Stuck in the middle with you

Mid-October always ends up being crazy busy for us.  This year was no exception.  I am a member of the Butte County Mothers of Multiples club. Synopsis: mothers of twins, triplets and more who get together and do fun stuff with and without our kiddo's.  This group has been amazing.  I joined when I was still pregnant and had only a bazillion questions that needed to be answered.  Our club is part of the overall Northern California branch of the national Multiples of America group.  Our little club hosted the annual Fall Retreat this year.  We had over 50 moms from all over Nor Cal (Sac, Bay Area,etc).  Our club worked so hard to get this retreated put together and it was awesome.

We had a bunch of raffle baskets and I won one of the baskets!

We did a wine tasting at Long Creek Winery and the setting was superb.  

I was a DD for the day, so I took it upon my self to be a "sommelier"  for the afternoon. I talked with the owner and learned all about the wines and explained to each of the moms there. It was really quite fun.

One of the mom's in my club, her husband got this old school limo with the horns on it as a 40th birthday gag gift from friends. It is hilarious. The horn is the same from Dukes of Hazzard. 

 Some of the mom's from my local club!

A few days after the retreat, it was Andy and mine's 8th wedding anniversary.  It fell on a Tuesday, which is also swim lesson night so we didn't do anything big that night. I did surprise Andy though after we got home from swim lessons. 

That

I tied a memory I had of him/us to 8 different balloons and then let them float around our bed, which also had some German beer for him and a San Francisco 49ers beer koozy.

That weekend, we got our night out to celebrate. We went to Sipho's a Jamaican restaurant. It is located waaay off the beaten path, and not many people know of it. I had seen it a few times, and Andy had seen it more recently due to having to take a different route to work due to construction. The food was amazing.  We were *sorta* going to see a movie, but none that we kinda wanted to see were playing when we were done eating. So instead we went to Target and walked around, because we NEVER get to go to a store just the two of us anymore. Sounds lame, but it was nice and quiet for us.

The next night Andy's dad came over and we carved pumpkins.  The kids were pretty into it. I let Verona draw a face on her pumpkin then I cut it out. Andy did one for Trent, then his dad did a one as well.

That week temperatures soared into the mid to upper 80's, then cooled off the the mid 40's at night. The pumpkins couldn't stand the heat the cold, and went moldy rather quickly. It was disgusting. I have never had a pumpkin do that before. Andy made the ghost and his dad the bat.  I think next year we will wait until just a few days before Halloween to do pumpkins. 

To my city by the bay

I love San Francisco. It's like a sunny version of Seattle. A MUCH sunnier version.  It has the same crap traffic issues, little cities around it, Oakland is to SF, what Tacoma is to Seattle.  We took our annual (hoping to be bi-annual) trip to see Tim and Sarah. You may recall we did this last year.

Of course we had an awesome time! We got in Friday night and were spoiled with delicious Kebobs that Sarah made, and even better wine.

On Saturday we had a full day, we headed out for Brunch to Aunt Mary's Cafe. It was the perfect hipster watching site.  Couples in matching outfits, little dogs being brought to brunch with their owners, children in fancy strollers being dragged to a meal they didn't want to have.  We had a to die for meal luckily! I had the grilled flat iron steak sandwich. I had to, it had chimichurri sauce! Andy had the Pain Purdue. A Cajun-style french toast.

By the time we got done eating, it was nearly 1:30ish, so we headed over the BRAND NEW Bay Bridge. It really is beautiful. You could a more unobstructed view of the city while driving in.

We were headed to the Walt Disney Family Museum for the afternoon. Driving from Oakland to the museum in typical bay area fashion took nearly an hour and a half.  Traffic, tolls, then driving through the city on our way to the Presidio, where the museum is located. 

The museum is amazing.  I, like so many other people, love all things Disney, but how much do we really know about the man himself? This museum is dedicated to him, with letters, drawings, and so much more from the time he was born until his untimely death.  I will let the pictures do the talking. 

The Presidio

Actual furnishings and set up from his apartment in Disneyland,that was over the firehouse.

 The very first mass marketing of Mickey Mouse figures.

Menu from the Disney Studio's Cafe

Story board stuff from Pinocchio

Differnt concept art for Cinderlla

They did a live action of Peter Pan for the artists to draw inspiration from

  

When you come out of one of the rooms, there is this amazing view of the Golden Gate bridge!

Winding our way down the the Disneyland part of the exhibit

A fully functioning diorama of Disneyland.  Even the rides moved. This is from around the 1960's. 

 This huge camera was used to shoot the animation films

If you look at the bottom of this picture, you can see the back ground of a forest. There would be several different layers put over that and then shot from above

We didn't even get to see the whole museum! We purchased tickets to a special exhibition of Tyrus Wong, but didn't make it. We had 3 hours and had to hurry through the last part. I really wanted to spend more time reading about Disneyland (duh), but we were the last ones in there. 

After the museum, we headed to Berkley. It was 6pm,a little early for dinner, but we knew by the time we got to Berkley, found parking, and put our names in at the restaurnt, it would be past 8.  And it was. We sat down at like 8:30. 

We went to Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen. We were going to go there last visit, but the wait was well over 2 hours.  We were not disappointed. The drinks, atmosphere, and the food were perfect.  WE had a great time hanging out in Berkley, and then went for some amazing Gelato to top off our night.

The next morning we wanted to eat breakfast together before we headed home. We finally decided on the Royal Cafe.  It was a great ending to a wonderful weekend.  We walked to the cafe though. Tim and Sarah live on a hill that faces the bay bridge.  This cafe is located on the other side of that hill. There is no road that goes over the hill right by them, so we had to walk down the road, the hike up the hill, walk down the hill, then back track to the cafe.  I definitely got my workout in!

At the top of hill. 

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend and can't wait to go back.  We are even considering bringing the kids next time! Thank again Tim and Sarah!

Potty Training............Nailed it!

So October has been as usual a VERY busy month for us. I have a few blog posts to do and will try and get them all done by the end of the week. 

First up is V's potty training.

On September 26th, a Thursday, I was done. I was so over changing multiple diapers a day.  Verona was going potty on the toilet, no bm, but potty.  I was going through mutiple diapers for her, because it's just not nice to put a diaper that has a wee bit of urine in it back on her when she went potty like a big girl.

So that afternoon before nap, I looked at her and said "You won't be wearing diapers any more, now on you will only wear big girl panties." She looked a little panicked.  I let her know that accidents happen, and if she needs to go, come find me. 

Over the course of the last 3 1/2 weeks, she has only had 3 accidents.  One we weren't home for, one she was throwing a massive tantrum and lost all control (bladder control as well), and the 3rd time, she was sooo into playing she didn't tell us, and we didn't ask since she had just gone.  She is in panties from when she gets up until bed time. Bed time, she is wearing "night time panties" or as the rest of the world calls them, pull-ups. She just had 6 day run of being dry all night and I was about to switch her out of pull ups, but then she had a few wet nights. 

I had read tons of potty training theories: 3 day method (you stay home for 3 days, and the kid wears no pants/underwear/diaper), the 1 day method (potty train in a day, using a potty party and potty doll as motivation) the 2 day method (same as 3 day), etc. 

I finally decided to do the Sydney Method. Wing it.  I like to wing a lot of things, recipes, driving directions, birth plans (side note: I didn't read a single book about pregnancy or childbirth while I was pregnant, I winged it)

I did cold turkey for Verona. Now she loves it.  Took off a child lock off of our downstairs bathroom for her so she can go any time she likes. Oh, and now she has bm's in the toilet.  It only took two times of her going in her panties, and me rinsing them out on the front lawn, for her to learn that. She still likes stickers, and will ask for them only sometimes.  I have 8 charts covered, front and back with a myriad of stickers. 

Trent is starting to see the "rewards" of potty training too.  Extra attention, time alone in the bathroom,  everyone claps for you and gives you high fives.  He isn't there yet, but he has asked a few times to go, but nothing ever comes of it.  This will be my last time writing about potty training, that is until Trent starts. I have no idea what to do with a boy, a girl was pretty easy.