Family

The boys just couldn’t wait any longer, so we carved some pumpkins this morning. I’m sure they’ll be a moldy mess by Halloween, but we’ll just have to get some more pumpkins!

Finn continued his Batman obsession with a Batman logo pumpkin (drawn and carved by Bruce, of course).

Ezra designed and drew his own this year and then Bruce did the cutting.

The pictures are blurry because of the lighting — I probably should have set up the tripod to take a proper shot, but who’s got time for that?

Bruce has been looking for a better way to ride Ezra to school and finally settled on the Weehoo iGo trailer. Theoretically, the child can help pedal, which will be great as Bruce works pretty hard getting up the hill to Aveson.

We finally got a chance to try it out yesterday and it was a big hit — with Bruce and all four kids he towed around. Here’s Bruce and Finn in action.

Here’s Finn telling everyone the order for taking turns riding.

And here’s how Charlie looked after his ride. Finn’s helmet is a little too big for him! (To put things in perspective, Finn’s helmet fits me. That kid’s got a giant noggin.)

After school today we went to Buster’s for ice cream and then to the pumpkin patch in South Pas. Finn had picked out a few pumpkins this week at Trader Joe’s and Ezra was really anxious to get his own so we can make jack-o-lanterns this weekend. Finn was happy to find they had wagons there and promptly started running around grabbing every pumpkin he could lift.

Ezra, on the other hand, put two pumpkins in his wagon — one white and one orange — and then moved on to the animatronic decorations they have there. One was a ghoulish guy who lifted off his head, which held Ezra’s attention for quite some time.

Then they found this guy, who came out of his coffin as he inflated.

Here’s their reaction.

Iron Man and Batman are coming to get you.

We took the boys to the Octoberfest in Montrose this afternoon/evening and a good time was had by all. Bruce took the boys on a couple of spinning rides — Ezra wasn’t always sure it was fun, but Finn laughed all the way through.

Ezra played a horse-racing game. He came in second both races. So close!

Finn got a big hammer.

We all had ice cream.

And we finished out the day with a few songs from the brass band.

Here’s the boys reaction.

We headed out to the Science Center this morning (at Ezra’s request) only to find it completely packed with families. We initially thought people were just trying beat the 100+ degree temperatures, but realized they were there for Sid the Science Kid Day. Oops. So we walked over to the Natural History Museum instead.

We saw some fossils and then had lunch.

After that we went to the Dinosaur Encounters show, where they have a paleontologist discussing dinosaurs and a giant T-Rex puppet that’s a little too life-like if you’re three years old. There was too large a crowd for me to make our way out, so Finn just squirmed on my lap and covered his eyes. Poor little guy.

But we managed to survive the trauma and went out to the newly retooled Butterfly Pavilion — now the Spider Pavilion.

Finn wasn’t so crazy about that either.

Neither was I.

There’s an Aveson family who, instead of driving a car the three miles from their house to school every morning, rides this:

It’s called a Ped E Cab. I can totally see Bruce riding Ezra and Finn up to school on one of these in the future!

I got a kick out of my mail today — five pieces of  junk mail. The great thing was that only one of them was addressed to someone who actually lives here.

And two were for people who aren’t living anywhere. I think the health insurance flyers are a little late.

We had a pretty laid back, enjoyable Saturday yesterday — did some shopping and some backyard demo and then had an impromptu barbecue with the Heffernans. First, here’s the demo. Finn’s not too sure about the whole thing, despite the ear mops.

I didn’t take many pictures because I was too busy relaxing as the kids played together without incident. They got pretty muddy and had baths before dinner. Then they sat on the stoop and had some hotdogs.

Charlie wasn’t interested in dinner, but he was happy to play a game on the iPad while everyone else ate.

After dinner all the kids watched their latest obsession — Roadrunner cartoons. I don’t know what it is about that show, but all four kids think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen and beg me all the time to watch. We gave in to their demands, turned on the iPad in the house, and enjoyed a quiet, relaxing adults-only dinner out back. It was great.

Ezra’s school has early dismissal on Wednesdays — 1:00 versus the regular 2:45 — so we have the whole afternoon together. Yesterday, in an effort to not win the Worst Mother of the Year award, I took the boys on an outing to the California Science Center. Ezra has been begging me to take him since we got back from Belize, but I was much too discombobulated last week to manage it. He loves the place, and he also wanted to get some Goobi magnetic construction toys from their gift shop.

We spent almost the entire visit in the Ecosystems exhibit, starting with the desert room. Finn loved (and waved to) the chuckwalla.

We went outside to find a mini ocean, complete with a ton of sea creatures and an area where you can pet some of them. Neither boy wanted to touch anything. Ezra was more interested in a display where you try to catch flying ping pong balls, which is meant to simulate how difficult it is for barnacles to catch their food. I think the meaning of the display was lost on him, but he could have stayed there forever trying to catch the balls.

Once inside again, we found another ping pong display. This one had different mechanisms to shoot the balls into a hole in the middle, simulating how different animals get to islands. Finn had a grand time when he found one he was good at — he celebrated each successful launch with a karate kick and “hi ya!”

They also both liked the oversized nest (with sticks and eggs) and spent some time protecting their eggs.

We left in time to beat the traffic home. All in all, a successful outing. (And Ezra got his Goobi set, too.)

Somehow Bruce had the energy to play a chasing game with Ezra, Finn, Lucy and Charlie on Monday night (after a great get-together at Casa Heff). My favorite parts are Finn’s dramatic falls after being frozen (and the fact that he’s carrying around a bag of lemons) and Charlie throwing punches at the end. Love these kids.

Jerri and I took the kids on a field trip to JPL this morning and had a personal tour with Dr. Bruce Moision, better known around these parts as “Papa.” After signing in at the visitors center and getting our super official badges, we headed to the new museum which has, among other things, models of the different spacecraft JPL has built over the years.

After that we saw the Spacecraft Assembly Facility where workers in the clean room are currently building the Mars Science Laboratory. From there we went to the control room (think, “Houston, we have a problem”) where they monitor all of the spacecraft currently out there. From the gallery you can see down into the control room, which is very interesting, but the kids really just liked the swivel chairs.

Because it was so hot, we skipped the Mars yard and hit the gift shop instead. The kids were coming to the end of their ropes, but we made it out relatively unscathed. Finn passed out at 11:00 on the ride home.

We had Charlie over for a couple of hours this morning, which went very well. Charlie and Finn are pretty much inseparable and played good guys, bad guys, superheros, gardeners, etc. all while wearing their pajamas.

In the afternoon, Ezra and Finn got into the craft box and made some masterpieces on red paper plates. They also left a bit of a mess in the living room.

The glitter that coated the floor doesn’t show up in the picture but, trust me, it’s there. And will probably be there for years and years to come.

The boys have become a little obsessed with the iPad we got last week. I bought it, in part, to provide some entertainment for them on our flight to Belize coming up in a couple of weeks. I figured they would like it, but I didn’t really anticipate how much they would like it. As evidence, the first words I heard from Finn this morning when I returned from my walk were, “WHERE’S MOMMY’S IPAD?” as he ran around the house looking for it. So, obviously, we have to moderate their usage. But since they are in their room playing with good old-fashioned wooden trains, I’m not that worried about it.

Here they are getting set up to play a game yesterday.

And here they are playing Glow Hockey (basically air hockey with some cool graphics). Finn doesn’t really know what’s going on — he says, “I win!” every time either of them scores a goal. Ezra is surprisingly patient with this behavior.

The boys had an incredibly busy day today starting with a trip to the Huntington with Bruce and ending at Yang Chow in Chinatown for dinner. In between, we went to the Science Center to meet Vanessa and Thomas.

We saw the Butterfly Pavilion for the first time.

Finn was not so crazy about it — I don’t think he liked them flying so close to him.

Ezra and Thomas had a good time though.

Next we went to the Air & Space Museum, which was filled with very cool stuff including pieces of old spacecraft, planes, etc. The boys were in heaven. Here they are flying a helicopter.

Last was Yang Chow, which sounded like a good idea at the time, but turned out to be a long wait with bad service and understandably restless kids. I did manage to get a good shot of Thomas and Finn before things unraveled too far.

At least the Spicy Szechuan Wonton Soup was incredibly delicious as usual.