This afternoon we had the boys wearing their Wellies to go for a walk, so they could walk in the puddles from the morning rain.  They enjoyed stepping in the water; they both were walking and playing gently, so they did not get themselves wet at all.  After being out there for half an hour, suddenly we noticed the Christmas lights at every house were flickering and eventually went out.  We were surprised with the outage as the storm had already passed.  Stuart gathered our flashlights and lantern from the house, and we were all enjoying playing with them in the dark.  Shortly later, we were contemplating ideas for dinner, so Stuart opened the garage door manually to get our car out.  By then, our neighbors just came back from their walk; it turned out that they were locked out of their house and with no keys to their car either.  We invited them inside our house to hang out.  The kids had a good time playing with the train set in front of the fireplace.  Some of them even enjoyed a snack while they played too.

    The neighbors started to contemplate the idea of breaking a window in the garage to get inside their house.  They decided they did not want to be a burden to us too long nor fall behind in their own nighttime routine so they went forth with the plan to break into their own home.  I was joking with them that the power would probably return as soon as they broke the window.  Roughly 30 seconds after Sam and Stuart broke the window, the power came back on.  Funny how my joke came true.

    They thanked us and went home to return their evening routine.  The outage was only slightly over an hour; it turned out to be relatively fun experience for us.

    Since it was not raining in the afternoon, we continued our plan to go to the Christmas In the Park for the girls’ performance at 5pm.  There was a lot of traffic near there but we parked in a local garage and made it right on time.  Both Logan and Connor were held by us so they could see through the crowds.  They were very engaged watching each group of the dancers perform.  Logan tried to spot Kasey on stage, but he ended up spotting Auntie DeeDee who was one of coordinators.  The last dance we finally saw Ashley and Hailey dancing a hip hop dance.  After the show, we hung out a bit to wait for the Hashiguchis to talk with them.  We learned that Kasey was supposed to be in two dances, but after crying in the first, she actually sat out of the second.  Shortly after, we said goodbye to them and took a walk on our own to look at the automated Christmas decoration.  The boys, especially Connor, were most interested in watching the train passing by.  We really enjoyed the holiday spirits, so we will be back again later for a day trip next time.

    It was Stuart’s turn to accompany Logan to another Pump It Up party today.  Logan was excited to go to Zoey’s birthday celebration, and had talked about it a few times prior to today.  According to Stuart, Logan did not need any warming up once they arrived, and he jumped right into the bouncy houses with his buddy Colton.  The only one that Logan did not go into was the tall steep slide.  Logan did not have any trouble with obstacle bouncy house today, and was constantly in them.  Stuart reported that Logan was not shy either, he chatted with a few parents on his own, asking for things or making comments.  Once he wanted to play with the air hockey table and Stuart did not have any coins with him, so Logan just turned around and asked a few of the other dads for some.  Logan had a great time and took his nap in the car on their way home.

   Since Stuart and Logan had their day planned, I decided to take Connor to the mall for a walk this morning.  Connor enjoyed our trip there; he walked half of the times on his own, but I had to carry him sometimes just to keep him from dilly-dallying too much.  He helped me pick up some clothes for Logan which were the only things we ended up buying.  We also had shared a lunch there before coming home to enjoy our nap together.

    I left work earlier on Friday and Stuart picked up the kids from school; we then met up at the house before taking off to the Kaos.  We arrived at their house after the big game (UCLA vs. Stanford) had already started; Robyn’s family was there already, and Michelle was coming home with the kids.  All their kids were dressed in their UCLA outfits and were ready for the occasion.  Stuart accompanied Ted and Dave in the kitchen who were making dinner and watching the game.  Robyn, Michelle and I just hung out while watching the kids.  Logan started playing with Brandon first; they played with cars and guns.  Peyton and Connor took turns riding the roller coaster car.  Then all the kids, including Mckayla and Marcus, played in Marcus’s room, playing with his train set and Lego.  Marcus liked to hang out with Michelle last night, and Connor also came in to check with us often.  Every time Connor came to see us, he always had a toy in his hand, a trumpet, a train or even a big toy piano once; he had so much fun playing with their toys.  Marcus and Connor had a couple of encounters wanting the same toys, but they managed to share them well.

   The dinner was very yummy and was my favorite, meat and veggie dinner (Ted’s skirt steaks, Dave and Robyn’s veggie/salads).  The kids ate well and all of us were stuffed.  Connor is still not a big protein fan, but he seemed to really enjoy the skirt steak.  The kids returned to play, and the rest of all continued to watch the game.  Later, Logan remembered that Robyn had brought a movie “Brave” for them to watch, so the kids all sat around for the show.  Peyton was so cute that she gently warned everyone that the movie was slightly scary which made the kids more intrigued to watch.  By then, we had coffee along with my chocolate pecan pie and ice cream for desserts.  The kids slowly trickled in to have their shares too.  At one point, Logan came to the kitchen to tell Auntie Robyn that he was too scared of the movie, and asked her to go watch with him.  Robyn ended up sitting in between some of the kids and holding their hands throughout the scary part.

   We hung out at the kitchen until the end of the game, but unfortunately the result was undesirable.  It was quite late by then, but since the movie was close to the end and the kids were still engaged, especially Logan, Mckayla and Peyton, we let them finished it up.  We said our thanks and goodnight afterward.  The boys were tired, so they went down quickly after the quick bath at home.  Despite going to bed 2.5 hours later than usual, both boys still woke up at the crack of dawn this morning.

    Connor’s pronunciation of words are still not very good.  He can’t even say his own name.  We have him go through repeating all of our names, and he can say them fine (including Logan and Scottie), but when it comes to “Connor”, he says two completely different sounds.  His favorite stuffed animal lately is an elephant, and he calls him “Eppinton”.  When he sings Jingle Bells, he says Bing Bing Bell.  He gets excited when he sees Christmas lights, but he will say two words only slightly resemblance to them.  However he does have some good pronunciations, like “one more time” or “my turn” which he uses a lot. 

    Connor is now doing what Logan does, assigning himself to different characters in the book by pointing and saying “Me!”,   He also assigns all of us as the other characters as well.  Logan and Connor often have the same conversation in the mornings while watching TV shows (lately mostly Backyardians and Star Wars Lego).  One says “I am Austin”, then the other says “No, Me Austin”, then I hear “You want to be Austin?, ok, I am Tyrone”.  Later, “Me Pablo".  “Mommy, you are Uniqua”.  The fascinating conversation just keeps going.

    For months, I have been encouraging Logan to try PB sandwiches as it is an easy option for lunch, but Logan always declined it.  Finally two weeks ago, Logan agreed to take three bites before moving on to a different breakfast, but after the bites, he gave me a big smile and said “yummy!”.  Since then, he has been asking for it every morning, and gets so excited when I agree to make it.  He actually eats it much faster than other food, and he even talks about it while he eats: “super yummy” or “It is so good”.  Sometimes he asks about having it other time of the day too.  Poor Stuart, being not a fan for PB sandwiches, nor their smell, and now has to deal with the rest of us eating them in the car.