Sea World's Spooktacular

Last year, my mom and I took the boys to Sea World's Spooktacular for a little Halloween fun, but it wasn't all that great since we went in the morning before nap time and none of the Halloween stuff started until the afternoon. So this year, we decided to go in the afternoon and John said he wanted to come with us. Well, this was quite the proclamation since John is not a fan of theme parks, nor is he a fan of crowds... but since I take the boys there so often, he said he wanted to come and see what we do when we're there.

Turns out a lot of people had the exact same idea we did. There were HOARDES of people going to Sea World at the same time as us and, unfortunately, a lot of them needed tickets like John did. So, we stood in line.

And stood in line some more.

And stood in line some more. We were there for about 30 minutes before John FINALLY got to purchase a ticket... and that's when we found out that they weren't doing the Fun Card thing anymore. We were thinking that if John bought a full price ticket it could be used for a full year since we're SoCal residents. Negative, ghost rider. But by that point, we were sick of standing in line in the sun with hundreds of other people, so we coughed up the $65 (even WITH my discount) and went inside.

There were a few highlights (as can be seen below), but mostly the boys were irritated with the sheer amount of people at the park. They are used to having the run of the place since we usually go on weekdays, but it was very different on the weekend for Spooktacular. There were lots of tears when John had to explain to Johnny that he had to wait in line for his favorite things. And then we had to keep them close to us since they could get lost in the crowd. There was a particularly harrowing moment when my mom, John and I lost sight of Johnny at the Bay of Play. He went up the nets, across the bridge, down the slide, up the stairs... and then we lost him. Luckily, John found him trying to go down the nets (which you aren't allowed to do) and brought him back down safely.

So here are the pictures!

Johnny is obviously not impressed with the time and effort these people put into their make up and costume.

Hello rubber ducky. Would you like to come home with me?

Look! We were there!

ELMO!!!! Hank loves Elmo. But that's a post for another day. Or something.

Turns out that the coolest place in the park was this stretch of green grass where the boys ran and ran and ran while I chased them and tickled them. It was totally worth the price of admission. That grass was seriously soft.

I KNOW. Dead of cute.

35 months!

I'm 35 months old today!

Hank is only 16 months old though, so don't get confused. This just happens to be a good picture of me, Johnny, therefore I want to use it. This is MY 35-month-birthday, not Hank's. Just to be clear.

Anyway.

I am only ONE MONTH AWAY from being 3 whole years old. Man, I'm getting old fast. In the past month I have exploded with correct grammar. I use complete sentences and use "I" and "me" correctly most of the time. I rarely talk in the third person anymore, much to Mommy's relief.

The biggest change in the past few weeks is how much I enjoy other kids now. I have come to appreciate Hank's company a little more and have even started asking him "Hank, do you wanna go upstairs and play with blocks, Hank?" in the morning after breakfast. It makes Mommy's heart melt.
I even have a couple of friends now that I enjoy seeing. One of them, Blake, likes to sing the ABC song with me, so we'll sit on chairs and sing together. I've even taken him up to my room to play with my coveted letters and numbers. When he goes, we give each other a big hug and the rest of the day I will tell Mommy about how much fun I had with Blake. I know, I'm adorable.

I'm still really into numbers and letters and am learning to spell and read more and more each day. My favorite game right now is having Mommy or Daddy make letters A to Z with my Duplo blocks. I tell them what color I want it to be and they make it for me. It's awesome. I even starting to write a little bit; I can write a "1" (and 11, 111, 1,111, etc) and am working on "7". To be honest, I'm not all that interested since I can just make Mommy write whatever number I need.

Halloween 2012

So.... October in San Diego was kind of mean this year. It was supposed to be all cool and crisp and kind of fall-like, but October decided that autumn wasn't going to happen on her watch and threw us some blazing sunshine, Santa Ana winds and some 100+ degree days just to watch us SUFFER.

What does this have to do with Halloween? Nothing, I just felt like ranting.

Anyway.

Hank and Johnny's costumes all revolved around a certain plastic hat that Johnny got from the Safari Park a couple of months ago. Up until that day, Johnny was not a hat guy. Not in the slightest. Then some random older kids give him a plastic safari hat and BAM! He won't take it off. So, I figured I'd make him a zookeeper/person on safari and Hank would be some kind of animal you would see on safari. So when I saw a lion costume at Costco two months ago, I grabbed it. Then I got an "explorer's" vest off Amazon and I was done.

It was the perfect plan. Johnny is REALLY particular about what he wears (more on that later), so I planned for him to wear some khakis and whatever shirt he wanted. Then I'd slip the vest on him and convince him to wear his beloved safari hat and we'd be done.

Turns out that my nearly-3-year-old is SO not into doing things that I want him to do. The whole day I talked up getting CANDY and wearing a COSTUME and getting CANDY and seeing Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jana and OMG DID I SAY YOU'RE GETTING CANDY?!?!

Not fazed. Candy? Pish-posh. I guess that's what I get for not giving my child candy, right?

So Grandma stayed inside with Johnny while the rest of us took Hank around in his lion costume to get some candy. And he was SO STINKING CUTE. He'd ring the doorbell, stand there patiently, and when the host arrived at the door, he'd wave at them and say "Hi!" They'd (without fail) get down on his level and gush about adorable he is while showing him a bowl full of bright colored treats. At first, he hesitated about taking something, but by the end he had no problem grabbing something and putting it in his bag. He wouldn't say "trick or treat" since he's only 16 months old, but I would prompt him with "What does a lion say, Hank?" and he's say "Roar!!"

The lion without his hood

Not stoked about the hood.

Still not stoked about the hood.

Please don't mind my hip hair-do. It's called "mom-chic"... and also "I haven't looked in the mirror for three days"

YAY DOORBELLS!

He kept pointing at the jack o' lanterns saying "pumpkin!" Then he'd point to the fountain and say "FOUNTAIN!"

 My heart exploded a few times that evening at the sheer cuteness of it all.

After a few houses, Grandma had managed to get Johnny outside, but he required her to put his orange shirt on him. So this was Johnny's costume (from the back since he refused to slow down long enough for me to snap a shot of his face):

Then shortly after we got all excited about Johnny coming outside, he bolted down the block and John followed him to the park, where they stayed until Hank and I picked them up in the van after we were done seeing all of our neighbors.

I think Johnny may have seen his error in skipping out the trick or treating when Hank was digging into his spoils: