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!