The Bayer Update: 2013

Sunday, December 29, 2013

these two

Before I get around to posting all the glorious shenanigans of Christmas, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite photos from the last few weeks…of the two greatest gifts we could ever have. I love these two.

wearing Daddy's new hat

wearing Santa's hat

bath time giggles and lots and lots of splashing

just can't get enough of these two faces

Monday, December 16, 2013

Ant-a!

Kaitlyn's vocabulary has exploded recently. Or else she is just really good at repeating everything she hears. But one of my favorite words of late is "Ant-a"! As in, Santa. And she yells it. Along with "Mickey". That girl is emphatic.

And to be honest, the trip to see Santa almost didn't happen this year. We've had a lot going on, as everyone does this time of year, and given Ry's track record of wanting nothing to do with sitting on Santa's lap, we kinda felt like we might skip it. But then, this morning, Ryan's cough was still going strong enough to keep him home from school, and we had nothing else planned. So off we went. To share Ryan's cough with Santa. Thank goodness there was NO line! And the kids were in good spirits (and Ryan amazingly didn't cough once while sitting on the big man's lap). And the sight of the two of them walking up to Santa, holding hands, was enough to melt my heart.

This year there were no tears, both kiddos had brave faces, and even managed to smile a tad. Ryan whispered what he wanted Santa to bring him, and then Santa told me he heard Kaitlyn say a few words but wasn't quite sure what they were. It didn't matter. This photo was well worth the effort.

Hoping your holiday seasons have been magical, and not too crazy. Happy Holidays!

Monday, December 9, 2013

cooooooooold!

It's true, I did at one time live in the coldest place in the lower 48 states. Well, I think it was the coldest place anyway. People shouldn't inhabit places that are colder. Boston can be miserable at times. And since I've been back in sunny CA for 8+ years now, I realize that I may have gotten a bit soft. A high of 45 degrees is cold for us here! I know I'm whining, we don't even get snow here!

This morning was the icing on the cake. Eddy got up for work, turned on the shower, and no water came out. Anywhere. It's not that we had been ignoring the news reports of freezing temps at night and protect your pipes, yadda yadda. It's just that we've been in this house for 9 years and we've never had a problem. And it's been cold here lately, but I know it's been colder than this. I mean, it's not Boston cold or anything. So anyway, no water. Panic mode sets in. Frozen pipes can quickly mean burst pipes, which just means inconvenience and probably a lot of money we don't want to spend. So at 6:30 this morning, we were out front with my hairdryer warming up the pipes that are exposed…and luck would have it, that trick works! In 5 minutes or less we had running water again! And now we have a lovely looking foam insulation around those pipes in hopes of preventing another morning like this one.

I don't have much else exciting to report for our goings on the last few days. We've been staying warm. Indoors. Enjoying our Christmas decorations and holiday tunes. But here's a pic of our wiggliest young one, for the one brief second that she stood still on Friday while at a birthday party for a friend of Ryan's from preschool…at a park. Brrrrr! But kids don't care, do they? Certainly not this wiggly kid of ours.

Stay warm out there!

Monday, December 2, 2013

turkey day

This was a wonderful long weekend at our house. For the first time in a long time, neither Eddy nor I had to work any of the days involved with this holiday. Not Thanksgiving day, nor Friday, nor the weekend. It was fabulous. So we did the usual stuff…I ran a 10K turkey trot on Thanksgiving day, we baked a few pies, went to Eddy's sister Andrea's place for dinner, hung out with E's family that day. We had Tracy watch the kids as usual on Friday, and Eddy and I played golf (well, 11 holes for me, which was just about perfect). Eddy and I had a date night on Saturday to see Cirque du Soleil in San Francisco, and had a lovely dinner before with some good friends. And Sunday we spent the day decorating the house for Christmas! A lovely lovely weekend.
Hope your Thanksgiving was just as joyous as ours was.

Cousin BJ teaching his daughter Kensie how to kick the ball to Ryan

Kaitlyn, the dog lover

Uncle Chris had been in Bahrain with the Navy for the last 6 months, was supposed to be home next week, but surprised Andrea on Thanksgiving morning and just showed up at their house! What a fabulous surprise. Welcome home Chris! And thanks for hosting a fabulous dinner Drea and Chris!

Eddy's mom's side of the family (minus her brother, Uncle Ed and his whole brood)

the whole crew…the family, but family friends Teddy & Anita, and Ellen and her son

Auntie Judy & Uncle Joe, and their great grandkids Kensie and Camden

and what good party doesn't end with someone like this?

Monday, November 18, 2013

it was bound to happen

Ryan is a darn good bike rider. Maybe too good, because recently he's started testing the waters a bit. Doing funny tricks, like swerving back and forth, purposely hitting the potholes, etc. Well yesterday he was a bit too daring, swerved a bit too hard, and his face got up close and personal with the pavement. He was wearing his helmet like always, but that didn't help because his chin and face broke his fall. Ouch. Once we got the bloody mouth washed out, and the scrapes wiped up, bandaids put everywhere that we could reasonably put bandaids (figured they wouldn't stick to his teeth so well), and once he finally calmed down, like a true 4 year old kid he was ready to go meet our friends the Porterfields at the playground. So we went, and he had a great time. Sorry we were a bit late Laura and Andy!

Later that day, back at the ranch we call home, I had a little more time to look at his front tooth, and realized he definitely chipped the two front teeth (oh well, that's why they are baby teeth, right?) but was mostly worried about his gum being all scraped up.

So this morning, instead of the preschool field trip to visit the farm animals which we were planning on doing, we took another trip to the dentist. Luckily, Ry was a trooper and sat in the chair to take an X-ray, he opened his mouth when he was asked, and didn't even flinch when the dentist pushed on his teeth. So for now, we are looking good. Just need to go for another X-ray in 6 weeks to make sure all is well. Thank goodness!

in the X-ray chair. He really is still just a little boy!

showing off his war wounds, the chin and his fingers are what hurt the most

Sorry for the graphic photo below, close your eyes if you are faint at heart...

After all was said and done, and since Eddy was with us today after working the weekend, we decided a lunch stop at Fenton's was in order. And of course, a meal at Fenton's is always followed with some ice cream. We were all happy campers, especially little miss K, despite this face she gave us after every single bite of ice cream we gave her.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

November birthdays

We had my parents over on Saturday, they came to help us out and babysit the kids while I worked and Eddy went to the Cal game, but then they stayed for a birthday celebration dinner. For Ryan, and for Dzia Dzia. The two November birthdays in the family. It's not every day you get to share your birthday cake, chocolate frosting and sprinkles of course, with your cool Grandpa.

they explored Benicia State Park during the day, and Kaitlyn apparently befriended someone else's dog (like she does with any 4 legged friend she sees)

The birthday celebration at home...

they managed to blow out all 4 candles

Kaitlyn needs a lesson on this, as she actually ate part of her candle. Wax is good for you, right?

a great shot of my parents, not so much of my kids. Oh well, 2 for 4 ain't bad. Thanks again for being such great grandparents Nanny and Dzia Dzia!

beach time

That's right….we hit the beach, in November. Only in California.
Truth is, we knew it would be a long ride home from Disneyland, so why not stretch it out and take advantage of this beautiful place we live? We took the scenic road home, through LA and Malibu, stopped mid way in Pismo Beach for 2 nights. And had a wonderful, low key day on the beach. The kids loved it, there were no lines to wait in like at Disneyland, and it was a breath of fresh air. And it made the drive home a little more tolerable.

the view from our hotel, looking down on Pismo Beach

so maybe she wasn't dressed too appropriately for the beach, but hey, we were down to slim pickings on her attire given it was the end of the trip

chasing sea gulls

these 2 pelicans were HUGE, and definitely not afraid of people. I did not use the zoom to take this photo.

we are standing at the end of the pier that you can see in the first photo. Took us all day to walk down here from the hotel, and back, but totally worth it.

Monday, November 11, 2013

birthday boy

Hard to believe that this little man is now 4 years old. Ryan has grown so much in the last year.

He is much more confident in new or different situations, no longer hiding behind my legs for the first 20 minutes but instead running ahead of us exploring everything around every turn.

He continues to be a fairly athletic little guy, loves to ride his bike constantly (good thing, because on my runs I all but refuse to push his 45 lb self in the stroller anymore), play soccer or t-ball, and is happiest on the playground where he can run, jump, climb, hang upside down and of course swing to his heart's content (for which he is now well versed in pumping his legs to keep himself going on the swings -- something I credit preschool with teaching him because he learned it somewhere and it wasn't us).

He has started to drop his nap, and is down to maybe 2 or 3 days per week of actual nap sleep, but on the days he doesn't nap he does fairly well at doing quiet time in his room. His ability to play alone is amazing, as is his imagination.

He is falling in love with "little legos", building and creating landscapes and worlds with his lego people.

He knows his ABCs, he can count to 20, is constantly singing songs, and he is learning to write his name...but I have recently begun to realize he may be a bit of a perfectionist, as he gets very frustrated when he writes the letters to his name "but they are not perfect Mommy!". Oh jeez.

He still loves loves loves books, loves looking at pictures and being read to. He has memorized many of his books, and pretends to read them to Kaitlyn at times.

We were actually in Disneyland for Ryan's birthday, which is a pretty cool place to spend your birthday. They give you a button to wear, and every employee then wishes you a big genuine happy birthday, all day long.