Halloween 2012

After much pestering and convincing, Cole shocked us all by agreeing to put on his Halloween costume to go trick or treating. Halloween 2012 was a success! Cole went as a shark and Henry got Cole's cow costume from last year. We went to Grammy and Bampa's (the Stear's) neighborhood for the tricks and treats. Amy and Zoey joined us and Zoey wore Henry's duck costume from last year...keep in mind they are only 2 months apart. She is a peanut and Hen is a tank. Sadly, Dustin ended up having to work and couldn't join us (or for the less gullible, he hung out at a bar instead. That's my theory at least.).

Cole struggled a little with what to say. About half the time he seemed to freeze when the people would come to the door. He would say "trick or treat" before the door was even opened and then the "thank you" would come about half way down the driveway as we were leaving. Henry had a blast. He would run super fast from the end of the driveways to the front doors, giggling and swerving the whole way.



Hen is mad that Zoey ended up with both snack cups

Enjoying a KitKat

Vacation Day Refund

I took off work last Friday and it turned out to be a bummer of a day. I would like my vacation day back! We had big plans to try and get some chores/errands done and then hit up Discovery World for some family fun.

We got delayed from the very start. There has been a cat bothering us for weeks now. It comes up on our porch and begs to come in our house, which of course makes Bella go nuts. I've been meaning to catch it to call the owner.

As we were walking out the door on Friday morning, the cat came walking up. I grabbed it and we called the owner. After the owner told us it was an indoor/outdoor cat and everything is fine, I "kindly" explained that everything is not fine because his stupid cat hangs out on our porch and bothers our dog, which in turn wakes up our sleeping children at times. I got frustrated and ended the conversation hastily. I assumed it was over until the dumb lazy hippie cat owner (I am just assuming here, I actually don't know anything about this person) tried to engage me in a text fight.

First text from cat owner

Second, somewhat friendlier text from cat owner

Apparently he wants us to spray his cat with water if she bothers us? Like we don't have enough going on with the the 2 kids and dog...now when the cat appears Kristin is supposed to step outside and perform some behavior modification tricks on this damn cat? Surprisingly since my the text fight we haven't seen the cat...

We then got really delayed. We had an 8:30 a.m. appointment to get our new (well, new to us)
mini-van detailed. The guy apparently slept in, or forgot, or who the hell knows. We called and he said he would be there in 20 minutes. At around 9:30 a.m. the loser still hadn't showed and we called him and told him to forget it. He later called back and didn't even apologize, just wanted to let us know the shop was now "open." No comments on the fact that our appointment was at 8:30am and he was calling a good 2 hours later.

We ended up running a few quick errands and got home for a late nap attempt that didn't go well. Neither Cole or Henry cooperated. As I listened to them not napping in their cribs I was thinking I would rather have been at work the way this crap vacation day was turning out.

In the afternoon we finally did end up getting the car detailed so at least something was checked off my list. While the car was getting cleaned we walked over to Whole Foods for dinner. This trip was okay, except the lady making Kristin's sandwich decided to make it how she wanted instead of what Kristin told her she wanted. I knew we had weathered a day full of disappointments when Kristin just shrugged when she found onions on her sandwich (she HATES onions).

The one thing I really wanted to do on my vacation day, Discovery World, never happened. Hopefully next time. Enough complaining from me.

As I was writing this Cole was building with blocks in the kitchen. Apparently his block house kept falling apart and all I heard was "Damn it. Oh, damn it" over and over. I got a quick video (the "damn its" start at about :55 into the video. Of course they were not as reoccurring once I got my phone out.). For the record, this one is on Kristin.

Today while driving home from music class he entertained Kristin with a few "oh fucks" while they waited in traffic. We really need to get our potty mouths under control!

Nightmare come true

First off I will apologize for yet another post about poop. Second, if Henry ever questions my love for him I will show him this post and pictures. I didn't just walk out to never return, which is what I wanted to do. Nope, I stayed and cleaned up the disaster he created. Third, do not scroll down if you are eating. This was by far the worst pooping incident I've ever seen. Sadly Kristin was working so I had to handle it alone. After nap, I walked into Henry's room and instantly smelled an unbelievable, eye watering shit. It was so bad all I could do was laugh. Then I saw his crib. And his blankets. And him. Everything covered in poo. There was so much and it was everywhere. I took him right to the tub and started hosing him off. Luckily he did not mind the high pressure spray. After a lot of sweat and tears (from me) he was finally clean.

 

I was pretty proud of myself for handling this situation and not calling for help...although with Kristin gone not sure who I would have called. Kristin made fun of me because I just threw all the poopy bedding, jammies and blankets in a big garbage bag and tossed it in the basement. Kristin said everything was going to stain and get ruined. She informed me of this after I already left the house, so I had to drive back home and dump everything in a bucket with hot water.

I do feel bad for Henry though. He obviously does not feel well and maybe has an aversion to one of his KFC bowl staples. He made this even more apparent later in the day when we went out to dinner with Aunt Jess. We visited her new apartment and new kitty, Owen. She lives a few houses away from Brewski's, so we went there for dinner. (Side note: Even though we went around 5pm we still got dirty looks from bar patrons for having kids in the bar). Nearing the end Henry had some more extra stinky explosive diarrhea. It smelled horrible and we all new we had to get the hell out of there. For some reason Jess and Kristin were still moving at a snails pace, gathering sippy cups and crayons, etc. I had to yell at them a few times to get moving before the smell contaminated the place.  Poor Henry got poo on his pants so he had to ride home in his diaper. He didn't seem to mind.

Snacks before he lit the place up

Finally a clean diaper

Kristin gave me more grief after this incident because as I rushed to get out of the house I did not grab the diaper bag. This was obviously a big deal when Henry decided to poop out the side of his pants. Jess and Kristin had to take Henry back to her apartment, clean him up and wrap him in a towel while I had to run over to CVS to buy some diapers. Oops. My bad on that one.

Mentioning Jess's cat, reminds me that I should mention Cole lies now. He has been telling some pretty big whoppers lately. After spending the day with Grandma and Aunt Jess he told us Jessie's cat, "Wallet," peed on the floor and Grandma was mad and Jess cried. This never happened and luckily the cat is not named Wallet.

And now for some non-poop pictures.

Blue Moon, KFC and some tears

This may be a "had to be there" story, but Kristin and I thought it probably looked pretty funny. We were at Bayshore Mall getting a new cell phone. Cole was awesome at being patient so we and got him an ice cream cone.  Fast forward to about 20 minutes later and Cole still had the ice cream cone. He was taking the worlds smallest licks and it was getting pretty melty and close to falling off the cone. We also needed to leave and at his pace it was going to take until midnight for Cole to finish. At first he wouldn't share, but as we moved towards the exit he finally started to give us some licks. Kristin and I tried to take some big licks/bites to try to finish it and get out of there. Suddenly we realized that we were standing next to a garbage can, each holding a kid and passing around the same ice cream cone taking licks. Seemed weird and definitely gross, just standing there chomping on the same ice cream cone; like we just had to finish or couldn't just throw it away or afford to buy every member of the family a scoop. (Like I said, you had to be there).

For the record, Cole often chooses to wear his dino hat. We do not require him to wear a hat with Velcro flaps around the chin. He is welcome AND encouraged to wear a big boy hat. He can't blame us for looking silly.

In other news...

I am starting to feel bad about how we feed Henry. His meals are pretty gross. They are very similar to KFC bowls, but not as good. I just take a little bowl and fill it with whatever is in the refrigerator. His last bowl consisted of tofu, pita and hummus pieces, kidney beans and tomatoes. Then, as he nears the end, you just toss in more stuff. I started adding some cheese and summer sausage pieces. Tofu and summer sausage...sounds like a confused person.

Speaking of food bowls, I recently invented a new snack and maybe did the fattest thing of my life. Basically you take the crumbs/broken Doritos at the bottom of the bag, pour them into a bowl with some con queso salsa and eat with spoon like cereal (and feel bad about yourself). For the record, I did not do this in a big bowl or anything...just a few spoonfuls.  Damn it was delicious.

We recently tried our first Fuchs Family Movie Night and it did not go well. It was a rough, tiring day for all, so about an hour before bedtime we decided to sit the kids down, grab some snacks and watch the Lorax. Cole is very familiar with the Lorax book as we basically read it daily so we hoped the movie watching would be a success. Not so much. Movie night lasted about 20 minutes, including watching the previews. Cole started to get scared when the Lorax and his friends put the Onceler in the river while he was sleeping. About half way down the river (Onceler still sleeping) Cole was in full blown tears, so we turned it off. The next day he kept reminding us that he got scared at the Lorax and started to cry. We tried again about a week later and he got scared right away. I guess he is not ready for movies...or at least movies we might also be interested in watching.

Apple Holler and Ikea and Mars Cheese Castle, Oh My!

Yesterday I took off work so we could have a Fuchs Family Fun day and now I feel I need to take another day just to rest. We did a lot; we left the house around 9:00 a.m. and returned around 6:30 p.m.,  just in time for bath and bed. We managed to fit in a trip to Apple Holler, Ikea and Mars Cheese Castle.

Getting ready to go

Apple Holler
Apple Holler was a pretty big success. No meltdowns and both boys seemed to have a lot of fun. We took a tractor ride, picked apples, met some goats and went on a hunt for the perfect pumpkin (never found). Cole went down a super big slide and navigated through a little barn maze all by himself. I was impressed, especially since his latest thing is being scared about everything.



After arriving, it took about 20 minutes in the parking lot to get situated. Kids are a pain...I mean fun.







 





Cole kept tyring to pick big pumpkins, but I told him he had to find one that was "Cole size"




Gettin close to a cole sized pumpkin, but he only made it about 10 feet with this one.





I feel bad I didn't let Cole go down by himself like he wanted. I need to toughen up. Plus, I could avoid pictures of me doing kid stuff. That would be nice.



Henry started humping this pumpkin

  

Finally one that was the right size...of course Cole immediately got his undies in a bunch about the fact that it was muddy

Ikea

Kristin was just at Ikea on Saturday, but apparently needed more baskets (and argued since we were already at Apple Holler and halfway there it would be silly NOT to go). We made a deal: If we went to Ikea, on our way home we could stop at Mars Cheese Castle for dinner, which is a favorite of mine. We walked through Ikea pretty quick as we were already getting pretty exhausted. In total, I think Kristin only exceeded her Ikea budget by $100. That is really not bad for her. Cole made a girlfriend while playing in the toy area and talked about her most of the way home.

Mars Cheese Castle

At this point in the journey, I was going to be okay skipping the Cheese Castle but Cole really wanted to go to a restaurant. So of course whatever he wants he gets (just kidding, kinda). I got my bloody mary. Delicious. Surprisingly, even with no nap, the kids didn't have any meltdowns. Cole refused most of his dinner so per usual Henry ate the dinner of two children. 

Finally Home!

We finally made it home and after a good scrubbing got the boys to bed. Somehow we found the energy to rearrange some furniture and I even started to draft this blog. I knew we were tired when Kristin asked if it was midnight and it was actually 7:45 p.m.



The Haircut and the Bee

We had a couple "firsts" moments this past weekend. 1) Henry got his first haircut. 2) Cole got his first bee sting.

Henry did great and made no fuss about getting his haircut. If I recall correctly, Cole was kicking and screaming throughout his first haircut. He didn't shed a tear and surprisingly Kristin stayed strong and didn't cry when his baby curls were cut off. To be fair, the haircut place has a TV and they were playing Scooby Doo. Henry stayed very focused on Scooby Doo...Kristin too.

 

Unlike his first haircut, Cole actually took the bee sting pretty well. Not a lot of crying. We swiped a credit card over the sting to get the stinger out - he thought that was pretty cool and every time it hurt he would ask for "daddy's wallet to make it feel better."  He also kept saying that he got hit by a bee. We  left the park (which was swarming with bees) and stopped at an outside restaurant for ice, pizza and ice cream.  Luckily, ice cream fixed the problem immediately.

 

 

We were sitting right by the front door and Cole told everyone who walked in about the bee that hit him

 Uncle Ben was also home this week so he and the boys did a lot of fun stuff together. Kristin and I were also able to meet him out for a few surprise drinks on his birthday, the big 3-0.

 

 

This weekend Kristin is going to Ikea - more projects and building in the works for me and we are going to Apple Holler for some Fall fun on Monday. I hate building stuff, but Apple Holler shoud be better than work.