Stickers!

Jack proudly displays his full sticker chart and new toy!

We are trying a new plan for rewarding Jack for his good behavior.  He starts with an empty chart and we reward him with stickers when he has good behavior.  When the chart is full, he gets a new toy.  As you can see, he has earned a lot of stickers over the last 9 - 10 days!  He earned stickers for many great behaviors, such as sharing with Lauren, cleaning up his toys, putting his dirty clothes in the laundry, turning off lights when they are not in use, eating well, good sportsmanship, and even sleeping in!  It is going so well that most of the time he is doing what he is supposed to do without even getting reminded!  And let me say, it is so much more pleasant for us to reward his good behavior than give constant time outs for poor behavior.  While it hasn't improved naptime as much as I'd hoped, at least he rests quietly for about an hour so I can have some sanity time!

Life Is Not a Cabaret...

It's a CIRCUS!! We spent another weekend on our summer tour of Southern California. This time, we went to Anaheim to join Nikki, Troy and Max at the Honda Center for the greatest show on Earth, Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey's Circus! In addition to their suite (which is great) we also had ring-side, VIP seats that allowed us to watch half the show from the center of the ring!! Incredible! Jack spent most of the day with his mouth gaping open in awe. Lauren jumped for joy, screamed in excitement and flailed her arms with glee for the entire thing! She was a maniac for the circus! We saw acrobats, tiger, elephants, dancers and of course, plenty of clowns! We also had cake for Nikki's birthday and Jen and Mike's 10th anniversary. You can only imagine how hard Lauren crashed when we got to the car :-) Frankly, if I wasn't driving, I would've slept right next to her!

Pre show we got to view the animals

Grandma and Jack watching the jugglers before the show

Daddy and Lauren taking it all in

We were ON THE FLOOR during the show!

Lauren realized we had clowns and dancers sitting behind us

Pretty cool!

Glad the clowns didn't take the bike off roading into our laps!

When at the circus, be a clown!



Acrobats overhead



Big Bear

This has been the summer of small family visits.  On our recent trip to Big Bear we got to see Grandma Sylvia, Grandpa Ned, Aunt Susie and Uncle Daniel.  Bonus:  Nikki, Troy and Max were also there!  The boys got to play together again!  We had crazy weather, thunderstorms all weekend...it was FANTASTIC!  I got to take a walk on Sunday morning and all I could think about was how to bottle the fragrance of the air to bring it home.  Pine, cedar, sage, rain...so wonderful!  Jack of course had a wonderful time playing with everyone, Lauren loved showing off her new crawling skills to anyone who'd watch, and even Gracie liked playing with Ruby and Tazie.  We had some yummy meals and of course, enjoyed relaxing with cocktails and great conversation.  Another great weekend, indeed.

Lauren in her "skinny jeans" enjoyed using Auntie's lap as a trampoline!

Grandma, Grandpa and Ruby

Aunt Susie and Lauren getting some cuddle time before dinner.

Lauren is Crawling

Lauren turned 9 months old today. She is 27 inches tall (25%-ile) and weighs 14 lbs. 8 1/2 ozs. (5 %-ile). To celebrate she decided to finally crawl! Apparently she just never wanted something bad enough to crawl to it. That is until she saw Jack's Lightning McQueen toy on the living room floor while he was in his bedroom. It's all down hill from here, folks.

Nikki, Max and Gordon Ramsey?

The boys liked lounging in their bath robes with a snack and some Yo Gabba Gabba.

On Saturday night, Rob and I scored tickets to a taping of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares at a Greek restaurant here in Ventura Harbor.  Double score, Nikki came up with Max to watch the kids while we went!  So we got all dolled up (how did we miss the opportunity to get a photo of us looking like adults?) and abandoned Nikki with three kids under the age of four.  Our dinner was about what we expected from watching his show...suffice to say we both could have sent our entrees back to the kitchen, but I actually did.  However, we had a great time anyway.  Our waiter was great, cocktails were strong and the pita with hummus was good enough to make an entire meal out of.  While we only got a distant sighting of Chef Ramsey, I was informed that he saw my food when I sent it back to the kitchen.  I hope my lamb makes the final cut of the show, because I sure couldn't cut it at the table!  The best part of the evening was sharing a few laughs and some one-on-one time with my wonderful husband sans cell phone!  It was practically a second honeymoon.

On Sunday morning we all had a nice breakfast and Nikki and I took the boys to the park while Lauren took a nice long nap.  What follows is only a few of the many wonderful photos of the boys playing together.  They have such an amazing time together and I love seeing how close they are becoming as cousins.  Hope your weekend was as great as ours.  And of course HUGE thanks to Nikki and Max for making up to see us.

Max on the playground

The boys "rolled" down the hill

Looking like twins :-)

Close as two peas in a pod

Jack chilling in the climbing tube

Million dollar smile

Watch out because here I come!

Fun in the tube slide

Weeeeeee!!!!!!

Twisty slide, here I come!

Woo Hoo!

Swingers

Max loved this new park

Batman

Jack got a new wall decal for his room...Batman!  It is on the wall over his bed and Spiderman in now on the wall near his dresser instead.  Jack was so excited to watch us put it up.  During our discussion, we mentioned that bats sleep hanging upside down and he was very intrigued.  Really?  How do they do that?  Why?  So we answered his questions and then went about our business.  Well, when Rob went in to tuck Jack in before we went to bed last night, this is what he found...

Our little boy was doing his best to "hang" upside down like a bat with his feet over the safety rail!  He was absolutely sound asleep when we took this photo.  Once we quit laughing, we rolled him over and covered him up.  That's one for the blog, for sure!

Mater Teeth

Dad gum, Dad gum!

I found a horrible lollipop type of candy at the market that has buck teeth like the character Mater in the movie Cars.  Jack of course LOVED it!  Here he is sporting his new Mater teeth.  Heck with college, we've started an orthodontic fund.