More Little Moments.

I swear. I should change Adam's middle name to Danger. Today I found him with my toothpaste in the living room. He had the top off of the tube and was ready to squeeze some onto his tooth brush. Saved that in the nick of time! (the kid loves brushing his teeth.) Then at lunch with the ladies, Gigi looks over and in the pile of rocks along the side of the patio, he's found two thumb tacks from the notice board, and is bringing them towards his face. That kid!

He does crack me up though. When I ask, "Adam, do you want to help me?" no matter what time of day it is, he runs over to the kitchen drawers and starts to pull out my coffee grinder, since every morning he insists that I hold him so he can "help" me while I make coffee (one armed, French press coffee. The best the world can offer!) Even when yesterday I specifically asked "do you want to help me vacuum?" Vacuum, coffee, practically the same thing at 11am.

Monday we went to the aquarium for the morning, to meet up with my friend and former boss Anja and her two kiddos. GG is ten and was such a good little helper with Ellie, and Edwards is eight and hilarious. The aquarium was much less crowded than when we went in the spring for Ellie's field trip, so we really got a chance to check out all of the tanks and actually learn a little something. We arrived just as the divers were feeding the fish in the big tank, so that was pretty awesome. And this time around, Ellie was brave enough to touch all of the animals in the touch pools. I let Adam touch the jellyfish, but he quickly proved that even with only using his pointer finger, he does not really have gentle hands (he was practically shoving the jellyfish around.)

Tuesday Ellie went to school for her Thanksgiving feast, corn muffins in tow. I'm glad her teacher knows that if something needs to be baked, we'll bake it! And this morning she was so happy to help me roll out pie crusts and make pecan pies, which are far superior to pumpkin, and the only pie worthy of love this, or any holiday season.

Our other big fun was Sunday night, Ellie's first viewing of the Wizard of Oz.

I haven't seen the whole movie in years and years, and so it was so fun to see it again, and see it through Ellie's eyes. She said she didn't like it initially, because she didn't like the mean witch, but in the days following has said that she DID like it. Her main question was how the Wicked Witch could be a girl if she didn't have eyelashes. Perhaps someday she will learn to love Dorothy as much as she loves Elsa.

Lastly, a picture of Adam and his skinny guy problem. Long legs, not enough butt to keep his pants up.

Once More Into the Breach.

Dear friends, it has started again, down the path of home renovation. Glen came over this week to do a walk through and an examination of our bathrooms, which we will be ripping to the studs and rebuilding. I will save the before pictures for another day, but suffice to say, it's going to be an improvement. We'll bring those bathrooms right into the 21st century! Glen is such a character - he's so chatty and so goofy, but he takes care of us. He said since the spaces are so small (compared to the giant, high end houses he usually works on) that he has a lot of remnant tile we could use. Today I went and picked out granite pieces for the guest bathroom and the fireplace (we'll redo the brick. You know, because once you start one project you find a million things to add on!) But he's got an idea for the master bathroom and has basically told me to put all of my own ideas on hold. Fine Glen, you're the boss! I just write the checks around here! And also, I'll always skip writing a check if I can get some free granite out of the deal!

Here are some nuggets of joy from the children:

Ellie came out of her room the other morning in her pink bunny slippers. Adam ran over, said "hop hop!" and then leaned over to kiss them.

Adam is using new words every day. My favorite is that he's learning to say help instead of just screaming in frustration.

Today Ellie told Gig, very seriously "Gigi, I'm afraid I have to tell you something." (DRAMATIC PAUSE) "A tree in our backyard, it has a LEMON." I don't think she quite understands the preface "I'm afraid I have to tell you something." She's actually been using a bunch of weird little phrases lately, like the verbal goofus she is. She is very against people teasing me lately (since I am so easily annoyed) and when Tim was ribbing me the other day she told him "I caught you in the act! You stop it right now!"

Lulu has taken to spending a lot of time sleeping on Ellie's bed, since she got her new Princess blanket. So when nap time rolls around, Lulu and Ellie snuggle for a little while and then I pick Lulu up and take her with me. Ellie has now started requesting that I make Lulu wave at her. Lulu is not pleased.

Adam is really loving peekaboo lately, and it's so cute. Because he doesn't really hide most of the time. The "I closed my eyes so you can't see me" school of toddler though kills me every time.

We Run the City.

The Bad News Bruins made a triumphant return to the We Run the City 5K on Sunday, to benefit Special Olympics. This year our team was nine members, and we raised close to a thousand dollars. Even though I felt like I hauled some serious ass up and down the hills of Westwood, my time this year was almost identical to my time last year. But as I told Ellie, if you do your best, you're a winner.

I ran with our friend Erlynne, and Tim and the kids walked with our other friends. Ellie ran the entire first mile, and then sulked in the stroller for the rest because she was mad I wasn't with them. Sorry kid, mama's got to do what mama's got to do!

However, she was an absolute trooper the rest of the morning. She walked around campus and all the way into Westwood, chatting to my old roommate Annie the whole time. She waited patiently when it took forty five minutes for our brunch orders to come. And then she ate the rubbery pancakes and subpar eggs! She waited with me to get Diddy Reese cookies and then walked back to the car, showing Annie and Brandon how she can "run on tippy toes" and tried to climb every tree we saw. Then thankfully, slept a bit on the way home. Unfortunately, neither kid thought they needed to continue their naps when we got home. Early bed times for everyone! And by that I mean it's almost 9pm, I need to go to sleep, I'm exhausted.

Gruesome Twosome.

These two kids, they are nutty. They are such a pair, even if half the time I feel like I'm pulling Ellie off of Adam because she's hugging him to hard, or telling him that she can't take toys directly out of his hands. But they truly love and adore each other. When we pick Ellie up from school, Adam runs into her classroom and the two of them stand and embrace and kiss each other like they've been trapped on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall for years.

Here they are, happily visiting with Mr. Lizard (aka Midnight) after school.

Here they are, helping their dad fix a busted stroller tire (that's right, we have tools and Tim knows how to use them!)

Oh, and here they are at their artists colony.

Lastly, book club:

Overwatch.

Yesterday was a very, very big day in our house. Tim's new game debuted at Blizzon, which is a big fan festival that his company puts on every year. The tickets are $300 a head and they sell out in minutes, for people who love the Blizzard universe and all of the games. There's no other vendors or games available, just all Blizzard all the time, and people absolutely eat it up, as a chance to see how their sausage is made, and as a way to meet up with people in person who they might only know via the various games. It's loud and crazy and busy, but also with a really communal, family feel, and all of the speakers emphasized that it was about the fans, and it was about being a family. 

So. Tim could hardly sleep the night before, and was out early to go meet up with Jake and get a place in line for the opening ceremonies. I arrived a little later and went to my saved seat, where I was surrounded by nervous developers ready to cry with anticipation. The first part of opening ceremonies was about the games that everyone is already familiar with, and then the Creative Director came out and announced that Blizzard was releasing it's first new intellectual property in seventeen years. And then, cue the cinematic trailer, and the tears from all of the nerds seated around us, watching their baby on screen for the first time. You can see the trailer here.

Apparently during the trailer, the executives back stage were all bawling as well. And all of the guys were pulling off their sweatshirts (or in Tim's case, his polo shirt) to reveal their Overwatch promotional tee shirts. It was like at the end of Apollo 13 - so many nerdy dudes, so much emotion. The thing that really made Tim cry was a picture that Gigi sent of the kids snuggling up with Grizz and watching the live stream of the release.  

Then they announced that the game was not just a concept, not just a trailer, but an actual playable game, and there were 600 monitors in the other hall available for people to go and play right away. It was just unreal to see how happy Tim was to finally see people playing his game, and it was amazing to me too to see this fun, playable, interesting game that came out of all of these people's brains, and was built with their hands (or as Tim likes to call them, his "valuable typing fingers.") I got a chance to sit down and play later in the day, and I am not very good (okay, I'm straight up terrible) but I had a great time. I am unspeakably proud of him, and how much work he's putting into this game. We moved down here so that he'd have the opportunity to work at his dream job, making a brand new, record breaking game, and to see all of that hard work start to come to fruition was beyond fantastic. And because of the intimacy of Blizzard, he got to actually talk to players and talk to fans and get their immediate feedback, which helps lift his spirits, and helps guide the developers as they finish making the game for release to the wider public. 

I can't wait to see what he does next, and I'm so glad I got to be there holding his hand while he watched his baby be born. 

Catch Up

I'm sorry, I'm a terrible blogger. We hardly took any pictures on Halloween, and the ones Tim did take also feature his finger on the lens. But the kids had a great time, Ellie perhaps a little moreso than poor tired Adam, who thought he didn't need a nap that day. He spent most of his time in the ergo, but Ellie happily trick or treated, said thank you several times, and then ran back to us screaming that she'd said thank you.

Last weekend was also went to the big bounce house place for a school friend's birthday party, and the rest of the week has been business as usual. And this video is representative of what that business is - those kids love each other so much that when I let Adam go wake Ellie up, it turns into a big snugglefest.