Overcome Fear of Slides...Check!

Will was never very interested in going down slides for some reason. It's not like he's had some really traumatic experience where his mom sends him down a dark tunnel of doom and he comes out head first screaming into Daddy's arms. But if he ever did have an experience like that, I'm sure the mom had no idea it was a slide meant for older kids.
Well, the point is, he's overcome whatever fear of slides he had before and is loving them now.

Prince Charming

We had a tea party activity with our courtyard last week. (I had many a memorable tea party as a kid. They were more sugar than tea, and they got pretty wild.) Kids were encouraged to dress up so I did what I could with Will's clothes and helped him look smashing for the tea party. One of the little girls actually said "We're all princesses, and Will is our prince!"
It can't be helped. Will is surrounded by girls! Pretty much all the kids that go out to the playground are girls. He recently started greeting them all with hugs. He used to give the little girl below lonnnnng hugs. It was so cute, but then she moved back to Canada. 'sniff'
Luckily, the girls aren't all about tea parties. They like to get messy too. Here's Will splashing around in puddles with one of his favorite neighbors.

iFly Indoor Skydiving

For Christmas my mom got Britton a ticket to do a beginner's round of indoor skydiving. Last weekend we finally got to see what this indoor skydiving is all about. Giant vertical wind tunnel...say what?! Our fluid-dynamic loving nerd was in heaven! Britton also convinced his little brother and friend to join him in this neon jumpsuit and ridiculous goggle wearing escapade.
We got the official video of them flying around. Here it is in edited form for all you busy people out there. In case it's hard to recognize them the order is:
Alex and Britton Round One
Alex and Britton Round Two
Trainer guy shows off

Theme Park-athon

9 People
2 Vehicles
1 Stroller
3 Days
3 Theme parks

Our Goal: To optimize the theme park experience in Southern California.

Before we left, Britton pulled up a map of the parks, and started to do his research on optimizing our time at Disneyland, California Adventure, and Universal Studios. Turns out there are a lot of other engineering-type fathers who tried to do the same thing, but the reports from the daddy blogs he read were unanimous, families interrupted the plan! Nothing went according to schedule.
But we did our best to make the most of the official hours of operation. Did you know Disneyland is only open until midnight, but the stores and restaurants outside of Disneyland are open another hour!? You can get back to your hotel by 2 AM and then go right back when they open the doors at 8 AM! Crazy? I think so.
Here are my best tips for navigating these three parks.

DO take advantage of the FAST PASS. Our runners, Derek and Britton, took everyone's tickets ran across the park to get fast passes for crowded lines like Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones.

DON'T buy too much food in the park. Bringing your own lunch and snacks will save you TONS of money, and then you can treat yourself to a leisurely dinner outside the park.

DO share the chocolate lava brownie volcano at the Rainforest Cafe. It's gigantic!


DON'T get too close to the giant chipmunks. They're really creepy.

DO bring lots of sunscreen no matter what time of year it is. It was beautiful and 80 degrees in March.

DON'T take your 1.5 year-old to the Bug's Life movie. The squirting water will scare him. Ghosts and pirates, however, will not scare him.
DON'T make your son wear the "Sassy Lassie" shamrock headband.
DO visit Disney's California Adventure. I wasn't sure what to expect there, but it was so much bigger and better than I expected! I loved California Screamin' the rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, and the cute Bugs Life kids area.
DON'T club anyone with a giant turkey leg.

DO take a kid with you. They make everything more magical. (Britton counts as a kid.)
Universal Studios

DO dress to impress in case you see anyone famous at the studios.

DO wait in the long line for the tour of the studios. It's worth it. My favorites were the studio tour, Simpson's ride, Jurassic Park, and The Mummy.
DO walk ahead of your sister-in-law and her friend in the House of Horrors. These two were magnets for the creepy monsters and water...which kept me completely safe and dry:)

DON'T be fooled by the cute face. He's only interested in the pretzel.

Obsessions

It's so funny to watch Will go through phases. He becomes completely obsessed with some toy (usually car/truck) and won't let anything come between him and that object for a few days or weeks...until suddenly he moves on to the next obsession.
Here is a good example of an obsession with a truck. He was immediately attached to this truck and luckily its former owner was about to trash it. He refused to put it down even though it's really heavy and awkward. It was hard to get him to eat sometimes because this huge truck wouldn't fit in the high chair with him.
This little remote control car fits into the palm of your hand. It has these tiny wheels that have all been lost or damaged. This was one of Britton's birthday presents, but Will took such a sudden, severe interest in it it didn't last too long. At first it was cute to hear him say "Get it! Get it!" as he chased it around. But there was no way to distract him from it. He knew exactly where we hid it and was so persistent in asking for it and throwing tantrums until he was holding it again. For about a week he took it everywhere.





No more fake cars. Will needs the real deal now. He can spend an hour "driving" unless it's too hot and I worry and drag him inside screaming to make him drink water.

Rachel's Visit

I love it when old friends come to visit! It's like part of me has been forgotten, and then suddenly comes back to life while they're around. Rachel and I have been friends since middle school. We used to tell people we were the same but different. I'm still not really sure what that means but I think we were trying to tell people we were happy to have a friend we shared so much with, but we also had differences and that was OK. I'm lucky that she has business trips in this area because I never seem to make it over to Boston.
Rachel almost always has her camera out so I hardly ever take pictures while she's visiting. So I'm using all her pictures for this post. She took a LOT of pictures and I can't help but share a LOT of them with you.







We did other stuff besides playing with Will. In fact, I think I planned so much stuff we were all exhausted by the time Rachel left for her conference.
First I took her for a quick walk up to "the dish". We just walked up the first hill of this nearby trail to get an amazing view across the bay, the Santa Clara valley, and the small mountain range between us and the ocean.
I can't believe how green everything is right now. It was a wonderful way to start the day.

Later we met up with another friend of mine and went out for Crepes. Yumm! We went to Crepes Cafe in Menlo Park and I still dream about the caramelized apple crepe. The apples were swimming in butter and I think Julia Childs would have approved.We also went to the Stanford Cantor Arts Center.

My favorite was the Asian art section. Will can say Buddha now. Ashley and Rachel held Will a lot during our trip which was so nice for me. My arms are getting a little too buff lately.
And Rachel came to church with us on Sunday and graciously helped entertain and comfort the little kids in nursery. I think Will really appreciated having someone he knew in there.
We had tons of fun in a short amount of time, and she just told me she might be out here again in April. I'll try to make any future visits more low-key, I promise.

Me Me Me

Most of this blog is devoted to letting you know what Will has been up to lately. I thought I'd focus on me for a bit. Here's what I'm doing these days.

Baby James! (same name as one of Will's favorite trains)
I'm watching a friend's baby part time while she goes back to work. It's nice to be working a little bit especially since it's such pleasant work. The baby is just three months old! It's so much fun to spend time with such a little baby again. It took me a little bit to remember the baby schedule/techniques, but we're in our baby groove now and everything is going smoothly. Will gets sad every time James gets dropped off, but he likes to help me take care of him by getting wipes and diapers for me, picking up the pacifier when it falls, and letting me know if he is happy or sad. He also likes to tell everyone at church when James is happy or sad:)


Playground
The playground is my default activity. Since I'm not the greatest planner in the world, we spend a lot of time on the playground. I talk to neighbors, teach Will how to do things like throw a ball (like I know anything about that...), and then I iPod. I am SO SO SO lucky to live in a place where I can take my kid outside to play most of the year! We don't have a ton of toys for Will so I appreciate the communal toys outside!


Zumba, Zumba, Zumba
The icing on my cake each week is my exercise classes. I hardly ever run anymore. I need other people to motivate and direct my exercise now. But I LOVE it! I do mostly kickboxing, pilates, and zumba. Zumba isn't even exercise for me. It's just 50 minutes of pure fun. Plus 10 minutes of really lame stretching. Britton and Will like to chant "zumba, zumba zumba" right before I leave. Will also chants that randomly throughout the week.

Primary
I am now the Second Counselor in the Primary at our church. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that means. So far it means we have meetings every week where we plan out activities for all the kids at church, I take turns with the other women teaching a big group of kids on Sundays, and I'm in charge of a bunch of other things that I still need to figure out. But the kids are really cute! (Like the ones in the picture above, but not really those kids.)

Food, Glorious Food
I spend a lot of time making food and cleaning up after food. If Britton and Will weren't around I would probably live off of oatmeal and quesadillas. I think that's mostly what I ate during college. Luckily I have people in my life to motivate me to expand my culinary horizons. I love trying new food. We made our first souffle today. Mostly because we didn't have much left in the house. All it took was some eggs, sugar, and one orange. I want to try making more Indian dishes so I bought some paneer cheese at Costco today. (I think we have a large-ish Indian population in this area.) I like this blog for healthy Indian food ideas. Food and Spice

That's about it. I'm not very crafty so I don't really make things unless encouraged by other people. You can check out my latest read on the side of my blog. I'm in love with the Hunger Games series and can't wait for the next book to come out and for them to make the movie. I missed the Twilight train so I'm getting on board this early.

More fun posts to follow including our trip to Disneyland!

18 month pictures via Galen

I was trying to figure out where to take Will to get some professional 18 month pictures, but wasn't sure how to go about it. As I was visiting a friend her step-dad started taking pictures of Will and I asked him if he would mind doing a quick photo shoot. He loves photography and has taken other cute photos of Will whenever we cross paths.




Let me know if you would like any prints or if you want to see more of these pictures. There's plenty!