Escondido Renaissance Faire

[WARNING: Picture-heavy post]

You guys. We had the most ridiculously fun time at the Renaissance Faire on Saturday. So much fun that I don't even feel nerdy raving about being at the Renaissance Faire. :)

Johnny's favorite movie right now is Brave, which is about a young Scottish princess who is not into getting married, but very into horseback riding and archery. Thus, Johnny has been obsessed with riding a horse and with shooting a bow and arrow. All kinds of things get turned into bows and arrows: bamboo skewers, drumsticks, branches he find at parks, etc. When I heard about the Renaissance Faire in Escondido was happening this past weekend, I figured Johnny would get a huge kick out of it. I mean, what little boy wouldn't like knights, swords, and pirates?

So we went with my mom. And spent all day there. Seriously. We got there at 11am and left at 6pm. It was crazy. We saw pirates, fairies, fauns, a queen, knights, cabin boys, wizards, and LOTS of cleavage. Of course, once the boys spotted the playground, they bypassed everything else and played there for awhile.

Arriving at the Faire. Hank was sleeping in the car with John.

Trying out a fireman's pole for the first time.

Victory!

The Queen's Parade. Both boys stopped playing on the play structure and watched. They were enthralled by the costumes and music going by. Heck, I was, too!

But by far, the best part of the day, was when Johnny and Hank spotted the archery area. Remember how I said Johnny was really into bows and arrows? He spotted the bows and said, "I wanna try!" My original plan was for John to take the lesson with the archery instructor and Johnny could watch, since Johnny is 3, and therefore not so much into taking direction. But when we bought our ticket, Johnny was SO EXCITED to pick out his bow and try it.

This is what unadulterated excitement looks like. For Johnny.

When we got to the front of the line and met our instructor, Johnny tried out the easiest bow, but he couldn't pull it back. So the instuctor just said, "I can make that work for you," and he walked us back to the farthest target (he said we'd get the best pictures there), where he proceeded to instruct Johnny on how to pull back and shoot an arrow. 

The guy was SO patient with Johnny. Since Johnny is, you know, THREE, he had a little trouble following the man's directions. He would say, "Okay, now let go of the string. Let go of the string. Just let go," over and over and over again without raising his voice or getting impatient. For all seven arrows. The man was a saint.

Look at that face!!! Such excitement.

The kid was stoked.

You guys, it was magical. Johnny has been talking about shooting a bow and arrow since the first time he saw Brave a few months ago and he got to fulfill his dream this weekend. When I uploaded all of the photos, I got all teary-eyed looking through them because just look at the JOY! Gosh, it was awesome.

Anyway. Moving on from the archery. The rest of the day was spent watching the entertainers, listening to music, eating some lunch and more playing on the playground.

Eating some lunch. Fulfilling dreams is hard work!

The handsome hubby

The boys dancing to the live music and vocals of Mister Mac (not pictured)

Watching a juggling show.

Juggling with fire.

Standing on top of five precariously balanced chairs and juggling fire.

It's fun when you run, Daddy!

Playing a "choking on water" game with G-ma. Hank thought it was hilarious.

Watching some play sword-fighting.

Old school teeter-totter on our way out.

It was a little pricey to get in ($17 per adult, 4 and under free) but for a whole day of fun, I thought it was worth it. Especially since both boys SLEPT ALL NIGHT! Whoo-hoo for tired children! :)

The Orange Shirt

Johnny, being a 3-year-old, has obsessions over some things. Of course, he is obsessed with letters and numbers, but another, much more visible, obsession is his love of a particular orange shirt. I purchased this orange shirt at Target sometime in September.

The Orange Shirt

Then, one day in October, he decided that it was his favorite shirt ever and he never wanted to remove it. Thus, he wore it day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, excepting the couple of hours that John and I managed to coax it off of him so we could wash it. There was probably a six week period where he didn't wear any other shirt. Evidence below:

October 28th, 2013

November 2nd, 2013

November 6th, 2013

November 10th, 2013

November 15th, 2013

December 5th, 2013

December 17th, 2013

In effort to stem the tears and screaming caused by taking the orange shirt away to wash it, I purchased another orange shirt, though it was different since Target was out of blue monster shirts in his size. This new orange shirt was inadequate because it had a blue car on it instead of the beloved blue monster. Shame on me. So it sat, with the rest of his T-shirts, in his closet unused.

Until one day, he wanted to wear the orange shirt with the blue car.

December 25th, 2013

And now Johnny's obsessed with BOTH of these orange shirts. Which is preferable to being attached to only one shirt. Also on the plus side? Orange really stands out in a crowd; I think I would have lost him at the zoo by now if he had an obsession with black shirts.

The joys of modern technology

I love YouTube. With a passion. When I was a teacher, I would tell students who were foggy on a concept to look it up on YouTube because without fail, there would be some great animation or rap or lecture on whatever it is you didn't understand.

And now as a mom, it's a staple. Sesame Street has thousands of videos up on YouTube for anyone to watch at any time and I take FULL advantage of it. Johnny currently has his own channel and these are his current favorites:

Sesame Street Pinball #12

Sesame Street: The Number 20

Sesame Street: Mary Sunshine #11

Sesame Street: Y do I love the letter Y (watch out, this one is really catchy...)

As you can see, most of the above videos are associated with numbers, because Johnny is OBSESSED with numbers... more on that later.

From Aunt Lisa

Oh yes I'm blogging this.

Thanks for the onesie, Aunt Lisa! I'm sorry it took so long to get a picture of it... without poop or spit up all over it.

Big shoes to fill

Johnny loves shoes. One of his first words was "shoe". Well, actually, he said "fouf" but that's what he called shoes. It's a real word.

Anyway. He's been picking out shoes for me and John for a long time. There have been many days when I don some neon pink flip flops because those are what he picked out for me... and he flat out refuses to let me wear any other pair of shoes. So, I wear the flip flops. He knows the difference between my shoes and John's shoes, so when we ask for our own shoes, he will actually get Mommy's or Daddy's shoes. Amazing really.

While he will still get our shoes for us, he's now become interested in putting them on:

He may have big feet for his age, but at least they don't fit in John's shoes yet.

My 5 Items for the first month

I know I've only been a mom of 2 for one month, but I wanted to document the things that helped me get through the first five weeks unscathed.

5. Coffee. I don't like coffee brewed straight up. Maybe given enough time I could handle it, but for now I like my little frou-frou Starbucksy drinks. I was going to Bad Ass Coffee on mornings when I needed a hit, but this recipe has cured me of that money drain.

4. My car and the Car Songs CD from the Schmidts - These two go hand-in-hand, so I'm classifying them as one. Johnny LOVES the music on this CD, but I tell him that we can only listen to it if we're driving (if we just turn on the car and listen to it, the car battery dies... story for another time). So, sometimes I'll pack the boys up and we'll drive around listening to kids' songs. Granted, I'm SO OVER "Zippity Do Da" but I'm not over my older son being totally happy and adorable and my other one asleep in the car. The car is also an excellent place for Johnny to play (with the car off) while I nurse Hank in the passenger seat. Gotta love how multi-functional cars are.

3. Sam the Cooking Guy's book - I am not a gifted cook. I can't just look at random ingredients and make something delicious like my sister-in-law Leslie (have you been to her website, by the way?), therefore, cookbooks are my friends. Especially Sam's cookbook, which uses ingredients I know and has recipes for foods that are delicious and very quick to make. Making dinner with Johnny running around and Hank strapped to my chest is an awful lot easier when I only have to spend fifteen minutes making it.

2. Maya Wrap Ring Sling - I LOVE this thing! I have every baby carrier known to man and while Hank doesn't seem to have a preference for any of them, I like this one the best because I don't overheat in it. The Ergo and Moby, while distributing Hank's weight better, are just way too hot to wear while chasing Johnny in 85 degree weather. I'm thinking of making another one just to have on hand; they have instructions on their website!

1. Help from others. With Johnny, I felt like I had something to prove and thus, didn't accept help when it was offered. Granted, I learned a lot and probably felt more confident after braving it alone than if I had someone helping me every step of the way, but it probably would have been WAY less stressful for myself and John if I had just put away my pride and asked for help. This time around, the help is what got me through. From in-house helpers to friends who dropped by with dinner, every little bit helped. My advice to moms: You may want to do it alone and you can, but your life will be so much easier if you just accept even a little help here and there, especially because people want to do it! If your uncle calls and asks if you need anything tell him to pick something up for you! If your mom calls and wants to hang out with your baby for a few hours so you can get a nap, take her up on it. I promise, you're going to be a mom forever and accepting help from a willing helper can make the difference between sanity and insanity.

Goggies!

Johnny has a fascination with dogs. Every time he comes into contact with a dog, we try really hard to teach him to be gentle by saying "gennnntle... gennnntle..." and moving his open hand slowly and delicately. Then right after we let go, he lunges for the poor dog and grabs a handful of skin and fur... we're working on it.

Last weekend, Aunt Leslie came over with her two little dogs, Pepe and Carson. Johnny was pretty excited about being around them and they handled it pretty well, though Pepe was more tolerant of Johnny than Carson was.

Sucked in.

John and I don't watch television. Really, we don't. Every now and then I find myself wishing that I had a show to follow, but most of the time we just watch movies. Well, since we have this aversion to the TV, Johnny doesn't do much TV-watching. I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way it is. So, whenever I play something on the computer that is kid-friendly he gets sucked into it! I don't think the kid even blinks. His favorite video right now is this one below called "1, 2, 3, 4" on Sesame Street sung by Feist.

Totally catchy, right? I find myself humming it at random times during the day.

So this is what Johnny looks like when I play it for him:

Thank you Sesame Street and Feist for giving me 2 minutes and 27 seconds to clean up the mess wrought by breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Remote Love Affair

As you might imagine, Johnny has quite a few toys; toys of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Of course, he has his favorites, Sophie being one of them. However, of all of these toys, he likes remote controls the best. Not a play remote control, but real remote controls. So we let him play with the VCR remote because who uses VCRs these days? :)

We used lots of different remotes for this photo shoot, obviously, but we removed the batteries from the VCR one so he can play with that one most often. Every time you hand him a remote, he gets this really excited look on his face:

Look at that smirk. He loves these things.