Christmas Part I

I didn't think we were going to do much for Christmas this year with a possible upcoming move, but last week, Jake decided he wanted a tree, we needed stockings and many many more presents for Enzo.  So, we've been hard at work like the good parents we are trying to make a nice holiday for Enzo.

This first picture was midway through decorating the tree.  I made Enzo hot chocolate to create a mood and Jake put on a Leonard Cohen record to create some other kind of (depressing) mood.  Here he is enjoying the work his parents put into the tree while sipping the hot chocolate.

This looks like a sweet father son moment, but Jake was trying to fix an ornament he just dropped and broke.  Enzo attempted to decorate but kept cramming ornaments on the same branch of the tree.  Didn't quite get the whole ornament concept this year.  Still stinkin' cute though!  

Apparently, Enzo has been hard at work too making us a little something!  We haven't opened it yet but this picture from school that is attached to the gift is hysterical.

I know it's totally cheesy but it melted my heart when I saw it.  I pictured him placing the cut outs of holly and berries on the wreath frame and his sweet teachers who helped him.  I pictured him getting the antlers being placed on his head and then giving the photographer a "What the heck?" look.  When I picked him up from school last Friday they had been decorating sugar cookies (he only ate one) and his teacher said he spent a lot of time on them.  It was so sweet I just had to take a picture!  

Goings On

Such a busy month!  With Thanksgiving, Hanukah and Enzo's birthday finally behind us, we have been having fun at other's people's birthday parties lately.  Enzo has around 4 friends all born within a month of each other in the same year.  Crazy 2 year old parties are fun, but so so exhausting for the parents.

Now for some cuteness.  I caught Enzo reading at his table the other day and he gave me this look when I approached him.  It was hysterical and evil but totally fake.  Look how mad he looks! 

See, all is forgiven!  Just a cutie trying to read.

For his friend Sage's birthday we had a great time at a kid's science museum in San Jose where they can touch everything and there's something for every age group.  We had so much fun and can't wait to go back.  Enzo was won over right from the start because the fire truck was next to the entrance.  Got to pretend to be a little fire man for a few minutes.  That boy was in heaven.  But he was also super polite to the other kids who wanted a turn at the wheel.  Thank you Montessori education!

Playing with the mastodons in their native landscape.  Love his little face in these.

There was also a huge water room where they got to shoot balls using streams of water and watch the balls float through the mazes.  Enzo was into it and got soaked.  Luckily our host advised to bring extra clothes.

After the water room he spent a ton of time in the enormous play kitchen.  There was a pizza food truck, a home kitchen, a market and a restaurant.  He really loved working in the pizza truck - putting toppings on the pizzas and then putting them in the ovens.  It was so adorable I could hardly stand it.  He actually loves making real pizza at home.  He will point to his apron that is hanging in the doorway which means he wants to start kneading dough.  Jake first did pizza making with him at about one year old and I guess it's really stuck.  I love living with 2 pizza making men.

I had to tear him away from this enormous play kitchen.  Makes me want to turn his whole play area into a teeny toddler kitchen!

The next day was Esme's 2nd birthday party and that was at her house with snacks, 5 kids and cake.  They just ran around like nuts for 3 hours and are pretty good at entertaining each other now.  They would stop every once in a while to shove truffle popcorn in their mouths.  The only party game was Who Made That Smell?  Always a good time.

Esme's party was on Sunday and by Tuesday 3 adults and 2 children who were there got sick from a terrible stomach flu that's been going around.  I spent a portion of Tuesday taking care of a few friends that were basically paralyzed in bed.  I forged ahead into germy battle zones to make sure my friends weren't dying.  My good deed is done for a while!

One last photo from the weekend which chronologically happened first on Friday (then the two parties were Saturday and Sunday).  Enzo and I travelled to Modesto for Grandma Graziano's funeral.  Jake was really sick with the stomach flu (and I had it just a few days earlier) but he was missed by the whole family.  The only photo I have is this sweet one of us carrying flowers after the funeral to the car.  He appears to be such a good helper.

It was wonderful to see the whole family (though only one cousin couldn't make it).  We don't get together very often but it was great to reconnect and hear everyone's memories of grandma.  As the matriarch of the family for so many years she was the one that connected our not so close family together.  

Enzo's 2nd Birthday

The day after Thanksgiving, Enzo got his new birthday bike from his grandparents and I got a new bike for Hanukah.  We rode our bikes everyday that weekend, which was great since it got very cold and life got very busy right after that.  

For Enzo's birthday weekend, Jen and Sarah came to visit.  Here are the little scamps drinking milk together.  They had so much fun together and Enzo just adored Sarah.  Whenever she was out of sight he would say, "Where's Sarah?"  (Though it sounded more like "Ware Rah-Rah?")

Grandpa Gary came for a surprise visit as well though I'm a really bad daughter-in-law and I didn't get any pictures of Baba and Enzo together.  Enzo's birthday party was a bike party where all the kids were invited to bring their bikes to the rec room at the park and decorate them.  Here's is the invitation that Jake made:

We had a big craft table with different materials to decorate bikes.  This was Jake's idea and it was a hit.

My attempt at making a bicycle wheel cake!

Here's a very short video of Enzo at his party riding his decorated bike and helmet: http://youtu.be/hkPOcMqh2vQ.

Enzo got so many presents this year, mostly because his birthday was right after Hanukah.  We didn't let him open them all at once so we still have many unopened presents that were sent to us through the mail.  We are letting him open them slowly so we aren't too overwhelmed with all the new gifts.  So, if you sent us something and you haven't heard from us it's probably because we haven't gotten to it yet.

We've also had a run of bad luck lately where we all had the stomach flu, my grandma Helen died and we went to the funeral in Modesto and we've been having stress and complications over buying a house in Bonny Doon.  We are looking forward to saying good bye to 2013 and to start anew in 2014.  This has been a very difficult year for us and it's not ending a good note.  We don't even know what we're doing for Christmas yet - if we get the house we'll be moving in by the 1st and if we don't get the house we'll be going to Los Angeles for a few days with Jake's dad and brothers.  Stay tuned!

Halloween!

And now entering the ring......Strongman Enzo!!!

And introducing Strongman Enzo's beautiful assistant: Bumblebee Girl!

Tramp-o-line

Okay, now I'm just spoiling you!  I've been saving this one up for some down time but I couldn't wait any longer.  Here are the two best friends jumping on a trampoline!  Esme's had a lot of practice but that was Enzo's first time. I love watching him try to jump.  And he was laughing hysterically.

My Dudes

This was a totally unstaged photo after we happened upon Jake in his office (i.e. a coffee shop downtown Santa Cruz).    The resemblance in their hair (un)style is what made me be the annoying mother taking photos in the coffee shop, but once I got home I realized they were dressed alike too.  Enzo is turning into quite the little Metcalf.

And Happy Birthday to Grandpa today!!  Eat some extra birthday cake and ice cream for me!

Look who can ride a trike!!

Now that he can do this, he doesn't want me pushing at all, which is impossible because he can't make it up or down a hill yet!  But he still tries. 

Also, Jake and Enzo have been baking while I'm at work.  Pumpkin muffins were made and consumed the other day.

Walking the Dog and Goat Times

Loves walking the dog these days:  (sorry the video is so fuzzy)

And watching the goats.
Enzo loves watching this second video and laughs when he falls!  Also, I was trying to get him to say dirty but he played it off like he wanted to fall and play in the dirt all along.

Recent Things and 21 Months

I've been thinking a lot about how little man is going to be 2 soon.  2!?!  But before that there's figuring out his Halloween costume, Jake's birthday, an Ikea trip, visits from family, a nursing conference in Monterey, taking a short trip to San Diego, scheduling his 2-year photo shoot, Hannukah and then Thanksgiving and the subsequent Christmas/New Year balagan.  It finally feels like the busy time of year is starting again and yet daily life must still go on.  I still have goals for before he turns two like finishing up his baby book (haven't touched it in a loooong time) and getting some pictures up on the wall of Enzo.  It is so shameful, but I haven't framed any of his beautiful pictures.  If you ignore all the toys on the floor, you wouldn't know that we have a child!  Bad parents!

Writing all this kinda just stressed me out so let's move on, shall we?  After our trip to Vancouver we stayed at home and recouperated.  Did lots of summery things!

Eating popsicles in our underwear (okay, Enzo did, not me)

Not a great picture but Enzo and Esme rode rides at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk by themselves!  They look a bit terrified in the photo but Jake assured me they were having fun.

Eating carrots from the garden:

Taking naps in our underwear:

Most recently, Grandpa Gary (who Enzo calls "Baba") came out for a nice visit.  Unfortunately my back went out right before he arrived and I had to go to urgent care to get painkillers.  I had planned on working two days that week but had to call in sick because I couldn't move.  However, having Gary around was super helpful because picking Enzo up really hurt.  And I had to go to the chiropractor a couple times so Gary took Enzo around Santa Cruz while I had my appointment.  Again, SUPER HELPFUL!  Thank you Baba!  We did actually manage to do some fun things though.  After school on Wednesday we booked it on over to the Santa Cruz County fair.  I haven't been in years and next year Enzo will have even more fun because he'll be tall enough to ride the rides.  He sure like the deep fried artichokes!

His favorite thing was the tractors.  He's been really into barn animals/culture and wheels so the full size tractors were really fun for him!  (So boring for mommy.)  There were a few tractor vendors and we had to tear him aware from them each time.  He probably could have spent hours with the tractors.

My favorite part of the fair is the vegetable award room.  I know overgrown.large produce doesn't even taste good, but they are fun to see!  Here's my little pumpkin man in the aware winning pumpkin patch.  Mine is the best!  

Enzo as a turnip!

In addition to his tractor love there were police golf carts.  The officer said it was fine for him to play on them and gosh darn it, he had to sit on each one!  

Our next trip was to visit Jake's aunt Carol (Pat's sister) and uncle Gordon (who Jake has never met!).  We knew we had to break up the long trip to northern California so first we went to Oakland to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and to go to Fairyland.  Fairyland is this super weird children's park that is storybook themed.  It was built about 60 years ago and is pastel hell.  Seriously, so much 1950's pink!  It's pretty janky and could use a fresh coat of paint (or as Gary put it, a stick of dynamite), but Enzo seemed to have fun exploring the little misshapen houses, water features and animals.

Three Little Pigs House

Some wooden cow, can't remember from which story.  

Then onward to Cottonwood, home of Jake's aunt and uncle, a bit south of Redding.

Jake's aunt and uncle were great hosts and Carol especially loved having Enzo around.  He was a constant source of entertainment for her!  It always makes me nervous to stay at a house that's not toddler proofed, but Enzo was a really good boy and only semi-ruined a couple things.  They were very easy going about it, thank goodness!  He is a much better listener than he was just a few months ago so I felt like I could actually control his behavior a little better. The week was really hard for me though because I was still in a lot of pain, Vicodin wasn't sitting well with me and I was sleeping on an air mattress.  The ratio of adults to children was 5:1 which was great!  I feel like I didn't have to chase him around by myself all the time which probably helped my back heal a little better.  We took a day trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park (I didn't even know California had volcanoes!) which was a beautiful place!

The sulfur pits - such a horrible smell!

My favorite picture from the trip - wish he didn't have dirt all over his face!  It was such a beautiful day.

The only time we allow Enzo to throw things is rocks in a lake.  We let him go nuts at Lake Helen.  Enzo is in his new Junior Ranger vest that Baba got for him at the giftshop.  It is so cute.

Lake Helen - the most gorgeous blue since it is a dead lake.

We left Cottonwood on a Sunday and stopped in Sacramento to see Jen on our way home.  Enzo got to play with Sarah who is growing up too fast as well.  So serious.

We're now home of course and I'm back to work after about 2 weeks off.  We have a busy fall to get to and lots of pumpkin baked goods to bake.  Had pumpkin waffles this morning and Enzo ate four.  Hope you enjoyed the recap of our recent adventures!