"Us" the band

Here's the setlist...

Too much trouble on the rail, spaceship, airplane, shower, owl owl bo bo dowel, clock not pointing on the time-nobody knows what time it is, Ziggy Marley family time, troublesome trucks, bee not pollinating the flower

Encore!

One morning last week, Reed approached me with a brilliant idea, he said we should put on a concert! Well, I was excited enough about that, but Reed kept coming with more good ideas! He said we should clean up the living room, make flags to hang up for the concert and then he said that the people who played really, really good should get cookies, the people who played really, REALLY good should get hot cocoa, and the people who played really, really, really, REALLY good should get ice cream! I like the way this kid thinks!! :)

The first thing we did was clean up the house. We picked up the living room, Reed helped me sweep the dining room, and even volunteered to walk around the house looking for more messes to clean up. Once the house was deemed sufficiently clean, we set to work on our flags. We decorated them with a stamp set Spring got for her birthday. It required some focus, but it was fun too!

I wanted to take pictures of the finished flags and Reed wanted to pose with his space shuttle paper airplane.

So of course, Spring wanted a paper airplane too.

But Mommy couldn't figure out which airplane she wanted and much sadness ensued.

While I was getting Spring calmed down, Reed took the opportunity to photograph his space shuttle paper airplane. He took a dozen or so pictures of the plane, mainly focusing on the American flag on the back. He also took some great finger and nostril pictures too! :)

Settled back down, we were ready to try again at taking pictures with our flags.

But it didn't take Reed long to decide that the space shuttle needed to be in the picture again.

Fortunately, Spring, being the take charge kind of girl she is, took matters into her own hands this time and found the plane she wanted!

Reed decided he wanted to wait till Daddy was home to have our concert, so we played dress up in our Halloween costumes in the afternoon.

Then, it was concert time!! The video was posted on facebook, and I want to post it here too, but am having trouble finding on the computer. I'll have to ask Gerry where it is stored and add it to this post another day!

Birthday girl!!

We celebrated Spring's second birthday last weekend! Within a week of turning two years old, Spring's favorite sentence has become, "No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO!" It's as though she knew that she was entering the "terrible twos"! :)

First thing we did after breakfast on her birthday, was start making her cake so it would be cool enough to frost later. Spring enjoyed helping stir!

Then, Spring, Reed and I headed to the park to enjoy the gorgeous day! Reed is "catching" Spring on the slide. She was stopped before she got to him but it was a very sweet gesture nonetheless.

Spring clearly enjoyed herself at the playground!

Reed did too, but is sometimes reluctant to have his picture taken so this was the best picture I could get.

Later in the day, it was time for one of our favorite birthday traditions, decorating the cake! Spring immediately jammed the sprinkle shaker into the frosting, but once we cleaned it up, and showed her how, she proved to be an excellent cake decorator!

Brother helped put some sprinkles on too.

The finished product. Those are some excited, about to eat cake, smiles!

Looking cute with her cake. Spring ate a few bites of cake, but spit some out too (I have the pictures to prove it!) I don't know if she was just full, or if she doesn't really like cake.

Then, what should we do to settle our sugar-stoked kids down since it's getting close to bed time? That's right, open presents!!!! Ha ha!

Reed helped Spring open presents, but he was really good about not opening them all for her and actually just helping.

Some gift highlights include this xylophone and a book about mommies nursing their babies from mommy and daddy, another book about mommies and babies from Grandma and Grandpa M. (Spring LOVES mommies and babies right now)...

And this awesome tea set from Grandma and Grandpa A. I put it through the dishwasher today, so we're definitely having tea time tomorrow! I'll try to get some pictures!

Then it was off to bed so we could get up the next day and go to the zoo! We loved seeing all the animals. Spring's favorites seemed to be the sharks and the tiger momma and her two cubs. Sadly, I didn't get any good pictures of us at those exhibits, but I did get a good picture with the elephants!

As much as we enjoyed seeing the animals, the kids seemed to equally enjoy playing at the zoo's kids area.

Forgot to add...

I forgot to mention my favorite part of our trip to the pumpkin patch!

Lately, when we see pumpkins (and some other food items) at the store, Spring signs "no eat". Actually, her longest sentence to date was such an incident. She pointed to some onions, which I then told here were onions and while she pointed at the onions she signed "no eat daddy". In effect, telling me, "Daddy says don't eat the onions". It made me laugh because at the time, we had repeatedly caught her in the garden, munching onion tops and Gerry had been telling her not to eat them! Have I mentioned Spring LOVES picking and eating food?

Anyway, back to the pumpkin patch story. At the grocery store, she had signed "no eat" for pumpkins and I had told her that we could eat pumpkins, but I failed to mention that the pumpkins should be cooked first! So as soon as her pumpkin was off the vine, and in her hands, she lunged for it, mouth agape, prepared to take a bite!! Poor thing, all she got was a mouthful of dirt, but it was still pretty funny!

Pumpkin Patch

Last week, we took a preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch. We had the most amazing warm fall day, not typical October weather at all!

We got to ride some rocking horses, and even one rocking cow while we waited for all Reed's classmates to arrive. Spring was the first to go for a ride.

Reed followed suit once he saw Spring having fun!

They both really enjoyed riding!

Then, we chose a mount to ride through the corn maze. Spring's purple unicorn had the whole unicorn (not just the head) and having so recently ridden the rocking horses, she insisted on riding on the back of the unicorn instead of on the stick. This meant that she waddled instead of walked through the corn maze. It was definitely a struggle until I got her convinced it was easier to ride on the stick.

There was no danger of losing track of the kids in the maze... what does it mean if your corn is knee high by the fourth of October?

Finally Spring rides behind the unicorn; much less frustrating!

Our next stop was a straw castle. It had a very wobbly slide which the kids enjoyed...

and windows to peak through.

Then, after a story, it was time at last to select our pumpkins!!

Then it was our turn to do an art project. I love the look on Reed's face here.

Reed did his with minimal assistance.

Spring on the other hand, spent most of art time nursing and got a significant amount of help with hers.

And the finale of the day was getting to feed some goats some apples and grain.

We weren't allowed to touch the animals (apparently for insurance purposes) so we put the apples and grain down the gutters they had set up.

Spring feeds some goats.

Reed as a sheep.

Spring as a sheep. It makes me laugh that she put her head all the way through!

San Francisco, here we come!

That title should probably be in the past tense, but then it wouldn't be a fun lyric reference. :) We went down to San Francisco last week to visit friends and attend the Har.dly St.rictly Blue.grass festival.

Waiting for the plane. It was quite the journey down! We drove the car to the parking lot, rode the parking lot shuttle to the airport, rode the plane to SF, rode the airport train to the BART station, rode the BART, to the bus stop, rode the bus to our friends' neighborhood then got off and walked to their house. All this with two kids and all our luggage!

Arriving at the festival on Friday. Woohoo!

The boys got to ride together in the double stroller. The stroller came in extra handy the next few days when we used its capacity as a tow behind for a bike.

And Spring got to ride separate. It worked out well because she occasionally gets frustrated with Reed being in her space in the double stroller.

For our first stop of the festival, it was Hammer Time. Yep, MC Ha.mmer!! I'm pretty sure he falls on the "hardly" side of "Ha.rdly Stric.tly Blueg.rass". It was pretty fun though!

Our next stop was to see The Wa.ybacks. It wasn't crowded at all on Friday and it didn't take the kids long to find some mud to play in!

Fun times climbing on mommy-the-jungle-gym!

There was a fun park to play at along the walk home (we walked or biked everywhere since we didn't have carseats for all the kids). I think these were the only pictures we took on Saturday. We tried to see Joan Baez at the festival, but the huge crowd was so chatty, that we couldn't hear her. We did catch a bit of her music as we left though and she sounded amazing.

Spring playing the bulldozer game at the park.

You wouldn't know it from the coats, but it did get a little warmer on Sunday. I didn't mind the grey days though, it made for a very comfortable walk to and from the festival.

More Sunday cuteness! Despite a big Spring meltdown and our double stroller getting broken, Sunday was a great day. We ran into some friends' we know from other music festivals and we got to see some of our favorite bands. Ra.ilroad Ear.th, Ke.ller and the K.eels, and Y.onder M.ountain Str.ing Ba.nd.

Fun for the whole family!

Riding the BART on our way back home. You can see just how tired they are, but they look so cute sharing the earbuds for the i.pod.