Daylight Savings?

Daylight savings always seemed really fun when I was a kid. It stays light later--what more could you ask for? Frankly they should have it year-round and for 2 extra hours in the summer! That's what I thought. But when you actually have little ones, you gotta keep them on the family's schedule, and that is tough to do when everything changes by an hour. But I think we've been doing pretty well by making manageable increments.

In other news, Graham likes bread. And he can say a few words. And he can dance a little bit. And he's REALLY cute.

Open the bread from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

My Mom, Grandma Mary, came to town to visit us for 5 days. We had a great time in every way except that our little winery tour was ruined by every place we tried to visit being closed on Tuesdays, even though their web sites said they were open. :( The boys love their Grandparents and love to see them whenever they can, either in-person or via skype. My mom managed to push both boys around in the stroller, including up steep hills, even though their combined weight is now 70 pounds!

The rainy season is not over. Not even close. And I had such high hopes.... Not a problem for these two, of course.

Our table is one Finn unit in length. Finn is strangely fascinated with how tall people are, and how tall he and Graham will be. He has decided he will be as tall as me, but that Graham will only be as tall as Katie. He does remind me often that I'm not as tall is my Dad, though. And that Mona is the fastest in the family even though she is the smallest. And that racecars are faster than people. And that airplanes have tires. Actually, there are far more questions than definitive statements, but those are for another day.

Graham likes elephants, too

In the summer of 2009, when Finn was around the age Graham is right now, we went to the Oakland zoo. Mostly to see the elephants. Last weekend we went back, to see the elephants and to see our friends Bridget and Keith, who now live in Oakland. Keith took this picture for us.

Graham & elephants from Katie on Vimeo.
Graham's about as good at making elephant noises as Finn was. Still is for that matter. The main differences are that we were all more bundled up this trip, and I was decidedly less pregnant. Oh, also Graham breathes air now.

Jonathan is out of town for most of this week, returning tomorrow. We're getting along fine, especially now that Graham runs and says words and eats people food, but we all miss him. He's more fun than me - see?

P.S. More on Graham talking

Here's a short movie I took the other night of trying to get Graham to say some stuff. He was giving very decisive (and false!) "No!"s just before I turned the camera on. I'm sure all the parents are familiar with this - both the Nos and the camera effect.

Graham says some words from Katie on Vimeo.
Graham's other favorite word is "Boo." Sometimes as in "boots," but usually as in "Boo!", which he'll yell at you from under a blanket, around a corner, or when taking a stuffed animal out from hiding. It's a good word.
My two cents on Finn's talking - my favorite sentences this past week have been "My friends didn't seem to like it very much," and "Why you don't want Daddy to be fancy?" The first was about a book that he brought to share day, and I just like the phrasing. The second was when he and Graham were papering Jonathan's pants in Valentine's stickers the other night, and I attempted to intervene. He was both indignant and puzzled. Sorry, no photo of the fanciness.
But because I hate to do a post without a photo, here's a random one from a recent hike, back when we had nice weather. You know, in January. Not like today, when I foolishly decided to walk to work, and now my pants may not be dry before lunch. Anyway, that's the Pogonip, just a hop skip and a jump from our house. Neat, huh?

Two grown-up boys

Finn of course has his own wants and needs. (yogurt, The Incredibles movie, bike riding, Gorilla Munch cereal). But Graham, little chubba jolly Graham, alas, also has wants, besides just being squeezed and tickled by his parents. The cutest is his sassy "Nooooooo!" in his little squeaky voice, if he disagrees with you. He's remarkably good at making animal noises, and has a few actual human words he can pull out as needed. But yeah, he's starting to have his opinions. He also is quite willing to "attack" Finn if he wants to have some fun, but that basically never goes his way in the end, since Finn is big and not afraid to be the victor.

Lately we've been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Happy Hollow zoo in San Jose, and to the beaches in Santa Cruz and in Pismo Beach, which is 3 hours south down the coast. (Hi to Sarah and Joel!) Being outside is certainly great for family sanity.

Finn is full of questions, as always. Lots about Mr. Incredible and the Incredible Hulk, which he certainly now knows are different people. We spent a considerable amount of time at the dinner table last night discussing how, often, big things can be faster than smaller things (horse vs. cat, say) but then something can be so big, that it can be slower than small thing (elephant vs. horse, say). I'm not sure that he bought it. Anyway, lots of active discussions, which can be repetitive, because he just won't care that we had the very same discussion the day (or minute) before.

Here is Graham at the aquarium last month. Both boys had a great time, although the Outer Bay tank is closed for refurbishment.

This is one from bath time just last night! Maybe a haircut for Finn this weekend? One thing that Graham can ask for (and does) is a bubble bath. "Bubbo!"

These last two are from on the beach in Santa Cruz. Finn spent most of his time under the boardwalk, while Graham preferred the open sand, after he finally woke up from his nap. It is about a 30-40 minute walk from our house to the beach, so that is a good weekend activity when the weather in nice. Finn even rides his bike all the way there. Coming back home uphill is a different story!

Christmas?

In what I think is a new record since we started the blog, it's been 25 days since our last post. I'm not sure we've been any busier than usual, although Jonathan is teaching this quarter and has this whole Kepler thing going on, and I continue to be surprised at how much fuller the weeks seems now that I'm working full time. I think the big difference is that the boys go to bed at EIGHT now, and we were so spoiled for so long with Finn going to bed at 7. Ah well.
Want to hear about our Christmas?
We went to a tree farm and picked out a tree. Finn helped cut it down and carry it to the car.
Then we decorated it.
We went to a lighted boat parade at the harbor. The boys' favorite entry was a fire-breathing dragon kayak.
We had great luck with weather flying back to the midwest, and both boys did great on the planes and in the car.
We celebrated in Iowa with my family, although apparently I did an even worse job than usual of documenting the event, and we have no pictures at all of any of my family. Here's some proof that we went to Iowa - Finn on Christmas morning in my mom's living room, with one of his favorite presents from Santa.

Christmas bugs from Katie on Vimeo.
We celebrated in Minnesota with Jonathan's family, and saw some of his friends as well.
Then we came home! We were asleep by 10pm on New Year's Eve, but since we had gotten up at 2am Pacific time, we figured that was okay.

Merry Christmas! :)

A post from Kobe

Saturday night Graham gave Katie and me our first experience with one of our boys throwing up. He took it pretty well, really, but it made for a pretty rough night, especially for Katie. For some reason I didn't actually think it was very likely that I'd get whatever he had. But here we are a few days later, and Katie and I are both feeling pretty bad. Katie is worse off, especially because I'm 5000 miles away in Kobe, Japan, and can't help out. Hopefully Finn will escape the bug, but we'll see.

I've generally been waking up at 4 a.m., so I have a nice view of sunrise whenever I want it. The hotel I'm at (for a conference) is right on the beach, but when it is 40 degrees in January, things are pretty desolate.

The weather back in Santa Cruz has finally started to take a turn for the sane (meaning dry), after we managed to get rained on for about 27 days out of 30 days. It was just soggy for a long time. But sometimes you just gotta go outside:

Rain! I don't mind! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Graham continues to be as cute as ever. He can reliably say a few things now, more or less. He can moo. He can make a little elephant noise. He can say "no," "all done," "kitty," "momma", and "dadda." No sign of his saying "Finn," yet---that post from 2 months ago where I claimed that he could was just a false alarm. He asks for food all the time by using the sign for "more." The kid is a MAJOR ham. The top picture below is what we call his cheeser face. He makes it a lot when cameras are around.

Boys

Some people would say you'd be crazy to have kids. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with them. But once you've started down that path, I say two boys are the only way to go.

Tummies from Katie on Vimeo.

Random from Katie on Vimeo.
Brief explanation for the first video: somehow it has become part of our bedtime routine that between dinner and bath the boys run around and "show tummies." Both of them expect it, and start to strip as soon as they leave the table. We have decided to roll with it.
Explanation for the second video: none.

Christmas coverage coming soon. ish.

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.