November 3, 2013

Justin went back to school this week.  It was good to get back into our routine.  Of course since I couldn't sleep in, the boys were much quieter in the mornings.  Grrr...

Justin won an award for best fantasy book (really a story) in the school contest.  I don't know what the age categories were.  I knew there was a contest, but I hadn't know that he had actually been using his free time at school to work on his story.  Unfortunately, by the time I retrieved the story out of his backpack, some of the pages were missing.  I never told him because I figured he would have a fit.  He was so excited about receiving recognition for his writing that I didn't want to ruin the mood.  The story was based on one that he had written last year in kindergarten.  A man buys a bag of jellybeans and one by one they escape from the bag and cause some sort of trouble.  A lot of their mischief involves noises such as bam, pow, ow, and boom.  In the end, the man is able to enter a secret code into the computer to make them normal jellybeans again.  I was just thrilled that he wrote and used lowercase letters appropriately instead of all caps.

 

It was a busy week to prepare for all of the Halloween festivities.  I was not foolish enough to volunteer to be in charge of the Fall Festival at J's school, but I did try to help as much as I could.  That meant assisting with decorating and making up over 200 treat bags.  I am glad that it is over.

 

 

Wednesday at about 3:00 AM I found Ryan standing by my bed crying.  He had thrown up on his hand and foot while trying to get to the toilet.  He had been complaining about his stomach on and off Tuesday, but in typical Ryan fashion he generally complained when it was time to do something.  We had some bile and raisins come up again, but Ryan is pretty good about getting it into the toilet or a bowl so there was minimal mess.  Because he had thrown up and been up since 3:00, I told him that he could stay home from school and rest.  He cried and promised that he would be good at school.  I explained that if his tummy hurt he shouldn't go.  He acted like I was crazy and told me that his tummy didn't hurt anymore because he threw up.  I let him go to school.  He seemed fine except for not wanting to eat.  We went to the Embassy for trick or treating and he continued to act fine.  We went to the Marine House to watch a movie and have some treats and he was excited for popcorn.  He chowed down and the promptly told me that he didn't feel well.  We went outside and he puked on the lawn.  Poor kid.  He wanted to go in and have popcorn, but I said it was time to go home.  Such a mean mom!

 

This is Justin in what he calls a dancing zombie costume.  The wig didn't last long because it was hot inside the Embassy.

Ryan got another year's use out of the alien costume.  People thought he was adorable.

Here are my boys getting ready to get their candy and sit down for the movie.



On Thursday I made cupcakes for Friday's Fall Festival and went to Justin's school to help decorate.  When Justin got out of class, we came home to get ready for Halloween.  We went to the little community party, but didn't stay long.  Ryan was enjoying the games, but Justin was annoyed that they were speaking Armenian most of the time.  Imagine that, speaking Armenian in Armenia!  I told him to just watch what the other kids were doing to know how to play the games.  They were translating too, but Justin was just not that into it.  The boys were both a bit tired from the previous night and excited for trick or treating in a couple of hours, so that didn't help either.

Zombie cupcakes with bones

Some of the decorations ready to be put up.  Dagny MADE all of them by finding patterns online and cutting the pics out of tissue paper.  I think there were about 60 of them total!

These boys are impossible to get a picture of because they are always playing around.

Here's Ryan the pirate and Justin the skeleton.

Ryan got into the games and the dances.

Could it be Justin participating?!?!
 

FINALLY after Rob came home it was time for trick or treating and the party and Cyrus' house.  The boys were incredibly loud and hyper as we went through the neighborhood looking for houses that were participating in trick or treating.  Even though Armenians typically don't celebrate Halloween, there are enough expats in the community that it has caught on.  I was out with the boys while Rob stayed home.  Our house had over 100 trick or treaters which is MANY more than we had in the US.

Hansen's house the day of the Halloween party.

My knight and Batman out trick or treating.

Back home with some treats. :)

Friday was Fall Festival day.  I went over to help with final preparations and then back home with the boys to rest a bit before the big evening.  I was hoping they would rest too since they had a late night on Halloween, but they were pretty excited.  We went back to Justin's school and the boys played games, ate some treats, and went through the haunted house TWICE!  Before I went through with them, I told Ryan that if dressed up people jumped out and made noises to scare him, he should just roar right back.  He did and he came out wanting to go right back in.  Daddy took them back in while I did a few other things.

My cute Luigi!  The mustache didn't last long.  He said it hurt and it sure did leave a mark!

Mario's mustache didn't last long either.

Aren't they cute?!?

J did well on the egg walk, but Ryan wouldn't try it.

Waiting in line.

Ryan made it across the spooky swamp.

Finding prizes in the haystack.

Waiting to fish for a prize.

Pumpkin bowling

Pumpkin bean bag toss.  It took Ryan MANY tries, but he didn't get up and he finally got one in and won a prize.

Justin's teacher (Honest Abe) had the kids eating apples off a string.

Friday's party ended with a bonfire.  Rob took the boys home while I helped to clean up.  Another late night for the boys.  Saturday was a chance to have a laid back day.  The boys rode bikes and scooters outside and played a little basketball with Dad.  We had breakfast for dinner so everyone was happy.  So far it looks like we are going to have a calm week coming up.  Yay!

October 27, 2013

This was Fall Break for Justin's school so he was home all week long.  Ryan still had school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings as usual.  Let me just say that it was a looooooooong week.  Justin seems to have forgotten that I don't always just sit around and watch TV all day.  He was a bit annoyed when I would do laundry, cook dinner, or do something else besides play with him or rush to meet his every need.  There were a few play dates, but it is amazing how many hours are in a day. I can hardly wait for Christmas break when I have them BOTH for over three weeks.  Hopefully new birthday and Christmas presents will help keep them entertained.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ryan complained that he was itching.  I ignored him because (1) he tends to itch a lot and (2) he seemed to itch the most when he was asked to do something.  Put away his shoes?  No, of course he can't because he itches.  Well eventually I looked and he seemed to be getting a rash under his arms, on his stomach, and in the groin area.  Soon I saw a bit on his face.  It spread and seemed to get worse.  I gave him benedryl and put him in a cool bath.  I asked Rob to find out what is available here to help with itching.  Evidently not much, but he brought some zinc oxide home.  More benedryl and a body coated with zinc oxide had him comfortable enough to sleep.  By the time I got ready for bed and checked on him, he was cleared up.  Go figure.

Isn't he pathetic looking?

It got a lot worse than this, but no naked shots for the blog.

 With so much extra time to play, Justin was bored because of course the kids don't own any toys.  So what did we spend hours doing?  Yep, drawing on cardboard boxes.  We made cities by drawing directly on the boxes and by adding additional touches created on other paper.  I knew I saved out some boxes from the move for a reason.

This is Justin's first of three boxes.  He made bridges to connect them.

Ryan didn't get quite as into it, but he had fun adding to J's so I gave him his own.

I bought some straws for a project we are going to do.  It was cheaper for me to get 500 straws than 100, so we have plenty of straws.  These were individually wrapped and I need them unwrapped.  We had fun shooting the straw paper off of our straws and seeing how far we could get them to fly.  Justin was the champion.  He could even shoot off multiple straws at a time.

We also made cookies.  Well, I made the cookies and the boys got to help frost some of them.

Ryan made some pretty scary ones, right?

Plenty of pumpkins so we could share and have our own. :)

 We made some Halloween bags for some missionaries who are here from the US.  Along with the cookies, we had a variety of candy and a few other snacks.  The boys had fun coloring bags and then filling them up.  They could hardly wait to deliver their bags and the missionaries enjoyed getting some American treats.

 On Saturday, we went over to the Hansen's for their garage sale.  Their kids are younger, so we knew we didn't need what they were selling, but a local farm was selling some pumpkins there as well.  We had to pick up a pumpkin for Halloween!  Ryan's preschool was also selling goodies to raise money for charity.  The boys were more than happy to support a good cause by eating cookies and hot chocolate.

After that, we went to church to help clean it and get it ready for Sunday.  The boys would have been in the way more than they helped so we parked them on chairs and let them play on the iphone and ipod while we worked.  When we were finished, we headed to KFC for lunch.  Who could ask for a better treat than that?  The boys were excited.  Funny how we don't go to KFC in the US, but when that is your fast food option, all of the sudden it is awesome.  Justin is eating more lately and Ryan less.  Funny to have their roles reversed, but Justin probably needs to eat a bit more if he is going to get taller.  Don't know that he could get much thinner.  We went to Yum Yum Doughnuts after KFC and got ice cream as a treat.

J loves to pose making funny faces.

Ryan has to try to be as funny as Justin.

 On the way back to the car we passed a bouncy thing by the Opera House.  We let the boys enjoy the nice October day by running and bouncing around for awhile before heading home.

I think this building is interesting and since we were stopped at a red light I took a pic.

 At home we were able to get to our pumpkins.  Since the boys can't carve yet, they had markers, stickers, wiggle eyes, and pipe cleaner to decorate their pumpkins with.  It kept them busy for longer than I thought.  Ryan also got to choose what kind of eyes he wanted me to carve on the larger pumpkin.  Justin chose the mouth.  I tried to copy their drawings and fortunately they were simple enough. :)  They couldn't agree on a nose, so our jack-o-lantern went without.

Left to right: Justin's, mine, and Ryan's

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Justin's Second Halloween

Last year at Halloween we were in the middle of a move. We were in Ohio visiting Rob's brother and his family. Justin had a tiger costume and his cousin Missy took him trick or treating. Since she had control of him in the stroller, I was free to take lots of pictures.

This year we were at my parents' house for Halloween. Justin had an elephant costume. We went to the church for a party. Justin and I waited our turn and got up on stage to say his name and what his costume was. He was more interestd in checking out all the other costumes than being up on the stage and didn't give Grandma a good photo op.

He really liked the clowns, but he wasn't sure how he felt about getting right up next to them for a picture. In fact, my little elephant was so excited by all the costumes and everything that was going on that he hardly ever stopped moving. He ran everywhere on a constant basis. That meant someone had to be chasing after him so we wouldn't lose him in the group. The adults were really good about oohing and ahhing over the kids' costumes and Justin ate up the attention. He had fun labeling the costumes he saw too. Maybe Mommy wasn't so weird after all putting him in a funny getup. Everyone seemed to be doing it.

We were able to get him to settle down briefly to eat. Chili seemed a bit messy for a toddler in an elephant costume, so we had him stick to bread. He shared some with his costume by feeding the trunk. He just loved that trunk.

After dinner it was time for the trunk or treat. We went out to the parking lot and people were sitting in the back of their trucks or by their cars passing out candy as the kids went around. Justin quickly caught on, saying "tri or tree" (tri is with a short i sound) and enjoying the attention and getting something in his pumpkin basket. We didn't stay for the games. Justin isn't even two yet, and we were tired of chasing him around. Most of the games would have been too much for him anyway. I am sure he would have been happy to run around, but I was done chasing him.

We got back home and Grandma and I took him trick-or-treating to five or six houses. He enjoyed it, but seemed a bit put off that he was never invited in to explore. He was good about finding the houses with "lights on" that we could go to. As we walked back home he wanted to go back to the same houses, but we were able to get him past the houses without major incident. Poor Grandma was stuck with Justin for the rest of the night. I was DONE! That was way too much activity for me, even though I had rested up for it since Thursday. Will I ever have this baby? It's killing me!

Justin seems to be a candy fiend. He can tell when I am sneaking some and insists on having a taste. If only he were as anxious to try other new foods!

Pumpkins!

This is the first year we have carved pumpkins with Justin. At first he did not want anything to do with the pumpkin guts. He slowly started exploring the inside of the pumpkins with his little scoops. Eventually, he really got into the spirit of it all. In fact, some might say he got a little too involved towards the end. We had expected a mess and Justin did not disappoint.

Check out the video for a one sided food fight.