3 years + 5 months!

Caleb, Eli, and Thomas
3yrs and 5mo old!

Randomly the boys asked if I could take their picture up here (TCE)

some out takes 

Caleb making a mom face, haha!

up a little closer : )

Till next time!

No Time For Mom

We had a fun filled week since my mom was visiting. The boys got very attached as they usually do when their mama Elda is around so they pretty much forgot all about me and only had eyes for her. Not gonna lie, it was really nice, especially when it came to certain chores like dressing them since they only wanted my mom to dress them. Here are some highlights...

Checking out the nite bright pillow pets my mom got them

At the boys' request my mom read them Little Red Riding Hood like 200 times!

We made tamales!!!
 I made sure to write down all the nitty gritty details of the procedure this time so I can make them on my own now! Who's up for a tamale fest?! (but you have to help cause it's a ton of work, ha!)

The boys helped make mini tamales : )

We visited papi at work one day and he went on a coffee break with us (the only break he ever took on that 12 hour work day, working OT for a deadline!)

The boys played in the park outside Phil's work downtown.
How cute does Superman look here?!

Saturday morning we dropped off my mom at the airport and cheered our selves up by going out to our fav pizza place for happy hour.

We ordered a slice per person figuring that they wouldn't finish the enormous slices and I could finish whatever they left....

Wrong! They ate every last bite! Which means they ate as much as I did (I was pretty full after one slice)!

Dad with Eli and Caleb

Random but this was outside the pizza place : )
Princess Caleb grants you three wishes!

Swim Lessons Take 2

Our first round of swim lessons went ok (back in October), the boys were a little too excited and didn't listen as well as they should have but they did good enough for me to sign them up again 3 months later. I really really really want them to learn to swim, mostly because I never learned to swim myself! I just want that one in the bag and don't want to risk it being shoved under the table for later, so to speak. Well we are 3 days into swim lessons round 2 and I'm kind of regretting it. It's been a combination of things. For starters the first day Eli jumped into the shallow end (where the water only comes up to his chest), he jumped in funny to where he leaned over and drank a mouthful of water. He started coughing and after too much coughing I took him out of the pool and seconds later he threw up on the ground. I found out later that if he had thrown up IN the pool they would have shut down the pool and made everyone leave (it was embarrassing as it is and I would have died of embarrassment if that had happened!!!). Secondly, I'm constantly on the sidelines telling the boys to listen to the teacher or reiterating what the teacher tells them to do. Third, I'm not crazy happy with their new teacher (I'll save you the details). The second day, surprisingly, went really well, the boys listened so well despite the fact that they combined two classes because one of the teachers was out sick. I breathed a sigh of relief that it'd be smooth sailing from there. Finally, day 3, Eli decided he was just going to sit this one out because he said he was too cold (and he woke up really cranky from his nap). Then at one point the teacher takes the class to the deep end (3 feet) where the slide is and as she's instructing another student to do a back float Caleb, out of the blue, decides to stand up and JUMP IN! Well it takes a couple of seconds for the teacher to put the other student down and fish Caleb out. The boy comes out smiling and as happy as can be! He's fearless!!!

...so I guess we'll keep going but I'm kind of dreading the next class...

Day one, waiting impatiently to get in (as you can see in the video below)!

Thomas pretending to be an elephant with his bacon tie

The boys got a castle

Pretending to take a nap in it

Two days after it stopped snowing and we can finally go out to play without a million layers on!

$1 sundaes at Burgerville!

Like father like son

All ready for Sunday meeting!
I generally opt for the nice sweater and slacks. But every once in a while I like to bust out the shirt and tie combo, even though they only look good for 5 minutes and then spend the rest of the meeting with their tie off center and their shirts untucked, ha!

snuggles

Snowblob

Winter blast 2014 is coming to an end and it was sure fun to enjoy the unusual appearance of snow in Portland! We were home (or in the neighborhood) from Friday through Sunday and we managed not to get cabin fever, although if it had lasted another day we may have been compelled to put the chains on the car. But even then it just wasn't that safe to drive, Phil and I like the rest of Portland are not used to driving in the snow. People were slipping and sliding all over the place and having accidents because of it. Definitely a good thing we just stayed put! The snow has been thawing out since Sunday night but there is still plenty of snow on the ground but it's not pretty like before, it's all brown and sloshy! It makes me glad we don't have to deal with snow on a regular basis. I'm guessing it'll be completely gone by tomorrow, lets hope because it's real yucky. We may not get another storm like this for another 5 years since our last one was in 2008, the boys will be 8 years old by then, wow! Crazy to think that far into the future!

What does it take to make a good snowman? We will seriously need to google it next time because they are harder to make than you'd think! No making fun, we're from California, ha! Here is the snowblob Phil and the boys made, they couldn't have been happier with it! The boys are kind of obsessed with snowmen this year, don't know why but it's too cute : )

Thomas

My job was to stay nice and warm inside and take pictures from the window, hahaha!

ETC around Mr Snowblob

Eli ate his weight in snow, I don't think you're supposed to, right?
Oh well, there was no stopping him!

As Phil was putting the sleds away and the boys couldn't help themselves from a little bike riding.
Ridiculous, right?!

This pretty much sums up our time indoors. 

Eli bundling up to go to the corner store with dad so the adults could have some wine with dinner!
Thank goodness we live within walking distance to a couple dozen stores and restaurants (even if half of them were closed, ha!).

Woo hoo! First time out after the big storm! (CTE)

Snowed In!

We are getting quite the snow storm! We got a little snow storm not too long ago but it only lasted a day and never prevented us from using the car. But it's looking like this one is gonna last several days! The last time this happened was 2008, and just like that time the whole city is shutting down. Since Phil commutes to work on his bike he could have easily gone in to work today but he decided to stay so we could all go play in the snow. It's just too bad the boys are still fighting off a cold that doesn't want to leave! It's been over a week and we can't seem to get rid of it, ugh! Our fun didn't last too long before the boys started getting cranky and we had to head home. Can't blame the sickness entirely because it was also really cold, 25 degrees (that's crazy cold for us). We don't even own snow boots and rain boots plus two layers of socks left my feet feeling like icicles, ouch! It has started snowing again as I'm typing this, looks like we'll be hunkering down in our warm cozy house for a couple more days...

Snugly story time

Last night Thomas kept grabbing his ear and crying (but no fever). I thought for sure he was getting an ear infection (although we've never had one before). I gave him some tylenol and he fell asleep on the couch. He woke up this morning as normal as can be, I hope that was the end of that?!

Thursday we woke up to no snow what so ever.
Top picture is right as it started snowing.
Middle picture is that same day around 4pm.
Bottom picture is this morning.

On our way to a snowy adventure

It was a long walk to the bluff for such little legs!

Ready...Set...

Go

Thomas

Caleb

Can't Wait To Dance!

We went to a friends wedding this weekend and it was a good thing the boys brought their dancing shoes with them because they sure danced their little hearts out! 

The beautiful wedding party!

E and T

They were good boys while waiting for noms

with T

C and Phil

The cupcakes did not disappoint!

nom nom nom

Dancing machines!
I wish I could have taken more pictures and videos but like most dance floors the lighting conditions were dark so I gave up after a couple pictures. 

Here is a little video before they opened up the dance floor, Eli just couldn't wait to boogie down!