Dolphins, a Two Year Old, and a Skunk

In the beginning of February, Connor, Elise, and Daddy went on a field trip with Connor's class.  They did a whale watching tour, but the highlight of the trip was the huge pod of dolphins that swam alongside the boat.  Ryan says there were at least a hundred.  They also saw a few whales, and plenty of sea lions.  I stayed home with Evan, figuring that he would be too much work on a boat to be worth it.  
    

Connor took his camera on the boat.

Good pictures, Connor!

   
Little Mister Evan turned two! 
   

Happy Birthday, Evan!

Time for his Morning Jump-Jump

    
 He claimed to want crackers for breakfast, so I indulged the birthday boy.  We spent the rest of the day playing, opening presents, and eating birthday cupcakes.  Oh, and he officially stopped nursing that morning - he'd pretty much lost interest by that point anyway.
   

   
That night we finally found out who had been eating the dog food outside and making Wiley bark in the middle of the night.  He was actually really cute and fluffy - I'd never seen a skunk so close before.  We woke the kids up and even took pictures, but they had absolutely no memory of the event the next morning.
   

She looks awake, but she really isn't.

January

Right after our Pismo Beach weekend, my mom came down for a visit.  I was still in the middle of first trimester sickness and exhaustion, so she was a huge help.  We did all our regular routines that week, but with the treat of having Grandma with us! The first few days she was here, she had one of her dogs with her, which was going to a new pet home (as opposed to a show home) in No. Cal.  The people seemed really nice, but it was hard on my mom to see the dog go.  
  

Mom helped us rearrange our living room.  (Which we'd been meaning to do for months.)

Saying Goodbye

Although we didn't get any pictures, Ryan and I were also treated to an overnight in Century City without the kids.  We were able to go to the temple, eat out, and stroll around Santa Monica.  Thanks, Mom!
  
During the visit, my mom kept suggesting that we really should get our fridge looked at.  We had started to notice moisture on the wood floor just under the front of the fridge, and finally decided to pull it out and check the back a day or so after she left.  Apparently, the ice machine water line had split, and had been dripping constantly for months without our noticing.  This picture doesn't do credit to how bad it looked - the whole floor was warped and rotten.  It took three weeks for the hardwood floor people to come repair things, but we were finally able to move the fridge back where it belongs.  The ice machine is now permanently disconnected (we never used it anyway.)
  

  
Every January I measure my kids' height on our growth chart and take a picture.  The chart then goes into a box in the garage until the next year so it doesn't get wrecked (it's only made out of foam board.) 
  

Ages 6, 4, and 23 months

  
One morning we did an activity with magnets that involved making cork sailboats and moving them around with a magnet underneath (there was a thumbtack on the bottom.)  Evan had to be partially excluded, since he only wanted to spill the water.
    

Pismo Beach

The day before New Year's Eve, we found an owl pellet in our yard from the Great Horned Owl that hangs out in our tree.  I was way more excited than I should have been.  (I'd never seen a real owl pellet before.)  Basically, owls swallow their prey whole, digest everything possible, then cough up the leftovers.  We used some twigs to pull everything apart and see what the owl ate.  (Supposedly, you can reconstruct a whole skeleton this way if you're into that sort of thing.)  I'll spare you the suspense: it was a small rat (or maybe a big mouse.) The kids were a little grossed out, but they thought it was cool that we could find so many kinds of bones.  Then I sent them online where they could do a video game version of the same thing.  Educational, right?
  

  
Also, for his school project on fossils, Connor soaked this bone-shaped sponge in salt water for a few weeks to show how bones get replaced by minerals as they fossilize.  (It just makes a salty, hard sponge, but I think he got the idea.)
  

   
In mid-January we took our second family trip to Pismo Beach.  I really love that place.  They have a winter Monarch butterfly grove there, and a beach you can drive on.  It's the perfect kid beach because the slope of the sand is so shallow - the waves really don't sneak up on little kids like they do some places.  Connor played wave soccer, Elise overcame her fear of the water and looked for shells, and Evan got soaked.  Yay for January in California, huh?  Oh, and our hotel was amazing - we could see the water right from our room.  We even spotted a sea otter from our balcony.  The trip would have been perfect if Connor and Elise hadn't gotten the stomach flu.  They puked all over the hotel beds both nights we were there.  Oh, well.  We left a tip for the housekeepers.
  

Butterfly Grove

Sea Otter

Sea Otter Close-up

Evan would wake up in the morning and stand by the window, saying "Wah-wah" over and over again. 

Easter (Oh, wait, I mean Christmas . . )

I forgot to mention that in early December, there was a rumor that our next door neighbor had seen a bear in his yard.  Ryan thought that was awesome, so one evening he went over to say hi and find out the details.  One question he asked was, "Where was it exactly, show me!"  So, they pointed him to the back kitchen door.  He opened it and stepped out, then jumped back in and closed the door.  The neighbors thought that was really funny, but he explained that, no, the bear was THERE, right at that moment!  Anyway, Ryan called me, and I brought the kids down to see.  It was about a 250 pound black bear, eating acorns or something out of a leaf pile in the backyard.  This bear has since become very famous - he comes out of the hills every garbage day and makes a mess.  The news has named him Glen Bearian.  (No, I don't know why.)  Apparently they're not very dangerous - they don't even eat pets like coyotes do, but we always double check before throwing something in the trash at night now!
   

   
Later in December we got the kids up before dawn to go see a lunar eclipse.  We couldn't see it from our house due to the mountains, but we drove a little ways away and talked about what was happening.  It was pretty fun.
  

    
The remainder of the Christmas season had our traditional Joy School nativity at Claire's house, (in which Elise got to be Mary,) and a performance by Connor's school.  It was both weird and cool to listen to a school concert whose Christmas songs were actually about Jesus.  Connor's class sang "Veinte Cinco de Diciembre" and "Children all Over the World", and the whole school did "Oh Holy Night" as a finale.  That last one made me tear up.
  

     
Christmas Day was great, we hung out at home and enjoyed being together.  Thanks to all the wonderful family members who spoil my kids with gifts - they're very appreciated!
   

This cell phone had been lost for 6 months.  Turns out it was in a suitcase we'd loaned to a friend.  I figured it'd make a good surprise stocking stuffer.