Posts Tagged ‘Rhino’

Happy New Year!

I wish I could report that we had a super exciting New Year's Eve (and birthday celebrations for Matt!) but unfortunately we rung in the new year with a stomach bug! 

I had plans on Thursday night to go to a Pampered Chef cake party with church ladies, then on Friday (Matt's birthday) hang out with new friends and attend our church's watch night service. Thursday, out of nowhere, I started with the vomiting, then Rhino joined in. It was so pitiful! Rhino has had colds, fevers, and motion sickness, but never had to deal with hoovering over a bucket and not being able to hold anything down. I felt so bad for him! He was so thirsty (we were so dehydrated!) but we couldn't keep down any water. 

So Matt woke me up from the couch at 5 minutes to midnight, I think I mumbled happy new year and fell back asleep. Yuck.

Thursday and Friday were miserable, but by Saturday we were back on track. Rhino kept telling us he feels "much better" all day, whether we asked or not! Heron's been doing just fine, but Matt picked up something on Saturday night and is just now feeling right again. What a waste of a four day weekend!! 

Thankfully Matt doesn't really care to do anything big and exciting on his birthdays. He likes to just relax at home and not have any plans. I would have at least liked to make him a special dinner and bake a cake, but that will have to wait until later.

I know I haven't posted much about knitting and crochet, but I do still pick up the needles when I get a chance! The boys have made it difficult lately, since they both love yarn! Rhino will pretend to crochet with his own huge plastic hook and scrap yarn. Heron just likes to tangle up the yarn. I think I've spent more time detangling yarn this year than I have working on projects!

It's getting cold out and the boys need hats. Their heads are getting larger and I can't seem to find Rhino's cute earflap hat from two years ago. (Would it even fit Heron, though?) So they each get new ones!

Jen and I have been doing a sister-in-law craft-along for some time now. We've crocheted amigurumi owls, embroidered Christmas cards, baked chocolate butterfly cupcakes, and this month we were on to knitting up little scarves for ourselves! We found a cute pattern on Ravelry — the "Cap'n Crunch" Cowl. I wanted to use up some stash yarn and also needed something to keep my neck warm and this was a perfect quick knit! I think Rhino looks pretty smashing in it, too!

I started a hat for Rhino from the Baby Beanies book (Cabled Greens) but it turned out a little too small for his huge head. So Heron gets another hat! I'm working on another one (in opposite brown/cream colors) for Rhino now with a few more cable twists so it's larger. Ohh, and I need to make some pom-poms for the tops! Here's Heron being super cute in his new cabled beanie.

I've also got a striped ripple afghan, four baby blankets, and a pair of slippers on the needles that I've been at forever. Maybe I'll finally knock those out this winter!

Matt has been watching through Stargate SG-1 lately and for some reason Rhino has enjoyed the series as well. Usually he only likes cartoons and doesn't pay much attention to anything with live action. But he does love Stargate! He and Matt were watching an episode tonight and Rhino had his magna doodle on his lap. Usually he draws a lot of scribbles and tells us that it's Thomas or freight cars or a tunnel. Tonight he drew his first drawing that we actually recognized:

A stargate!

I've been doing quite a bit of baking lately. I donated ten dozen cookies to the annual Misawa Cookie Caper yesterday. (I made chocolate crinkles, peanut butter blossoms, and brownie mounds.) All the baking was fun, but we didn't keep any of the cookies so I really wanted to make some for ourselves!

I decided to start with sugar cookies (and used the awesome new Snowflake Cookie Cutters that Mama gave me on our trip!) and Mexican Wedding Cakes / Russian Tea Cakes / Snowballs. The snowflakes I rolled and cut on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet then removed the excess so I wouldn't have to transfer the fragile raw snowflakes. I made a milk/powdered sugar glaze and then dipped in White Cake Sparkles. The Mexican Wedding Cakes flattened out a little too much and weren't exactly ball-shaped, but they were delicious!

I meant to keep them all for our family, but our church was having a potluck fellowship and I needed something to bring, so this cookie plate was for the church. We still kept a bunch of sugar cookie boys, trees and snowflakes!

Rhino was really interested in decorating. He made some impressive cookie masterpieces. Here was his first attempt at a snowflake. Delicious!

The boys are interacting a lot more together now that Heron is walking around. Sometimes they have fun together playing together and making messes together. I think Rhino's figuring out that a little brother can be annoying sometimes, too! We really thought Rhino would be the one that was rough and pushy, but it seems that little Heron is a tad more aggressive. He takes things from Rhino, messes up his toys, hits him over the head with cups and blocks, and pushes him around!

This whole exchange took less than one minute. Heron smacked Rhino on the head then pushed behind him to the other side of the couch. I guess Rhino had his revenge by making it as difficult for Heron as possible to get through.

One minute later, they were both happy to just sit and watch cartoons and sip their juice!

Dear Rhino,

It's been a long time since your last letter– I think your 2nd birthday! So much has happened since then, I don't even know where to begin!

You talk non-stop now! You talk to your toys (and have them talk to each other) while you play, narrate TV shows for us, and jabber on to Heron. You've been talking for a while, but just recently we can really understand most of what you're saying. And you're such a sweetheart! You often tell me how pretty I am, tell Daddy to have a good day at work, say "please" and "thank you" and compliment other children (most little girls around your age are princesses!)

You love trains now. Well no, you're obsessed with trains now! We have Thomas and Friends on every day. We are always reading train books together. You have a large collection of wooden tracks and a variety of wooden trains (including a handful of Thomas trains.) I think we may be able to get rid of the rest of your toys and you'd be happy to just run tracks all over our living room each day! You make the cutest train sounds and whenever we ask you about your day you tell us all about heavy freight cars and "chugga"-ing really fast!

You took a long vacation back to the States this month to visit with my family. You spent time in Colorado Springs with Grammy, in Dallas with Pop (and Grandmother, Granddaddy, your great aunts and great uncles and Uncle Matt & Adria!) We also went to San Angelo to see Aunt Andrea and your cousin Amelia. You did so much this last month! You rode 8 planes, went to the North Pole and met "Santa Claus", were bit on the head/eye by a dog (ow! But you're okay!), went to the Denver Children's museum, rode a few trains, went on your first ferris wheel, saw your first pumpkin patch, went to the zoo, went hiking, played the guitar, and were loved on by lots of family! It was tiring and you were crabby through some of it, but had a great time over all!

You've become a pretty picky eater. I feel like we used to be able to put anything on your plate and you'd gobble it up. Now if it's green, it doesn't even get a nibble. At least you still love fruit (especially cantaloupe.) Anything sweet is always a hit, of course, but you don't get them often because you rarely give your meals a try! White rice, pieces of cheese, chicken nuggets/strips, and pizza would be all you'd ever eat if I let you!

We're having more and more fun with you as the months go on. You're getting to be such a little boy, wanting to do everything on your own and starting to get a sassy little mouth, but you still snuggle up with us on the couch and give us foot rubs (thanks!) I love you so much and can't wait to see how you grow in the months to come!

Love always,

Mommy

We got up early to take Mom & Dad to the train station. They were here almost three weeks, but it did go by really quickly.

We hadn't visited a Buddhist temple while they were here, so we stopped by the one on the hill by the train station. We went inside and it was dark and quiet and I felt like we shouldn't be there. It was peaceful and very pretty.

They had to take a train to Hachinohe, then get on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo, then take the Narita express to the airport. Then a 14 hour flight back. It's a lot, but they made it there just fine!

I love the Matt & Dad hug. And Heron's squishy cheeks!

It was so great to have them visit! I'm really thankful that they could make it all the way out here to spend some time with us.

Rhino had a hard time with their leaving. He sat on Matt's shoulders yelling "Grandpa, waaiitt!" (Both Mom & Dad are named "Grandpa" apparently. He just didn't get "Grandma.") Then in the car he cried for Grandpa to "si-down" and kept trying to hand the seat belt up to nobody. It makes my heart ache to see him so upset to see his grandparents leave! We'll miss them, too.

It was more important to just hang out with Mom and Dad and the boys than to go sightseeing and take them all over Japan. Of course, since they made it all the way out here, we wanted to show them our favorite things!

We ate at Noodle House Marumiya (a.k.a. Cheese Roll). We had ramen, yakisoba, beef dunburi, and (of course) cheese rolls! Yummy! Matt and Rhino (coincidentally, dressed alike) waited for their cheese rolls.

We tried a lot of different restaurants. We had Pepper Lunch at the mall, Cheese Roll, yakiniku at Viking, this place (I can't remember the name!) for delicious yakitori … Rhino loved this place because he could crawl under the floor between the table.

I seem to get sick every time we visit with Matt's parents. I think it's them!! This time wasn't so bad, but I did get some bug for a few days.

We were planning on going to the Tanabata festival right out the main gate, but I really, really wasn't up for it. So Matt took Rhino and Mom and they had a good time! Rhino ran through the streamers, rode Thomas the Tank Engine and a mini-carousel, and they took in the sights and got some cute pictures. I've never been, but hope to go next year!

This is an illegal picture. You can't take pictures in the Universe (Japanese grocery store!) That's okay, though. Matt's parents are rebels! Rhino likes to drive the Hello Kitty car all over the Universe.

We went to the awesome cake house, Shiroi Mori. Delicious! Here we are hanging out on the couch at the table. I had a delicious chocolately, nutty, crunchy cake slice. Rhino had some awesome chocolate cake. Heron wolfed down some custard … and I don't remember everyone else's. It was all delicious, though! One of our new favorite places in Misawa!

I love the Misawa Aviation and Science Museum. It's close and just so neat. Rhino is finally at the age where he is really enjoying a lot of the exhibits. The planes are really exciting!

Heron had a good time, especially playing with sound waves. So cool! I can't believe with as much as we've gone here, we never went upstairs with all the awesome electricity and weather displays.

Everyone loves to watch the slow-motion multi-camera videos of themselves jumping. I think Rhino mostly likes the countdown to the jumping!

The playground there (Sky Park, I think they call it) is really cute, too. Rhino almost liked riding these rails, but just for a second. I'm glad that Mom & Dad could join us on a trip to one of our favorite local spots. It's just too much fun (and educational!)

Looking for driving directions to the Aviation and Science Museum in Misawa, Japan? Check them out here!

Well, our Horse Park outing didn't work out last week, but Mom and I made it out that way while Matt and Dad went golfing!

Of course we got a ride on the giant roller slide in! I rode with Heron on my lap and he loved it. Rhino got his foot stuck at the top of the slide so he wasn't too happy a lot of the way down!

We fed the horses some carrots (100 yen for a cup)!

And Rhino had his first horse ride! I thought 2 was too young to ride a horse, but look at him go! He loved it and didn't complain at all! The men who walked him around talked to him and pointed things out. When the loop was finished, they told Rhino to touch the horse's nose, its mouth, it's ear, talked to him about the horse (I'm guessing — it was all in Japanese!) and had him give the horse a kiss (yuck?) It was sweet! And look at my big boy on a real horse!!

Rhino climbed the big horse slide and rode some play horses. Heron liked riding on the wooden horses, too! And We had some delicious ice cream to beat the heat before we left.

It was such a fun day! All the excitement and heat really wore Rhino out, though!

Looking for driving directions to the Horse Park (Komakko Land) from Misawa? Click here!