Happy Birthday Kieran!

Our favorite little guy is turning 5 years old! We love this stage since he says and does the funniest things, many of which I recognize aren't that funny outside the walls of our own home. That said, I hope there are a few that may resonant with the outside world:

Kieran's prayers:

• "Bless Laban to be nice to everyone."
• "Bless my toys to have batteries."
• "Bless the moon to come up."

Kieran on transformers:

• "I hate Starscream and Megatron, because I don't like angry Decepticons--only the nice Decepticons."
• "When Megatron's grumpy, he opens up toys at the toy store."

Kieran's get-out-of-bed excuse (and eloquent description of Michael Jackson's genius):

• "But mommy, I can't get Michael Jackson out of my head. Haven watched his movie [Thriller] and his song went in my ear and got stuck. I keep trying to think of Star Wars but it keeps changing to Michael Jackson."

Kieran's observations of human behavior:

• "If you're serious that means that you hate stuff."
• "Mommy did a hard workout this morning and she was grumpy."
• "Daddy, why do I want to play games all day?"

Proof that Kieran is listening during Primary:

• Kieran response to me cutting my finger accidentally: “Now the police will come and I’ll tell them that you cut your finger. And they’ll say ‘Ok, you don’t have to go to jail. You have to go to Jesus’.” Amused, I asked, “Why do I need to go to Jesus?” He said, “Because He heals you with His hands.”

Just plain out there:

• "My heart's always taking my underwear off."

Kieran listening to his body:

• "Mom, my brain is turning to mush. Will you push it back in?"
• "My pee-pee is telling me not to drink any more water"

Perspective

I knew our "little" Havey wasn't so little since she wears clothes made for kids twice her age. Still, it didn't strike me until this weekend just how big she really is for her age. That is, until we discovered that she can ride Space Mountain at Disneyland. That's right, a 2-year old riding Space Mountain! We had to smile when all you could see of her in the photo of the ride is a blond tuft of hair next to Ryan.

Happy Belated Halloween!

Adventures in Gardening (and other Summer adventures)

Despite living in one of the most temperate climates in the world with a growing season of nearly 365 days of the year, we managed to bungle our garden this summer. The harvest has been anything but plentiful, as you can see by the stunted yellow pepper and cucumber in the photo above. We had the best intentions of eating organic and saving the world and money one home-grown vegetable at a time. I figure if we had to recover the costs of our garden, we'd have to charge about $100/lb for our produce. Luckily, our neighbor, whose tomatoes plants are a few feet from ours, takes pity on us every once in a while and brings us the vegetables they can't eat.

When we haven't been gardening which, truthfully, is almost all the time, we've been enjoying the summer. Ryan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary by redeeming 10-years worth of frequent flyer miles for a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii--without the kids. I only regret that the next time we'll probably have another vacation like that is in another ten years. The highlight was definitely all the snorkeling--with a reef shark, a giant manta ray (in Ryan's case), an eel, and tons of tropical fish. Here's some of my favorite photos:

We'll definitely also miss not seeing our family as much as we have this summer. Our only hope is that they'll want to come visit us (or Disneyland) this winter. Some photos:

Boating in Pineview with grandma

Shoemaker reunion in Capital Reef

Ryan wakeboarding in Bear Lake

The Morgan Fam

The Shoemaker Fam

Shoemakers L.A. Weekend

We had a fun weekend with the Shoemakers in town. Here are a few photos from the weekend:

The Getty Villa

Our little Padowan, Kieran, finally achieved his dream of lightsaber combat with Lord Vader

Enjoying an evening of baseball, Dodger dogs, and drunken fans

Easy to Please

Ryan read about an easy way to make your child's day on babycenter.com: add food coloring to their bath. It's true, it does make their day and, even though I was initially doubtful, it doesn't dye their skin or the bath tub. I'll be sad one day when simply chasing them around the house or dyeing their bathwater doesn't make the cut.

Haven recently discovered the "pinza" dress hanging up in her closet since Christmas. It was a gift from grandma and grandpa Shoemaker. This is Haven wearing the dress:

And this is Haven when she's told she cannot wear the dress:

Family Visitors Part I

We had a great time with Justin and Tiffany and family when they came to visit us over the Thanksigiving holiday. Here are a few pics from their trip:

Griffith Park Observatory

The cousins getting reacquainted at the Observatory

Justin and Tiffany before launch of California Screamin'

Justin & Tiffany 2 seconds into a 4 second 0 to 60 launch

Will's Disneyland blues

A quick family photo on Mickey's Fun Wheel

Anna riding a pony at Griffith Park

Kieran and Will riding ponies

In other news, Kieran is moving on from Spiderman and Batman and now wants to be Venom, Spiderman's nemesis. He tells me how, when we buy him the Venom costume, he'll wear it and go "like this" (he wags his tongue back and forth), and how people will say, "Oh my gosh! That's a scary Spiderman!" He actually thinks Venom is really just a black Spiderman. Ryan and I have never seen the new Spiderman trilogy, but we're coming up to speed quickly on the comic book world.

Though he doesn't particular enjoy the lesson part of pre-school, he's made major strides in writing and coloring over the past couple of months. He's coloring in the lines and can almost write his name legibly. He also doesn't like to sing very much, but I'll hear him singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" or "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" when he doesn't think I'm listening.

Haven had her belated 18-month check up at 20 months of age and we found out she's the size of an average 3 year old. We already knew that since she towers over the two-year olds at her school and in nursery. In the past couple of weeks she has begun speaking in phrases and sentences. Her first words to me this morning were "Kieran's mean to me." The funny thing is that she had not even seen Kieran at that point in the morning.

As you can see from the photo, she loves to wear necklaces. She also loves sunglasses and purses. She's broken at least two pair of sunglasses over the past month. Unlike Kieran, she loves to sing and hear us sing. Her medley of songs usually includes the Barney theme song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee."

Two Thumbs Up

I have a few suggestions this week for some family entertainment this holiday season. The journalistic integrity of my blog (?!) requires that I disclose that I am not an unbiased source when it comes to these recommendations.

My first recommendation is The Princess and the Frog. Ryan and I attended the wrap party a couple weeks back, and I thought it was the most beautiful animated film I have ever seen. Ryan thought it was right up there with other classic Disney animated films, and that's after he responded to the trailer with "and they think this is going to do well?" Interesting story about this film is that it's from the same directors who did The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, who were eventually shown the door at Disney, and then brought back again when the Pixar leadership took over. If you want to see the trailer, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8N-kIiELUA.

My second recommedation is a half-hour Christmas special Disney Animation Studios did for ABC titled Prep and Landing. It premieres December 1 after the Charlie Brown special, so have some peppermint hot cocoa and make a night of it with the fam. I can't do the story justice, so check a little bit of it out for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etq-d8Ci7uI.

Hope you like it!

Halloween

Halloween has come and gone, but Kieran's Batman fetish is still going strong. His Batman costume is literally beginning to disintegrate. He was very disappointed when the Halloween decorations on the homes and business around here came down. Halloween is serious business in these parts. A house down the street even built a movie-set quality haunted house in their yard. Here are some photos of a few of my favorites:

Here are our first-time trick-or-treaters:

And of course...

We've been watching some of the old Batman and Robin cartoons from the 1960s on YouTube, and I finally understand the context for expressions like "The Dynamic Duo" and "The Boy Wonder" that my dad used all growing up.

Let the holiday season begin!

The Happiest Place on Earth

A friend of mine once had to conduct an experiment for a class, so she decided to test a hypothesis about where people were happiest/friendliest. She tested the hypothesis by tracking what proportion of people smiled or said hello to her at a grocery store, a college campus, and a recreation trail. The friendliest place was the recreation trail, and the grocery store was the least friendly place. I remembered that experiment yesterday as I was running on a trail near our house, when I couldn't help smiling despite the tortuous run. The sky was incredibly blue after a few days of rain, and the smell of fresh cut grass was in the air. Sometimes it doesn't get better than that.


I may have to go all Mythbusters on Disney's claim using that same experiment to see if it holds true. My guess is the recreation trail would still win out. However, Disney does provide some great backdrops for a photo. Here's the fam from our trip last week.

Batman and Pebbles

Kieran's in a Batman kind of mood these days. He wants to wear his Batman pajamas everywhere--pre-school, church, the playground, and, of course, bed. He's quite distraught when they actually have to be washed. I already bought him a green dragon costume for Halloween, but I'm thinking Batman might slay the dragon Halloween night. Some cute things he's been saying lately is "that's what happens," which is his very philosophic response to any unfortunate thing that happens, "polk-a-nuts" instead of "polk-a-dots" and "gee-cano" instead of volcano.

Haven is our blonde Pebbles Flintstone. She has a favorite stuffed toy, "Lambey," which she uses as a security blanket. She also loves to sing, especially to herself in her bed.

Teetering on the Edge of Irrelevance

I do realize that I'm breaking a cardinal rule of blogging by letting months lapse between posts. I have no excuse, just photos from our summer:

The summer began with Ryan running the L.A. Marathon on Memorial Day. It was his 5th marathon, and he was happy to place in the top 8%. The highlight of Kieran's day, as evidenced in the photo above, was the toxic blue Batman popsicle.

In June, we celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday...

...and welcomed the newest cousin into the Shoemaker family.
We've been to the beach...

...and said goodbye to L.A. and hello to Burbank. I don't actually have a photo of Burbank, so this one of Hollywood is close enough. :)

Until the next post...

Earthbump

My years of practicing for "The Big One" in the Utah school system failed me. Yesterday, I experienced my first earthquake, and I froze. The earthquake registered in at 4.7, so it wasn't huge (thank goodness!), but we felt the brunt of it, since we were quite close to the epicenter. I was sitting at the dining room table with my laptop, and Ryan was in the living room. Next thing I know the house was moving and there was this eerie rumbling noise. I don't know who reacted worse--me sitting frozen right next to our solid dining room table or Ryan rushing across the living room toward our glass bookcases to keep them from tipping over. Apparently, fire drills are in order for the Shoemaker household. Kieran's been talking about the "earthbump" all day, and it's his newest excuse for why he can't go to bed.

Still Emerging from the Post-Holiday Fog...

As the lack of posts would suggest, our life has been busy the past couple of months. Nothing too terribly interesting, mostly just the day-to-day grind and some birthdays. Kieran and I celebrated our birthdays in January--his 3rd and my 33rd--and Haven's 1st birthday is fast approaching. So with that, I'll cut straight to grandma's updates:

While we're hesitant to don the flight jacket and declare mission accomplished in the war on wetting, we will say that significant progress has been made in the battle of Kieran's heart and mind. The advice is solid: Wait until 3 years old to potty train a boy (and don't get involved in a land war in Asia). He amazes us every day with all the new things he's learned to say. His newest favorite thing is tatter telling on Haven. And for some reason, he has to call me by name when doing this. For example, "Jen, Haven's throwing her food on the floor." He also calls Ryan "Ry." If you check out his photo closely, you'll notice that his forearms and shins are all bruised up. That's our Kieran!

Haven now has eight teeth, an eardrum-breaking screech, and the ability--though not the desire--to walk. She officially began walking about a month ago, but we think she must have taken a few nasty falls and decided that crawling is more civilized. While our firstborn's first words were "mama" and "dada," Haven's first words were "mine" and "no." She seems to become a little fiestier everyday as she learns to hold her own against Kieran.

Died and Gone to Santa Barbara

Happy New Year to everyone! We celebrated the 1st day of 2009 with a road trip, and we fell in love with a new city—Santa Barbara. I haven’t instantaneously loved a city like this since Santa Fe. Hmmm…I just noticed the Spanish holy name connection between the two cities, but then again that’s not really much of a coincidence in the Southwestern U.S., is it? Anyway, Santa Barbara is one of those charming cities where I start rearranging our life plans to figure out how to end up there. I don’t have a solution yet, since apparently you have to be independently wealthy or willing to endure a hellish commute. Since neither scenario is likely, I may just have to settle for a few day trips here and there.




Kieran turns three this week, and we’re still pushing the potty training hard. I know we should probably just hold off a little longer, but he seems so close at times. That is, until he wets his pants, and then he doesn’t seem so close any longer. He has started replying to our questions with “What!?” or “Yep” and “Uh-huh.” He pointed out to me today that he was breathing. He often proudly announces his, shall we say, less subtle bodily functions, but I was impressed that he knew what it meant to breath.


Haven is now nine months old and is crowned our “good eater.” She’ll eat just about anything she can get her hands on—cat food, paper in the recycling bin, you name it. She has 7 teeth and will soon be competing with Kieran for the official “hair farmer” title.

Last month, Ryan’s story, “Such Great Heights,” was published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Not only was it the longest work of fiction they’ve published, but it was also awarded the Best Fiction of the Year prize. If you don't have a subscription to Dialogue (which I'm guessing is everyone-except Aunt Becky and Uncle Brent) and would like to read the story, I'd be happy to send you the PDF.