hors d'œuvres

Ari's not much of an eater, 50% of our "issues" are typically centered around trying to get Ari to eat food. We put a game plan together that involved:

1. Clear and consistent rules at mealtime.
2. Small frequent nutrient packed meals (if he gets hungry he turns into an uncontrollable monster).
3. Less milk consumption.
4. Playing down meal altercations.

AND #5 was thought up all by myself, no help from parenting books or anything...
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you ready for this, it's good...
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makes me think I should write a book of my own...
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5. TOOTHPICKS!
I tell you what, that kid will eat pretty much anything if it's on the end of a toothpick. We might use up a small forest around here but hey, our kid is eating!

Side note: Just kidding about the small forest, for the record I do in fact recycle my toothpicks.

Dino Park - Ogden

We ended up having a pretty slow Thanksgiving weekend, it was NICE. Saturday we decided to take a trip to the Dinosaurs Museum in Ogden. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, I'm sure that place will see much more of us.

The highlight for me was when we found and were watching a muscat (photo somewhere below) which Ari kept referring to as a "MouseClap". It was cute.

First BOYZ Outing

Last Friday Joe took the boys on their first solo outing. I was presenting at a conference in SLC so Joe and the boys came down with me and went to the zoo while I was attempting to talk about Guidelines for Excellence in Environmental Education with post pregnancy brain. I survived the workshop and Joe survived the Zoo. We topped the evening off with some Red Iguana with the Gallegos clan; chili verde was the perfect end to a very stressful week.

Below are all the photos Joe took at the Zoo. Joe's brother Ben joined them towards the end of their adventures. Can you tell it was a slow day at the zoo? They were the only ones on the carousel.

Better Than Christmas

Ari's been pretty interested in Helicopters lately. The interest was sparked by a culmination of things: his toy helicopter, us jogging past the helicopter landing pad at the hospital, driving past car accidents on the freeway where life flight was called in and he loves having me make up stories about him as a heroic helicopter pilot.

So, the other night I was struck by an idea... I was out sweeping the driveway when I heard the life flight helicopter fly overhead on the way to the hospital. I immediately dropped my broom and ran into the house yelling "Ari, Ari, hurry get in the car, there's a helicopter landing at the hospital" (pretty sure I freaked everyone out I was so frantic). I threw him in his car seat not taking time to buckle him up (we were only going like 6 blocks). I didn't even make it into the front seat before he was giving me a lecture on how it's not safe to not wear your seat belt, so I buckled him in and away we went. I was trying to make up for lost time so I was driving slightly over the speed limit to which I kept hearing a little 3 year old behind me say things like "Mom, you can slow down, it's ok", "Mom, your going kind-of fast, so it's not very safe." I know, I really was not winning any responsible parenting points.

Anyway, we got to the hospital (safely) and pulled into a parking spot really close to the helicopter. We didn't get to see it land, got there just in time to see the pilot walk into the emergency room so we decided to wait. Ari was SOOOO excited. He came up in the front seat and was jumping up and down yelling "were gonna see a helicopter fly fly fly fly fly" and squealing with delight. We sat there for about 15 minutes while I told him over and over and over and over about why the helicopter was here, what the wind sock thing is for, what's it going to be like when it flies away etc... After about 20 minutes I was starting to worry that it was going to be parked there for the night and I would have a devastated 3 year old on my hands. After walking up and taking a closer look at the helicopter and the windsock we headed back to the car to get warm. We had about 10 minutes before we had to be home when the pilot came back out followed by a team of medical personnel wheeling out a bed. We talked about how sad it was that someone was so sick...but it was really hard to stay sad, we were going to see the helicopter FLY!! They loaded up the patient, started up the propeller, turned on all the lights, slowly hovered then took off over out heads.

It was like Christmas in the car, better than Christmas. Ari was freaking out, WE HAD JUST SEEN A HELICOPTER TAKE OFF!! We scrambled out of the car and watched it until it was just a tiny dot in the distance.

He's been talking about it ever since. He wants to be a pilot when he gets big. He wants to drive to the hospital and watch the helicopter every 5 minutes...

We had so much fun hanging out in the car waiting for that helicopter. I think Ari's gong to be asking me to tell him the "story of Ari and Mom and the helicopter" for at least the next 5 years;) It's so fun to see a child get excited. I have to admit, I'm often tempted to buy stuff for Ari just to get a glimpse of that excitement, then I remember there's a little thing called "time." It's free, more memorable and generally lasts a lot longer.

Life in a LazyBoy

One thing I can't accuse myself of is wishing my child's life away. I know someday Ari will be way too cool for a variety of things, one of them being falling asleep on my lap. I know I'm going to miss those days so I take advantage every chance I get; apparently so does Joe.

Isaac, Meet Grandma Great

Isaac has no clue how lucky he is to meet such a fabulous lady. On second thought, judging by the look on his face...maybe he does.

Christmas $$$

This year for Christmas my parents sent all the kids some $. The plan is to all do with it what we want and bring it or a representation of what we did with the money home for Christmas. I was explaining this idea to Ari and asking him what he thought we should do with the $. He easily came up with a list of things we should purchase.

Big Companio (aka Piano)
Big TV
Big Tall Truck
Puma
Christmas Tree
Toy
Mommy
Book
Big huge giant spider, but not a real one just a pretend one because the real ones are scary.
Giant Big Huge Truck
Something for K-So to lick, like a bone.
A rocking chair like Moms for Dad
Skate board for Mom
Another lazy boy so I (Ari) can sit in your (Moms) lazy boy
A new carrier for Isaac

Unfortunately this was not remotely close to what I planned to do with the $ so I hope he's not too disappointed.

The Family Outing

Whenever we got to St.G it's customary to have a family outing into the hills. When picking a spot it must be A. a place no one else goes or even knows about...or even really cares to know about and B. a place where my bother has seen a big buck. These photos were taken at last weekends spot. Note there are no scenery pictures, that's because fabulous scenery is not one of the criteria;)

I Have Cute Nephews

Took a trip to St.G last weekend, I hadn't been home since I think June...it had been way too long. Ari had a BLAST playing with his cousins; it was really hard for us to leave all those good friends:(

The Costumes '09

Halloween - Moab Style

For Halloween we embarked on a last minute trip to the greater Moab area. My sisters fam was meeting up with some friend to climb in/near Arches (Sunshine Wall area) for the weekend and invited us along. Isaac proved to be a stellar road tripper, such a relief. It was so nice to get out and play in the dirt, Isaac even got his first farmers tan (around the eyes).

Ari having a good time with cousin Adan.

Ari saw the other kids climbing and wanted to give it a try. This was about as far as he made it. After he got roped up he saw this cool toy (photo to the right) and decided he wanted to play with that instead. Next time?

Photos of Isaac keeping warm.

With freezing temperatures at night and a 6 week old babe we opted for a hotel in Moab. It was quite enjoyable, Ari and Joe even took a swim in the hot tub!

Trick-or-Treating in Moab. Pretty sure we were the only kids in town... Ari was afraid of Kenin's costume (the Zombie) and didn't like to go near him and houses with scary decorations were out of the question.

The Chicken and the Monkey

Why is it so hard to take a good photo of your children in their Halloween costumes...