Sept 2012

I always tell myself that I'm going to post more than once a month and then I can never seem to find time to sit down and compile all my pictures (from big camera, small camera, my phone, duane's phone) and "touch up" each of them till the end of the month.

It's always amazing looking back on the month and see how much has happened! This month is no exception. Kalvin started school, we took a big family trip to Boston, and had family come into town for a week (plus all the other little things in between). Duane was on a more easy-going back rotation where his hours were often shorter and less stress-filled which was another plus for the month.

Our neighbors come over every so often when we're outside and they never let William get lonely, in fact I think he gets held and receives a lot more attention than he'd like. How I look forward to the day when I have a girl of my own.

  Tristen believes in "a little dirt never hurt anybody". He never washes his carrots from the garden before devouring them despite my constant reminders.

  Lots of dish soap+kiddie pool+the neighbors hoola hoop=big bubbles!

On September 4, Kalvin started Kindergarten! I had been so excited for him, I felt like he was ready for it and I was excited to have some one on one time with Tristen (because we all know that it's hard to get/give that when there's an older brother around). Of course, one as we were driving in the car I was thinking again how grateful I was that Kalvin was in school because he was very ready and I knew he would just soak it all up. I told him how happy I was that he was in school and then he said to me, "Yeah, cause you're happy to have some time with Tristen, right?". My heart sank as I tried to explain.

 Here's Kalvin on his first day of school! I was one of those nerd mom's who took my humungo camera to capture everything.

I was trying to get him to give me a real smile and then he gave me a few of these since I'm sure he was done trying to give a fake smile.

 Then this is the smile (and laugh) he gave after seeing how silly he looked in the picture above. That's better...

 The school is 1/2 mile away (too close for the bus to pick him up) so we've had fun walking him to school. The first day Tristen brought his scooter.

 And we were lucky enough to have Duane come along with us. He had been at work all night so before taking a snoozer that morning, he came with us to drop Kalvin off on his first day :-).

 And the bid boy in front of his school. Ah...

 We happened to see his great friend, Griffin too. They have so much fun together. 

 

Each morning the children sit against the wall as they wait for school to start. There is a basket of books they can look through as well.

 And, we may have stuck aroudnd for a couple minutes, peering into the classroom to see how he was doing. It was a strange feeling, walking away and wondering if he was going to be alright.

And he was just fine.

  As I picked him up from his first day, I naturally asked how it was and he said, " Holy macarell; that was awesome!" And then he gave me this face. Love this kid!

 By the third day, Kalvin was doing his own hair.

 And Tristen was still doing this. Laying around and saying, "Watch a movie?" 

For the first couple days, I was really good at getting out and enjoying my time with Tristen and then I dunno, I guess I've just wanted to get things done around the house. I need to appreciate our time together better.

 

Cold sore!

 As I was cleaning up I found this letter to Grandma and Grandpa Mickelson that Kalvin had started weeks before. Inside I found about a $1.50 of his own money. Kalvin does not covet money. I hope that he can continue to feel this way about money being less important than relationships.

 My studly hubby, ready for a picture for his Arizona anesthesia license.

 Put these up for sale on CL and got $250 for them :-) 

Our intentions were to get a smaller sofa to help the room look bigger.

 

The night before the lady came to buy the sofa and lazy chair, Tristen left silly putty on it and it gooped up a good portion of the chair... ugh! Luckily it wasn't too hard to get off with goo-gone and about 15 minutes of work.

 The lady came and took them on Friday and we didn't get to pick up our sofa till Monday was we had very few places to sit for a long 3 days, but Kalvin wanted to get out the camera and he took some pictures of us just after we took the sofa's out.

 And Daddy took some.

 And Tristen took some.

 Getting a little CL happy, Kalvin sold his desk and chair and got $20 :-) He was very happy about that!

 A quick photo of our Saturday morning practice for the primary program. Kalvin did a great job, but I didn't expect anything less from this great kid!

 

Here is is the next day, ready for his part!

 After the program practice on Saturday, we headed to the Jessee's for a lunch with the young families. The boys were looking forward to this trip for weeks! Duane was supposed to come, but then the day before Duane's boss asked him to work that day and if he did, he'd give Duane 3 vacation days. He took the bate. It was a terrible night for him that Saturday so he was out of commission all of Sunday, so he really only earned 1 day from it all, but we were able to take that day the following week which extended our stay for a vacation to Boston.

The Jessee's have a waterfall in their backyard that the boys love to see!

 This is why the cautions on kids toy packages have so many disclaimers, because there are other kids out there like Tristen that push the limits with toys and find any possible way that a toy could be dangerous. I guess this is more humorous than it is dangerous though.

We got grapes from a friends garden and should have cleaned them real well before putting them out on the counter for a couples days because we got fruit flies everywhere!  
Good thing Duane remembered my mom's idea for catching fruit flies. He put a piece of bate in a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap and poked a few small holes in it big enough for the flies to get in and out, but then they don't really know how to get out.

 Kalvin got my camera and captured Willy grunting in the living room.

 Soon after I came in and wanted a few shots with my little man. What a sweet baby he is!

 

 On one of our outtings, we went to Lowes and my job was to find a piec of pipe to cover some other tubes. As I looked Tristen held some of the pipes and then he said, "T for Tristen!". I was so surprised that that had stuck with him. I've casually pointed out a few times that he has a "T" in his name, but I loved that he knew it. I jumped on that and had him make a "K" for Kalvin as well.

 So, we needed the pipe to go under the faucet and in between the glass and wood top to the vanity. Duane put it all together that night, yay!

 Kalvin was able to have honors of turning on the water for the first time and it sent bursts of air and water for several seconds. It got Duane every time.

 Looks like our neighbor had a fly problem for several days as well.

 William... He's starting into messy habits a little early, but who could get frustrated with a face like that?!

 One morning as Kalvin ate his breakfast he said, "I love this spoon! It's my favorite! It's a girl spoon." I asked why it was a girl spoon and he said, "Because it's beautiful!" Good answer, Kalvin.

 So, as I mentioned before, we were able to have a family getaway to Boston and the surrounding area. Our last night we stayed at a waterpark resort (which was AWESOME!) so I was going through the boys swim stuff and came across their swimming-floaty-bodysuits. These boys (especially Kalvin) could hardly wait to put it on. He didn't want to take it off for bed.

 We let Kalvin skip school on Friday and Duane had asked to get Monday off since Kalvin had no school that day anyway and we started our vacation at the Big E fair. It's a three state wide fair and I expected it to be super crowded, but it never got near as crowded as I've ever seen at the slowest time at the Arizona fair.
The weather was perfect and the kids had a blast with wristbands that let them get on any ride (that they were tall enough for). I forgot to bring Williams blanket so each time I had to nurse, I hid myself in a bathroom stall.

 I laugh that Tristen wanted to pink Barbie race car.

 

 This was Kalvin's favorite ride by far, and he begged and pleaded for me to go on it with him. I finally caved in and went just before we left the park that night. He really thought that it was up in the air flying around in circles.

 So, I guess Duane didn't get any pictures of it, but we went to a hypnotist show and after lots of nudging from Duane I volunteered to go on stage to be hypnotized. I have been to several hypnotist shows and I've been very curious to see how it feels to be under the influence, plus I had got like 2 hours of sleep the night before as I got ready for our big trip so I was completely exhausted. I figured that if I couldn't be hypnotized at least I could have some time to myself to relax because even though I was on stage with lights pointing at me, I was so tired I was sure I could fall asleep there.
It was an interesting experience. I could tell that there were different levels of sleep and that I wasn't very deep into the sleep, but for the first half I was under (to a degree). It was interesting hearing her commands and then feeling my body move to do what she told me to do. By the last half I had come out of the hypnosis and was basically acting everything out, but I didn't really mind because there were a dozen other weirdos on stage dancing around too. In the end, it was super relaxing and I felt like I'd had a good power nap and was re-energized.  I should have bought the DVD of the show for $10.

 After the show we saw the motorcycle stuntmen though I guess I never got a picture of them doing their flips.

 That night we got into our hotel room and found that they had upgraded us to a two room suite. I that that was pretty nice. I remember waking up for what I thought was the middle of the night and hearing the toilet flush, but I looked over and saw Duane next to me so I figured one of the boys had to use the bathroom. I went back to sleep and at 7:30 William, who was sleeping next to me on the floor, woke up. I nursed him and then lay there thinking how nice it was that all the boys were sleeping in. Since Willy was awake I decided to get up and check on the boys in the other room. Duane was still in bed at this point, but as I got up I saw these clothes all over the floor. I knew it to be the workings of Tristen.

 

 I continued to the other room where the boys were and found this chair out of place.

 I looked over to the boys bed and Tristen was not there. I thought it was odd so I looked around the room and then went back to our room and looked around and could not find him so I went back to his room. It was clear he was not there so I went back to our room where Duane was laying in bed thinking of getting up and told him that Tristen was gone. He clearly did not believe me. I hurriedly put some clothes on and with William ran out of the room to see where he had gone. I took the elevator down to the lobby and as the doors opened two people were getting on and asked if I was missing a child. They pointed me to the front desk. As I approached the counter the woman working asked if I was missing Johnathon then from around the corner Tristen appeared. I have no idea where he came up with the name Johnathon! The woman explained that he had been there for about 45 minutes and that she had thought to start calling rooms soon that she knew had children. I guess an adult had seen Tristen get off the elevator and turned him in to the front desk. She said that the two of them had been playing games and talking. In the end she insisted that he take this fishing pole toy with him. I was so grateful that the situation went as nicely as it did because I'm sure that it could have been much worse.
Later, when things calmed down, Duane pointed out to me the irony of what the room key cards say.

 After leaving the hotel we went to the Boston Children's museum. What a neat place. It's right on a boardwalk so we were able to look out at the water and see very large fish and even many jelly fish. Not sure what this face from Willy is all about, but it makes me smile.

 Here is the tea party ship.

 As you first get into the museum there is a huge, three story maze of platforms and cables. The boys had fun in here and then Duane went up with them as well. You can kind of see them here.

 Willy has started throwing small tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants. He wanted the camera and I didn't let him have it soon enough.

 

 There was also a fire station that we were able to look around near the museum as well. Kalvin let me try on his had for a few minutes.

 

 From the museum we went to Bunker Hill. The last time we had been there was when Kalvin was almost 2 years old. He climbed all 294 steps (at 2 years old). We got there just after it had closed so we weren't able to up. I was pretty bummed that he wouldn't be able to do that again, but the boys and Duane had fun in the park with a football they had brought instead.

And I played with the camera.

 And with Willy.

 

 We went to our hotel for the night after the monument and then in the morning we hit up Wingaersheek Beach in North Massachusetts. It was beautiful! And chilly, but I can definitely see why people live by the ocean!  William LOVED the sand and as long as it was dry sand, he did not attempt to eat it.

 William is a snugly baby. Probably the most out of all the boys.

 Look how happy!

 

 It's pretty hard to read, but Duane wrote "I love you" in the sand.

 

 You can't see it here, but Tristen is behind this girls head. He had fallen in the water.

Soon after falling in the water, Tristen got in "destructive mode" and zoned out all commands from parents.

 

Tristen buried and pushed his head along the sand for about 20 feet before getting up.

 The sand was warm in contrast to the cold water and chilly breeze so I guess this could be a big reason why the boys were laying in it.

 

The beach season had ended the weekend before and this mean that there was no lifeguard on duty anymore and the bathrooms were closed. I missed not having a bathroom, but found a good bush up in the trees as we were leaving.

 There was a photographer with a small family while were there. What a neat place to take pictures! Kinda makes me wish I'd brought my big kahuna camera.

 From the beach we went to the Waterpark Resort Hotel, coco Key. It was so awesome! It was like a clean version of Sunsplash with about A LOT less people. There were never any lines for slides and the lifeguards that were everywhere were not super uptight like I thought they would be. We had a great time with our allotted 4PM-8PM time frame.

 Tristen had a hard time fitting in the tubes for the lazy river anyway he tried it so he fell down in a couple times, but thankfully was tall enough to still reach for air till I or Duane could come help him.

 

 

We slept well that night and then started on our way home the next morning. We stopped at a rest stop for a bit to let the kids get out and run around.

 This was too cute seeing William stand himself up against the tree.

 So, at some point during our time at the water park, Tristen hit his eye and scratched his face, but he never complained of it to us so I don't know when it happened though he did admit that it hurt when it happened and he tried to tell us what happened, I'm just not sure where or exactly when. Tough kid.

 We got home on Monday and on Tuesday, Audra and Justin came into town. It was so great to have them here with us! Kalvin was constantly smothering them with attention and Justin did a great job of going with the flow and giving the boys the attention they wanted.

 

Audra and Justin were in and out of town making several touristy stops around the east: NYC, Niagara Falls, Palmyra. One day they were here we went to the New York State Museum that is about 2 miles from our house. As Audra and Justin were looking at the 9-11 exhibit Duane and I took the boys up to the marry go round.

 Then we came back down and got a picture with the memorial.

 Another example of the boys smothering Justin.

 Someday we'll have to give Kalvin a hard time about wanting to give Justin butterfly kisses...

 After the kids went to bed, A/J and I and Duane watched a movie. I slept through about 1/2 of it though and I actually can't even remember what it was that we saw.

 The last night A/J were here, Justin made this awesome "fat boys" dinner. It was so delicious. It was bacon with sausage, green pepers, jalepenos, onions and cheese inside. So yummy and totally worth the 1 1/2 hour cooktime.

Kalvin got a day off school, Yom Kippur (there are lots of Jews out here) and got out a couple glow sticks so we had some fun in the dark toy room. I set the exposure to 3 seconds and the boys and I had fun. It's fun to find William in most the pictures as he crawled.

 One time it went flying and flew into the fan/light.

I got a bunch of stuff from oriental trading company for some primary stuff, but the boys keep finding the box and taking things to play with.

 54 degrees outside, perfect for a fire!

 Tristen kept scaring me that he'd eat the marshmallows off the stick before it had enough time to cool down. Luckily he didn't every burn himself bad though.

 So, we're putting our home up for sale! Duane is putting this flyer up at work to so that interviewee's can see it. What do you think? There are probably a couple things I will add to the flyer like our blog domain for the house (once I get that all updated).

 It's been a lot of work getting the house ready for pictures. After Duane and I working a couple hours and spending $86 on plants, we got the front yard done!

 

Still need to hang the mirror (can't find the wire I bought to do it though...)

 

And a view of the neighborhood.

Phew! A couple hundred pictures later and I'm done! Arizona, here we come! Just 2 more days!!!