Where has February gone?

Mowgli thinks that it's still Halloween

 I was reminded today (thanks Emily) that I've sadly neglected this blog.  Things have been busy 'round these parts.  Jeff had a workshop to run all last week (which went really well!) which meant early mornings in the office and long days.  That in turn meant that I've had a lot less free time.

The good news is that we're all healthy (knocking on everything wood I can find).  Unfortunately that does not mean that we've managed to get out there and be social at all, since everyone else we know is fighting some illness or another.

Loving his bike

We were hoping to get to spend some time with aunt Jaime and cousin Kyan his afternoon, but not sure yet whether all are healthy enough to make the trip down to SD...fingers crossed!

Since our last update Quinn has survived his second haircut, and it's finally grown out enough that we all like it.  :)  He's also decided that the orange/red wool sweater we got him in Scotland is not a straight jacket and he will wear it willingly (finally).  So great, we'll get like 2 weeks of wear out of this thing before he outgrows it completely!  Just to prove that we've gotten some wear out of it I got the camera out during our rainy day playtime last week.  We've also just discovered the old wooden scooter that we got as a baby shower gift from Kim and Danielle.  It's been a huge hit and we go up and down the street on it.

His vocabulary is constantly growing, and he's especially good with his animals.  He knows most animal sounds and knows the names of many, including Manta Ray, Octopus, and his current favorite, Hippopotamus.  He is still not combining any words, except for the occasional, "More ____."

 He knows a few colors, but for the most part everything is "yellow."  He likes his letters (especially Os) and will point them out everywhere.  He doesn't count, but if you ask him to he'll say "two".

Currently he enjoys riding toys, climbing, slides, reading his books, taking his critters for rides on airplanes/boats, puzzles, bubbles, trains, star tattoos, making happy/sad faces, walking on trails, and the zoo.  Also somehow he's developed a love for Elmo, which is odd, since until today he's never seen Elmo in action (Jeff just picked up a sesame street video this morning).

We've been plagued with rainy weather out here, which puts quite a damper on our normal routine of outside play.  This weekend should be an interesting one...rain expected for the entire weekend.




Here are a smattering of other photos from the past few weeks:

I had to recently hide all of the circular blocks that came with one of his little trains, because this has become a favorite game (see below).  He puts them in his mouth and then makes gagging sounds.  He apparently likes the reaction he gets out of us, because it cracks him up.  Me, not so much, so they are quarantined for the time being.

Fun game called lets scare mama and make her think i'm choking

 This is another favorite toy.  It's a Swiss train that was mine as a baby.  It has little people riding on it and you can turn their faces from happy to sad.  He LOVES "choo choos" and is also currently quite obsessed with happy and sad, so this toy is quite the hit.

choo choo chuggin

A current favorite food (bordering on obsession) is raisins.  If it's possible to OD on raisins then we're surely on our way.  I love this photo of him munching on his favorite snack.  

Another recent favorite activity.  No other explanation necessary.  :)

Some flying fun with mama

End of a good weekend

Sickness has plagued this family for the past month...first Mama got it, then Quinn, Dad, Quinn again, Dad, Quinn, Quinn, Mama, Dad, Mama. Fingers crossed that we've finally kicked the pesky germs ( I type this as I still struggle to breathe...). Anyway, that is why we've been MIA in the blogosphere since mid January. We've also been busy with work and home improvement projects, so little time remains to take fun photos and type witty (or not so witty) captions for them. What follows is a smattering of photos from the past month...some old and many from yesterday (a good day).

This photo is really for Aunt Jaime, who would be appalled :) at Quinn's outfit. Yes, we really do dress him this way (though not intentionally).

Aunt Jaime with 56 pounds of boy.

On Saturday morning we spent a bunch of time in the front yard. Our neighbor, Ricky, came over and introduced Quinn to the marvels of skateboards.

My boys in their levis hard at work. The rubber boots were Quinn's own addition to his outfit.

The cats LOVE their new yard. Here is Mowgli enjoying the warm winter morning sun.

And handsome Boris too

It was then time for a little walk. Luckily we have a nice canyon trail in our neighborhood that Quinn loves to walk on. We decided to let Q walk his dog for the first time. He took his job very seriously.

Back home and back to work. Dad was installing the last of the flagstone in the front yard and Quinn decided to help by throwing dirt every chance he got.

This has got to be one of my favorite series of Quinn photos yet. As I was snapping these I was telling him to stop eating the dirt (but at the same time enjoying his little naughty side).

Once the work was completed we took Quinn to a neighborhood plant nursery. In addition to plants they have a small playground, a bunch of free-range chickens, goats, rabbits and a desert tortoise. It's the perfect place to take a kid for a fun, quick getaway. After feeding the chickens we had lunch in the cute little cafe next door.

And to top the weekend off, we had guests over tonight....Becca and Rob with their two kids and Billy and Denise with baby Evan all came over to not really watch the super bowl. We enjoyed the summer-like weather and ate fish tacos with margaritas on the deck. A lovely evening that I am going to go and continue now. Goodnight!

Cousin time

Cousin Kyan was at Grammy's on Saturday while Jaime and John went to a charity event, so we took advantage and descended upon Grammy's house for some QT with the cuz. The boys had a blast playing outside all afternoon and here are a few pics to prove it. Jaime called later that night after Kyan had gone to sleep to report that Kyan was murmuring, "Quinny" in his sleep. So sweet. They really have a good time together.

Exterior House Progress

OK, we finally feel that we're far enough along with our front yard project to go ahead and post a few pictures. You may remember what our house looked like last March:

The first big job was to tear down the hideous archway. That was accomplished long ago... Only recently have we gotten the momentum to do the rest. I wish we could say that we did this ourselves, but we did not. We recruited the help of Wes (North Park Native Plants) who (as you might imagine) specializes in native plants. He came up with a plan and did the installation. Once the plants are established (no, they will not be so tiny forever) they should require no watering!

Unfortunately we forgot to take photos of the yard demo, but here's the house post-demo with the DG (decomposed granite) substrate down. We also thought it was time to say goodbye to the blue and were in the process of deciding on a color here....

The color chosen and the planting begins

The plants are all in with a few rocks thrown around.

Finally the walkways are completed (Jeffrey gets credit here)

Self portrait in walkway

The mostly finished product. :)

Check out Wes's website to get an idea of what these plants will look like once they become established!

Happy Belated New Year!

The theme for the last few weeks has been illness. It started with me getting sick just before New Years Eve (still haven't completely kicked it), then Quinny got sick. For him in became an antibiotic-resistant double ear infection with high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. We now have him on a different antibiotic and he appears to be on the mend, finally. Of course Quinn improves only for Jeff to wake up this morning (thinking that he got off easy with a "light" form of the disease last week) with a 101 degree fever. Looks like we're back to square one. Just hoping this doesn't mean that I'm also going to have a relapse!

Our first real adventure with a sick kid was kinda scary! I know I probably worried much more than I should have, but to see them so sick is terrifying. He wouldn't eat, had such a high fever, and just wanted to lie around all day on the couch with me. It was such a relief when he started to act like our little boy again. He's still not 100%, but at least he'll eat a little bit. Somehow we've managed to snap a couple of photos of Quinn in early 2011. These little hippie photos are pre-illness.

On a more fun note, we've got a few home improvement projects underway. We're replanting the front yard with native plants that (once established) will require little to no watering. So far all of the vegetation has been removed from the yard, and decomposed granite has been put down. The actual planting will begin next week! We also (on a whim since our planned camping trip had to be cancelled due to Q's sickness) decided to paint the house. We started by getting a million different paint samples and painting the front of the house in patchwork colors....like the look? The original plan was to paint today, but that may also be postponed due to Jeff's fever (although at the moment he's out there patching up holes in the stucco, so who knows...).

Not much else to report. January has been a busy month so far with the whole family having to adjust to my new work schedule. Quinn is doing better in daycare after a rough first week and hopefully once he's feeling 100% will be back to his old self and actually have some fun there playing with the other kids. Jeff and I had planned on having a camping trip with our friends, the Seminoffs this weekend, but had to cancel when Quinn got worse. Hopefully that will be rescheduled sometime soon. We haven't had many social plans since returning home from the east coast, but did have our neighbor, Soledad, over last night for some homemade pizza and beers. We all enjoyed having some company!

We're missing our east coast friends and thinking a lot about them all right now. Our friend Sarah, is adopting a little girl from Uganda. She's been in Uganda for a while now, but is set to be back in NC right about now, so we're looking forward to hearing all about how little Angella will adjust to her new surroundings and wishing them both the best. Our friends Courtney and Melissa also just welcomed baby #2, a handsome boy named Nate, into their family. We wish we could be there to meet him and help out, but have to be satisfied with photos on facebook. :) Welcome to Nate and Angella! Your CA friends send lots of love your way!

Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully we're all off to a good start. We'd love to see all of you in 2011!

Peek-a-boo Painting

Every Sunday Jeff, Quinn, Merlin and I go to the Living Room Cafe for breakfast. There is a painting that hangs in the back of the cafe that Quinn has loved since day 1. He hides and flirts with his little art girlfriend everytime we're there. Today I decided to take a photo of the painting so that we could enjoy her from home. Then tonight we thought we'd video Q's reaction to seeing his girlfriend in the house. I think it made him happy:

A trip to the ER

We had a rather exciting afternoon today. We were hanging out at the park having a great time...







Quinn and Daddy were playing and swinging and having a ball. Then Jeff set Quinn down on the ground and he just started wailing and didn't stop. It took a little while to realize that he wasn't using his left arm. We walked back to the house and took a closer look. We couldn't see any obvious signs of damage, but there was definitely something amiss. After a call to a neighbor who is a nurse we took him to the emergency room. It was so hard to see him so miserable!



Fairly quickly the doctor came in and within seconds she'd fixed our boy right up. She just twisted his elbow and popped things right back into place. Guess his little arms couldn't take getting swung around and had gotten out of whack. Now we'll have to be extra careful to make sure it doesn't happen again. She gave him a popsicle to help ease his pain, but looks like someone else benefited from that one!



He was back to his normal happy self pretty quickly, which was quite a relief. It was quite a stressful few hours.



We celebrated by taking quinn out for Cuban food. He liked it!



Back to San Diego in the morning.