October Sky

Its definitely getting colder -- even by San Diego standards. WIth the change in temperature, we are also seeing a change in the skies. The sun is setting earlier, and clouds are beginning to become more frequent. With the coming of Fall, we find ourselves doing those 'wintery things' that even us Southern California people have to do. The kids are starting to have to wear socks to bed. Extra blankets. Tonight I fear we are actually going to have to turn on the heater for the first time. It kinda sucks, and I find myself already missing the warm weather that we take for granted every day around here.

On the flip side, we have lots of fun coming up... Halloween! Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. The house is decorated from head to toe in pumpkins and ghosts, and the kids are giddy with the promise of trick-or-treating and dressing up.

Boys Club

Andrew, Carsen, Alex and Ryan take a moment to watch the elephants together at the world famous San Diego Zoo. These gangsters have been friends since birth, and spend quite a bit of time together.

Movie Night

Today was a very special day for the Sandwisch household. It is the day that we got our copy of The Little Mermaid on DVD. This may not sound like a big deal to most people, but those of you who know little miss Katie, know that she is a Little Mermaid fanatic.

Jennifer planned a very special evening to celebrate and watch the new DVD. She made poopcorn for the whole family and we all settled down for a movie theatre style experience, complete with pillows, blankets, sippie-cups and jammies. Katie and Andy loved the special-ness of the event, and the musical aspect of the movie was celebrated with much singing and dancing, even through the credits. Thanks mommy! That was fun!

Doughnut Dawn Patrol

This morning Andy was kind enough to get me up at 6:30. I stumbled bleary-eyed into his room to find him standing in his crib with an excited look on his face. As soon as he saw me, he started shouting, "DOE-NA! DOE-NA DADDY!" My memory began to kick-in as I realized that I had promised him and Katie that I would take them to Krispy Kreme this morning (provided they were good and went to bed on the previous night.) Andy's doughnut-siren-warning system must have also alerted Katie, who was on the scene quickly and rallying to go. Clearly outnumbered and unable to stiffle such a powerful insurgence, I quickly gave-in to the doughnut dawn patrol.

It's hard to determine what is the best part of the Krispy Kreme experience -- it might be the the free envalope hats, or the surreal lab-like clean-room white environment, or quite possibly the amazingly hot and gooey doughnuts that melt in your mouth... but for kids, I think the climax of that place has got to be watching the magical automated doughnut making conveyer machine. Katie and Andy love to stand there, noses pressed against the glass, and gaze in wild wonder, as globs of dough are mysteriously transformed into thier favorite tasty breakfast treats. (It doesn't hurt that they give free doughnuts to kids, and the whole thing comes to $1.99 including my doughnuts and coffee.) The only real downside is that inevitable sugar rush that can result in some serious cat-herding on the way out.

Masterpeice

Kati'e latest masterpeice. She drew this in about 5 minutes with no help from any outside sources. (No no I'm not proud or anything.) Can you guess what it is? Why it's mommy of course!

So before I had kid's, I would notice that parents had this wierd desire to show off thier kid's artwork within their offices and cubes at work. Whenever people would put up pictures of thier kid's colorings at work, I always look at the art and think "Man, that's really kinda bad..." I had a hard time understanding why people would want to shame themselves by displaying such obvious incompotence -- especially considering it was coming from thier children! So years later, now that I have a couple of budding young artists of my own, I see things very differently. Now when I look at those same drawnings, I think to myself, "Man, my kid's are way more talented than yours..."

Fat Lip!

Katie received her first Fat Lip this week. No no, don't worry, she didn't get it from a scuffle with another person, she was playing a little too hard at the playground and went face first into the ground. As you can see from the picture, it's a pretty impressive smacker. She was hurtin pretty bad that day and night. But she seems to be doing just fine now, and I'm willing to bet she isnt even aware that it's there.

As for the glasses, well... you know what they say in the world of fashion: If you got something you don't want people to notice, draw attention away from it with something more noticeable...

Slippery Negotiations

Katie and Andy traditionally get a common bath each night after dinner. It's usually my prestegious responsibility to wash the kids. I do enjoy this job, even though I am usually tired, the conversations that tranpsire are quite entertaining. They can span from songs to stories to pretending to, well you name it.

Tonight as I was giving Andrew his evening mohawk, Katie begin to 'negotiate' about her upcoming bedtime...

Katie: "Daddy, I'm staying up late-ly tonight. I was a good girl today, I ate all my dinner and I had a long nap."

Steve: "Late-ly? What time is that?"

Katie: "Ummmm, I'm staying up late-ly, till 4:30."

Steve: "OK, sounds good. Well, it's well past 4:30 now, we need to get you to bed!"

Katie: *emphatically* "No! I mean, 7:30! I'm staying up until 7:30. So I can play Dora Chutes and Ladders and color with markers after Andrew goes to bed."

Steve: "OK, that sounds good."

Katie: "Is it past-well 7:30?"

Steve: "Not yet, 7:30 is your normal bedtime. It's coming up."

Katie: "OK, then Im going to stay up until 7."

Steve: "OK then. If you insist."

Katie: "And Andrew is going to bed at 4:30. No Andrew can stay up until 4. You are going to bed at 4 OK Andrew?"

Andrew: *bold and loud* NO TA-TEE!

Katie: "Yes Andrew, you need to get sleep. Your veeeerrry tired."

Andrew: -- pause -- I tire daddy. I ti-er.


Yes, she is indeed a shrewd negoiator. And also clearly looking out for the well-being of her brother at all times. I guess we need to spend a litte more time working on telling time! Off to play some Chutes and Ladders now, wish me luck... she usually kicks my butt.


************
UPDATE
************

Well, Katie now 3-0 against me at Chutes and Ladders. Darn those chutes! She must be cheating. Actually, she is quite sportsmanlike about the whole thing. After each game, she tries to talk me into playing another...

Steve: "You win again!"

Katie: "Yay! I winned!"

Steve: "Wow, you're really good at this."

Katie: "Thanks daddy. Let's play again, this time you can win."

Steve: "I don't know Katie, I think you are unbeatable."

Katie: "We can play again, and you can win this time Daddy. I'll let you."


Sweet. My daughter is willing to let me win at Chutes and Ladders. I feel so manly! I worry that this is just the first of many competitive experiences where my kids are going to have to slow-down for me in order to keep things fun...

Dino Dinner

I think the only thing Andrew likes as much as his trains are his dinosaurs. He has about a dozen of them and he loves to smash them onto things and shout "Grrrrrrr". This is quite a stark contrast to his sister's gentle barbie parties. Anyhow, tonnight I was watching TV on the couch and Andrew was busy with his dinosaurs, crunching and growling. After a little while I noticed that it had gotten quiet, so I look over and there is Andy sitting there (watching TV) with a T-rex lodged firmly in his mouth. I found it kind of ironic that the king of the dinosuars had actually been bested by an even larger predator.
We had a rather quiet day today. All of us seem to be suffering from a cold, lots of sneezing and congestion.

Choo Choo Mine!

So Andy got a train table this year. He spends quite a bit of time with it. He likes to make lego towers and tunnels along with all the trains and traks that he has. It's really a great toy and I must admit that I find myself having some fun playing with it too! Here is a little clip of the Drew-man demonstraing the awesome capabilities of his Choo-Choo Trains.

Hey Diddle Diddle

So I'm experimenting with a little video here. If people post that they can see it, maybe Ill post some more. This is a flashback video from a year ago at Nana's house. It features Katie and Megan reciting a classic Mother Goose poem. Megan does all the heavy lifting, and Katie plays relief pitcher.

Hacker

Kaite has become quite the computer-lover over the last year. We have 2 PCs set-up in the den, one is for daddy, and the other is shared by mommy and Katie. Katie loves to come into the den, hop on the PC and start surfing the web. She has taught herself how to open Explorer, navigate to a few sites that we have bookmarked (mostly Disney Pricess sites) and click on the fun things she finds there. Keep in mind that she has yet to learn how to read. She can minimize and maximize windows, close annoying pop-ups, follow links, and even print -- all by herself. Its really quite amazing and a little frightening. With so much content linkable on the web, we have to watch pertty closely to prevent her from going somewhere innappropriate. I actually think Jennifer is becoming a little intimidated by her daughter's tech-savvy! Her little hands move that mouse around with some serious skill.
It's actually gotten to the point where we have had to put a password on the PC to keep Katie from spending too much time in here. So now she gets thwarted by the password field and comes to me and says, "Daddy, the computer is broken, can you fix it?"
She has been playing an Ariel education game much lately, she sings songs along with the characters, coordinates some dance moves, colors, and practices her counting. Ill have to record the next musical segment she performs. She likes to dance while she is singing and wave her arm around in a very dramatic fashion. She even likes to sing, "La La La La, La Laaaaaa" when she forgets the words.

Favorite Toy

Katie's new teachers are putting a book together of the class with each kid getting two pages to share a little about themselves. Mom got right on the project and Katie helped with sticker decorating and filling in the answers to the questions. My favorite response was to the question, "What is your favorite toy?". She answered, "Amanda!" I decided to just leave it at that and found a great picture of Katie and Amanda having a tea party with all of her princess barbies. Katie is lucky to have such a wonderful friend.

Birthday Bonanza

A few photos from our two day birthday marathon for Katie and Andrew, August 15th and 16th. With the help of Grandma and Grandpa, we decorated, celebrated and danced at a Princess party and then did it all over again the next day with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Making Faces

Sometimes I worry about how much fun Andy finds in acting like a goofball. He has a zillion expressions and every one of them leaves me wondering what kind of schemes he is cooking up in that mischievous little head of his.

As you can see from these pictures at Nana's house, Andy has been very due for a haircut. So I decided to take him to the local barber shop last Sunday for a little trim. We got to the barber shop and there was a line of a couple people in front of us. Now you can imagine how boring it must be for poor Andy to have to sit in an old-man style barber shop and wait 30 minutes for his haircut. No toys, no fun books, just a lot of boring magazines, and... oh wait, these chairs spin around... and hey, these bottles and brushes are easy to reach and throw across the room, and hey these magazines make for good throwing as well... well you get the idea.
So after an eternity of trying to keep him from destroying the place, it was finally his time. The barber was ready to close-up shop and even locked the door to keep more people from coming in so he could finish Andy and be done for the day. The barber was great, he was a elder gent with a Spanish accent. He was very kind and talked softly and gentle to Andy as he prepared him for his haircut. You could tell that his guy had given a LOT of children's haircuts in his life. Andy was pretty nervous during all the snipping and buzzing, so to ease his anxiety, I told him that if he was brave, and didn't cry, that I would take him for some ice cream afterwards. That certainly did the trick! He eeked out a few whimpers when the barber used the clippers on his neck, but other than that, he held perfectly still and now has one heck of a cute trim.
Once we were done, we headed across the street to Longs Drug Store to get an old-school ice cream cone. I found myself having very nostalgic flashbacks to when my dad would take me to Thriftys after church and buy Tanya and me ice cream cones for 15 cents a scoop. I don't think they have changed the technology much over the years. Still that same interesting-looking cyclindrical scooper-gun dipped in running water and a bunch of tubs of ice cream you can see through the glass. Andy was very clear on what he wanted.... when I lifted him to the glass, he pointed at the chocolate and said "coe-clat" in his Andy-speak. "coe-clat daddy, coe-clat". So I got him his first cone of coe-clat ice cream.
I think he was a little startled when I actually handed the cone to him. It took two hands and all his concentration to keep it upright, not to mention the added challenge of eating it. He carried it very carefully out of the store. I was certain he was going to drop it about 4 or 5 times, but he managed to carry it all by himself to the nearest bench. We sat down together in the quiet corner of the strip mall and I watched as he smooshed his face into the ice cream. He had the huge smile on his face as he devoured the thing. It ran all over his hands, down to his elbow and of course, all over his face. I must have gone though about 20 napkins trying to keep him somewhat clean. After while, I kinda gave-up on clean, and just enjoyed the moment. We didn't speak much, just sat there and he just ate. I asked him if he liked it a couple times and always got the same answer..."mmmmm hmmmm"

Like Mother, Like Daughter, Like Grandaughter

Last year Grandma decided to make Katie a gingerbread house. Unfortunately, there were some construction issues along the way and I think the house didnt quite turn out the way grandma wanted. This year grandma was determined to top her previous attempt. When Grandma last visited in August, she treated Katie to a special homemade birthday cake, and of course, the cake was Katie's favorite color, inside and out... pink. Katie really likes to help out with the mixing and especially the frosting parts. you can see the final masterpeice below, a perfect preincess castle cake! Less than a month later, Jen made some cookies and Katie got another chance to get her hands dirty in the kitchen. These girls all seem to really enjoy making sweets. It's funny to me to see how serious Katie gets when she is focused on following the directions. I swear I can't get her to eat her chicken, or to clean her room, but when it comes to mixing batter and spooning dough, she will do exactly what she is told.

Ponder

I love this pic, its old, but it's eye candy.

Easy Rider

Katie got a new bike for her 4th birthday. All padded up in princess protective pads and a matching helmet, she is ready to tackle the mean streets of San Diego. Her first ride with daddy was a great success... no bruises, no scrapes, just a couple of rather smashed bushes and a tired little 4-year old.

UPDATE:

So we went riding this evening (Sunday). The whole family came along for an after dinner cruise around the block. Katie led the way with daddy close by for moral support, while mommy mostly pushed Andy on the trike. Slow at first, but after a while, Katie was starting to become hard to keep up with. You could tell she was getting comfortable because instead of having to remind her how to pedal, I was constantly having to remind her to keep her eyes on the road -- she was constantly turning around and chatting with Jen and Andy instead of watching where she was going. I finally let her run off the side of the sidewalk in order to drive the point home. No damage, but a decent scare. Tough love I tell you, tough love.

A Ton of Tongue

I never really knew how long a Giraffe's tongue was until I went with Katie to feed these Giraffes at the zoo. I must say, its really quite startling. Katie was brave and the giraffes were hungry!

1st Day of School

Here is proud little Katie, off to her 2nd year of Preschool. Her new class is more than double the size of last year. This has her mother more than little worries but Katie seems unphased. She is delighted to see her friends again. She now has 2 new teachers and 20 new kids to play with. She seems to be adjusting just fine.

Monkey Boy

Sometimes you wonder where kids learn the things they do... I SWEAR I had nothing to do with this!!! No really!

This is Andy watching TV with his sister. When asked to say "Cheese", this is what I get. That's the beauty of the parenting experince, you really learn how to make it through life with a lot less control, and you get treated to more than a few laughs along the way.