you and I'm not sure how long they can endure your absence.
Affectionately,M-A
p.s. if you continue to find the pollution incapacitating, i urge you to forgo your pride and install a gas mask about your face.
Hello again. Sorry about the blogging hiatus. I'm not pregnant (I know you were wondering). We've been busy. And sick. And tired. And traveling. And I have been reading. A lot. Too much. I can't help it. Jane Austen is a genius.Holiday Highlights 2008:-Ian suffered the violent wrath of the stomach flu-We spent Christmas in Utah with J-P's fam-Max made his acting debut as a shepherd in the family nativity production-J-P and siblings installed a new wood floor for his mom-
J-P and siblings took snowboarding trip-We spent new year's eve in CA with my fam-Played at the beach-
Played with cousins-Rushed max to the ER due to his worst allergic reaction yet. 
We are finally home (ok, we've been home for almost 2 weeks), and chugging into 2009 at full speed. J-P's January India trip was canceled (darn terrorists), so his professors decided to take them to Shanghai instead. I have been busy trying to put our house back together and clean up after the toddler tornado duo. My new year's resolution is quite simple: Survive. If I survive, my additional resolutions are: Organize (because it restores my sanity), Simplify (because I can't do everything. believe me. i've tried), Eat more miso soup (because it makes me happy), Spend more time outside (because who doesn't need more vitamin D), read to my children more (because it's the least I can do).That's all. Happy 2009.
p.s. most of our holiday pics are on J-P's computer so i'll post them later.
p.s.s. the weather is entirely perfect here. a sublime 75 degrees. not a cloud in the sky. it is impossible not to be happy.
Max is a know-it-all. Just like me. He is so much like me, in fact, that it's a little spooky. I had no clue these tendencies where genetic. Things like spouting off random facts, correcting people, getting the last word in, making up answers to questions (and delivering said answer as if it were an indisputable fact). He is not the apple that didn't fall far from the tree, he is the tree. Already.
We put up the Christmas tree while the boys were asleep. The next morning I said "Max, do you like the tree?" He looked at me with impatient eyes and said "that's not a tree mommy, that's a Christmas tree." All day long it's "that's not a truck mommy, that's a dump truck"..."that's not green mommy, that's blue"... "that's not a car mommy, that's a police car"...and so on.
It gets better. While walking past the lady behind the fabric counter at Joann's, he blatantly stated "that's not a witch mommy, that's just a lady." Maybe because they had a large witch by the counter during Halloween? So embarrassing.
The worst offense? A few days ago I had just put the baby down for a nap. As I quietly closed the door, Max came marching towards me, playing his drums as loudly as possible. "MAX!!! What are you..." He quickly cut me off with "I not waking up the baby mommy, i just playing the drums." There is no reasoning with him. He is right. End of story. The fact the I know exactly how he feels does not augment my patience level. Our little family will have to do some stretching to make room for two know-it-alls. Wish us luck.
My sister-in-law Sarah stopped by yesterday, so we dragged her to the park to take a few quick pictures. Max did not cooperate. Don't be surprised if you see a shot like this one in our Christmas card this year. And no, your eyes are not fooling you...Max is almost as big as I am.
Here are some candids of the boys. 
I couldn't get Max to look at the camera.
Perhaps Max's bad attitude was a direct result of the fact that earlier that morning I FORCED him, against his will, to sit on Santa's lap at our church Christmas party. I've been prepping him for the santa photo op for months now. I've been reading him Christmas stories and talking up santa's good qualities. Every time he sees a picture of santa, he says "santa's really nice mommy." All my efforts did not pay off, as is evidenced by the picture below.
As we were walking out, I said "Max, you are supposed tell santa what you want for Christmas." He stopped crying, turned to face santa, sniffled twice and said "uh, I want a backhoe loader and some candy". Then we left. p.s. max has an intense infatuation with backhoe loaders. i barely know what they are and had to reference his truck book to make sure i was buying him the right thing...
I hosted my first thanksgiving this year. I am told I hosted one before. I vaguely remember nausea and vomiting...pretty sure I blocked the rest out. Did we eat any turkey? Sorry guys. Hopefully I made up for it this year.
I soaked the turkey in a brine before I cooked it (recipe here). I was skeptical, but it turned out very moist. We had a dairy-free dinner (lots o allergies on the scoville side). It wasn't super great, but everyone could eat it. That's what counts, right? I'll work on finding better recipes.
We lounged around, went to the movies, played at the park, chatted, played games, went to see the Mesa temple lights, and ate lots of food. Thanks to my mother-in-law and sisters-in law for all their help. We had a great time. You can check out pics on flickr.
p.s. I had lofty thanksgiving decorating plans (I think I have come down with seasonal decorating disorder), but due to some unexpected events most of them did not come to fruition. I did manage to finish my turkey silhouette...just in the nick of time.
Check it out here.
Ian is a year old. How did this happen? There is no slowing down this growing up process, despite my concerted efforts. He seems to be hastening the process by meeting milestones much faster than Max did. He has a completely different personality than Max, yet shares one important scoville trait: he is a HUGE tease. He balances Max's fears with his fearlessness and is the perfect addition to our family.One year stats:height: 31 3/4 inches (93%)weight: 21 lbs 7 oz (26%)head: 18 1/4 (47%)Special skills: Walking, running, talking, climbing, dancing, teasing, taking off poopy diapers, opening child locks, biting, nodding yes and no, and more.Nicknames (include but are not limited to): eanie, baby, "E", baby "E", eanie bean, beanie wean, beanie, bubba chubs, E.B., bambino chino, gubs, chubs, Interests:playing with Max
taking a bath with max
unloading the dishwasher
riding his truck
His first word(s): "whats that?" (same as max, i suppose curiosity is in our blood...). He also loves to push his cars and say "vroom...vroom". Other words he has used (not with phonetic perfection, but definitely audible) are "yeah", "ma-ma", "ball", "bath", "book", "this", "what's this?". A few weeks ago I looked at him and said "Eanie, do you want a banana?" "Yeah", he quickly replied while nodding his head up and down. He's basically a genius. Takes after his mom.
It's amazing how polarized our nation is becoming. Maybe it has always been this way and I'm just starting to pay attention. Who knows. This is getting out of control. Interesting that foxnews.com is the only site that has posted the story. CBS, on the other hand, is giving the prop 8 opposition free advertising with this article. The bias in the mainstream media is sickening. I don't understand how the prop 8 opposition can demand "tolerance" when they obviously have zero tolerance for the opposing viewpoint and no respect for the democratic process. After reading about all the vandalism, fires, attacks, boycotts, vulgarity, etc. I find it extremely ironic that they accuse us of hate. What kind of world will my children grow up in? What happened to good old-fashioned family values? Scares me to death. I wish I could turn back time.
I recently purchased this World War II reproduction poster. It is hanging on my wall as a reminder to 'keep calm and carry on'... it's my new motto.
When Max
draws an eyeliner mural on my bedroom door...
dumps out two boxes of cereal in 5 seconds flat...
takes a blue marker to the chair i reupholstered (in dry-clean-only fabric)
slams Ian's hand/head/foot in the door...
takes off his diaper and pees on me...
rips out my garden plants...
dumps soup on his head...
rips all the pages out of his books...
climbs up the pantry and dumps the honey out...I take a deep breath and glance at my poster. Words are powerful. I think every mother of a two-year-old boy should have this poster hanging in their house. I'm telling you, it helps. I wish I could channel all of Max's spontaneity and creativity in a constructive (and not destructive) way.In addition to documenting his naughtiness, I also wanted to jot down a few funny things he has said lately:
"I'll mow the lawn mommy...someday, somehow." (as he was pushing his toy mower)
"Watch out dude!" (when a truck almost his us the other day)
"Take care!" (as I was saying goodbye to a former student that checked us out at Old Navy)
"The garbage truck comes Wednesday and Saturday mommy, NOT Thursday." (this is only funny because he says it every 1.5 minutes...just in case I forget. It's amazing that he has learned the days of the week just so he can figure out when the garbage truck will come.)
I thought that after the elections were over I would be able to relax. I thought the election hoopla would end. I thought the vandalism would end. We would accept the will of the people, put our differences aside, and move forward. Simple as that. That's what I was planning to do.I didn't see the backlash coming. At all. Now that it is in full force, I can't seem to pull myself away from the news coverage. I need to check myself into news junkie rehab. Seriously, I go to bed WAY too late. After hearing lots of horrible things, it's refreshing to read things like this. This was also interesting. The worst that has happened (that i know of) in our neighborhood is someone setting fire to the dumpster next to our chapel during church. I am regretting not pulling Max out of nursery to see the fire truck. He would have loved it. Mitt Romney 2012 anyone?
p.s. the church's official statement is here
last night grandma instigated a dance party. you would never guess she is in her 80's. ian went crazy. he LOVES to dance. almost gave himself whiplash. max did a few half-hearted dance moves. he hasn't been himself this week. still misses you. 
oh, and ian is now 14 months. he is picking up new words everyday. things like "oatmeal" (oh-meal), "avocado" (acado), "car", "truck", "drop it" (as he drops food on the floor. and laughs), "banana" (nana), "nose", "neck", etc. he's a total genius. well, either a genius or fortunate to have a chatterbox brother talking (yelling?) at him all day long.
