Spring Rewind

A lot has happened since my last post so I'm going to give a very condensed version here. We celebrated Easter with Uncle Matt and Aunt Jill...fun all around. We're still doing t-ball and Will has a few more games before the season is over. Keith left on deployment and Allyson has begun figuring out how to keep her sanity for the foreseeable future. We're also counting down til summer, which means Archer can start preschool and Will can do a bunch of camps. Perfect!

Play Ball

Will began his journey into t-ball this month and so far things are going really well. He's on the Coronado Reds team and his two coaches are wonderful! They herd cats while manage to instill some fundamentals in them at the same time. Impressive! Will is doing really well. He and Keith are enjoying practicing t-ball together, although Will is much more interested in batting than catching and throwing. We'll have to work on that. So far he's had 3 games and he did well in all. It's a bit of a mixed bag on the teams so we have everything from serious 5 year old players to flower pickers in the outfield. It's a lot of fun for everyone. Here are some pics. Go #10!

Enough about Will

...that's what Archer says. Enough about Will and his accomplishments! What about me? The second kid? Long forgotten? Little brother who doesn't get to do anything cool? (All said in a super whiny voice, of course.):) But really, it's time to give a fun little update on Mr. Archer Dean himself. AKA: Batman, Rookie, Spider Web Man, Puppy, Kitty, Fireman and sometimes Fire Batman. He's 2 1/2 and has fully, completely embraced the terrible twos. Communication is getting better (words! glorious words!) but I'm afraid I've ruined him with my "he's my baby!" mentality. Paybacks!

As you can see, he's a big fan of dressing up. Yesterday he wore Will's footed pajamas all day over his regular clothes. Tonight he went to bed in pajamas with Will's Halloween costume on top. Whatever. As long as get make it out the door, I figure we're good. Plus you never know when you'll be at the grocery store and need a super hero to save you. I feel safe knowing I've usually brought one with me.

Archer is getting rather dramatic as well as sassy. Today the boys were discussing whose turn it was to pick the tv show to watch and when I told them it was Will's turn, Archer says, in a most wounded voice, "My heart is ripping!" while simultaneously grabbing his chest. Exit stage left, Mr. Drama. When he's posed with a question (anything ranging from do you want carrots or apples? to do you need to go potty?) and he stops whatever he's doing, looks thoughtfully up at the ceiling, rubs his chin and/or wags his finger in the air and seems to ponder his choices for a while. Then he announces his choice with gusto! He's a character, that's for sure.

A recent exchange between the boys while playing telephone went like this: Will: Hello? Who is this? Archer: Archer Will: Archer who? Archer: me! hahaha

Somehow he's picked up an interest in punching and kicking things. I don't know where he got this but it's turned into quite an embarrassing subject. We went to Mount Laguna a few weeks ago to play in the snow. While we were sledding on the mountain, a family hiked up with their little chihuahua in a coat (that's a whole other issue!) Archer didn't understand what it was and kept asking if it was a baby. I said no, it's a puppy. Quite loudly he asks, "Can I kick it?" :0 The dog owner snatched up her dog and took off. Where did he get that? Awful! He's also recently asked if he could punch Keith and me. Maybe he'll be an ultimate fighter? Two of my favorite Archerisms of the moment: "Alrighty!" and "Ready, Steady, Goey!" :) He's a laugh a minute. I can't even do him justice in his post. He keeps us on our toes, that's for sure. Fingers crossed he gets into the 3 day/week preschool program for next school year. It's time!!!

Artist in Residence

It seems that Will has recently caught the art bug and spends a lot of his free time drawing pictures. And he's come a long way. We can now tell what he's drawing and he even adds expressions and details. This must be a 5 year old thing. I used to have to encourage him to draw/color and now he's all about it. Young Rembrandt, perhaps? Jackson Pollock? Only time will tell. Until then, here are some of my favs. He went through a house drawing phase:

This is the world with asteroids and rocketships going around:

Ghosts and otherworldly things:

He was in a map drawing phase for a while. X marks the spot!

Then he got big into drawing people so we have some fun depictions of "us". Archer added the balloon stickers below. He drew the parachute guys after Keith got to skydive with the Navy Leap Frog team. Very cool.

He also went through (is still in?) a big patriotic/ethnocentric phase and he draws lots of pics showing how America is the best and every other country isn't. Oh boy. Please note the American and China missiles heading toward one another. You can't make this stuff up. Great lesson, World Atlas!

I like the detail on the skeletons below:

And my favorite...I've been sick so he drew me a cup of tea to make me feel better. :)

Belated Christmas

Somehow it's already January 23rd (yikes!) and I have yet to post about Christmas. I'm anything but punctual these days it would seem. So I'll give the short and sweet roundup. We stayed local, Aunt Jill and Uncle Matt joined us, we had a snowball fight on the beach, built a "snowman" on the beach (out of some funky sure-to-be toxic pellet things), and ate, drank and were merry. The San Diego weather was wonderful and although Will really wanted snow, we were happy to substitute with snow from a can this year. The boys must have been good because Santa brought too many toys, as usual. Silly Santa! So after donating old toys to make room for the new, we are back in the swing of things. For now.

Boys with freshly decorated cookies for Santa

Making our toxic, bird killing "snowman" on the beach

Snowball fight on the beach

Presents! Star Wars, construction trucks and an aircraft carrier, oh my!

The boys got Just Dance Kids for Wii and it was a BIG hit. Not sure if the adults or kids enjoyed it more.

A December to Remember

Well December is more than half over (it's almost Christmas!?!) and I have yet to post an update. Hmmmm...what to post? Well we've had a fun, exhausting, expensive month. That just about sums it up. The kids and I all shared a cold that still has us coughing weeks later (delicious). Keith worked his butt off all fall just to find out that he won't be deploying in January as planned due to some problems with the boat. Joy! So he's home for now and we get to do this whole pre-deployment fun again in a few months. But at least he's home for now! We attended what felt like 452 holiday parties but, in reality, was probably closer to 7 or 8. We've spread our Christmas joy all over this town; luckily we smell like peppermint so it's all good.

Will had his holiday sing-along at school on Wednesday. All the Kindergarteners wore white shirts with festive bows on them (I kid you not...they were festive for sure). They sang general holiday songs, Christmas songs and Hanukkah songs. I was hoping for a Kwanzaa song or two but nothing on that end. Maybe next year. The bonus about this concert: it was joyously short. Like 25 minutes short. That makes me smile! Unfortunately we couldn't see Will, as he was in the front row and we were packed in like sardines. I tried to get a few pictures of the top of his head though. Something to remember the occasion by!

As you can see above, Will apparently thinks there will be a Pirate's of the Caribbean toy under the tree for him this year. Well, there's not. He asked Santa for Annakin Skywalker's Speederbike with R2D2 so that's what "Santa" got. Next year I'm going to make him write it down so he doesn't forget.

The Magic of Disney

There's a reason that Disneyland is called the Happiest Place on Earth. When done right, it just might be. The weekend before Thanksgiving we headed up to Disneyland and California Adventure and we had a great time. We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel on the Disneyland Resort (this year I'm thankful for Disney's military deals). Our hotel was stunning; it was like a huge Craftsman lodge. And of course, being Disney, everything was decorated perfectly and impeccably clean. We got in on the holiday fun; they had put out the Christmas decorations the week prior so we got to see all of the finery...and at Disney, there's a lot of it. I purposely wanted to go during the holiday season because I think it's so magical. I mean, they make it snow inside the park after the fireworks each night! Of course, I'm pretty sure Disney could make Taco Tuesday seem magical too.

We spent a day and a half at Disneyland and rode almost all of the rides we were tall enough to ride. Some highlights were (for Will) Star Tours in Tomorrowland (based on Star Wars, of course), Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and Pirates of the Caribbean. We all enjoyed It's a Small World, especially because we have the book at home. Archer didn't seem to have a favorite ride in particular; he enjoyed them all. He was a little unsure of meeting the characters at first but finally perked up on the second day when we met Handy Manny. We also met Goofy and had breakfast with Chip 'n Dale and their woodland friends.

The big highlight at California Adventure is the new Cars Land, based on the movie Cars. Wow...it was impressive. Walking down the main drag was just like being on set in the movie. We met Lightning McQueen and saw Mater from a distance. It was pretty cool. The line to ride the Radiator Springs Racers (the top ride apparently) was too long so we skipped that one but will try to hit it when we return some day down the line.

There are too many highlights to name here but the moral of this story is that we had a great time. Every night before bed Archer tells Keith "I had fun at Dinneyland." There's no better advertisement than that!