Darr Family Blog – Page 168 – The place to follow the Darr Family

Life’s {almost} Back to Normal

Weekly Happenings: I kept this past week as lazy as possible, while still trying to work in our normal routine as much as I could. As Joseph gets older, keeping our routine while on vacation is not as easy (which is fine…that’s why it’s vacation, after all), and neither is getting back to the routine. The first night back, I went to put him to bed at his normal time and he just about had a melt down (well, he was probably still on CA time). It has been getting better, but he still has had his extremely fussy moments (which I’m sure will get better as we get back into our routine…or not…he is three, after all, lol). The majorly big thing that we’ve started is getting him more used to using the toilet. A few times a day, we sit him on there and tell him to try and go. He has had several successes, so I know that he’s pretty ready. He’s no longer scared of the toilet, which is a great thing. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: Brrrrrr, cold! It’s been cold and rainy off and on throughout the past week. Yesterday was the coldest, with temperatures not making it above 38 degrees. It’s supposed to get a bit warmer, but not by much. I love it, though. I can always put more layers on to stay warm. 🙂

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been doing stuff around the house as always, but he also started his second semester of the Pathway Program. He’s taking a math class this time around, as well as a religion class.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I did some yard work this past week (mainly weeding and cutting down dead tomato plants that didn’t survive the last frost), and got back on schedule with my piano students. I’m also getting ready to start choir back up pretty soon, so there’s music to order and look through.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been decidedly three as of late (demanding, opinionated, melt-downy, etc.), but it hasn’t been anything that we haven’t been able to handle. The sweet moments definitely still outweigh the hard ones, though. The other day I was getting him dressed and had him by the hand. He said to me, “You’re holding my hand, Chuck…you ‘slide’ (sly) dog!” It’s a direct quote from Charlie Brown. 🙂 I laughed so hard! He definitely keeps us on our toes!

This Week in Pictures:

15 - 1 (3) — Another development: “big boy” cups. He insists on having straws just like Daddy. 🙂 He also prefers to eat his toast butter-side down.

IMG_20150109_182709230 — Playing games on Daddy’s Nook. I think he can navigate that thing better than me…

IMG_20150110_132453908_HDR — Looking through the mini Viewfinder that came with his kid’s meal at Carl’s Jr.

15 - 2 (3) — Why a picture of just our bench, you ask?

15 - 1 (4) — Well, there may be a surprise inside…

15 - 4 (2) — “What do you mean I need to get out now?”

A California Christmas

So the big thing that I have been leading up to was our trip to California for Christmas. I didn’t mention it before, since I don’t like to advertise when we are not going to be home. We had a wonderful trip! Alice (along with Miles and Cadence) and Dave (and Jolee) were also there, as well as Aaron and his family (Aaron and Tara also stopped by with their family as well). It was such a wonderful trip! We left on the evening of the 23rd, drove straight through, and got to CA on Christmas Eve. We had fun hanging out with family, seeing old friends, and going to Knott’s Berry Farm. We left on the 2nd and took the trip home in two days, staying at a motel in Deming, New Mexico, and getting home last night. Joseph got to see a sunrise (he said, “Look! It’s glowing up! It’s the day!”) and Grandpa got a taste of how much Joseph likes soft things (namely the rug in their bathroom. He was watching Dad comb his hair and when he stepped on the bath mat, he said, “Oh, it’s soft!” and proceeded to lay down on it, lol). As for the rest, well, I think I’ll let the pictures do the talking. I was going to try to keep them in chronological order, but I’m not sure how successful I’ll be.

This TRIP in pictures:

IMG_20141224_151209724 — Reading with cousin Cadence.

IMG_20141224_145952830_HDR — Playing dinosaurs. Joseph let her know exactly what kinds they had.

IMG_20141224_193756842 — Playing catch with Grandpa.

IMG_20141224_193715550 — I love the adoration in Joseph’s eyes. He sure loves his grandpa!

IMG_20141224_193803252 — This is another favorite of mine.

IMG_20141225_165525204 — Hanging out with Uncle Dave.

IMG_20141224_201151956 — Playing with Lincoln Logs.

IMG_20141224_172723242 — Hanging out on the couch together.

IMG_20141224_201540458 — Loving all the snuggles!

15 - 5 (1) — Christmas morning. He got fruit snacks and goldfish crackers in his stocking.

15 - 7 — Along with another car for his collection.

15 - 15 — He really got into unwrapping gifts this year.

15 - 8 — Unwrapping his book (Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now).

15 - 9 — He also got a new dress shirt for church.

15 - 12 — He was so grateful for everything he got. It was nice to see, as a parent.

15 - 11 — We got him a garage for all his cars.

IMG_20141225_110530898 — Uncle Dave couldn’t resist!

15 - 19 — We got him a Woodstock to go with last year’s Snoopy (also in the picture).

IMG_20141226_130424 — We stopped by Fry’s on the way home from Knott’s and Joseph wanted a picture in front of the model spaceship controls.

15 - 17 — Watching YouTube videos of Super Mario Brothers on Daddy’s computer.

IMG_20141225_142549160 — Playing with Dave’s dog, Maggie.

IMG_20141225_142541395_HDR — She was so sweet, and very patient with Joseph.

IMG_20141227_110143034 — Snuggling up to Grandma.

IMG_20141227_111059318_HDR — Grandpa needed to come for snuggles, too, Joseph said.

IMG_20141228_215123579 — Playing with cousin Braxton.

IMG_20141230_091736139 — Alice, Cadence, and I went for a little hike up some of the foothills by Mom and Dad’s. This is a shot of Mt. Roubidoux (the sun was breaking through the clouds and lit up just the top of the mountain).

IMG_20141230_090225763 — Scenery from about halfway up.

IMG_20141226_172139306 — Hanging out with cousins Daniel and Andrew. He called them Mario and Luigi, lol.

15 - 2 (2) — I used to play on this turtle when I was a kid.

15 - 10 — Playing with Grandma’s shape-sorter.

15 - 2 (1) — At lunch with friends (Ray and Glynda). Joseph decided that fries dipped in aus jus were really good.

15 - 5 — Taking a walk with Uncle Jason. Jason offered to come watch Joseph so that Paul and I could squeeze in lunch and a movie (we saw the latest Hobbit movie).

IMG_20141231_232947705 — This is how Joseph rung in the new year. 😉

15 - 3 — At our motel room in Deming, NM (on the drive home).

15 - 2 — The “awesome view” from our room. 😉

IMG_20150103_160110106 — Playing in the snow at a rest stop a bit out of Fort Stockton, TX.

IMG_20150103_160059783 — He found it wasn’t very good for jumping.

IMG_20150103_160102724 — But it was fine for dancing.

IMG_20150103_160050196_HDR — He liked how it crunched under his feet.

IMG_20150103_160039144_HDR — Discovering that it’s quite slippery.

IMG_20150103_160035963_HDR — “Okay…ready to go home now!”

Four More Days

Weekly Happenings: It’s crazy to think that there are only four more days until Christmas! It has definitely been fun watching Joseph enjoy the holiday season. He loves turning the Christmas tree lights on each morning, switching the day on the Santa countdown, and taking a link off of the “countdown to Grandma and Grandpa” chain. He gets excited about presents, even if they aren’t for him (he loves watching people open presents) and asks on a regular basis if it’s time to see Grandma and Grandpa (almost, kiddo, almost). We had another pretty low-key week, mainly because I’m getting everything ready for seeing family. We did finally get to go the the In N Out that was recently built out here. Paul took this past Thursday off (he needed to get fingerprinted for his CHL) and we were in the area during an off-time (though the drive-thru was still crazy). We found a seat almost right away and only had to wait about 5-10 minutes for our food. It was so yummy! Oh, and Friday was a fun day. We had friends over to play games and our group of friends surprised us with presents that were very meaningful to us (and had to do with the game that we play, so that was even better). The gifts were a mixture of stuff for us and stuff for Joseph. Joseph got some plastic frogs (Paul kept the spooky skull cup they came in), a Barrel of Monkeys game, a big fuzzy plush spider, and a copy of the book Dragonology. Other gifts were a flashlight, some gummy bugs in a mixture of Oreo “dirt”, and a couple of gift cards to Home Depot and HEB. We were not expecting anything like that (they said they wanted to thank us for hosting game night for the past couple of years) and were overwhelmed with their generosity.

The Weekly Weather: Kind of a rinse and repeat of last week: sunny and cool with a few cold and rainy days mixed in. I guess that is one of the reasons I have a hard time remembering that we are still technically having a drought because it rains frequently (just not very much at a time for most of the storms…a couple of times it’s a really big storm, but we didn’t have any of those this past week).

What Paul’s Been Up To: This past week was his last week of classes for the semester, so he was busy taking tests and finals. He also ended up spending some unwanted quality time with our server yesterday since the software update that was supposed to go routinely…didn’t. The server flipped out and he had to spend a lot of time recovering, restoring, and backing stuff up. I’m so grateful that he is so knowledgeable in that area!!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I finished up my last week of students (we’re taking two weeks off because of the holidays) and I have been kind of enjoying not having to think about anything choir or visiting teaching related (choir is taking a break until at least after the holidays and I don’t have to make any changes to visiting teaching until then as well). I’ve been getting ready for our family visit in stages so that I don’t get too stressed out. One of my awesome friends is going to take Joseph for a couple of hours tomorrow so that I can get some stuff done while being kidless. I see some cookies or something in her future!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The highlights of his week were our trip to In N Out (where we discovered that his love of onions extends to grilled; we knew he liked raw and sauteed onions, but he hadn’t tried grilled yet…he loves grilled onions), getting to play with the new toys our friends got for him, and going to a friend’s birthday party (I neglected to get any pictures from the party…I didn’t even think about it) yesterday.

This Week in Pictures:

IMG_20141215_084000658 — The rearranging of ornaments on the bottom part of the tree is a continuous, ever-evolving process.

14 - 1 (60) — Joseph likes to play Mario Brothers on Paul’s old DS. Occasionally he wants help with a hard part, so he’ll walk up to Paul and say, “I help you?” which actually means, “Will you help me?”. Perhaps he’s heard me say “Can I help you?” too many times.

IMG_20141216_123201234_HDR — My festive Tyrannosaurus Rex.

14 - 3 (15) — I liked this artwork a lot. It’s a really good mash-up of the classic feeling of In N Out and Texas.

14 - 5 (8) — “Is my cheeseburger here yet?!”

14 - 2 (28) — “Oh, it’s coming soon? Great!”

14 - 4 (11) — Yes, I took a picture of our basket of yumminess.

14 - 1 (59) — Joseph chowing down on his cheeseburger (he didn’t want the lettuce and tomato, but he was fine with the cheese, grilled onions, and sauce). I love the pointed-out pinky…so proper, lol.

IMG_20141219_165112679 — He wanted to read to me…so he climbed up with a book, told me I needed to listen to him, and started telling me about the pictures.

IMG_20141218_212054 — I got my Christmas present early (my boots), so were able to get Paul his present a bit early as well. It’s a smart watch. It does all sorts of cool things! He was very excited to get it.

IMG_20141220_082048620 — Here’s Joseph playing with his spider and frogs.

IMG_20141220_080559 — He was making the spider chomp the monkeys.

IMG_20141220_081236967 — Looking at Dragonology with Daddy. It is a REALLY cool book.

IMG_20141220_192550 — That spider has been with him everywhere (even during diaper changes, lol). He has decided that the spider is a boy and his name is Stripey.