Life with Jack & Zach: Memorial Weekend

I can hardly believe it is the end of May. We have a very exciting week ahead with lots of activity…Steve’s birthday, my mom comes into town, and our boys turn 3! Because of all the excitement on the horizon we kept things low key this past Memorial Weekend. It was better off that way too. Anyone with Toddlers (with us starting at 2 ½ years) know this age comes with a sense of heightened Independence, knowing how far they can push the parents buttons, and lack of cooperation can occur at any time. Hmmm, sounds like this will never truly go away…HA! We did experience moments like that over the weekend. Was our patience level tested this past weekend….for sure it was. However, I will say our boys eventually understand their behavior was wrong. They are adapting to life and are slowly trying to understand what they can and cannot have, wrong and right, and well the hardships that come along when they choose not to listen. I follow a lot of different blogs and I find more comfort in reading the ones where their lives are not fabricated because let’s face it…children/people are not perfect---they demonstrate the reality that involves good and bad days, and I think parents feel relieved knowing that others are being faced with the same hurdles so we are not alone.

Steve and I were able to leave work early on Friday and stopped at Zona’s on the way home for an appetizer and drink and talked about work related items. He is doing very well in his job, and happy to hear how well he is advancing in almost two years. Things are going well for me too. At the end of the day we both are just fortunate to have the opportunity to work for great companies.

Saturday is typically our day to run errands and to do things around the house. Saturday was for the most part mellow. After their nap we had our neighbor's daughter, Niki come over to babysit. We just wanted to have a nice dinner sans kids and where did we go...of course PF Changs. It was nice and were home in time for bedtime! The end of our three day weekend was more interactive.

Sunday was our first block party with some of our neighbors. It was a good time getting together, grilling out, and passing around some yummy dishes that we all brought. The boys enjoyed playing with some of the neighbor kids where hockey was involved…shocker. J They really are doing well with the sport and I cannot wait to enroll them in sports when they turn 4. There are some programs in our vicinity they can participate in at the age of 3 that I will consider once I am able to get some additional information, but for the most part sports start at age 4. We are in no rush at all, but we love watching them get so excited and it allows them to burn the energy all while interacting with others. We were outside for most of the afternoon and it felt good to soak up some Vitamin D. We ended the evening by watching a couple of new Backyardigan episodes with of course…popcorn.

The boys (more Jack) have been sleeping in a little later these days and I am suspecting they might be gearing up for another growth spurt. We take them on June 8th for their well check up so it will be interesting to have a good dialogue with their Pediatrician on development and milestones, etc. This well check up I have a feeling will be more interactive since we changed over to this new practice two months ago. I am excited for my mom to meet Dr. Abelowitz.

Monday was spent taking care of the lawn and trees. In California you must take care of the palm trees on your property because if not monitored closely the palms can fall and really cause some damage; not just to your property but hurt people too. We got a quote, but then opted to do it ourselves, well Steve did it himself. It was a mad dash to Lowes and purchased a special saw just for this purpose. It is quite the workout on the arms, but the boys loved helping their Daddy clean up. Steve put on his hard hat while sawing some of the palms off, and the boys always get a kick out of that. Since Steve is in the field of construction he has quite a few hard hats and so the boys get to pick out their own hat and wear it around the yard. Yep, I even have my very own…pink too! J After they woke from their nap, we went down to Dana Point Harbor. They boys loved watching the boats idle through the harbor and seeing the fish jump out of the water. We were teaching them the different boats as they idled passed. On one occasion we asked Zach what kind of boat--he responded, big boat. Yep, he was correct. A yacht passed us. HA. Visiting the harbor surely stirred up memories of our time boating.

Here are some Kodak moments of our Memorial Weekend.