December Fun!

We went to Disneyland to see the park with all of it's decorations last Friday. It was raining which was great for keeping the crowds away, but bad because we were soggy. It wasn't a hard rain at any point, just a constant drizzle- just enough to keep us damp.

Smiles All Around

Riley's school did a Christmas pageant, clearly he was the cutest Sheppard around! He was all smiles when the kids were lined up at the door, but once he walked by us and down to the front of the church he was ALL TEARS!!! Everywhere! He ran to the arms of his teacher and cried for most of the performance. He finally perked up towards the end and sang a couple of the songs the kids had learned.

Papa and our favorite Sheppard.

M Turned 2

Well it's official now...we have two toddlers in the house! Mason turned two just after Thanksgiving and we celebrated with a small family breakfast. The birthday boy loved his muffin (although it looks like a cupcake), and even managed to blow out the candle, after Daddy picked him up a little bit. Riley was a great assistant in opening the gifts, and Mason was very kind to let him help. It was a wonderful day.

Mommy & Daddy with the birthday boy

Mesmerized by the candle, and being so patient while we sang to him
Trying to blow out the candle-note the tiny bit that the flame moved


Daddy picked Mason up to help him blow it out-and he did it all by himself!

Halloween 2010

Mason's first candy ever-STICKY

The sweetest scary shark I've ever seen

Great Grandma with all five of the Great-Grandkids...I don't know who liked dressing up more, the kids or Grandma!

That's one way to take a picture with the pumpkin Mason

Checking out what's inside the pumpkins we grew

Waving like a champ at the Hallowen parade with his friend Nidhi

Well Halloween has come and gone, and here we are left with a pile of candy and some great pictures. We started off the weekend with a Halloween parade at Riley's school. They practiced all week walking around the playground (the parade route) and waving. Riley ran right over to John and I when he saw us, but promptly went back to the parade lineup and walked around and waved and smiled the whole time-I wish I had brought my video camera!!! He was way too cute!

We carved pumpkins on Saturday which was interesting. The boys wanted to pick the seeds out of the pumpkins one at a time-and John had high hopes and cut the tops off of FOUR pumpkins!!!! It was a long process, but the boys had fun and they turned out great.

Then on Halloween we visited family with John's sisters. It was so much fun to see our niece and nephews and to have all the kids together, even if for a short time. Finally the big moment came and we hit the streets for trick-or-treating. We went to a grand total of six houses! Riley did a great job saying "trick or treat Happy Halloween". The boys each opened a tootside pop when we were almost done. It was of course getting close to bed time at this point so we told them that they could have them for ten minutes, then told them we had to wrap them up and save them for later (which they did without so much as a fuss-yes you don't have to tell us-we're mean and we know it). Of course, first thing the next morning Ri asked if he could have his for breakfast! I told him that he could have it after dinner-and we of course did-sticky night #2.

One of the Mason's favorite things over the Halloween weekend was saying "Boo" to Daddy-it turned into quite the game (with Mason laughing so hard at times that the "boo" was high pitched and squeaky and barely made it out of his mouth), and was a lot of fun to watch and listen to-they both had so much fun.

Fun with Uncle HC/Disneyland yet again

We went to Disneyland with Uncle HC a couple weeks ago to see all of the Halloween decorations and ride the "super fast Matterhorn with the pretend scary bad guys". We had a great time, and even stayed to watch Fantasmic-which the boys LOVED (Riley still talks about it)-and the fireworks. We're planning another trip in December to see all of the Christmas decorations, and we're hoping that Daddy will go then!

Snuggling with Mommy waiting for FantasmicSo happy to see Uncle HC-we miss him!!!!

Believe it or not, this is the face he makes when he says "cheese"-cute isn't it?!

I think this is my favorite picture of Riley ever. He loves the teacups, and Disneyland in general.

Such joy!

Mason knows "O", and Ri can spell his name

Well Mason is using more words these days, and is finally stringing some together. More often than not, he is stringing together "mama, ra-ra, baa boy" and then swinging his arm to tell me that Riley was a bad boy and hit him. Tattling on his brother already---can hardly wait for a year from now! Make no mistake though, Mason is generally the instigator!
However, yesterday he surprised us, in fact really blew me away. We know that he knows a lot of things, he just CHOOSES (so frustrating) to not talk-and why should he bother, Riley talks for him. Yesterday though he pointed to his shoe (which said POW) and said "O"! Then laughed hysterically. Over and over and over again. Then later in the evening he was pointing out all of the 'O's on my shirt! I feel like he just stores his knowledge in his head for when he wants to use it. I'm just waiting for full sentences to come pouring from his mouth.

Riley is learning all sorts of things at school and can now tell us how to spell his name, and can correctly identify pretty much all of the letters in the alphabet (both big and small). The other day we drove by a Chase bank and he correct told me "C-H-A-S-E!". He was so proud of himself. His vocabulary is growing too-he loves to tell us now that things are "delicious" which always makes us laugh, it just sounds so funny coming from a three year old!

Mason's Personal Garden

Well this entry is a bit past due, but things have just been crazy and I haven't been able to find time to share this hilarious story.
Three weeks ago I was sitting with the boys eating dinner and I happened to be sitting in Johns seat because he wasn't home. Mason threw his head back to laugh and I noticed something green in his nose. My first thought was "how can he have green snot he hasn't even been sick"!! Then he put his head back again and I looked again and thought it was odd that it was only in one nostril. I moved in to inspect and decided it must be something else and not snot. I called the wonderful woman who watches him if she had fed him peas that day and she assured me that she had never fed him peas! She did say he had been playing in the little patch of flowers she has and she had thought he was picking his nose while over there but perhaps he had been sticking leaves in his nose instead. I agreed that that was probably the case and decided to forget about it--for all of about two minutes. He leaned back again and I didn't think it was the right color to be a leaf. So I went over to him and looked and was sure that it was in fact something else. But I couldn't figure out how to get it out-it was not in his nostril at all-it was way up where I could barely even see it!!!! I covered his mouth and plugged his other nostril so that it moved a small amount with his breath into the very top of his nostril and stuck my own finger up his nose-I figured he probably wouldn't mind too much since he is always sticking his own fingers in his nose. Well wouldn't you know it...it was a PEA! AND IT WAS STARTING TO SPROUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't remember the last time we had fed him peas, but they had been from our garden so they had not been processed to the point where they couldn't sprout. It was amazing--I love having boys!!!!

Is Summer Really Over?

Well a new school year has started for Riley (he's in the raccoon class now), Mason will be two in two months, and we're planning Halloween costumes (Riley wants to be an alligator and Mason wants to be a "woahr" aka a dinosaur)--the summer must be over. We had a great end to the summer with lots of family time spent in the garden (we're beginning to reap the reward with our second crop-zucchini, tomatoes, butternut squash, green beans, canteloupe, bell peppers, and various chilis), and doing all sorts of other fun things with the four of us. We are enjoying the boys and their wonderful ages as much as possible!

Mr Crazy Hair in the morning-I'm still not quite sure how his SUPER STRAIGHT hair got this big!

Crazy hair in the tub-a wonderful event almost every night these days


Happy Birthday Mommy! We had to go and get me "cake" because Ri was very concerned that I didnt have any. He also was very confused because when it was his birthday everyone came over, but not one came over for my birthday! What a sweet boy looking out for his mommy!

Mason's little airplane

Daddy and Riley with the BIG airplane

Making cookies with mommy

Ready to cook-complete in his "boat boots"

What a big boy! Riding the pony on his own at the Del Mar races (Mason wanted nothing to do with the ponies once he got close to them)

Getting water to dump in the hole-no sand castles-just a big hole!