April & Will Titera: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Pumpkin soup anyone?

You gotta make pumkin soup during the months of autum. There's no better way to use up the clearance-priced pumpkins (or the jack-o-lanterns sitting on your front step;). A few weeks ago, I was peeling, cutting, roasting, boiling and blending to get my soup ready for dinner. I had neglected some of Owen's whining to finish it.

Just as I got it to the puree consistency I wanted, I went over to pick Owen up out of his exercise station and saw this little doozie on our WHITE rug!! That's not pumpkin soup! Needless to say, I will never look at pumpkin soup the same way again. And I tried everything to get that stain out... club soda worked the best, but still left behind a yellowish memory. In 5 years when our whole rug has turned brown anyway, I'm sure no one will ever notice.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

November highlights

Happy 5 months to Owen today! I never even wrote about his life at 4 months. He'll probably never forgive me for that. I can just see him sitting in a therapist's office years from now because of my careless neglect with recording his milestones. At 4 months, the scales tipped at 20 pounds. Now he is around 21. His thighs measure pretty close to Grant's and he is in the 97th percentile for his height (27 in?). He also just got his first 2 budding teeth on the bottom, but we can't get a picture yet because he won't move his tongue out of the way. This kiddo has been sleeping through the night and taking 2 naps every day for the past 2 months. How did we get so lucky?

It has been fun to see Grant and Owen "playing" together. Grant gets so excited for Owen when he grabs a toy or rolls over (which he finally did a few weeks ago!). And Owen absolutely loves Grant. When I'm feeding him and Grant walks in the room, Owen pushes me away to find him and smiles so big once he sees his face. I usually have to ask Grant to leave the room so Owen will pay attention to me!

This month I finally cut off his mullet.

Thanksgiving day was simple and laid back. We had our traditional Monahan rugby game (forgot to take pictures) and an afternoon feast complete with paper cups and plates. I like to do things a little fancier, but when there's hundreds of kids running around (or 12) you gotta give up some of your hearts desires. I have to say that ROLLS are my favorite part of the dinner... and dessert...

Seriously delicious. Layer after layer of squishy, tickley, meaty rolls. I counted about 27. He makes even the Biggest Loser contestants jealous. And here's our day-after 5 k family run to work off the extra food. Will and I stayed together aiming for a PR of 22 minutes. Grant and the other little ones did a quick dash and got trophies for finishing. We just got bragging rights and then ate more pie.

More pictures of Owen just because they are cute and recent.

Okay, I may have miscounted the rolls back there. I think there's 28. Man. Sometimes I have to back away before I squish him too much. Can't handle it.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Halloween 2011

Still catching up, Folks. Our Halloween last month was complete with homemade costumes, 2 trunk or treat parties and 1 trick or treat around the block. Grant insisted on being Batman this year, even though he's never seen a movie, cartoon or comic book with Batman. I'm quite sure it was the influence of the other boys in his preschool. All Grant knew was that Batman was "bad" and he wanted to be bad. Wonderful. Will and I bought some inexpensive fabric and combined our sewing skills to create this little number. we bought the mask, borrowed a black leotard and bought some black stretch pants. The cape, belt and bat symbols were the team project. I love that my husband is just as crafty (or more so) than I am.

Owen had no choice in the matter of costumes. He simply got to wear Grant's hand-me-down sumo wrestler from 3 years ago. It was still just as funny as ever. This happy guy had no idea that I was getting ready to put him in a body suit and stuff him with 2 pounds of fluff.

He obviously wasn't bothered by it because he fell asleep as soon as we got to the trunk or treat party. Washing up the face make-up afterwards was picture-worthy as well.

Party #2 the next weekend... I got asked by another ward to come twist balloons. I unwillingly said Yes, even though I knew there would be 200 kids in line all night. At least Will could take the kids (and their cousins) around for a little more loot and a free night of entertainment.

Pumpkin carving with cousins...

By the time "real" Halloween came around, Grant was done with getting candy. He had more fun scaring people and running up to the kids to give them a piece of candy. That's right, he gave exactly ONE piece to each of them.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

California in September

Is it November already? Hmm. Somehow I have not blogged about the past few months of our lives. Let's catch up: in September, Will's vacation time finally started over, so we took a trip to southern CA to play at the beach and Disneyland. Of course, we visited Mike, Bri, Celia, Shawn, Tasha, Clayton, Packer and Lincoln. We used points to stay at a hotel the first night... right by the beach, so that was our first stop!

"Running" along the beach did not exactly happen, but it was fun to pretend...

Grant really wanted to sleep with Owen, so we waited til both of them were asleep, then switched up the bed assignments. Who ever heard of a vacation when Mom and Dad can't even sleep in the same bed? Gotta love the family vacations.

After staying with Mike and Bri for a night, we checked into a hotel near Disney (on points... woo-hoo) and then met up with cousin Jamie to get free admission to both parks! We are lucky cheapscaptes for sure.

We made the boys ride everything... even though they fell asleep! What? we couldn't go on Peter Pan or Little Mermaid by ourselves...

Second wind after Disneyland and one large pizza.

We had to hit the beach one last time before heading home because it was a perfect day! We even convinced Bri and Celia to meet up with us again. We went boogie boarding and Will got this little doozie. He got caught in a wave and thrown down, then smeared on the bottom of the ocean floor. He was dripping with blood for a solid 20 minutes.