Day 220: Apples For Sale

Now that the local weather has gotten over itself and the 97 degree days are over, it's suddenly and abruptly fall, complete with chilly days and falling leaves and pumpkin spice everything. 

I don't care what you say. If it's pumpkin spice flavored, I'll consume it. 

Fall is when I prefer to do family pictures. And by family I mean the kids, because Brad and I never have nice coordinating clothes and let's face it, there's no one around here to hold the camera (without paying someone). 

Maybe we'll get around to a nice family photo this year, considering the last nice family photo taken (that didn't involve a cell phone) was in I think 2012. 

This was nothing more than throwing some of my porch decorations and my neighbors' wagon together in the field behind our house, and having Calen write out an "Apples for Sale" sign in his super-cute-but-kind-of-sloppy 2nd grade handwriting. 

This took a whole ten minutes. Because that's all the attention span any kid on Earth has for photos. 

It took two takes on two different days and turned into some of my favorite fall photos ever. 

Day 219: Print Preview

I'm feeling kind of under the weather tonight so I'm keeping it brief. But we went Halloween costume shopping today. And while I'm going to do a super fun photo shoot later this month, here's a sneak peek of what the theme is this year. See if you can figure it out...

Especially fitting since we go to Disney a week after Halloween. 

Cutest little lost boy EVER

Day 218: When Shots Gives You Lemons, Torch The Place

The kids had a rough day today. 

I had to pull them out of school to get Cam's 5 year vaccinations (**this is a public service announcement. Vaccinate your children. The end**) and a flu shot for both kids. Which of course I didn't tell them until the last possible second when the nurse came in with a tray full of syringes and Calen's all "What's THAT for?!" and I'm like damn, now I HAVE to tell you. 

Once that misery was over, I forced them to get haircuts. Because nothing says "hey, sorry you had to wait around in a doctor's office to get stabbed" like "now you have to sit still in a chair while some stranger moves your head and buzzes super close to your ears". 

I'm 0-2 on parenting today. 

However, we made up for things by stomping around Target and the Spirit of Halloween store, trying on masks and weapons and getting the crap scared out of us by this stupid animatronic spider that jumped at us when we stepped on a pressure plate. 

Spirit is lucky I didn't come back with a flamethrower and torch the entire building. 

Who is who??

We didn't end up buying anything but a Lunchable, because that was the original bargaining tool for the doctor's visit anyways. 

Cheap date, my kids are. 

Day 217: Anomalies

Having a house full of boys is seriously a unique and weird experience. There are things happening around me that I truly can't understand, because well I'm a girl. Here's some unexplained anomalies in my house from today, and I'm sure there are many more that I missed, but I was only home for an hour or two total today.

1. Thor's Hammer in the bathroom sink.

Seems legit.

 2. Used tissue (used to wash someone's face) stuffed back in the box.

I mean, gross. 

Whatever is happening here between this clone trooper and Peter Pan. 

That's just what I noticed passing by on my way from one errand to the next. 

Boys are SO weird. 

Day 216: The Many Sleeps of Sonic

Sonic is a funny dog. 

Even though we suspect she isn't a puppy puppy, she still has puppy personality traits. Like boundless energy, chewing, being obnoxious, that sort of thing. And, she prefers to sleep on her back. Like flat on it, legs sticking straight up in the air. zombie sleeping. Here's a compilation of Sonic sleeping. Yesterday. Only yesterday.

She finally gave up and fell over. 

Day 215: No One Blogs Like Gaston

It was Disney Movie night, since we are T-2 months to Disney World! There are still a few of the classics that the kids have never seen (at least not since they were teeny tiny), so we watched Beauty and the Beast tonight. 

At first, the boys groaned and rolled their eyes and assumed it was a princess movie. Which it is, kind of, but there are great non-princess characters. Like the Beast, and Lumiere, and Cogsworth, and Gaston. Because who doesn't laugh at his over the top self-absorbed yet incredibly clueless assholeness? Personally, Gaston and his songs makes me laugh and he's on the top 5 of our Disney Characters To Meet list. 

Here's some of the commentary of tonight's movie. 

Before the movie even starts:

Calen: "Is there ninjas in this movie? Because I'll definitely like it if there's ninjas."

During Belle's "Bonjour" song.

Camden: "Is that how she talks?! In Spanish??"
Calen: "She's singing Cam. In English."

During the snow scene. 

Camden: "Snow!! OH MY GOSH I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!"

During the Tale As Old As Time dance sequence, where it shows the painted ceilings of baby angels flying in the clouds. 

Camden: "AHAHA!! Look! There's baby buttcheeks all over the ceiling!"

I mean what do you even say. 

Peanut gallery comments aside, the kids really enjoyed the movie and Brad and I enjoyed watching it for the first time in probably twenty years. 

Day 214: In Case of Nets

The kids spent the better part of the afternoon today building lego weapons. Lego guns and lego rocket launchers and lego grenades. Then Calen comes downstairs with this little creation, a Lego pocket knife:

Of course everything comes with a story when it comes to Calen. 

"This is my pocket knife and so in case someone I know gets caught in a net, I can cut them out."

Me: "Is that all you are using the pocket knife for? Nets?"

Calen: "Yeah, nets are kind of a big problem right now."

I'm so undereducated about today's world issues. 

Day 213: The Things You Say (Friends Edition)

So I picked up Camden and my little neighbor boy/Cam's kindergarten and Tball buddy Kael today from school. As we are driving home (the whole 5 minutes) they are chattering away in the back seat of the car, as only two 5 year olds can do. 

Cam (holding up a baseball card): This guy is from the Red Sox.
Kael: Yeah he is the best player ever because he does really good. 

Note: Neither one of these two knows who the guy on the card is. In fact neither do I. 

Cam: Hey remember when we beat the Scraptors (like Raptors. With a "Sc". And the team was actually called the Scrappers). 

Kael: Yeah they were NASTY. 

Cam: When I'm a grown up baseball player I'm going to toot on the field

They both laugh. 

Kael: Well when I'm a grownup baseball player I'm going to fart and THEN toot!

laughter to the point where they can't talk. 

I appreciate lifetime achievement goals from 5 year old boys. Make it to the Major Leagues and then fart on the field. 

mayhem.

Day 212: If Your Uniform Is Clean, You Didn't Play Hard Enough

Cam learned the joy of diving head first for the ball today. 

Not like, to make an amazing catch. But if the ball came anywhere within a half mile radius of him. If the ball hit the bat, he dove. It didn't matter if it was all the way on the other side of the field. He'd dive. If it went over his head, he'd dive. If it was 2 feet in front of him and he should just run up and grab it, he'd dive. Sideways. Away from the ball. 

I didn't get a picture of it. I brought my camera only to forget the memory card. I'll try to take pictures next time. 

Cam up to bat, NOT about to dive. 

Day 211: Half Days Are The Death Of Me

It's conference week and the kids are getting out at noon every day this week. Every.Day. Which means they're coming home hungry and full of boundless energy.

One of us might not survive this.

Here's what the situation in my garage looked like 5 minutes after coming home with a sack lunch and a "battle plan" for he and his fellow neighborhood Ninja Turtles (and there are, in fact, 3 other Ninja Turtles on this block, his brother included). 

At least it's cute. 

Michaelangelo needs chocolate milk breaks too

Day 210: Bleacher Report

Here's what my evening looked like (from the bleachers):

Calen's so TINY compared to these huge 9 and 10 year olds

What you can't hear is me and another mom yelling/shouting/cheering the entire game. What can we say, we love our kids' sports. We even told our kids (Calen and Matthew) that we were going to coach them together in spring and be the first all-mom coaching staff. To which Calen says "Mom, I'm old enough to be on my own!" What he doesn't know is that we're serious about coaching. LOL. Poor boys. 

Actual bleacher report of the game: Rivercats fall 0-5. But, they're improving every game, considering only one of the entire 13 man roster has played in this division before. Calen struck out but next at bat drew a walk and stole second on a wild pitch. Slowly but surely he's catching up to these boys. 

Day 209: When Book Fairs Attack

It was book fair day at the boys' school. 

And I went a little crazy. 

What can I say, kids books are awesome. Especially books for boys, with characters like dino-pirates, monsters, ninjas and a guy named Captain Underpants. 

Day 208: Muir Woods, 2nd Edition

We took my mom down to Muir Woods (where we went on Mother's Day this year) today to see the local Redwoods. It's one of our favorite places in the whole area that we live in and it always shocks me that such a huge redwood forest can be so close to San Francisco. 

We saw the big redwoods (or like, medium sized, since the BIG redwoods are up north a few hours) down below in the big tourist part of the park and then found a side trail and took off up the hillside for a few miles into the wild. We all love to hike (my mom especially) and the kids brought their slingshots from our last redwoods adventure, so periodically we would stop and Daddy would teach the boys how to shoot the trees down the hill with rocks in their slingshots. Nature and violence? Their day was made. 

And that was about it. Trails, trees, nature. You know how it works. We had tons of fun 

Mini photo dump!

The roots on this sucker!!

Slingshot practice

Day 207: Spend A Fun Day

My mom has been in town for most of the week, which has been lots of fun. She got to watch both boys play baseball this morning, and then when we went home she took charge of the kids while Brad and I set off on a multi-hour date to the Japan-Town center of San Francisco. 

Japan-Town is not set up like say Chinatown is. Instead of a multiple city block district, Japan-Town is more like a one block mall. It consists of a hotel, a theater, and two-2 story buildings attached by a large open courtyard complete with towering pagoda. Inside the buildings are just about every Japanese storefront you could think of. Bookstores, tea shops, beauty salons, video stores, antique and novelty stores, and of course restaurants. All authentic Japanese (in fact most of it isn't even written in English). 

We perused through the bookstore first and then went upstairs to eat at a ramen house that my friend had taken me to several months ago with the best ramen ever and a sushi roll. Then we wandered through the shops, buying incredibly glorious Japanese trinkets and snacks and one of those cats that waves at you. 

Hot delicious ramen

Of our marvelous goodies we bought, Brad managed to find a cup with horrifically translated English that said "My Mug....Spend A Fun Day!" and we said SOLD because who wouldn't want a mug telling you to "spend a fun day." 

Spend a fun day!!

And who could pass up "instant boobs", which were inflatable balloon type things with a sticky back to them. 

Instant Boobs! Or in Spanish: Sorpresa Bomba Sexy!

Really you can't beat date night that involves ramen, instant boobs, bad translations and great company. 

Day 206: Seems Legit

When you find your kids in Ninja turtle masks carrying an entire plastic tub of weapons around the side of the house, you don't ask questions. You just let whatever is happening, happen. 

There were "bad guys" in the trees, according to them. Seems legit enough. 

Day 205: There's No Crying In Baseball (And Other Lies)

It was game day tonight. 

Both boys had games at the same time at different fields again, and Brad was at a meeting on base. So I dropped grandma and Calen off at his game and took Cam to his tball game. 

What a mess. 

I don't know what crawled up his little butt today, but he was done before he even started. He reverted back to his whining and screaming if another teammate anywhere near him got the baseball instead of him. And then at his second (and last) at bat, he didn't manage to hit the pitched balls today, and when they brought out the tee he basically lost his mind and sobbed and sobbed, and continued to cry after he hit the ball and ran to first. He cried while he stood on first, while he stood on second, and third, and cried his whole run into home plate. And by that point it had been like fifteen minutes and I said enough is enough and pulled him out of the game and took him into the car. Which caused him to cry more. Besides, we had another game to go to. 

Calen's game was already underway but we managed to see the last two innings. Their team (extremely inexperienced) went 0-3 with another loss but Calen made an out at 1st base!!!!! (He was the first baseman, shortstop threw the ball to him and he made the play) in which he gleefully announced after the game "I got a TEN YEAR OLD out at first!!!" He also finally made contact with a kid pitched ball and blasted it back to the pitcher who bobbled it, but still threw him out. 

And apparently it was just an overtired emotional day for both kids, because Calen started crying in the dugout and I'm like are you KIDDING ME and basically threatened both kids' lives if I saw another tear today. 

They should sell beer at youth sports snack shacks. 

Up to bat!

Misery in the form of a tiny blob

Day 204: Grandma Power

The week just got a whole lot more exciting because Grandma (my mom) is here!! She brought the boys new Ninja Turtle dress up stuff and the kids had all afternoon to play with her since it was a half day at school (which I almost forgot about--who the hell decided that every Wednesday had to be a half day? Who the hell remembers when it's Wednesday? Couldn't it be like Friday or something?)

Here she is with her two little Turtles in a Half Shell

Day 203: Everyone Needs Witch Socks

I had an impulse purchase in the Target dollar section today, and decided suddenly that I NEEDED a pair of striped witch socks. And so I bought them. And then yanked my old socks off in the car and put them on. 

Every 30-something mom needs witch socks. 

Fall/Halloween is the best ever. 

Day 202: Momsicles

Calen had practice tonight. Late tonight. Which means under the lights (super exciting), but also means after dark on an already chilly day with a constant wind blowing in from Antarctica or someplace. 

Don't mind all the Momsicles in the bleachers, kids. 

Even though I had planned ahead (two pairs of socks, thermal, hoodie, beanie), I was shivering for the entire 2 hours and might have come close to losing fingers from hypothermia. 

And we're not even playing ball in October yet. 

But don't take this as complaining. These kids need as much practice as they can get. 

It's cold, you guys. 

Under the lights!

Day 201: Remember

I felt it necessary to not talk about myself tonight. Or my kids, or anything. 

This is what's necessary. 

2,977. 

That's how many died on this day 15 years ago. 

Let's stop judging each other on social media for completely pointless things like parenting techniques, political sides, hating on police or plumbers or whatever you decide to hate that day, or any other superficial reason that society has become obsessed with. 

Let's instead, get over ourselves, and stop and remember the fallen. Then, let's stand united as a country, proud of our differences and uniqueness as we once did, in 2001. 

Forest Gump voice: That's all I have to say, about that. 

Day 200: When No One's Watching

We had a full day of baseball today. from 9:30 until 3:30, we were either at Camden's tball game, or Calen's double-A game. It was just baseball all day. 

No complaints here. 

Calen's field is (understandably) a nicer field than Cam's, with grass infield, lights, fences, a scoreboard. Once Calen's game ended (the last game of the day for us), his team went into the dugout for a post-game meeting, leaving the field empty. 

Cam took the opportunity and ran with it. 

Literally. He ran the bases twice. Then he threw himself on the grass in front of the pitchers mound and rolled all the way to home plate. Then he did it again. And again. And then made grass angels.

Run free and act like no one's watching. 

Scoreboard for the day: Cam went 2-2 off coach pitching and continues his streak of not needing the Tball tee. No score because T-BALL. Calen went 0-2 with a strikeout and a ground up but made contact with a kid pitched ball so small progress, and played strictly outfield today. His team lost by quite a bit and fall 0-2 for the season. 

Day 199: Force Feeding Princess Movies

So we are closing the gap to our much anticipated DISNEY WORLD TRIP in November! Which means that it's time to start cramming every Disney movie ever made down our throats, because obviously. Especially the ones they don't watch much. 

In short, this means princess movies. 

Calen especially is at the "eww gross princesses" stage. Cam is too but will secretly watch Tangled while Calen is still at school. But unfortunately (for them, not me), a lot of Disney theme parks revolve around some of the major "princess movies" (Cinderella's castle, for example), so they need a crash course in the major players in these movies. 

Today we suffered through Princess and the Frog, because it was the cheapest to rent on Amazon Video (and Netflix still hasn't caught on to get the classics on their streaming service). Really, it's one of my least favorite Disney movies. The music is great and that's basically it. The boys thought some parts were funny, but mostly, they gagged and rolled their eyes and hid their faces in pillows while I laughed and laughed at their expense.  

One princess movie down, a dozen to go. 

disguted

Day 198: T-Ball In A Nutshell

It's the second baseball season of the year for us, and it's my personal favorite. Fall ball is shorter, so the stakes for wins/losses is higher. The days are getting shorter so most evening games are under the lights, playoffs (last year anyways) are super intense, and there's just a more exciting feel to the whole thing. Plus, Calen got bumped up two divisions to Double-A so now we're playing all-rules baseball, with stealing, bunting, wild pitches and kid pitchers. 

Yee-haw. 

It's also Cam's first fall ball season so that adds double the fun (and chaos). Cam is still playing T-ball but just like spring, the coach pitches 5 overhand throws to the kids to try and get a legitimate hit, and if they can't, they bring out the tee. 

Opening Day was tonight and conveniently (not!!) both boys had games at the same time. At different fields. A mile apart from each other. Soooo I dumped Brad and Calen off at his field and took Cam to his game. 

Here's the thing about T-ball. It's not really baseball at all. It's an adorable, semi-controlled shit show of chaos with bats. 

Who decided to give 12 five year olds metal bats?! At the same time!!

Here's what T-ball really looks like:

Making dirt castles in the infield.

Wearing mitts for hats

Making sand castles at first base

Laughing about wiggling their butts at the people behind them (true story)

Having a dance off with the other team 

Their dance partner leaves so they continue to dance solo while singing a self-written song about "bananas"

Occasionally, they might actually play baseball (nice swing, Cam). 

And there you have it. As parents you really have no control over the circus in front of you, just sit back, eat your sunflower seeds and embrace the chaos for two innings. 

Actually, Cam paid fairly good attention. For a 5 year old. He almost caught a line drive and went 2-2 on hits off the coach-pitcher. 

We made it to Calen's game by the top of the 4th inning so we got to watch the last two innings too. He drew two walks and though he didn't make any defensive plays, he held his own well, considering he's the youngest by WELL over a year, almost two years. 

**Guest tballer Kael (who's also our neighbor and Cam's little kindergarten buddy) is in a few of these pictures. Because chaos is best enjoyed with friends.**