Decemberists

December in Santa Cruz! On the plus side, there is no snow. On the minus side, there is no snow. It's been raining a lot here. I'm not sure I'll be able to make it out to cut the grass until March at this rate. At least the grass has started growing more slowly. I did manage to get some wet leaves raked for the boys to jump in.

Our standard-issue plan between 5:20 (when the boys get home) and 6:40 (when we eat) had been to make them run around outside, or I take them to the park. But it's pretty dark by 5:30, so we're all forced to make it work in the house. When we're all stuck in the house, things like this happen, because Momma is the best, and everyone needs her hugs.

We still make it to the park on the weekends. The rate of Duck-flation continues to increase at an increasing rate. There must be 100 ducks there now. Easy. Here is Graham herding them around the pond. He and Finn managed to force them into the water, like two little-boy sheep dogs.

And sometimes we do play in the backyard, even when it is raining. But things don't always go well. Below, at least Finn was having fun. It was mostly my fault because I stuck Graham up there against his will....

If you look carefully behind Graham you can see the edge of our garden. It has become massively overgrown with clover, and some grass, and I think a part of the garden may just stay like that.

The world according to Finn

Finn has taken to long monologues in the backseat, covering anything from Spiderman to friends at school to... well, here's part of one. I questioned him from time to time for your benefit, but rest assured he can go on for quite a while without prompting. If you click through to Vimeo there's a transcript for those of you who don't speak three-year-old. It's a quality video, in content if not cinematography.

Deer, shark, etc. from Katie on Vimeo.
After the move I found an old digital camera that we no longer need, and that I don't think I could convince anyone to buy on eBay. It's tiny, bright blue, and looks like it really ought to belong to a kid, so we gave it to Finn. 95% of his shots are his fingers, the floor, or in one charming instance, his thighs and the toilet seat as he sat on the potty. Here's a selection from the other 5%.



In this last one he's captured Graham's cheeser face, which he will make if he senses a camera nearby, or he's just happy to see you and feeling hammy. Often the eyes get completely squeezed shut.

These boys, they are goofy.

Thanksgiving

I took four pictures on Thanksgiving. All of them were slightly different angles of a table of pies. Then I gave up because the light was low and I really wanted some pie. Here is one of those amazing photos.
Graham and Finn didn't eat much on Thanksgiving (unlike their parents, who stuffed themselves silly). Believe it or not, Graham's a pretty picky eater. He loves bread, rice, pasta, muffins, crackers... you get the idea. He's not even the sucker for fruit that Finn has always been, but he did go to town on a pear the other day. He likes BIG food, and will get mad at you if you try to break things up into baby sized pieces for him.
Have I mentioned lately that he's the cutest, happiest, and possibly cheesiest baby in the universe? Here he is the other day as I tried to get him to ham it up in the kitchen, and he repeatedly ignored me in his quest to touch running water in the sink.

Graham in the kitchen from Katie on Vimeo.

Finn is three!

That's right, we have a three year old now. Finn's birthday was on Saturday, and his party was on Sunday, and the whole weekend was chock full of birthday goodness. Here's the birthday boy studiously opening presents Saturday morning. It's serious business, y'all.

(That's a flashlight, his number one birthday wish.) Then Sunday we went to Roaring Camp Railroads, rode a train, had a blast with friends, and eventually demolished a chocolate cake. New friends and old joined us, including Finn's best friend from his preschool in Los Gatos. Unfortunately, many of our pictures went kablooey when I had phone problems earlier this week, so if you're reading this and you were there, please send me your photos for our Fortney archives! Here's the blowing out of the candles, where you can see all the kids eagerly waiting to pounce on the cake, and hear the railroad sounds in the background. If you are so inclined, you can also go watch us sing Finn "Happy Birthday."

Candles from Katie on Vimeo.
Mmmm, cake.
Last weekend was also exciting because my mom and Dave came to visit. We ran them pretty ragged, but we showed them a good time, too. Here we all are at the Brookdale Lodge for brunch. It's been around for over a hundred years, and in its day was visited by the likes of Herbert Hoover and Marilyn Monroe. A brook runs through the restaurant, aptly named the Brookroom. We highly recommend checking it out if you're in the area. Nothing beats an honest to goodness brook for distracting small children during a meal.

If you follow Jonathan on Facebook, you may have heard that Finn has been lording it over Graham with all of his 3+ toys. Here is one such present.

The picture fails to capture the intensity of the "No BABies, Graham!!" that we frequently hear now, while Finn points to this symbol I showed him the other day when he wanted to know "what you get to do when you're three." Sharp knives and driving cars were the request, but he had to settle for this.

Ah well, Graham. It's for your own safety.

Walking around

Graham has been mastering the art of the continued forward stumble. Known by many as "walking." He really is pretty good at it now and likes to walk around just for fun. He can easily end up in the other side of the house if you're not paying close enough attention.

Walking around from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Finn is in the neighborhood of being potty trained. At home or at school he is usually at around 1 accident per day, but some days are zero. When we're other places, like museums or restaurants, the failure rate is higher. Also, bowel movements are always a disaster. But there is a good progress. His excitement to wear underwear has been a positive driving force, as well as the teachers at Happy Days, the boys new daycare. We HOPE that the boys will be there for a long time.

The pic below doesn't need any further comments. The cuteness is evident. Graham is enjoying car-life more since we turned him around last month.

"A nice dragon" and ... Sir Chubsalot?

Trick or treat!
We Fortneys had a fun-filled Halloween here in Santa Cruz. Finn picked out his costume online over a month ago, and has been wearing it happily ever since. He wanted to wear it to preschool today. Don't worry, though, he says he's not a big scary dragon, but "a really nice dragon." A fast one. Graham was a knight, but not nearly as excited about his costume.
We spent Halloween afternoon checking out downtown Santa Cruz with some friends. At the last minute, we decided Jonathan and I should dress up, too, so we dug through our closets and decided our old nun and reaper outfits would allow us to have some kind of vaguely medieval family theme. The last time I wore that costume I was 9 months pregnant.

We figured Finn would run around downtown and we'd push Graham around in the stroller. Then Finn fell asleep on the way there (becoming a VERY SURLY dragon when he woke up), and we ended up doing the opposite. We kept encouraging Sir Graham to attack the dragon at his most vulnerable, but he just kept running away.

Finn was back in top form by trick or treating time, and both boys had a blast. Finn just couldn't believe the whole thing at first ("She gave me something." "I got candy!"), but caught on quickly. He kept telling Jonathan they should do "one more house" long after I went home to hand out candy (100 pieces in half an hour! This neighborhood is crazy!). Graham enjoyed meeting all the new people, and "trading" them the candy in his hands for what they had in their bowls. Apparently he was a big hit in the neighborhood.

Graham seems to spend a good part of each day just thinking happy thoughts about how awesome he is. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Graham likes his tummy from Katie on Vimeo.
We have a similar video of Finn from when he was about a month older than Graham is now. Man, that kid had a big head, and was in desperate need of a haircut.
On the preschool front, the first two days at our new child care center have gone great, and I think the boys are going to be very happy there. Finn announced this morning that "I get to go there every day!," and we had to break it to him that he's still stuck with his parents on the weekend.
Happy Halloween!

A real post about the boys and stuff

We've got lots going on, in non-daycare-related areas. We made our (nearly) annual trek up Hwy 1 to the giant Arata pumpkin farm. This year we went with Francis and Emily, and their daughter Mae. Arata has a "river" of pumpkins, and more importantly, a giant hay maze that changes from year to year. Katie in particular is a huge fan. She has here own method for getting through the maze. Finn and I are good at finding dead ends. Here are Katie and boys, deep, deep in the maze.

We got three pumpkins, one for me, Katie+Graham, and Finn. Finn's only metric for choosing was that the pumpkin was "BIG." Katie and chose two with fun stems.

Here is a post from two years ago, at Finn's previous visit to Arata. It's fun that Graham is getting to wear all the same cute clothes that Finn wore when he was 1.

Our neighbors across the street have some elementary-school age kids, and they've given us a few of their old little-kids stuff, like these two folding chairs, which the boys love.

I think that Katie already posted about this, but we managed to make it to the last beach train of the year, which winds starts up in Felton, and winds down through the redwoods down to the beach boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I snapped this cute pic that I like a lot. Sometimes Graham seems pretty big, but he is really just a little guy compared to his brother. Oh, and he's walking more now. Although he CAN do it, more often he has chosen to crawl instead.

The horror! The horror!

Hey, guess what the big Fortney family news is for this week? The boys' daycare is closing and they only gave us and the staff 8 days notice! "What?!" you say? "W-H-A-T?!?!?!?!" is what we said. Over and over again. Katie managed to find out (just yesterday) several hours before any other parents because she dropped Finn off a few hours late. It was supposed to be an "end of the day" announcement....via a letter....pity you if your kid doesn't go on Th or Fr, then you wouldn't even know yet. Yep!

I'm in Germany, at a, um, castle, in the, ah, Alps, at a little workshop about the James Webb Space Telescope. Katie, who I've leaned on a lot these past couple months, and I powwowed over google video chat and we decided that we had to act fast. On Katie's lunch hour (2 hours after the news dropped) she drove a deposit check over to another daycare center in town (which we really liked when we visited) and now Finn is all signed up, 5 days a week, but Graham can only get in M, Th, F, so now we'll have to figure out what happens on Tu-W. But it is better than nothing. I bet if we'd waited a day that this new place would have been all filled up with new kids, and we'd have been in REAL trouble.

So, the boys were only at the new school, A Child's Reflection, for 2 months. Finn had a really fun time there, and Graham seemed to like it pretty well. Katie and I never really found our comfort level. It was bigger and more impersonal than we were used to. It was just OK. But scary to have it leave so fast: Poof!

I'm getting all worked up again just writing about it. To calm myself down I'll think of the nice view from the castle. I'll share the view with you too. Yes, it snowed.

Disneyland!

Last weekend Jonathan went to a conference in Pasadena to accept his fancy award, and the family came down to keep him company. Also because Pasadena is not super far from DISNEYLAND (!!!), and the boys are young enough to be free, but old enough to enjoy it. Well, Finn anyway. Graham would have been equally pleased to be at any old park, I think. We had a great time, and ended up turning our planned half-day visit into a pretty full one when nobody ended up getting cranky or tired. We started out the morning at the Nemo submarine ride, the one thing Finn had heard about through friends at preschool. He noticed that the submarines were yellow, briefly sang some "Yellow Submarine," and then apparently decided we needed a full on Beatles medley. It looked more or less like this:

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da from Katie on Vimeo.
Other highlights included the Buzz Lightyear ride (twice! Finn's favorite), hugging Mickey Mouse, and singing pirates in the streets. All of this was just icing on the cake, apparently, to the fact that WHEN YOU'RE ON VACATION YOUR PARENTS LET YOU KEEP THE BUTTER KNIFE AT THE RESTAURANT ALL THROUGH LUNCH.

Behold: Mickey frigging Mouse.

Graham: "Wow, that parking lot tram ride was AWESOME. How could anything possibly top that?"

This rainsticks-on-a-wheel gadget at Tarzan's treehouse was very popular with all the kids from Finn's age up to, oh, ten.

Despite not being able to properly reach the handle, Graham was not to be left out.

Happy birthday baby!

It's been a big day for Graham. It's his birthday, and he started walking! (His first steps were yesterday, but he refused to attempt more than one at a time. He's progressing rapidly.) Footage:

Graham walks! from Katie on Vimeo.

Note in the video that we are all wiped out by our record 100+ temps today, and Finn's ever-increasing interest in imaginary play. Two months ago if you'd have told him that ball was a fish he'd have said "no, it's a ball," and looked at you like you were crazy. Now he tells *us* it's a fish, and that we should pet it.

Yesterday we had a lovely small party for Graham, with family, close friends, cake, and cupcakes, but the presents and cake footage were taken with the actual video camera, not my phone, and needs to be converted and edited. Hopefully we'll get that up before his next birthday.

This was the last weekend for the train that goes from the mountains clear down to the beach, so that's what we did Saturday. Here's a shot of the boys enjoying the ride.

An hour each way where both boys were entranced, and we mostly got to sit still in a cool redwood forest. Can't recommend it highly enough.

So Happy Together...

Why bother doing a blog post if I can't get a song stuck in your head, right? But then I reward you with a video, fresh from this morning. This airplane was Finn's present for his first birthday. Graham has been using it for a walker/push toy lately, and that has renewed Finn's interest in it. Here they are sharing nicely. Mostly.

Walking together from Katie on Vimeo.
And in case that weren't enough, now I will explode your head with more brothers-together cuteness.

Yes sir, good times around the Fortney house lately. Graham turns ONE on MONDAY! He'll be walking soon, he's moving closer to an all people-food diet, and he understands a TON of what we say to him. Finn, who has always been fond of songs but not so much singing, now sings all the time - random lines from everything from "Wheels on the Bus" to "Eight Days a Week" to "Lisztomania." But he would like someone to explain to the Beatles that babies cannot, in fact, drive your car.
I'm doing great. My job is simply wonderful. If you are a library geek I would be happy to explain to you all the reasons why. On top of that I get to walk to my office through a redwood forest and drive home with a vista of Monterey Bay. You may know I have a yard 5 houses from a duck pond, that it backs onto a creek and is popular with local deer, skunks, and the like, but did you know that my house is within a few miles of:

• beaches (with sea lions. And surfers.)
  
• mountains
  
• book and record stores (new and used)
  
• a ROLLER COASTER
  
• a butterfly migration hot spot
  
• an annual aquatic parade
  
• a steam train
  
• at least 3 wine bars and innumerable wineries
  
• 2 or 3 breweries
  
• restaurants from Afghan and Brazilian to ... Thai and vegan? What's a cuisine that starts with Z?
  
• TWO weekly farmers markets
• gourmet chocolates
  
• three completely unrelated independent local grocery stores/small chains
  
• so many great bakeries I sometimes think my head will explode

There's more, I'm sure, but that gives you a picture. You'd never guess that I like food, huh? Life is good. Come visit.

Clambering!

Graham is really learning to get around. He can rather easily climb up the 7 stairs on this playground. His new daycare has big blocks to climb on---I think that's where he has been practicing. That or he goes out at night when we're all asleep. He's been standing on his own a bit more lately but I still think that walking is a few weeks away. We'll see!

Climb it! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here he is eating berries. He, ah, likes them. Both boys practically gorge themselves at the Saturday morning farmers' market, and then the rest of Saturday and Sunday. It is rare for any berries to see Monday alive!

And Graham is enjoying our backyard. This is the view coming up from the creek. The stone path is new.

The Santa Cruzians

A quickie on my way out of town! The boys really love their new swing set, which we got for FREE from Kim and John. Thanks! Graham, being a baby, loves peekaboo, which we play a lot. (Especially after I've strapped him into his car seat, which is sometimes not fun.) [Speaking of not fun, it is TERRIBLE changing that kid's diaper. He hates being on his back. He writhes and bucks like a bronco, all the while trying to grab himself "down there." It is an experience *not* for the amateur diaper changer.] The video has the background noise of Finn constantly chatting. This is what most of our days are like. One very long run-on sentence from morning til night. :)

Peakaboo! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here are the boys down at the pond at Westlake Park. There are ducks. Many many ducks. 40? And of course, they like bread.

Graham is a great cruiser, but I think actual walking is still a few weeks away. It is pretty rare that he'll stand unaided, and that only lasts 1-2 seconds.

Graham is getting big!

Yes, he's just now past 11 months. He's a machine when crawling across the floor, and has been for weeks now. He can walk with the aid of parental fingers. He can cruise from chair to couch and back again with the best of them.

What, you want more? Well, he can already kinda say a few words: Daddy (daddada...), kitty (keih!), and Finn (Fh!). He usually won't do them on command. I would say that "Fh" is the clearest, because that is a pretty unusual noise for a baby to make. Usually he just babbles in stuff with "a" as the vowel. I think that daddy is now less clear than it was last week.

As he's eating more and more solids, he's liking finger foods more and more. O's, goldfish, raspberries, graham crackers, saltines, teething biscuits... He's becoming more annoyed with being spoon-fed baby food, since then he's not in control. Sometimes at dinner he'll flatly refuse the spoon! But I'm not giving up because we've got about 15 more jars to get through. And what is better for eating than *finally* getting those two top teeth that you've always wanted? He just had those bottom two for many months, which just wasn't cutting it for the big-time eating.

After some initial troubles in sleeping through the night at our new house, we eventually realized he was probably getting a little cold at 3 a.m., after he kicked off his blanket and before the heat came on. (Yes, in summer here you need the pilot light lit.) Now with a bigger blanket that we put on him right before we go to bed, we are all sleeping better. Since he's been sleeping through the night pretty well since he was 8-9 months, he's 5 months ahead of Finn!

The Last Days in Los Gatos

Blogging, right, we have this blog that we've been great at keeping up and posting to, for nearly 3 years! It is a record of our life and, most importantly, our sons' early years. Well, when you move into a new house, ya really got a lot of STUFF to do, and that takes up a lot of time, let me tell ya. Even when the pace of unpacking is painfully slow, life fills up with non-blogging activities.

On the plus side, thanks to our Droid Incredibles, I've been snapping a lot more pictures of the boys. It's just very convenient, and the quality is pretty good. I decided that I'd blog about our last couple of weeks in Los Gatos. I miss being so close to downtown Los Gatos, and being so walkably close to great stuff. But really, our new place is better.

But onto the pictures! Here is cute little Graham visiting Blossom Hill Park in Los Gatos. Since he can crawl, he had a great time in the tube. This was our 2nd-to-last Daddy Friday, as well. I can't work 4 days a week forever, sadly.

The four of us visited the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, which is now 30 minutes farther away from our house. We hadn't been in awhile, but I wanted to make sure that we did, because there is a room there especially for crawling babies. Graham liked the little mirror box room. Finn liked...many things.

The night after the movers (yes the money spent was SO worth it) packed up all our things, we were left with no wine opener, only my little tool box. Thankfully Katie and I devised a way in. (Not pictured: pliers) Where there's a will, there's a way.

Finn's last bike-ride on our driveway! Thankfully he didn't hit upon the idea of trying to go up and down the movers' ramp.

We moved!

I was going to write something sappy about it, but there's no time. My house is full of boxy chaos, like this, but... more so. At least we finally have internet.

On the bright side, we have this yard ("MY yard," says Finn), and now there's a play structure in it (Thanks, Kim (and John and Sammy)!!).

In the category of bittersweet, today is the boys' last day at the daycare/preschool where Finn's been going for two and a half years. Keep your fingers crossed I don't bawl my eyes out when I pick them up today. Here they are there this morning.

Graham is gargantuan. And growing.

Graham is ten months old now. He wears 18 month clothes, and is as big as a number of two-year-olds we've met. He crawls with is belly raised off of the floor (sometimes). He cruises (a bit). He steals Goldfish crackers from his brother. He just cut his third tooth on Monday. Yesterday I stuck my hand out and asked him to give me five, and he refused, shaking his head and grinning. What a joker! Not that you'd know it from this recent photo session (courtesy of my mom. Thanks, Mom!).


If you like that, there's more. Note that that link is not the "cute ones" that we got prints of. It's the blooper reel.

And here's "that huge baby" (per Finn) in the infant room at the Children's Discovery Museum yesterday. He had a blast.

Graham at the CDM from Katie on Vimeo.

Tomorrow is MOVING DAY. Stay tuned.

Swimming!

The weather has been hot this summer, so we've broken out the little plastic pool...only once so far. Hmm. Well, more to come. Both boys have a great time. This picture shows what a, um, large boy Graham is, but there is really is some kind of trick of the eye going on, because he's MUCH smaller than Finn. (But Graham is certainly bulky. We went to Hakone Gardens today and he was bigger than a little girl who was almost two.)

Also, today, I took Finn to his first round of swimming lessons through Los Gatos Recreation. It is the entry level class, Cuttlefish. Out of the 7 kids, he was the oldest there, but certainly took direction the best. We worked on kicking and using ones arms. He was really interested in the lifeguards, mostly. And the lane lines. And running on the side of the pool. We'll have to get Graham in someday soon too. Right now Graham is becoming an expert scuba diver from the friendly confines of the bathtub, which you can see here:

Untitled from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

And, just for fun, 3 more from our GREAT trip to the midwest. It was probably our best family trip ever. The last pic really shows you that Finn is the bigger brother.