Shmars

Today Jimmy, my 7 year-old, asks me; Mom, can we have some shmoos, shmoes, uh, shmars? Can we have shmars? I have a confused look on my face, so he says, you know, with the marshmallow and graham crackers. Oh, s'mores...sure

The Day After Christmas

The boys slept in until 7:30 or 8:00 on Christmas. But they woke up at 4:00 this morning to play with their new toys. : D

Jimmy Lost His First Tooth

Yeah! Jimmy lost his first tooth today. It was the same tooth as Peter too. He's so excited!

Peter Lost A Tooth

Peter lost a tooth! (If you don't count the bike accident a few years ago, it's his first one.) He is so excited! Daddy took him straight to the ice cream shop, 'cause that's what Peter wanted. : )
Jimmy's same tooth is really loose too. I bet his will come out tomorrow.

Loose Teeth

Yesterday I found out that both my boys have loose teeth. We were at the library and had just read a book about a boy with a loose tooth.  Then Peter says, "I think my teeth are loose"  So I feel his teeth and his two lower front teeth were loose.  Then Jimmy says "I think mine are loose too"  Sure enough Jimmy's same two teeth were loose.
They both had loads of questions. Peter was pretty excited about it all. Jimmy is really worried that he'll accidentally swallow his teeth.

An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward.

The Christmas calendar I made last week.

The Christmas calendar I made last week.

Santa

Peter and Jimmy sitting on Santa's lap. — at San Mateo County History Museum.

Is it bed time yet?!?!

Is it bed time yet?!?! You can tell my kids have been out of their routine for a few days....they are really cranky today.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Had a great Thanksgiving weekend in Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe with some of my favorite people!

Happy and Completely Satisfied

I am so happy and completely satisfied with my two beautiful boys!

But every now and then that part of women that makes them want more babies gets going...especially when there are a lot of people around me having babies. I sometimes think what it would be like to have a little girl.

Maybe one day I will have more children...but if I don't I'm totally okay with that. I definitely don't miss the sleepless nights and diaper changes

Peter's Birthday Coming Soon....

I am both excited for and dreading Peter's 6th birthday this Saturday.

Poor Jimmy every year has such a hard time with it not being his birthday. Some years we put Jimmy in his room so that Peter could open his presents. Some years we get one or two presents for Jimmy to open, but then he's upset that Peter got more than him...UGH!

Thankfully Peter is so sweet and pretty good at sharing. And thankfully Christmas is right around the corner and we can kinda distract him with that.

This year I decided to get two presents for Jimmy to open, as that seems to help. Keep your fingers crossed though.

Super Hero Training

It was fun, the kids and I did super hero training today. We went to the grassy area by the library and ran around, did jumping jacks, punching the air etc...it was a lot of fun.
Because of how I was playing with the kids someone asked me if I was the kids babysitter. : D
Am I an awesome Mom or what?

Batman

My kids are big into Super Heros. Sometimes they wish they could have super powers etc. Then one day it dawned on me that there's one super hero without special powers...Batman. He's just smart, has a lot of money, cool gadgets and is strong etc. So I told the kids they could aspire to be like Batman.

I got the kids to eat veggies and chicken...because that's what Batman eats. He he he.

Likes and Dislikes

I've been back in the States for 3 months now and the thing I dislike the most is all the bad food...even the "good" food is bad food. I think I've gained about 30 pounds!! UGH!

I've been back in the States for 3 months now and I think my favorite thing that I missed the most....public libraries.

I just did something that I haven't had to do for the last five years...I packed away the kids short pants.

In Central America the temperature doesn't change enough that you need to have winter clothes and summer clothes.

They also don't do Daylight Savings....I loved that part!

We've created a traveling monster.

Jimmy just told me, "I want to live in a car!" I asked him why. He said, "so that we could go places and always be home. We should get a big bus...lots of people live on a big bus. We should do it"

We've created a traveling monster. :- )

Trick-or-Treating

The kids were so excited to go trick-or-treating last night.

This is the first time they've gone trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. When we lived in Costa Rica they would knock on the bathroom door and the bedroom door etc to trick-or-treat. Some years we would just dress up and watch cartoons.

Last night they kept saying, "We're trick-or-treating FOR REAL!" On the last house we went to there was a spider that jumped out at you when you walked by. It scared all of us. So we got both a trick and treats

I was BUSY

When I woke the kids up this morning Jimmy yells, STOP it...don't wake me up...I was BUSY!

A Big Day For Jimmy

A big day for Jimmy.

He's known how to read for quite awhile. But he would always get overwhelmed by a page full of words. He would also get frustrated that he couldn't read as fast as Mommy and Daddy.

But today he read all 63 pages of the book, The Cat In The Hat. He did so great! I'm so proud!

Too Much TV

My back was hurting and I tell my 7-yr-old son Jimmy, "My back hurts, what should I do?" He tells me "I think you should get a number bed...but I think it's too much moneys...but you must because your back hurts." I think he's seen too many commercials. :-)

I love homeschool!

I love homeschool! I never have to force the kids to do some assigned homework. Two Saturdays ago, Peter found a folder of math worksheets. He asked me if he could do one. Then Jimmy said he wanted to do one too. They had a lot of fun! For the last two days Peter has washed the dishes...just because he wanted too.

I'm your favorite

It's funny, sometimes my husband will ask the kids "Who's your favorite, Mommy or Daddy?" Lately Peter turns around and says, "I'm your favorite Daddy."

McTroll

My kids call remote controls, "McTroll" Makes me smile every time.

See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil

November 2007

Jimmy standing next to a "See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil" statue. — in San Francisco, CA.

October 2012

Peter and Jimmy sitting next to the same "See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil" statue — in San Francisco, CA.

Getting Cold

It's kinda fun having it get cold. This last week I bought the kids long pants, and jackets. It's been a long time since I've had to do that. The kids think it's fun too

Bad Dreams

The kids were a little upset when they woke up this morning. They said they had bad dreams. Jimmy said he dreamt that all his friends were 8 and he was 7. Peter said he dreamt that he was naked and people were laughing at him.

I thought it was interesting...those are the bad dreams that everyone has in some form or another.

Bad+Good=Even...Right?

I think I ate about 8 peaunt butter chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. For lunch I had a green drink with wheatgrass juice, spinach, kale and blueberries...that cancels each other out ... right?

I've got everything that I need right in front of me...

There's a song from the recent MUPPET Movie that the chorus is "I've got everything that I need right in front of me...life's a happy song when there's someone by your side to sing along."

I sing that in my head every time I see this handsome looking bunch.

Can't Sleep.

"Can't sleep.
Two things I miss about the boat, 1. the gentle rocking for a good nights sleep 2. being able to sit out on deck in the breeze in my PJs for those nights I'm awake at 2 AM.

On the other hand I do not miss waking in the middle of the night to high winds and the anchor slip alarm going off. So I guess it's a good trade.

Pirates

Ha, ha, I asked my kids if they wanted to watch the Pirate movie and Jimmy says, "arrr, the Pirates of the Carrot Bean-an" : D

Veggie-dillas

Lately the kids favorite food has been cheese quesadillas. That can get boring after awhile. So I've started adding egg, broccoli, salsa and other veggies to liven 'em up a bit. It feels funny having a veggie-dilla but it sure is tasty.

Energy

Wouldn't it be nice if you could evenly distribute your kids energy between the whole family so that us old farts could keep up with the kids and maybe tone down the crazy kids at the same time.

Jumping On The Bed

The kids won't stop jumping on the bed and Jimmy just tells me, "well, I don't have a trampoline...so I have to jump on the bed. Find me a trampoline and I'll stop jumping on the bed". (He says this in his 7 going on 17 voice.)

Awake...again.

Awake...again. I'll get used to being here.

It's still SO WEIRD to be back in the States.

Farmer's Market

We just got back from the Farmer's Market. OH MY HEAVENS! Everything is so tasty and juicy! I just ate THE MOST amazing avocado in the whole world

So Weird

There are so many little weird things about being back in the States. Everything is so big, and you can find ANYTHING here. It's still weird speaking English to everyone.
I will always have a special place in my heart for Central America!

So Dry

My lips feel like raisins. It's so much dryer here in the States than in Panama. But at the same time I don't miss dripping with sweat. If it's not one thing it's another...right? : )

We made it! We're all together as a family again!

The boys and I made it here safe and sound. It took all day but everything went great! You hear horror stories about people dealing with customs, security and just plain crappiness when they fly. And we've had a few horror stories ourselves. But I think this was the easiest time I've ever had with flying. No problems anywhere. The kids were even great. When we first got to the airport Peter (my little wanderer) wandered off a little, but I just told him how important it was that he stay with me. Then he was great about staying with me the rest of the day. Jimmy had a hard time with his ears during landing, but that was just for a few minutes. I had a file folder full of papers for my boat (because we had a special stamp in our passport giving us a year vista instead of 6 months and lots of other people have had problems with that), I had papers for permission to travel with my children without their father and birth certificates etc. But I never once had to pull that folder out. It was totally awesome!

Showers

I LOVE fresh water, hot, limitless showers!

Last Pizza Night

The last Thursday pizza night with my fellow sailors. It was really great! I'll miss all you guys!

Sold Our Boat!

Today I sold our boat! It was only for $3000. But now we don't have to leave it behind! On Monday the kids and I fly to Sacramento to be with James.

Regular Bed

Sleeping in a "regular bed" was pretty nice. I really liked the A/C and the soft bed. But because it iwasn't gently rocking like the boat does I woke up a bunch of times. I went right back to sleep so it wasn't a big deal. Over all it was very nice.

Spending the Night at the Thorley's

Sleeping in a "regular bed" tonight. I'll tell you tomorrow if that's a good thing or not. : )

Flowers

Yesterday I found a bouquet of flowers floating by that someone threw out. I grabbed it out of the water because I thought the boys would like it. Jimmy was asking the names of all the flowers. We were telling him daisies, rose, sunflower etc. Then we got to the Babies Breath and they thought that was the funniest thing ever. Through out the day they would just say the words “babies breath” and bust out laughing.

100

The other day James asked Jimmy what he wanted to be when he grew up. And Jimmy said, “100″.

My Name Is...

Yesterday my kids, especially Jimmy, decided they were not Jimmy and Peter, but Diego and Buzz Lightyear.  Jimmy told everyone at church, “hi, my name is Diego and this is Buzz Lightyear”.  By the end of the day all the kids in primary were calling him Diego.

I asked them this morning, when they woke up, what name I was supposed to call them, and sure enough they are still Diego and Buzz Lightyear.

Whenever I slip-up and call them Jimmy or Peter they quickly correct me.  It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.  :-)

How Big Are They?

Jimmy
47 1/8 inches
47 pounds

Peter
44 7/8 inches
49 pounds