A Sweet November

Here's how Oscar begins his mornings--every morning. He bursts into our bedroom--some times before we're even up for the day--and plops himself right on top of poor Gigi. She's such a good girl, because she could totally use her back claws or growl or run away, but she accepts Oscar's affection. So sweet.

On the weekends, Oscar gets to play with his trains first thing in the morning--for as long as he wants.

He loves these trains.

Oscar used to be afraid of the hand held mixer, but now asks to help whenever I'm baking cookies. He doesn't like me to help him hold the mixer, he wants to do it all by himself. It's a 3-year-old thing, I suppose.

One of Otto's favorite shows on Nick Jr is the Wonder Pets. For some reason, the big bad wolf on the Little Red Riding Hood episode of Wonder Pets cracked Otto up. He would only laugh when the wolf came out, so we rewinded the episode and grabbed the video camera.


November 6, we took the boys to see "Yo Gabba Gabba-There's a Party in My City!" It was such a great time. For those of you who don't know YGG is a show on Nick Jr and the boys are mesmerized by it. The main character, DJ Lance Rock, wears black square-framed glasses, which they gave out at the show... just for fun.

Here's Otto playing "chase the balloon" with the balloon from the YGG show, which is amazingly still inflated and in our house--2 months later.


Here's Otto happy with the balloon, then surprised, then ticked off, then back to normal. What a resilient little guy he is.


Oh, a sweet moment captured on film--Oscar sharing his ice cream with his little brother.

Another sweet moment, Otto is in such a good mood--every morning. Seriously, every morning, he smiles when we walk in to get him.

Here's Oscar showing his little brother how anything (even an empty container of Oatmeal) can be a toy.

We made a last-minute decision last November to go down to Florida for Thanksgiving. To say we're glad we did this, would be an understatement. It was such a wonderful trip and the boys are still talking about all their family members and the beach, of course.

Our first night in town, we went to David's mom's home, where Grandma Kathy and Robert played Christmas carols with the boys. That's Grandma Kathy on piano and Robert accompanying on flute.

The next day, which was the day before Thanksgiving, we enjoyed the beach. Our hotel was super close to Hollywood Beach, so we met up with Grandma Kathy and Robert, as well as my Grandma (Mima) and my aunt (Tia Gise).

Hollywood Beach has a playground--right on the beach. Here's Oscar on the slide.

And Otto on the slide...

Here's Robert helping Oscar climb up the jungle gym...

Here's Robert, Grandma Kathy and Oscar going down to the water...

Love this pic of Otto and Grandma Kathy

Otto LOVED the water!

He's been in the pool before, but never the ocean and he wasn't even a tiny bit scared.


Oscar preferred to play in the sand...

Another video of Otto on the beach...

Here's Mima and my Tia Gise...

It's always such a challenge to get everyone smiling at the camera...

Oscar showing Mima something...can't remember if it was the birds or the boats.

After spending the day together, we went back to our hotel for a bit and met up with Grandma Kathy for dinner--on the beach.

Here's Otto on Thanksgiving Day at my brother's house. This was Otto's first time having my mom's pumpkin bread and he couldn't eat enough fast enough. He would shove the pumpkin bread in his mouth and walk away from us, so that we wouldn't try and take it away from him.

Here he is walking away with the pumpkin bread...

There's my mom and Otto (with more pumpkin bread).


Otto getting some kisses from his Grandma Barbara...

Here's a video of us hanging out on my brother's patio...

Here's my father, aka "Grandpa Papi," spending some quality time with Oscar.

Grandpa Papi brought his dog, Daisy, with him. Oscar loves dogs.


Here's a shot of the kids' table.

After dinner, my sister-in-law broke out the sidewalk paint. Oscar had such a great time painting with his cousin, Angelina.

Here's my brother, aka "Uncle David" and Oscar.

Here's what happens when Otto grabs the video camera.

Talk about rude awakening...here we are freezing our butts off at Kansas City airport. See why I see a chiropractor--one kid on my hip and a diaper bag on my other arm--while David manages all the luggage. We are getting tired and old fast, my friends.

And, on our second day back in Kansas City, we went and got our Christmas tree. We'd been telling Oscar all month long that we would get a tree after Thanksgiving...and he remembered. Until my next post...