shred it: California Adventure- Day 17

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WOOHOO!!! WE WON!!! WE WON TODAY'S NAP BATTLE!!! It almost required duct taping Matthew into his bed, but Jon was able to pin him down with his leg in the bed upstairs and he finally gave up fighting and fell asleep. The peace and quiet and ability to sit around doing nothing is just glorious!

This morning we went to NoHo skate park for a bit, then made a trip to Ralph's to stock up on groceries. After our marathon day yesterday we wanted to take it a little easier today. We've been trying to let the boys pick out a new tropical fruit each time we are at a farmer's market or at the grocery store and Matthew's choice today was "red bananas". Unfortunately when we went to eat one we discovered that they were not quite ripe... it left this awful bitter chalky taste in your mouth! So instead I got a little fancy with some of our more mainstream fruits and made the boys a beautiful morning snack. I don't know if I had more fun making it or if they had more fun eating it!

After lunch, Caleb decided to test out the law of natural consequences. Jon and I work very hard to let the boys experience all of the natural consequences they deserve in life. In good old fashioned Love and Logic style, we try never to rescue them from experiences that are the result of their own actions. Like yesterday when daddy was going to get a slice of key lime pie at the exact moment that the boys decided to try coloring on the carpet and instead of sharing it with him they had to sit and scrub the crayon out! Total bummer that daddy ate the whole piece by himself! I should probably mention how excited Jon and I were to sit there and watch them sob hysterically while rubbing at the carpet simply because we were quite certain they would NEVER color on the carpet and risk missing out on possible pie anytime in the near future! Anyways, today Caleb got to experience an even more natural of a consequence when he decided to play with the fire extinguisher in the condo despite having been told not to repeatedly since we got here. In his defense, we probably should have just moved the darn thing. Because sure as the sky is blue, he squeezed the trigger and stumbled backwards in pure fear when the cloud of potassium bicarbonate came puffing out and engulfed most of the living room. I don't think he'll ever touch a fire extinguisher again!
Insert nap win here. We then had the most amazingly wonderful evening ever. We drove down to UCLA to check out the sculpture garden and walk around for a bit. The boys just LOVED the sculpture garden... again, they may be the only two year olds in the world to have enjoyed such a place so much! The boys ran their little hearts out, stopping at each sculpture to give us their two year old interpretations of the pieces of art. I don't remember the last time we laughed so hard!!! On one hand, the boys had a wonderful open ended experience with the arts. On the other hand, things got a bit out of hand :) The rest of our evening was courtesy of my friend Steph who attended UCLA and made some great recommendations for us. We walked through campus to visit the Bruin bear... it is seriously the most beautiful campus I've ever seen in my life!!! While we were walking, we ran into a couple whom we had seen multiple times throughout the evening. The woman came up to us and had the sweetest question... she asked if we had the world's most perfect children or if we were the most laid back parents in the world who had some zen secret to happily raising children :) We were kind of caught off guard! She went on to explain how they have been watching us let the boys explore campus and how we let them wander and explore their curiosities but that they always ran back to us smiling and laughing when we called them. It was such a kind compliment, it helped make our perfect evening that much more perfect. So did the ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Riese that Steph said we had to try! When we got there, we had to wait in line behind 40 or 50 people and we almost bailed because it was getting late. But we stuck it out and gosh are we glad we did!!! Jon still can't believe that they only charge $1.75 for a giant ice cream sandwich made on homemade cookies!! We were also glad we got in line when we did because by the time we walked out, there were at least 100 people in line! Thanks for the great suggestions Steph... I can see why you love UCLA so much :)

Matty skating NoHo- for the 4th time!