The Amazing Adventures of Rand and Ella!: June 2008

Randisms.

The other night I was sitting by Rand's bedside as he was going to sleep. I was rubbing his back, and telling him what a special boy he was. He said, "No, I'm not." I softly said that he was kind of beligerent, but I loved him anyways. He said, "No, I'm not." I said, "What are you then?" He replied, "I'm Rand." I laughed and kept talking quietly to him for another minute or so until he interrupted me, saying, "Be quiet, mom. I'm trying to sleep."

One of our friends asked Rand where his little sister was. He said, "Ella's in mommy's tummy. Mommy ate her."

While we were on vacation, my Dad was talking to Rand about something that I was going to do. Rand didn't like this idea, so he said, "No, she don't does."

Coolest Park E.V.E.R.

If you have kids and go to Monterey, you must check out the Dennis the Menace Park. So much fun!! We were there for a couple of hours and Rand was still not ready to leave.

With Daddy on the zip line

Werner had fun too!

Sliding with Daddy

You can't see it very well in this photo, but there was a real train engine that the kids could climb all over. Rand was in heaven!

Beach photos!

The best part about Asilomar for Rand? The beach! He loved digging in the sand, chasing the waves, climbing on the rocks, stomping on the seaweed and making it squish, everything! He's still asking to go to the beach nearly every day.....

Big boy!

We sold Rand's original changing table/dresser today. We needed something a little bigger since both babies will be sharing it -- Rand was a little sad to see it go, but quickly cheered up when we made pancakes for dinner. My Scottish heart was very proud of the fact that we bought the dresser three years ago for $50, and sold it today for $40.

Rand is acting much more grown-up recently. In his words, he's "growing like a little tree." His vocabulary keeps increasing and he's starting to get a lot more physical, like doing somersaults and climbing on top of everything.

TMI alert -- we have made another breakthrough in potty training! Rand has been very good about asking for a diaper to go #2, but he has been deathly afraid to sit on the toilet, even with a special seat made for little bums. Somewhere in the last week he's gotten over that fear and has twice gone on the toilet. Last night he went all by himself, without even being prompted by me -- he was playing with his train on the floor and all of a sudden got up and bolted to the bathroom. He was rewarded with a pink sucker and lots of praise from Mom and Dad. It was so cute how proud he was of himself!

For my family's enjoyment -- some more Asilomar photos!

Rand loved finding pinecones. These two came quite a few places with us!

Down at Fisherman's Wharf (notice the pinecones!). Rand loved looking at the boats and the sea lions.

Outside a cute little restaurant where we had breakfast one morning.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

We've had a very busy few weeks! Lots of progress has been made in Rand and Ella's bedroom, but that can wait for a later post. We spent a wonderful week-and-a-half in California, where we really, really enjoyed the cool weather.

Rand and John had lots of fun playing with the train track together. That was the first thing Rand asked for when we got to Grandpa and Grandma's house -- "Where's the train?" Grandpa was nice enough to promptly get it out, and Rand went straight to work at building a track.

After a day of hanging out with the Fisher and Girard families, we headed up to Asilomar for the 3rd annual Fisher Family Vacation. The drive up was a wee bit rough, but we made it! The next day we all went to Monterey's Presidio museum. The museum was very interesting (since I'm still a horse nut I thought all of the stuff about the cavalry that was stabled there was great) but outside the museum was a huuuuge hill with all kinds of interesting stuff on it.