Luck o the Irish

Tomorrow is St. Patty's Day and Lenny still has to get up to his shenanigans, hence this will be short. We spent last Saturday rolling down Pier Avenue in our lovely green attire and decorated wagon as Tyler handed out candy and Tristan lounged in back eating it, looking at all the people and wondering what the spectacle was. All he needed was a Guiness and a track suit and he would have made a perfect Dubliner.

Peek a boo! Where's the little leprechaun?

Here I am!

These little laddies don't really know it, but their great grandfather came over from the Emerald Isle when he was 17, dropping the "O" from "O'Shea" in the ocean. He lived in a stone cottage with 16 other brothers and sisters, their room was about the size of this wagon. I'd say these Shea brothers are a wee-might luckier to be hanging in Hermosa Beach instead of Smead, Ireland.

Who else is lucky? I am because my hubby took me to the Oscars! It was all that and a bag of chips. Truly something to experience once in a lifetime. And, once is all we will get because I got blacklisted from the Academy for taking this picture on the red carpet. You'd think I was taking photos of top-secret nuclear technology and selling it to the Chinese instead of just trying to snap one of us. Oh well, it was a ball! We hung with the rich and famous and realized- again - that we are lightweights and shouldn't drink like we are 20-years-old anymore.

When Tyler is rich and famous, let's hope he gets his own sunglasses instead of taking mine for paparazzi shots like this one taken at the Natural History Museum. We went there with his class and his brother and half of L.A. I couldn't get out of there soon enough!

Ski Week

So naturally after a week of non-stop puddle madness (for the boys) and a weekend of partying like I was still in my 20's (without the ability to sleep in since the boys have hotwired a 6:30 wake up call in my brain), we all got sick. I think the boys lost their body weight in snot on a daily basis. We have all been so congested that we have coughed, sneezed, wheezed and thrown up mucus all over the house (it's lovely, come on over!). Here is Tyler looking naturally pathetic, we didn't even have to ask him to pose for this one. Of course now he wants to be sick so he can drink smoothies and watch TV all day long (hey, I want to be sick, too!).
Then we got some sunshine in the form of Grandpa and Kookie (ahhhhh...) along with a good dose of the real thing. Finally, back to the beach...

Their visit coincided with what is known as "ski week" around here. We all get the entire week off instead of just one day for President's Day so people can go skiing. We went to the beach instead as well as hit some of the attractions around L.A. including.....

The Petersen Automotive Museum where Tyler showed Uncle Jim just what a good trolley car driver would say and do (strangely enough, it highly resembled the Polar Express' conductor's lines).

Then we hit Train Town with our good friends Casey and Kyle from down the street. The little boys could climb on a dozen or so real locomotives as well as go on a miniature train that took us around the perimeter of the grounds a couple of times.

I think a real freight train could pass by and Tristan would hardly notice it if rocks were around.

We also spent some time horsing around at our favorite parks. I can't believe how big the boys look in this picture, where did my babies go?

Letters!

Tyler and his entire class wrote letters then walked them up the street to mail them in a real mailbox. So much fun!

Tyler and Tucker pretend to be pilots at school. "Busy Airflight 1, you're clear for take-off!"

Tristan's best friends are letters, especially "H" for some reason (and not the little one, only the big one!). I use letters to prevent meltdowns even!

This was the start of my Wednesday morning:

Tyler: "Emergency! Emergency!" He races into the bedroom where I am putting away the boy's clothes.

Me: "What is it? Did the guys in your castle eat too many cookies?"

Tyler: "No, it's Tristan. Come look!"

We scramble out of the bedroom to find Tristan standing on the dining room table chewing on a knife he apparently found there. The kid is going to give me a heart attack. This was after I found him standing on the wobbly arm of the chair in the computer room where he likes to play computer games. He was just calling my name, "Mama, mama." Very casually. He either wanted me to witness him jumping and breaking his arm, or he wanted me to save him. I opted for the later. Other than being a daredevil, Tristan is absorbed by letters. Like in the alphabet. We have a DVD about them and he is fixated on it. He loves to play with them in the tub and he apparently likes X so much he picked it off my keyboard (luckily he's not into vowels).

It's raining, it's pouring.....

I'm not even going to mention that an old man is snoring. But, maybe an old woman! Yep, I turned 40 on January 16th and John and I got up to San Francisco to celebrate. Nothing reminds you more that you are old than staying up late drinking then paying for it in the morning. Oh to be young and alcoholic again. Alas, we did have a really fun, albeit rainy, time, especially since Jackie and Tom Lynch joined us! Outside Vesuvios where the beakniks used to hang. This is us, before we were beat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Cathy and Kevin flew in to help Aleksa take care of the munchkins. Tristan here was channeling his inner Scarlet O'Hara for the folks.

And, once we got home, the rain began. It rained and it rained and it rained some more. Tristan, aka "Puddle-dude" was in heaven. Tyler, too, because rain meant we stayed inside more and played imaginary stories.


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Finally, FINALLY, the sun came out and we got to go to the beach, which was glorious. Boy are we spoiled with the weather out here. The storms were so bad that the waves practically washed away all the sand berms the lifeguards had plowed up to protect the pier. We got in a fun day of "butt berm sliding." Loads of fun.


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Tristan LOVES the water and makes a break for it every chance he gets. I'm sure he's thinking, "rats, I make a run for it one more time and we're going home," right here. Best to squash their little dreams early. Ha ha! Actually, this is him taking a breather after being in the water, sliding down the berms, collecting rocks and shells and running all over the place.

Blogging Resolution

Happy New Year! I've been terribly inconsistent (shall we say nonexistent?) about blogging. Shame, shame, shame!! My resolution is to blog more consistently. It may not be pretty, or well-thought out, but I do promise to blog more often. Here goes! What better way to start the new year than to have a Silly String fight?

Happy New Year! Tyler pops off a "popper" with a firework inside. He's addicted to them and snap-n-pops now.

"Where to, Miss?" Tristan is quite the driver. He looks quite mellow here, but get him behind the wheel of his buggy and he is road rage personified. Tyler likes to play D.J. and work the cd player in our car while Tristan drives. We do this at least once a day.

Santa may be gone, but his replacement is still here! Ho ho ho!!!

While the rest of the country freezes, we are basking in the sun at the beach. I didn't even mind that Tristan ran into the freezing water because it was so warm out! We did a run of "sledding" rides down the hill, too. This is how I get my exercise! Tyler usually hops out as I'm trying to catch my breath and immediately wants to go again saying, "Come on, Mama! What are you waiting for? Let's go!"









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Running around town

We have done so much stuff lately, it is impossible to keep up! I wish I could blog and scrapbook every moment of their little lives so they (and I) will never forget what a great time we are all having. But, since there is still laundry to do, dinner to cook, shopping to be done, etc., the scrapbooking and regular blogging will have to wait a while longer. In the meantime, here are a couple of movies: one from our trip to Disneyland for Tyler's 4th birthday where we spent the night in the hotel next to the park and the boys got just as big of a kick out of running down the halls as they did on the rides (they are a bunch of cheap dates), and another of the little train at our mall that they ride all the time and Tristan is waving so enthusiastically, I just had to post it! Let the chaos continue!
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Next stop, Jimmy Choo's

It has been MONTHS since my last update...bad mommy!!! In my defense, I have been working diligently on another project so everything in the house has been falling to the way side. However, I took this video this morning and had to share it because I just love it. It totally illustrates a typical moment in our busy household. Tristan is absolutely CRAZY about shoes, so here he is in my closet, trying on and walking around in the red platform ones I wore at my wedding. He definitely prefers the brighter, more colorful shoes, except when there is a good gooey flip-flop hanging around, in which case he'll try them on and then suck the gunk off the bottom -- delicious! Oh, and Tyler is happy to usually tackle him or just squeeze him, boa constrictor style, until he gets a good rise out of him. He also loved shoes when he was Tristan's age. I think I might have to write a book about Jimmy Choo's shoes, sounds like a good children's book character!

So here we go, and hopefully there will be a better update with more photos to follow soon!


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