Growing up slowly but surely

It's been a while since I last posted... it's been a busy time for me at work. I am finally taking some time to reflect on the past few weeks and it's made me think how my sweet boys are growing and changing.

Miles and I like to joke about him growing to fast... he says, "In July I will be 4, and then I will be 5, and then I will be 6, and then 7, ..." and on and on. And, all the while I am saying "No! No! Nooooo!!!" And he thinks it's so funny and I do too... but I do get sad that he's growing up so fast. I do freak out that in 1 year from this summer, we will be getting him ready for kindergarten! It just seems crazy to me! We no longer get amazed by the new words he learns - now we get amazed by the big words he uses and the questions that he asks. He's not learning how to talk - he talks and he understands.

And, with that... he surely has learned how to "work" us (aka manipulate us). At bedtime, he suddenly is hungry even though he didn't touch his dinner. I struggle with it because who wants to send a kid to bed hungry? Not me! Because I will be the one he wakes up at 2am for a snack! LOL. We have our battles, but overall, we think Miles is a pretty darn good kid. He rarely argues when it's time for bath, bed, time to turn off the TV and for that we are thankful. He's also started playing more independently. He will play with his trains in his playroom all by himself. I remember asking our good friend Monica about this (she's a preschool teach)... Wondering if Miles will always need someone playing with him... and she said that at about 3.5 he will slowly learn how to play by himself if we encourage him. She was right. It's a bittersweet turning point. But, it also means extra time to make dinner, clean the house, or to dote on little Oliver. And Miles is still in love with trains... and has lost interest in his train table and loves building his tracks on the floor. And, then there is lil Oliver. Our sweet little man is almost 15 months old. He's walking really well these days, but he has lots of battle wounds. I forgot how hard the first few months of walking can be... lots of bumping into walls, doors, you name it. He's even taken a few falls at school... flat on his face... chasing after a ball. Poor kid. He seems to be getting a new tooth every week (he's been much earlier in getting teeth than Miles ever was) which means lots of fussiness and lots of Motrin.

And... he's really starting to talk and repeat everything. He learned the word SHOE and will even point at his foot when he says it. He will say Xie Xie (Chinese for Thank You), and he says MaMa in the sweetest, saddest little voice. He says DaDa, Goo Goo, and even tries to say Miles. We get just as excited with his first words as we did with Miles... he's at a really great age. He's happy and playful... and boy does he loves his pacifier. Miles was weaned off of his paci when he was about 8 months, but Oliver has a super big temper and really loves to scream... and once he has that paci, he calms down. Oh, I dread the day when we have to figure out how to wean him from that. For now, much to daddy's chagrin, it's here to stay.

Christmas and New Years in Seattle

I've finally some time to post about our wonderful recent trip to Seattle for Christmas and New Years. We had a really great time with my parents.

On the 23rd of December, we flew into snowy Seattle without any issues - many travelers including my mom weren't so lucky - but we arrived on time. We were surprised at how much snow was outside on the streets of Seattle (my dad wasn't exaggerating!) They literally had most hilly streets blocked off with caution tape. We immediately fell in love my parents 11th floor condo in Belltown... it had an amazing view of Elliott Bay and there were lots of ferries coming and going for Miles to watch for hours. Although, truth be told, he was more excited when he found out that there were train tracks a few blocks from their house.

Oliver really started walking while we were in Seattle. Before it was just a few steps and then crawling, but he was truly fully walking in Seattle. So fun! Check out the proud little guy!


On Christmas eve, we enjoyed a yummy dinner of German hot dogs, German potato salad, and (you guessed it) German pretzels which is a Ramstetter family tradition for Christmas eve. But, against Ramstetter family tradition, we didn't open any gifts on Christmas eve. In fact, we didn't have any gifts under the tree and we explained to Miles that Santa would come while he was sleeping.

That night while we were sleeping (Miles and I were sharing a room), Miles woke me up at 2am to ask if Santa had come yet. I told him no and told him to go back to sleep. Afterwards, I laid there thinking how fun it is that he is at an age where he kinda understands Santa. :) It wasn't so fun when he woke me up again at 6am but my sleepy head quickly went away when he said that he heard Santa come and made a slapping sound on his leg to show me the sound he heard Santa make. So cute. Sure enough, we went out to the Christmas tree and there were lots of gifts from Santa. However, since it was 6am, no one else was up yet and I told Miles that we had to wait. So, he said that he wanted to hold one present in his lap while we watched TV and waited for everyone else to wake up. That sweet little Miles sat patiently on the couch for about 45 min with a wrapped present on his lap while he waited for everyone else to get up. Once everyone else got up, it was GAME ON... but the cute part was that Miles didn't understand that he had several presents under the tree. He opened one and assumed that was it so played it for a long time before we reminded him there were more. I appreciated this because I know that before long, he will open gift after gift without a thought. At any rate, Santa was very generous to both Miles and Oliver (thanks Grandma and PaPa).

Grandma and PaPa bought Miles The Polar Express DVD and our lives haven't been the same ever since. The child is ADDICTED. In Seattle, he wanted to watch it at least twice a day and while he was watching it, he was asking when he could watch it again. The kid loves trains and this is a movie about Santa and trains... enough said. I've been known to hide books and toys that drive me crazy and it wont be long before the DVD goes missing. LOL.

Christmas night we chowed on more German food... weinerschnitzel, potato salad, and other yummy food. I love the German traditions (all food related) that we've kept for so many years in the Ramstetter family.

The next day we checked out the Space Needle, which is only about 4 blocks from my parents house. My mom dropped us off at the Westlake Center Mall where we took a 3 minute monorail ride to the Space Needle. Of course, Miles loved the monorail while I sat there thinking how darn old and rickety the monorail seemed. He was sad when it ended, but I was more than happy to get off when we arrived at the Space Needle. We paid our $16/adult ticket fee to ride the elevator to the top and up we went. I don't think Miles was overly impressed with the view... of course he loved the elevator ride up and down. (Oh, by the way, later on that day my mom told me that the monorail breaks down all the time and that they have to call the fire department and they get people down on ladders. If she would have told me that before we got on, I would have taken a cab.)

Derek and I were able to sneak in a few date night dinners while we were there. We had a very yummy dinner at Tavolata and at How to Cook a Wolf.

One night while we were all sleeping, all of the fire alarms in the condo were going off. I came out of our room wondering what was going on and Derek and my mom were wondering around, but not really doing anything. I asked where my dad was and he was trying to get some pants out of his drawer that was apparently stuck. All the while, Miles is sleeping through the whole thing (which means that the fire detectors are child proof - not good) and Oliver is screaming hysterically from his bed in the closet. Derek asks me what he should do and I told him to get Oliver! It was like a weird dream... no one was doing anything... they were all just stumbling around. Finally, my dad was able to find something long enough to reach the fire detector and he hit a button somehow and it turned off. UGH. We got a good laugh about it in the morning.

As you know, Miles is slightly obsessed with trains and my parents live a few blocks from some train tracks. One night at about 2am, I heard the whistle of a train going by and in the dead of his sleep, Miles woke up and said "I hear a train" and went right back to sleep. He loves those trains.

We loved checking out the Ballard Locks. We watched boats of all shapes and sizes come into the locks, and the water level is adjusted to allow their safe passage to the lake or sound. We also enjoyed the Fremont Troll and the Waiting for the Interurban statue. I especially loved the Queen Anne neighborhood. Such cute/quaint houses... so charming and with so much character. I would move there in a heart beat.

We spent NYE with my parents and the kids at home. We made a nice dinner for the adults after the kids went be bed. There was plenty of cheer and at midnight, we went up to the rooftop deck to watch fireworks launch off the Space Needle, which was very cool. My mom made some yummy Manhattans, after doing a little dance with the glasses... LOL!

On our travels back to San Jose, we weren't so lucky to be problem-free flight. We arrived at SEA airport at 8:30 and the place wasn't very crowded. I made a big mistake of telling Miles that I was about to pee my pants and now anytime we are in a public bathroom, he yells "Are you going to pee or poop your pants mommy?" Lovely. We boarded our 10am flight without any issues and then the fun began. We sat there for 20 min or so before the pilot came on and told us that during the maintenance check they found a dent and they needed someone from Boeing to come check it out and we needed to de-plane. Well, what can you do? Of course we were right behind a disgruntled passenger who made it very clear that he was pissed off. That's never fun. So, we all got off, got some food for the kids and waited. At about 11am, they told us that they found another plane and they would give us another update when it arrived. At about 11:30, the new plane had arrived, but guess what... the new plane had a maintenance issue. So, we bought smoothies to smooth over the time (LOL) and found things for the kids to play with (like the phone booth, whatever we could find). Finally, at around 1pm, we were back on the plane with a very over-tired 1 year old and Miles who was very ready to watch Polar Express on the portable DVD player. Derek was able to get a separate row for him and Oliver (I can't help it that Oliver is a daddy's boy) and he struggled for quite a while to get him to nap. At one point, I went over to help Derek and he said "I can't f'ing do this!" LOL. I will admit that it's pretty stressful being on a plane with a screaming baby who wont stop wiggling around. As Derek put it, it was like wrestling a fish! But, we made it back to San Jose and we were happy to be back home.



We had a very nice time and a big thank you to Blinky (my mom's clown car), my mom and my dad for being such wonderful hosts!