The world according to oz

We had to move the car this morning and while I was putting the kids in their carseats and wondering out loud if we would find a good parking space Oscar says, "we're a perfect family! Of course we'll get a good parking space!".... ( our parking space was actually pretty good too)

We're anxiously awaiting dada's arrival and every conversation we had this morning (mostly with random people in the park) involved Oscar shouting "dada's comin home today!" I don't know if other people don't have husbands that travel but it surprised me how many people were surprised and looked at me with funny when he said this!

Livi is 2! ...almost

We had Livi's first, 2nd birthday celebration this past weekend with special visits from Nana, Papa, Aunt Jenny, Indri, David, Novi and Emmooo (as Livi says). Aside from the MacEachens forgetting a map and taking 24 hours to get here it was a wonderful weekend! (not quite 24 hours, but I'm sure it felt like that to them...) the kids had so much fun together and indri made a yummy indonesian dinner! I made elmo cupcakes and a dinosaur cake (since livi couldn't make up her mind and I honestly wanted to try both!)
The cupcakes came out pink, but after adding so much food coloring and no transition from red to pink, I figured pink was just fine. Liv got some wonderful presents...arts and crafts supplies (which she loves), a sleeping beauty doll (which she also loves) but her fav present was her pink cowboy boots from aunt missy! They are her shoes of choice and the only day she didn't wear them was yesterday when we had a bunch of rain. Thankfully it wasn't a fight, since she's a puddle jumper and truly needs to wear rain boots! She was actually dying to get outside to play in the puddles as soon as she realized it was raining out.
We missed dada though - he has been off galavanting in Capetown but is thankfully on his way home now and will actually make it for Livi's official birthday! Thus ending his record of travelling for everyone's birthday since we moved to NJ.

Livi-saurus

Oscar's halloween costume from 2009 is still running strong

Livi's first video to Elly

Better late than never! :)

Hoboken weekend

We had a lovely, mellow weekend in Hoboken. One of our last! We did some organizing and sorting of the house for India, but mainly just all hung out together. Oscar and I decided to get a big world map for the kids bedroom in India to help keep track of where we've been and where our families live. It came in the mail on Saturday and we spread it out on the floor. The kids had fun "swimming" in the ocean and pointing out different places we want to go. Oscar likes to see where we are and pretend to fly a plane to somewhere else in the world. He's also decided that he wants to live in hong kong some day. (no particular reason, he just picked it out on the map). A perfect Saturday morning activity for a family like ours!

Oscar has also apparently embraced his time in NJ. He woke up on Saturday, came over to my bed and i swear the first thing he said was, " Hey Ma. How you doin?" jersey accent and all.

Bye bye poopy!

Liv is full force into potty training. At home, she'll let you know when she needs to go and run to the bathroom. She usually gets her pants halfway down and runs to the bathroom with them around her ankles. Im trying to get her to take them off in the bathroom, but no luck yet! :) Aside from a few accidents the first few days, she's been doing awesome! The next step is pull ups to see how she does out of the house....oh and after she goes she looks in the toilet and waves "bye bye poopy!"

Oscar's favorite things

While going through all of our things in prep for the move, i came across a list of Oscar's favorite things from halloween 2009. I asked him what they were last night and here are the results! 2009 is first, and yesterdays is second.

Favorite animal- giraffe/ giraffe "because they're so beautiful!"
Favorite food - hot dogs/ pizza AND Mac and cheese
Favorite movie - little einsteins/ transformers
Favorite thing to play - swords, cars, trucks / transformers
Wants to be when he grows up - airplane pilot "for everyone can go on my airplane" / still a pilot
Halloween costume - alligator / wants to be a pterodactyl
Best friend - max/ max
Favorite dessert - vanilla cake "frosting cake"/ " probably all desserts but just not some"
Favorite sport - tennis / tennis
Favorite vehicle - trains, cars, airplanes,jet plane/ truck
Sleeps with - bunny, pillow, blanket / ditto!
Favorite thing to wear - costumes / rocket pjs ( what he was wearing)
Favorite color - blue and orange / black (this surprised me since for a while it's been silver and gold)
Favorite thing to do with dada - wrestle/ wrestle
Favorite thing to do with mama - play / snuggle
Favorite book - star wars/ transformers
Favorite character - Hans solo / optimus prime

So things changem some things stay the same, and some things transform!

Favorite songs

We have 2 kids CDs in the house - the laurie berkner band and a collection of toddler favorites. Livi likes the collection, especially " I'm a little teapot" and calls it "tippy". But her favorite song is the bumblebee song from Laurie Berkner....in it there is a bumblebee named Oscar. She gets so excited to hear it and asks for it by "oz" or "buzz". While not his favorite, Oscar also loves to hear his name in the song and gets a huge smile on his face every time. He is quick to point out that his favorite on the cd though is "I'm gonna catch you", a song that goes through the days of the week and has an activity for each day ( Tuesday is snooze day, Saturday is baseball batter day....). His fav part of the song is Monday - We've adopted that part of our song into our routine and every monday is now ice cream sun-day :), except when he wants chocolate instead....

Hi Elly!

I have a very cute video clip of livi saying hi to her new cousin Ellyson Elizabeth Taylor, born February 1st! We're so happy to hear mama and baby are home now and we can't wait to meet her! Hoping i can post the video soon! ....

Snow-boken

I've been having some technical difficulties with my blog and can't upload any pictures or videos right now...im working on it but my patience is thin and I almost want to start a new one! Tbd...

Anyway,we've had a wonderfully snowy winter since January. It's also been pretty cold so any snow that's fallen isn't melting. this makes for adventurous walks to school everyday, and lots of fun in the backyard. we unearthed our sandbox (under 2 feet of snow) the other day and also rediscovered our sand toys (which double wonderfully as snow toys). We even got to make a slide down our back steps with the big snow a few weeks ago (buffalo nostalgia for mommy!). Even the rain we had a few days gave us a new adventure. The layer of ice that formed over the snow was great fun for the kids to break, throw, stomp in....and eat.

Livi is potty training! Shes had accidents (as expected) but has pretty much embraced the idea, and she loves her new underwear :) shes also so proud to tell everyone when shes gone potty. We're not brave enough to leave the house without a diaper yet, but that may come soon. She doesn't like her diapers anymore!

An oscarism to leave you with...we were hiding from dada and livi under a blanket and it was so dark we couldn't see each other. Oscar says to me "mama, I can't tell you're there but you're my mommy so i can always see you."