Whoooooaaaa!! That's what I always wanted!

Here is another Christmas morning video, this time with Seth's reactions after opening presents. I personally find it hilarious, but I am naturally biased. If you're a big Seth fan, you might enjoy.

(note: no duplicated footage or clips)

Is it my turn?

We tried to instill in Seth the true meaning of Christmas. However, that all went right out the window the second presents were in the picture. The following video illustrates my point. I assure you, there is no duplicated footage in this video. Each clip is unique. I know, hard to believe.

The kids know how to bring the merry

This was a particularly fun Christmas since Seth really got into it and will probably even remember it as he grows older.


I thought he was going to pass out in a daze of celebrity awe when he sat on Santa's lap at the mall. He had planned out what he was going to say, but froze up when the moment arrived. He just couldn't stop smiling and staring at him. We were there to translate the mumbles behind the tooth-clenched smile--"a bike, Batman, Superman, Iron Man." Seth panicked a few days later when he realized he had forgotten to include Spiderman. Miraculously, Santa made his way to the Stanford Mall the same night as us a week later and Seth put his worries to rest, plus he loosened up a little the second time, and Ada too. She actually sat on Santa's lap.

All these superheroes Seth wants are not action figures, they're costumes. He got so many costumes for Christmas, I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of grocery shopping, etc. with Iron Man, Dracula, and Superman this year.

My kids are naturally the epitome of traditionally-assigned gender roles. While Seth is running around making sound effects, pretending to beat up bad guys, Ada loves kissing her new baby doll, twirling around in her puffy skirt, and chopping wooden velcro fruit on a cutting board.

Christmas Morning

The latest on the smaller kid

Ada has a really sweet little voice. Thanks to Aaron for giving her a chance in that department. (Poor Aaron runs in the other direction when I answer my phone in public because I'm SO loud. I like to claim it's completely genetic because you should hear my dad's booming voice. WOW.) At 22 months, Ada's in that stage where everything she says (when she isn't fussing) is completely adorable. I realize parents tend to worship their own children, but I'm convinced that she could melt the heart of anyone who could hear her say "fluffy" or "wuv you". I could listen to it all day. I love how she calls our wagon the "waggie" and pronounces "blanket": "buh bet". She can't contain her excitement when I carry her around the house looking for buh-bet and we finally find it--she kicks her legs and hugs it with such adoration.

Ada's current obsessions are Elmo, baggies, Bohemian Rhapsody, my mole, and her best friend (and second cousin) Lucy.

I'm not sure how she got into Elmo since we don't have TV, but his image is on the face of every one of her pampers, so I guess those two have been close for a while. I'll show her clips on youtube sometimes, and I must say this one is my favorite.

As far as baggies ("bah-ggies"), she likes all kinds: sandwich bags with snacks in them, my purse, grocery bags, gift bags, etc. I recently took dinner to a friend who had a baby, and handed over the dinner in a brown paper grocery bag. Ada went nuts and made a huge scene as I was trying to walk away, because in her mind, we had foolishly given away a perfectly good bah-ggie. She lost a lot of respect for my judgment that night.

She's crazy about Bohemian Rhapsody, and calls it "ah-go"--a reference to "let me go". She requests it in the car every time there's a break between songs on the stereo. She'll quietly say from the back seat "ah-go". She doesn't demand it, she just inserts the idea into our minds every time she feels there's a chance. Her humble pleas win us over quite frequently. She likes to play air drums to it, chant "no. no. no. no. no. no. no.", and reaches as far down into her vocal capacity as possible to sing the last word "me"--which is rather amusing to watch. (The muppets version of Bohemian Rhapsody has Miss Piggy singing the final line "nothing really matters pour moi" in a low voice, and that's what Ada's trying to imitate).

The mole. I have this big ugly mole on my upper chest that Ada is unfortunately in love with. It's pretty disgusting. She often keeps one hand just inside the collar of my shirt whenever I'm holding her so she can touch it. The other day, she wanted me to give her baby doll some love. She handed me her doll so I could rock it and kiss it. Just so the doll and I could completely bond, Ada took the doll's hand and put in on my mole. She must think every kid takes comfort in squishy moles.

Ada calls her best friend Lucy-- "E". She talks about her all the time, tries to head out the door on her own to see her, hugs and loves on her even when E repeatedly squirms away. I was telling Seth stories in the car the other day, and he likes to choose the topic (example: "I want a story about two best buddy Vikings named Seth and Sam in their Viking ship that's actually a wagon"). Then for the first time, Ada requested a story of her own. Her topic of choice: E and bah-ggies. She thoroughly enjoyed her first custom made story about her and her BFF putting stuff in baggies.

Now that Ada's hair is getting longer, it's unfortunately losing a lot of its curl. It's platinum blonde, thin and wispy, with enough wave still in it that it doesn't lie down reverently. It's kind of a mess, and for the life of me, I can't manage to make symmetrical pigtails. Sorry Ada. I still think she's pretty cute though, especially in her new skinny jeans. Did you know they make skinny jeans for one year olds? Ada totally pulls the look off, even with a diaper.

Out of Africa, AZ

We drove to Phoenix last week to visit a whole slew of my family that were congregating for Thanksgiving. (Two of my uncles live there). The day after T-day we went to a wildlife park called Out of Africa, in the middle of nowhere about 1.5 hours north of Phoenix in Camp Verde, AZ. They have some cool interactive stuff and the kids loved it.

I also decided to bring my camera despite the fact that it usually means I worry too much about getting photos to enjoy other festivities.  In this case I was glad I did. Some samples of zebra and lion shots:

Nikon 18-200 @35mm, f/7.1, 1/200s

Nikon 18-200 @200mm, f/5.6, 1/1250s

Nikon 18-200 @200mm, f/5.6, 1/1250s

Nikon 18-200 @200mm, f/5.6, 1/1250s

November Sunset

You might be tired of my San Diego beach sunsets over a pier. Sorry. This one was particularly spectacular and colorful. I never get tired of them and it's moments like these that make me ask myself why I would ever want to leave San Diego.
Click here for more.

Nikon 12-24 @12mm, 1/60s

Nikon 12-24 @12mm, 1/50s

Nikon 12-24 @24mm, 1/60s

Scripps Pier, La Jolla, CA

Ada

vagabond

Maybe this is a phenomenon that every parent experiences to some degree. Kids play hard, they get tired.

They fall asleep in weird places, sometimes wearing weird things (or wearing them backwards) at weird times.

My older brother could fall asleep anywhere. Perhaps that's where Seth gets his talent. Sometimes its even tough to find him.

If every kid has a proclivity to sleep in strange places, I think Seth is at least one standard deviation above the mean of strangeness. He can get pretty creative too.

This one is my favorite:

Low Tide, La Jolla Cove

We went to the Cove last night to escape the heat. The tide was low so the kids got to find little sea creatures and I got to take some pictures.

[Low Tide, La Jolla Cove]


Nikon 12-24mm @12mm, f/8, 1/250s


Nikon 12-24mm @12mm, f/22, 1/13s


Nikon 12-24mm @12mm, f/22, 3s


Nikon 12-24mm @24mm, f/22, 5s

The Clan

My cousin Jenn's kids dressed up like Vikings too, so I had to include a post that shows them too. It's more fun to pillage and plunder for Halloween treats with your best buddy.


Jenn's family turned our wagon into a Viking ship for the sweeties. These kids had so much fun, and so did we!

Valhalla, I am coming!

Hope you had a happy Halloween.

Website

For anyone who cares, I have recently been putting the finishing touches on my photography website. 



I've been working on a project the last year and a half or so, trying to capture the piers and beaches of San Diego. My latest shoot was last week at Crystal Pier. In any case, if you like that sort of thing, check out some of my Pier and Beach shots on the new website.

http://aaronrutmanphotography.com

I like too much

Last week I wrote some stuff about Ada that I want to remember. Now it's Seth's turn. Seth has such an abundance of interests and comedic material at his age, it's tough to cut it down to a realistic blog post. Here are a few things he's up to:

• He loves abbreviating words and names, and does it quite freely with the expectation that we always know what he's talking about. Some examples:
  
  
  • He reached to take Aaron's hand while crossing a street and said "I just want the pink," meaning, "I just want to hold your pinky".
    
  • While watching a Giants game, Buster Posey is up to bat. Seth says "I like Bust." (As an aside, can anyone think of a cooler name than Buster Posey for a ball player? Okay, maybe Coco Crisp.)
  • Although Seth knows the complete names off all the dinosaurs he's familiar with, he likes to nickname them. Pachycephalosaurus = Pachy. Quetzalcoatlus = Quetz (pronounced "kets"). Tyrannosaurus Rex = Tyranni. Gallimimus = Gal.
   

• He's obsessed with matching his appearance with his friends or the shows he'll watch. It's almost obsessive compulsive. (Wherever could he have gotten such tendencies? Between Aaron and myself, this poor kid doesn't stand a chance.) He'll be out playing on the playground and see one of his friends has sneakers on as opposed to crocs, and insists on going home and changing his shoes to match them. He gets so excited about it and anticipates their reaction "What will Gabe say when he sees me in these?" "Probably nothing, Seth." When he watches a show, he'll do the same thing and want to dress up like the characters. I've made a lot of cardboard props to match cartoon characters' swords, crowns, etc. He wants every detail to look accurate. Last week while Aaron was studying for the Boards all day at the library, Seth was dying to ask him something and kept begging to see Dad. When he finally saw Aaron in the evening, the first thing out of Seth's mouth was "Dad, I have something to ask you. What kind of fabric is Peter Pan's knife sheath made out of?" It was such an odd question, we couldn't help but crack up. Aaron then put on a straight face and said "Well Seth, probably a cotton/poly blend."

• A couple months ago, Seth was at the nursery at church during the singing time. The leaders asked the children if there were any songs they'd like to sing. Seth requested "Take me out to the ball game". They'd never had that request before, but obliged him. Seth was horrified when they all said, "root, root, root for the home team" instead of, "root, root, root for the Giants," and adamantly corrected them. He made a habit of requesting that song for many subsequent weeks, but would always prepare everyone with a speech first: "I have something to tell you! Don't say home team. Say Giants!"

• Seth is really into stories. Aaron and I have dug up all sorts of memories from our childhoods, and made up countless stories about animals, etc. A couple months ago Seth's best buddy, Sam, (his second cousin and neighbor) went on a trip for a couple of weeks. Seth missed him desperately. All he wanted was stories about best buddy animals named Seth and Sam, having fun together. He often wants me to use first, middle, and last names so that there is NO mistaking who we're really talking about. Sam's been back for some time now, but I'm still telling stories everyday to my beaming child about best buddy komodo dragons, bambiraptors, leopards, jellyfish. . .

• While on road trips, sometimes Aaron and I will look up random stuff on Wikipedia and read it in the car to entertain ourselves. Aaron was reading about Humphrey the humpback whale (remember him?), when Seth got really tired of the topic and repeatedly interrupted him (loudly). They started arguing about it, and Aaron was probably saying something like "If you interrupt me one more time...!" when Seth started yelling "Dad, Dad, Dad, STOP! Stop! stop...stop...stop. I love you." It was as if to say, "None of this is important. Let's remember the love." Way to be, Seth. And nice tactic.

• A line that Seth often employs, which I think really embodies his personality, is "I like too much." Whenever he wants a snack or a treat he always wants "a lot." We're always telling him, "Seth, that's too much!" He always replies with a smile, "I like too much." He has since resorted to asking for it outright: "I don't want only two, I want too much!" My favorite is when he tells Aaron, "Dad, I love you this much," spreading his arms as far apart as possible. Aaron always says, "Seth, that's too much!" And Seth replies every time with a smile "I like too much," and Aaron says, "me too." 

Heat Wave

Yesterday it got to 107 degrees in San Diego (despite a forecast high of 94 degrees). It was without a doubt the hottest day since we've been in San Diego. I'm pretty sure nothing even comes close. It might have gotten to 95 a couple years ago in August. I think the cool summer we had this year saved all it's heat for one day in early Fall. It's weird, because it's only 82 degrees today. Luckily we have the beach to cool us off.

da kids

We went to Muir Woods with the kids and Lindsay's parents when we were in the Bay Area last week. A good time had by all.