I'm Five Today

Chaplin is FIVE years old!

Adam got this little doll and put it with Chaplin's gifts.
I asked Chaplin if he knew who it was?
His reply "yes this is Chapa-lapa-ding-dong".



Huge, just huge... 800 pieces of lego! Yikes.

We asked Chaplin what he would like to do this year for his party, he said
GO BANANA'S

So here we are at "GO BANANA's", a jungle gym for kids.

We decorated cup-cakes together - no awards here. But the kids loved them.



After the birthday party we went over to Nordby's house for a pajama pizza party. We pushed the couches together and called this the 'bird nest'. This was my favorite part of the day, we all snuggled down into the nest and watched Mega Mind and laughed the whole way through it.

The past year has been wonderful watching our son grow.

Chaplin discovered humor, and is trying so hard to come up with jokes of his own, and the only funny part about them is how abstract they are.
Chap: "Knock Knock"
Lori: " Who's there?"
Chap: Peanut butter
Lori: "Peanut Butter who?"
Chap: Peanut butter I'm at the door. Yiiiikes. there's going to be a lot of work to do.
Chap: was that funny mom?
Lori: "not really".
Maybe someone should have bought him a knock knock joke book for his birthday!

Chaplin has asks a lot of questions, including ones on birth and death
Chaplin : "What day is Remembrance Day? Is it when you have a baby?
Adam: "no..." and gave a brief explanation on the day.
Chaplin: "Well what is the day called when you have your baby than. It should be remembrance day."
Adam - "that's called your BIRTHDAY"

Chaplin understands immediate passage of time, as in what happened yesterday but doesn't understand calendar time yet. if the sun is out and I say "what a nice day" Chaplin will always ask me "Is it summer now mommy."

Adam: "It’s time for Bed."
Chaplin: " OH barnacles, i hate bed time."

I over heard Adam talking to Chaplin about the bad guy in Star Wars:
Adam "Not Han Solo. Not Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader."
Chaplin "Yes, Darker Vader!"
Adam "You're not saying it correctly, it's Darth Vader with a TH."
Chaplin "Darf Vader?" - I left the room laughing, I'm not sure how it all ended!

another little story with sounding out words:
Chaplin says woowseum for the word MUSEUM. and corrected me when i said museum. “NO mom it’s Woowseum, like a -woow- sound, not a mu”.
He was so sure of himself that we were saying it wrong, it was hard to correct him.

We were watching Blue Realm - swimming with captive whale sharks;
Chaplin "why aren't I doing that mom."
Lori: "Doing what?"
Chaplin "being in that shark tank swimming"
I didn't even know how to answer that question - was he for real! Did he really want to swim with whale sharks? Then i thought about it - Chaplin is Adam's son so yes he would want to swim with sharks.

Oct 28th
Chaplin: "Electricity and water is bad isn’t it mom, it can stop your breath right?
Lori "Yes."
Chaplin: "Maybe we should put up a sign next to the sink so dad doesn’t put the toaster and water together. "
....Good idea.

Chaplin has grown a lot this year, he weights about 40 pounds now. And not just physically grown, but mentally.

This is how he wrote the alphabet out on his birthday, all by himself. He did not like how his "S" turned out so he put an "X" through it and did another one under it. He also knows his "W" doesn't look right. I think this is impressive! So should you.

His curiosity is endless, i recall so clearly one day on our way to preschool talking about trees and how we can take a tree, and from that tree make lumber and from the lumber we can build buildings. This fascinated him so much, that we had to stop and look at everything on the way to preschool so he could determine if it were wood, plastic or metal. Everyone that has been around a child for any length of time will get to experience life through their eyes, and it's amazing isn't it! We are lucky to have them give us a fresh look at the world around us.

And of course... I worry about how quickly time is passing, and before the next birthday blog, Chaplin will make one of the biggest steps in his life - he will enter into school. It will be hard letting go, knowing that somebody else will become Chaplin's teacher. I wonder (and worry) if I will have taught him enough - but I have a few more months and I smile as I hear myself saying to him "stop licking your jacket." ... "Why mom? does it have germs on it?"

Thank you for an amazing year Chaplin Adam Boyd, mommy and daddy love you.

Arizona for Christmas

What do I remember most about Christmas this year?
It's not sweet Chaplin singing christmas carols... it's this

this horrible tower of terror. I"ll tell you about it later in the blog.

December 22nd - the Boyds and Viens take over Foothills!

My brother's family and mine arrive at our parents winter home in Yuma, waking up the q-tips.

December 23rd: Yuma Territorial State Prison
It's a Historic Park now... but I was thinking of the movie 3:10 to Yuma.

I don't think so!!!

Get back in your cells





bang bang

After we broke out of prison, we went to a date farm.

Those are date trees behind Chaplin, and they look regal.
This farm had a little store where you could buy all kinds of 'date' stuff. I don't even like dates, but wait a second.. date milk-shakes, oh okay i'll give dates another try. OMG. I LOVE date milk-shakes.

In my imagination the boys are in Egypt.

If you don't know anything about Yuma, well that's okay - all you need to know is one word. LETTUCE. Yes, it's a lettuce fest here all year round. Great green globes growing row after row field after field of it. As much as you can imagine and then imagine more.

A crew picking as they follow the packing machine. Incredibly hard work.

Christmas Eve: A stop at the Proving Ground Entrance, and a trip to the desert

Shirley & Andy Viens
This tank is one of the de-commissioned pieces located right at the entrance into the US Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. On the Proving Grounds the US Army tests nearly everything "army" related. This tank had ammunition holes in it, and as much as I knew that there had been a soul inside that tank, I didn't at all have any feelings about it. Not like in Liverpool, where I felt it, maybe because in Liverpool life carried on living with the destruction, and this was just a tank removed from everyday life? Oh and the Proving Grounds might be more important to Yuma than Lettuce (but I'll have to go back to conclude on this).


Anyways - Here we all are in the desert! This is one of my mom's favorite things to do in Yuma - go out to the desert and exploring. And yes, maybe it could be fun... however from my point of view, I spent the whole time thinking of what could go wrong and was on constant look-out to keep Chaplin safe.

Yes there are BIG cactus in the desert. Big one with big thorns.
- removing cactus thorn from foot -

this area looks innocent right?. Notice that pointed rock sticking up out of the ground... behind the kids?

and this is the (un-marked, no warning, nothing to alert you to danger) open mine shaft right next to that rock. The hole is about 5' x 5' wide. Just seeing it gave me a chill. There would be no way of knowing it was there - but to just walk up to it and find it.. so imagine if Chaplin was walking around without supervision... it just gives me nightmares thinking about it.
And snakes... though dad said they were not out this time of the year. But still.

Anyways - the kids had a great time in the desert exploring. And when we got home mom made our traditional Christmas Eve dish, a meat pie called Tourtiere. My dad is french after all! Thank you mom - i missed it last year.


Hang new ornament on tree. Chaplin picked this up in Maui during the summer. So it went from Maui to Vancouver to Yuma (and home again...)

Set out stockings, write letter to santa and set out cookies and milk (I know Santa prefers wine)

Christmas Morning!


Gift from Santa. Guess what - Chaplin is playing with his Explorer right now as I blog, and the game is teaching him about brushing his teeth ... he is singing this song: "Brush Scrub get those sugar bugs away". thank you santa (and leapster).


After lunch the boys hit a few golf balls.



and another dangerous thing in the desert... a horny toad lizard.
Is that really it's name? I don't know, but that's what Adam told me it was called!

Merry Christmas Everyone - from the Boyd Family

December 26th : Why not go to Mexico?

Chaplin found this costume, I thought it was funny - it's like a mexican wrestling mask mashed with a spiderman cape. And it got even funnier when we walked back across the Mexican border and the US immigration officer looked down at Chaplin wearing a full on face mask.. then back at us like we were maybe smuggling a child across the border. I blame Adam.

And what could be bigger than Christmas for a child? DISNEYLAND!
That's right - we are on our way to DISNEYLAND.

Thank you Nana and Papa for the trip to Yuma and Disneyland!


It did rain half of our first day ... but maybe that cleared the crowds!
Sheri and I were very organized and we got fast pass tickets to all the rides the kids wanted to go on and we kept the group moving.


The sun came out!




And here is the Tower of Terror photo.

THE RIDE FROM HELL.
I'm sorry, but i have no other way to describe my intense feelings for it.
Adam said it might be too scary for him... but I was all "Why would the most wonderful place on earth let an innocent child ride a terrifying ride?" I WAS WRONG, oh so wrong.
The story of the hotel, adapted from elements of the television series, includes the hotel being struck by lightning on October 31, 1939, mysteriously transporting an elevator cart full of passengers to the Twilight Zone and causing an entire wing of the building to disappear. We go into the elevator into seats, and it goes straight up... scary... then the doors open and you see a mirror - we are looking at ourselves and a voice asks us "are you afraid yet?" then our reflection disappears! "You should be". the lights go off and we dead-drop 12 floors. horrible scary. Then the elevator goes up and the doors open - right at the top - looking out over Disneyland park. The we free -drop again. I am holding Chaplin as much as I can and he is crying, I am whispering to him "it's okay baby, it's okay" BUT my mind is not thinking that. Then the elevator goes up again and the doors open again. More accelerated free dropping. If you look at the photos.. you can see me covering Chaplin's little face. Adam is not worried at all, my mom is super excited (she loves thrill rides) and Jaydon is giving the thumbs up! You know the feeling of "fight or flight" i had the flight feeling but i was strapped into a seat and couldn't get out and I wanted to save my child. This was a horrible ride and I don't think I will ever fully recover.


After the horrible ride, we went for dinner where the kids got up on stage and sang.
They did not pay the children for their talent! too bad.

Day 2 Disneyland



then Chaplin took our photo...


Splash Mountain... I remember this ride from when i was 16. Did i just call myself old? This ride was a bit scary for Chaplin and I, he cried a little bit (remembering that horrible elevator ride). Adam thinks it's funny if you look at his frightened face.

not a scary ride at all! we loved it.

Adam and Tavis on Space Mountain ride. I would not go on it -No thank you.

The magical kingdom behind the boys. Where I should live.
We love visiting Disneyland. But a word of advise - don't go over Christmas break, it's too busy.

New Years Eve - December 31st

I guess the real 'fake' Captain Sparrow got lots of attention from the ladies!


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ADAM & LORI.

one year ago we were in England and I started this blog. I hope you have all enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed sharing.