Mr. Potato Heads

Are these kids hilarious or what!? Tonight they made me laugh so hard. I don't know what was funnier, Elliot's surprising me with Mr. Potato Head's glasses smooshed on his fat cheeks or Oliver's anatomically correct placement of  Mr. Potato Head's "bottom".  

Boring But Important

So some of my devoted readers (hi Mom and Abby!) have noticed that I have taken a little hiatus from blogging. It's not because there's nothing going on around here. Actually we have had some really noteworthy events in the last month and a half: we spent a long weekend on the Outer Banks with seven other couples and our combined 16 kids, Ryan ran the OBX half-marathon; we got a visit from Scott and Jennie, two of our favorite people from Cornell; a few hours after Scott and Jennie left we welcomed Saydi and Jeff, who stopped by our house on their way from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore (we were honored that they took the small detour to hit Raleigh on their Thanksgiving break East Coast tour); soon after the Shumways left Ryan's parents and Blake arrived for Thanksgiving. All of this and more I hope to blog about soon, complete with captivating photography and vivid prose...it'll make you feel like you were right there. 

But in the meantime, I'll let you all in on why we have been a bit preoccupied. 

We are moving. To Nashville, Tennessee. We don't know when. 

At the beginning of November Ryan was offered a promotion to a new position in his company's Nashville office. It caught us totally off-guard. We didn't really want to relocate. The company sent us out to Nashville to check things out. We came home from that trip feeling like we REALLY didn't want to relocate (Nashville, despite its awesome reputation, is not THAT different from Raleigh, with the glaringly obvious distinction that none of our friends lives in Nashville). The company figured out that we didn't really want to move so they made us "an offer we couldn't refuse." Not in The Godfather sense (no horse heads in our bed) but they made it pretty clear that they really wanted Ryan to fill this position and so they made him a generous offer. So, that's nice. I really am proud of Ryan that he has done such a good job at work and that he is being recognized. We think this move is probably a good step for Ryan's career. Yep. And we are committed to not look back once we move. We will really dive in and make the most of our time in Nashville. Once we get there. 

But until then we are feeling really in limbo. We are trying to figure out what we are going to do with our house here (sell or rent it out), what we are going to do about housing there, whether I will live here with the boys until the house sells or move out there and hope something magical happens so we won't have two house payments. The company will buy us out if the house doesn't sell in 5 months, so it's not like there's no end in sight. But we could be here until May, since we aren't even going to list the house until January. 

Ryan started working in Nashville last week. He is staying in a hotel during the week and coming home on Friday evening. We are trying to maximize our time on the weekends, reconnecting with each other and spending time with the many dear and AMAZING friends we have here. So far (a week and a half into what may be a many-month ordeal) it is actually quite nice. We are both amazed at how productive we are with our free time, and how connected we feel when we read the scriptures together on the phone in the mornings and discuss the day's events in the evenings. One of the reasons I have been able to hold it together as a single mother is that I am getting to bed earlier that I usually do when Ryan's at home. Tonight is an exception so I better sign off because tomorrow evening, when I am feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, there will be no reinforcements arriving to help with the bedtime battle. 

Backyard Mudbox

These are some pictures from early November of the boys in what used to be my garden. I pulled out all the overgrown tomatoes and basil and now almost every afternoon they go to town digging for worms, building volcanoes and generally making a big muddy mess.

Halloween Pics

 

This year the boys went as characters from the Disney movie Toy Story. Oliver was space ranger Buzz Lightyear and Elliot was his tiny cowboy sidekick, Woody. Oliver is REALLY into Toy Story (thanks again Adam...that DVD is still a big hit!) so he was just ecstatic to get dressed up as Buzz Lightyear. I got both costumes secondhand on Ebay in early September which I thought was pretty clever/frugal of me until I realized (the day before Halloween) that Oliver's was missing some critical components (his wings and the helmet!) Dang it!! Fortunately Oliver didn't seem to notice that his costume was anything short of glorious. 

We went to a Halloween party at Ryan's office, then to a very cute "Halloween Cupcake Spooktacular" party on Friday night. Our church had a Halloween party on Saturday morning and then we had a neighborhood parade to kick off trick or treating on Saturday. Whew! We are all Halloweened out!

    

I also dyed my hair brown on Thursday. It's not as dark as I had wanted but I like it. It sort of looks natural (especially when I don't brush it after I get out of the shower like in these pictures.) I know, I'm SO high maintenance!

 

I love this picture because all the other kids were really focused on trick or treating and Oliver was completely in his own world, freaking out because he noticed the full moon. He was saying "Look, guys, the MOON!!!" and the other kids were like "So what? Dude, stay on task here... we're about to get candy!"

Bad Guys

Oliver is really interested in "bad guys" these days. He talks a lot about what bad guys do (they say "dumb" and "stupid" and they "not listen" among other abominations.) Sweet Oliver is so charmingly far from being a bad guy "in real life" that it is funny when he tries on the bad guy role "just for pee-tend." Now I'm all for creative role playing but look who he had in his sights...

 

Fuzzy Math

I just composed a post about how awesome it was that Elliot is officially a year and a half today.

And then I realized actually he's only 17 months. Well, 17 months is a great age to be, too. So happy year and 5/12ths, buddy!

Elliot still kind of looks like a baby (still not a lot of hair and only a few teeth) but he has become a bona fide little boy. He follows his big brother everywhere and tries to copy what he does, except he's much more mischievous and strong willed than Oliver ever was. Ryan is sure that our minimal baby-proofing measures are not sufficient to keep this boy out of trouble. He's probably right. He loves going through drawers and cabinets. He loves nothing better than to empty the contents of a drawer as fast as he can, literally chucking things out over his little shoulders. It is pretty funny to watch when I am in the right mood.

Elliot is just starting to talk, too (or maybe we are just starting to figure out what he is saying.) He can say CAR, BALL, MAMA, DADA, and my favorite, AH-VER for Oliver.

I love this little rascal!! These are some pictures we took on Tuesday picking out pumpkins.

Hey, check out my rock...let's see how it tastes

Oh how I love these little guys!!

The Best and the Brightest

...do not work at Wal*Mart. I realize that I may not the first person to notice this, but I was struck by this fact again this evening.

How I hate EVERY ASPECT of this awful, evil, soul-destroying corporation. Yuck. Every time I go there I leave vowing that I will never return. Had I been a better planner I wouldn't have had to go looking for a birthday present for a 4-year-old at 11:00 the night before the party when my choices were pretty much reduced to Walmart or the gas station convenience store. But alas, I am not a planner and I was out anyway so I thought, I'll just stop at Walmart on the way home, it can't possibly be as bad as I remember. Oh, but it was!! First of all they had such a freaking craptastic toy selection it made me so sad for the kids who get those toys. There were no toys that weren't plastic or didn't require batteries. I finally found a game which I hope won't be one this family already has...which is why I asked for a gift reciept. And that's where my trouble really started. The cashier couldn't figure it out. The shift manager couldn't figure it out. Finally they figured out how to give me a gift recipt for the box of tampons I also picked up (thanks, but no thanks...that would make an awkward gift for a 4 year old boy). This little errand that should have taken all of 10 minutes ate up 40 (FORTY!!!) minutes of my life. Ahhh!! And now it's eating up even more because I am taking the time to write about it when I should be asleep. Curse you Walmart! This time I mean it. I will never go there again.

New York City

 Ollie with his treasured "list"--the NYC bingo game Abby made for him

Abby is one of those people who would probably plan her vacations six months in advance even if her OB-GYN residency didn't require it. So when she told us back in the spring that she would be on vacation the week of September 19-26 we made plans to go up to New York to visit. Ryan just stayed for a long weekend because he had to be back at work on Tuesday, but I decided to stay for the whole week. I thought that in addition to being a lot of fun our extended stay would give my mom plenty of QT with the boys. Unfortunately I didn't consult my mom before I made our travel arrangements and she was already planning to be in Japan for the entire month of September. BUMMER.

In any case, it was really fun to explore New York from Abby's place in the West Village rather than from the Upper East Side where my mom still lives. It is such a different city!!! I LOVED it!There is so much to the City that is new (since I left for college 15 years ago--I shouldn't be so surprised). As Abby pointed out, this last decade has been very good to New York. There are so many new parks, new neighborhoods, and old neighborhoods that have been completely transformed. It is so vibrant, so lovely and so livable. I fell in love all over again. Or actually, more like for the first time. I didn't really even like the City growing up. Maybe it was just adolescent angst. But honestly, our neighborhood, Carnegie Hill, is pretty boring. It is safe (which counted for a lot in the pre-Guiliani/Bloomberg days) but pretty unexciting and wildly expensive.

Ok, so enough of that...here are the highlights of our recent trip. We had perfect weather for walking around and taking in New York so we hit the City HARD. These are a few of my favorite memories.

• Spending time with Abby and Adam and seeing a little bit of "their" New York: their favorite neighborhood restaurants, boutiques, fountains, parks, strolls, etc.
• Jogging along the Hudson River watching the boats and the people and the water and the Statue of Liberty and New Jersey's pretty impressive skyline (who knew?!?!)
• Checking out the view of lower Manhattan from the Highline: a former elevated freight train track that has been converted into a cool new park
• Visiting the aircraft carrier Intrepid
• Enjoying spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty and NY Harbor from Adam's 33rd floor office...and enjoying all the candy and treats pushed on us by his office manager
• Eating lunch outside in the Financial District and feeling the pulsing energy of the city
• Seeing Wicked on Broadway with Abby and Adam (LOVED it!!!!)
• Eating dinner outside at the Pier i Cafe, watching the sun go down over the Hudson River
• Catching up with so many old friends (and their progeny)
• Checking out some pretty amazing playgrounds around the city (Rockefeller playground in Battery Park City and Pier 51 playground near Abby's house)
• Eating awesome food and even more amazing treats (cupcakes at Magnolia and  Billy's , tiramisu gelato at Cones, and milk and cookies at... Milk and Cookies!) 
• Visiting the Central Park Zoo and riding the Carousel (Oliver was a bit scared but Abby hopped on behind him and convinced him that it was going to be fun!)
• Eating burgers from the Shake Shack with my dad by the lake in Central Park
• Walking around the city, exploring neighborhoods, window shopping, people watching, walking, people watching, taking the subway, walking, eating, people watching...oh, I could do this all day...and we did!!

Ryan and Ollie with our gracious hosts Abby and Adam

 

Me and the boys...just caaaasually walking by the Statue of Liberty (can you tell this is posed?!)Ollie and Ryan in front of an Army "he-di-docker" at the Intrepid 

    Elliot got right down to business at Adam's office, making calls and typing on the computer. Oliver asked if Adam had any toys...and sure enough, that's when the (toy) guns came out. Elliot apparently thinks workplace violence is pretty funny.

Elliot wasn't sure if it would hurt EVERY time he banged his head into this dodo bird's bronze beak, so he decided to do a little experiment.

  

 

Chilling at Abby and Adam's house. Watching TV in the living room...or in the bathroom. They have a TV built in to one of the three mirrored walls so you can sit in the world's largest tub and watch a movie. How cool is that?! The boys just loved swimming in that tub.

    

 

My friends Katie and Emily watched the boys while we went to see Wicked. The kids had a total blast as you can see from the mayhem.

 

My dad took us to his favorite bookstore in the City, The Strand. I love this picture of him reading to Oliver.

Once Elliot had determined that, yes, in fact banging his head into the dodo would hurt each and every time, he entertained himself for about a half hour on this perfect toddler-sized slide.     

When I was little, one of my favorite things to do was pretend that I was a mountain goat and climb all over the rocks in Central Park. I'm glad to see that Oliver is following this proud family tradition. New York really can be fun place for little kids, I'm glad that I can share some of these experiences with my boys.