Wyatt's first ski trip.

Yesterday we brought Wyatt to Sugar Bowl. We weren't sure if he'd actually make it onto the mountain or not since he protested the whole way, but once we got there he was ready to go.

Christmas 2008

We've had a VERY white Christmas in Tahoe - close to three feet of snow so far. Wyatt and Malcolm have really enjoyed opening gifts and playing with lots of new toys. Wyatt is having the Christmas of tool toys and is "fixing" everything around the house. And, of course, he's enjoyed being a rock star with new guitar hero guitar and drums. Malcolm has gotten lots of soft cars to play with and chew on but seems most interested in playing with whatever is in Wyatt's hands. Everyone has had fun sledding, except mama who had an unfortunate fall first run down the driveway. Thank goodness there are many hands around to help with diaper changes!

Aside from all the new toys we are playing with, we've enjoyed playing Wyatt's favorite game "HigenSeek" which we are guessing is the German version of Hide & Seek. You close your eyes, count to about 6 or 7 and go screaming through the house till someone jumps out at you. Very fun, guten times.

Wyatt The Hank IV Guitar Hero

Pancake Sundays

This Sunday we started a new tradition of making pancakes for breakfast on Sundays. Wyatt helped mix the ingredients and stir the batter. He loved dunking his pancakes in the syrup - so long as no syrup got on his fingers that is. Poor Malcolm just starred longingly as we ate pancakes and he ate baby food. Soon enough, he'll be eating them too. One problem with this being a once a week tradition...Wyatt woke up this morning requesting pancakes again!!! We tried to explain that it wasn't Sunday then started in with other excuses like, "we don't have anything to make them today" and "we don't have time because we have to get in the car and drive to Tahoe today!" Apparently none of those excuses cut it because when I got downstairs Papa and Wyatt were making pancakes on a Monday. Oh well.

Visit with Hector

Gissela brought Hector over on Friday to exchange Christmas gifts and let him and Malcolm do a little playing. They haven't seen each other in a few months and boy what a difference a few months makes. When Malcolm saw Hector he got so excited he started squealing and clapping his hands. He crawled right over to him and wanted to touch his amazing locks. They were interacting and even holding hands at one point. Hopefully he'll come back to play again soon.

All Bundled Up

Gissela and Malcolm are getting ready to brave the cold weather. The poncho was a gift from Gissela to Malcolm before he was born and it finally fits him. She had it sent from Peru. The bunny hat was a hand-me-down that Gammy made for Wyatt before he was born.

Pink Bunny's Birthday

Out of the blue, Wyatt declared Monday (Dec. 15th for the record) Pink Bunny's Birthday. He was very insistent and requested that we repeatedly sing Happy Birthday to Pink Bunny. I felt bad because if I would've known ahead of time, I would have had a little party set up for him. Instead we surprised Wyatt when he got out of the tub and had a little cupcake and candle ready for him to sing happy birthday. The cupcake was actually a muffin with cream cheese on top but I knew, since there was no chance Wyatt would actually want to eat a cupcake, that it didn't matter. And, you can see how we had to improvise on the candle as well. For those of you who are wondering how old Pink Bunny is, he is apparently 2 and 3/4 which is actually just about right.

Cute Baby

Holiday Party

Wyatt and Malcolm had a little holiday party today. Some friends came over to drink warm cider and make ornaments for the tree. Here are Wyatt and Lucy concentrating hard on painting. He painted three gingerbread houses (which he called a puddin house and two puppy dog houses) and one Santa. Malcolm loved hanging out with Dottie and though he is able to sit up and look her in the big blue eyes, he seemed much more taken with her bright red shoes. Both boys had fun at the party - I think we'll have to make it a tradition.

Wii Bowling

Wyatt's really been bringing his "A Game" to the Wii Bowling Alley these days - here he is almost breaking 100 (that second frame did him in).

Moose on the Loose

Malcolm is definitely on the move. I was chatting with my friend Zoe yesterday about how he was really getting up on all fours, is rocking back and forth now and crawling backwards. I was just typing that he'd be crawling very soon when I literally turned around to witness him crawling across the living room floor to get Laverne. He is a very determined little bugger!

A Turkey on Turkey Day

Turns out Wyatt loves the Macy's Parade - marching bands, song and dance, the Rockettes - he went nuts! Who would have known? Here he is watching the parade on the big screen and letting loose, a rarity for him!

Turns out Wyatt was the only turkey in the house on Thanksgiving, as we decided to go with ham this year. Everyone pitched in and made one or two dishes and we had a yummy meal with family. Malcolm, of course, chowed on the sweet potatoes...his favorite!

Bath Time

After 6 months of screaming through baths Malcolm has decided its not half bad. Here he is actually enjoying his bath and splashing around. He made a huge mess...guess its time to move to the tub now.

Car Crazy

So Bear and his Papa spent Sunday morning (and afternoon) at the SF Car Show. It's one of the biggest car shows in the country, and our second year in a row attending. Wyatt loves to pick his favorite cars, then climb in and pretend like he's driving. This year he gravitated towards the big SUVs (hopefully not a trend). He also really liked the 1 Series BMW Convertible (because he loves convertibles) and the Mercedes C class (because it has a really cool flip-up navigation system). He also really liked the orange convertible Camaro (because it's orange AND a convertible)...Uncle Sean would be proud of that one. Here's a photo of him checking out the latest Hummer H3.

Lazy Saturday

Wondering what the boys did this morning? Well here is a little snapshot of each: Malcolm practiced his crawling - he's getting very close. He is already mobile if you count his face plant crawling technique of scooting across the floor on his big fat cheek. Wyatt, among other things, watered "plants" in the sink. We also had coffee and breakfast at the coffee shop where Bo entertained Wyatt and Malcolm with her dancing and visited friends Ellie and Alyia at the playground.

Crissy Field

The tide pools at Crissy Field are a toddler's paradise...a toddler who, unlike our toddler, likes to get dirty. Wyatt didn't want to splash in the water or even take his shoes off but he still had a great time building sandcastles, sailing his boat and making sand coffee. And despite his best efforts he even got a little bit dirty! The highlight of the day was when he saw a blimp, boat, airplane and helicopter all at the same time. Malcolm loved hanging on the blanket with mama and watching the puppy dogs run by. He did not, however, like getting sprayed by doggies coming out of the water and shaking.

Day Out With Mama

Wyatt has been going through a very clingy phase lately. On Friday I took advantage of having some help from Gissela and spent some one-on-one time with the little guy. We started out the morning at our local coffee shop where he requested his own cup of decaf with soy milk -- luckily they are very used to having kids there and whipped him up a hot cup of his own "decaf" which in reality was steamed milk. He loved it and requested another this morning. At the coffee shop we ran in to Wyatt's buddy Stella so we decided to invite her on our outing to the zoo. We saw LOTS of animals but Wyatt's favorite part of the zoo remains the train. His second favorite part is now the carousel.

About half way through our trip to the zoo Wyatt heard a baby crying and he asked in a very worried tone, "where is Malcolm?" I don't think he minded that we'd left him at home, we had a fun afternoon together.

Malcolm Update

Here are some fun facts about Malcolm at six months of age:

He loves to snuggle and be held.

His favorite game to play is “make mama and papa think I’m suffocating.” He carefully places his giraffe blanket across his face and starts flailing arms and legs erratically as if gasping for air. At the last minute he removes the blanket, smiles, takes a breath and places it neatly across his entire face repeating the process. He has done this for months now. It took me a few weeks to figure out he was doing this intentionally and actually enjoys the feeling of having the blanket on his face. At that point I finally stopped removing it for him when I realized that he can be trusted to remove it himself.

His second favorite thing to do is staring at Wyatt. He laughs hysterically at his brother when he dances/runs around with papa.

He sucks on the corners of his giraffe blanket. He loves this so much that sometimes he even tries to slide a corner of the blanket in his mouth while nursing. He gets VERY frustrated when this causes the suction seal to break preventing milk from coming out.

His least favorite activity is bath time. He screams at the top of his lungs from the second his toe touches the water until you take him out.

He doesn’t cry often but when he does he has the loudest cry of any baby I’ve ever heard. Strangers have even commented on it.

He is very determined to be mobile and scoots around by scrunching his legs up, doing a side face plant, straightening his legs and sliding.

He loves Laverne and despite having been scratched in the face by her once, continues to reach for her tail every time she passes by.

6 Months Old

Happy Birthday Mr. Moose! Today he had his first solid food meal. Well...actually it was his second solid food experience if you count the real estate flyer he ate over the weekend. Today he had some rice cereal and water. He really enjoyed meal time and sitting in the high chair. He wasn't too interested in getting food in his mouth but immediately grabbed the spoon and started trying to "feed" himself. He loved smearing the food on his face and high chair. Needless to say, it was straight from the high chair to the bath, his least favorite activity.

Halloween 2008

Well there was no way of getting Wyatt in to his penguin costume despite all the coaxing of his entire entourage. Malcolm didn't seem to care too much for his gingerbread man costume either but, at that age, he doesn't yet have a choice. Here are some photos from our trip to Cortland Street and Jen's party later that night -- where Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence made an appearance.

Food Please!

Malcolm - almost six months old and definitely ready to start eating! Now if his mamma will just get some oatmeal at the grocery store -- call it denial that her little baby is already old enough to eat.

Carving

Wyatt named the orange pumpkin Accck and the white pumpkin Emily. We decided to carve Accck.

Parkered Cars

This was the scene on the couch when Wyatt went up for his nap this afternoon. Other than the fact that he likes to neatly park his cars very carefully, here are some other fun facts about Wyatt at 2.5 years of age:

-- He always sleeps with his pink bunny. Some days he also sleeps with blue dog, Thomas & Percy the trains, when he doesn't banish them from his bed for being "too dirty" "too loud" "too tired" or any other reason he might come up with.

-- He eats primarily hamburger and when he's not eating hamburger he's eating steak.

-- He loves to watch videos of himself on YouTube.

-- Every morning he sits at the table and eats breakfast with Papa.

-- He loves to drive his cars on the couch and orders anyone in the room to sit on the couch - not because he wants company, but rather because he needs someone on the couch smooths the bumps out for him to drive on.

-- His passion for sliding has been replaced by a newfound love of the swings. He could swing at the playground for hours.

-- He loves to play "tennis" and "baseball" in the "back ard"

-- He chooses to ride the lion on the carousel by Gigi's house, even though it doesn't go up and down like the horses.

-- Almost nightly he boards his hot rod and rounds the dining room table playing drive-through. He frequently orders sausage egg and cheese biscuits, milkshakes and decaf lattes with soymilk.

-- He's a sweet big brother who picks up toys for Malcolm when he drops them and occasionally spontaneously says, "I love Malcolm."

Pumpkins

Today we visited a pumpkin patch. Wyatt had the run of the lot and, to everyone's surprise, chose to pick out a white pumpkin! Malcolm didn't seem to care. Wyatt was at first interested in going in to the kiddie hay maze but quickly realized that it meant crawling and getting hay pieces all over your hands, so he declined. He was very interested in the turkeys and the bunnies. We brought home two pumpkins - an orange one and of course a white one.