Camping at Joshua Tree!

Ack! It's been too long since I've blogged. So I'll finally try to catch up with some updates.

Last month we spent a couple of nights camping at Joshua Tree National Park. We spent a Sunday and Monday night camping there, so it ended up not being very crowded and we got a great campsite in a corner away from other people. The best part was that the "backyard" of our campsite was acres and acres of slabs of rock to run around on. The kids were totally enthralled with all the adventure and exploration, which made us so happy.

It's a long story as to why, but we ended up pretending that Easter was on Monday morning instead of Sunday, so Tori packed all of the Easter eggs and then we hid them after the kids went to bed. Joshua Tree is not a very conducive environment for hiding Easter eggs, but we did our best and the kids were super excited. The only hard part was keeping their squeals of joy at a manageable level of noise given that it was 7am and noise carries in the desert!

The kids with their loot on faux Easter morning. Now try to imagine hiding plastic eggs in that environment!

On one of our many rock scrambling adventures!

Zadie showing off her moves.

An Actual Studio Photo

I'm so glad that Tori's mom bought a photo session for a group photo. With a family this size, you need professional help!

Studio photos seem more and more rare these days, but I really like them. 

I present to you the Rogers Thanksgiving 2013 Family Photo!

Halloween 2013

This is the first year we've let one of our kids choose what they want to be for Halloween. Usually we give them a list of acceptable options and they pick within that, but Zadie really wanted to do her own thing. She wanted to make her own costume so she spent about two weeks making her robot outfit and finding random bits of silly stuff to glue gun onto the box.

We'll probably have to stop being so controlling about Halloween costumes soon, but Tori pretty much requires that they either use their imagination or let us use it on their behalf. We vetoed Skip's desire to be Batman and Charlie's desire to be Superman -- sorry, no superheroes! But when they older and care more, I promise we'll cede the battle. At this point they feel passionately about it for five minutes and then forget all about it.

Skip's In-N-Out costume was Tori's idea, of course while we were dining at that fine establishment. I chose this photo of the back of Skip because it shows she even got the oversized safety pin for the apron (for those poor out-of-staters who don't have In-N-Out Burger, it's a key part of the uniform!). He looked pretty legit. She made the red apron out of a red re-usable bag and just cut out the bottom and tied it around his wait with the arms from the bag. She also got a little In-N-Out lapel pin.

Charlie was the Tin Man this year, which is a homemade costume that Zadie wore twice and Skip has worn once. We were just thankful he actually agreed to keep the thing on because he's pretty stubborn about wearing costumes (and everything else!).

Tori's mom Linda came down from Washington to celebrate her favorite holiday with us. Sure wish I had asked her to get in the photos!

Off to the River We Go!

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. As a kid, I associated it with hanging out on my grandparents' boat dock in East Texas and watching the fireworks late at night.

Now our family officially has a new tradition for the 4th of July. This is at least the sixth year in a row we've gone to Tori's Dad's house in Tulare County to celebrate the holiday. It's a de facto family reunion and an extravaganza with a zip line, enormous slip-and-slide, river floats, and kickball games.

I love the games and the physicality of the whole weekend. Tori's favorite part (in addition to being with family!) is having someone else cook for her for four whole days!

Annual photo op with Tori's family. Only Uncle Hank was missing this year!

Charlie's cousins DJ and Kisean palling around on the Polaris.

The famous slip-and-slide into the river!

More Christmas Photos

I've been off to such a slow blogging start in 2013 that it just took me about six tries to remember my password!  I wanted to share a group photo from Christmas with Tori's family, especially because it's part of a long tradition of regular/silly juxtaposition photos.

Obviously I didn't get the memo that we were doing the silly photo this time.  Oh well.

This year we were missing Tori's brother Adam's family, and I'm not sure why Aunt Susie wasn't in the photo given that it was taken at her house!

The Rogers Come to Town

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the whole gang together, but this was the thank-you photo the Rogers sent  in appreciation for my parents lending their RV for the visit.

We typically go to the Pacific Northwest when it's time to celebrate the holidays with Tori's family since the majority of her siblings now live there. There's a certain charm to spending the holidays in colder weather, but I wouldn't say that's the case when you have small children. Being cooped up in the house because of bad weather gets a bit overwhelming when you have little kids that need to get their wiggles out, but then trying to properly dress them for freezing weather is a drag (especially when it takes you 20 minutes to get the three kids dressed and they end up coming back in the house after 5 minutes!).

So this year we were pretty happy about the fact that Tori's family was going to be coming to L.A. for Christmas! If given the choice between a white Christmas and a sunny Christmas, I'll definitely take the sunny Christmas.

Tori is one of five siblings and, combined with their kids, that's a whole slew of folks. I admit I made lots of jokes to my co-workers about having a huge group of in-laws come visit for 16 days. People were quite impressed with that number! But it was a bit of an exaggeration because the 16 days ended up being spent all over Southern California and I think there were only three nights at our house (not that I mind having family!). And I opted out for the last leg of the trip (to their dad's house in the Central Valley) because I wanted to go see my parents and sister. The Central Valley portion of the trip featured 14 children five and under, though I admit that the Central Valley contingent of kids are perfectly behaved (unlike my own kids!).

All in all, it was a great visit. I love to see our kids enjoying their time with their cousins, especially when the older cousins are good about entertaining the young ones. And of course I enjoy spending time with the adults, especially my mother-in-law, who I wish we could spend more time with. The only challenge is when all the kids and the adults are heaped together into one big mass of humanity for long periods of time. That's when it's a good time for me to volunteer to go to the grocery store and have some quiet time!

Ditching Your Kids on Halloween

Halloween has always been Tori's favorite holiday, so I was surprised when she suggested we go see "The Book of Mormon" on Halloween this year.  A friend of ours got discount group tickets and that was the only night available.  I felt some parental guilt about ditching our kids on such an important kid holiday, but the savings were too great to pass up.

Our friend Sidney was kind enough to babysit and we took the kids trick-or-treating on our cul-de-sac before we headed out.  Then Sidney took them for a more extended trick-or-treat experience with our dear friend Erin's family, so they had a pretty wild and crazy night and apparently didn't go to bed until 9:45pm, which has got to be a record.

As for us, we had a great time at the "The Book of Mormon" and it was particularly fun to watch with ex-Mormons like Tori, her mom, and her sister.  They pretty much had tears running down their cheeks throughout the whole thing.  I'm more of an "I'm laughing really hard on the inside" kind of person, but I also thought it was pretty hilarious, though maybe just a tad too vulgar in some parts.  Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it to my parents.

Without further ado, here are some Halloween photos of the kids!

Charlie was a stubborn-ass cowboy/farmer who refused to wear his hat except for this photo op (which required bribery), Zadie was Pippi for two years running, and Skip was the tin man from Wizard of Oz.

We went to a work party a few days before Halloween and the kids wanted to be cowboys and cowgirls.  These are some great vintage suede outfits that my mom bought them.  Zadie and Skip can really pull off the cowboy/cowgirl look, but Charlie looks more like a chubby farmer.  Charlie, if you ever try to say that the third child doesn't get photos taken, please note that it was only because of your stubbornness not to appear in said photos!

Annual 4th of July Trip

For the fourth year in a row, we celebrated the 4th of July at Tori's dad's house in the Central Valley.  Whenever I say that people, they make a funny face like, "Why would you want to go to the Central Valley for the Fourth of July?"  Yes, it's very hot, but it's actually quite pleasant when you spend all your time under huge oak trees or floating down the river.  Her dad has a great piece of land and a beautiful home and it's actually a wonderful place for the kids to run around.  And Tori loves the fact that her step-mom cooks every single meal the whole time we're there (that's not as big of a deal to me since that's my daily reality).


Here are some photos from the weekend...this year was significant in that we had 11 kids ages four and under!

Grandpa Mike makes an incredible slip-and-slide into the river and lubricates it with environmentally-friendly soap.  I think Tori's brother Zach gets the speed record (and he did a flip at the end).

Tori's step-sister is in beauty school and gave the girls matching hairdos.

We can fit a lot of people in the Polaris (I'm the dark spot in the far left corner).

Here is the whole gang, though sadly this year we missed Adam's family and we definitely missed Opal.

The Ranch Files: Christmas Day

Sophie, Zadie, and Izzy showing off their Christmas presents (they also got the matching polka dot outfits).

As part of a Christmas Eve tradition that we've taken over from Tori's family, all the kids get to open one present on Christmas Eve and it's always pajamas.  How cute are these five kids in their matching outfits?

My mom has a knack for making every occasion very special, so of course she wasn't going to let having Christmas at the ranch thousands of miles away from home, with limited provisions, stop her.  Christmas morning she had the kids' stockings all laid out and everything wrapped neatly in tissue paper with names on everything.  I did not inherit my mother's ability to present things beautifully and personally, but I'm certainly a beneficiary.

This Christmas, I think the very favorite gift was the cameras that the three girls received from Santa (my parents).  The girls felt very important photographing their experience and I love the photo above with them showing off their new gifts.  My mom also bought some fun musical instruments in the stockings for the kids.  And each adult couple received a new iPad, so that was very exciting but I'm also a little embarrassed to write that because I feel so spoiled by my parents.  I guess it's better to know you're spoiled, right?

Tori and I aren't real big on giving our kids lots of presents.  We gave Skip and Zadie their own water bottle to put in their lunch for pre-school and also some arts and crafts to work on while they were at the ranch.  Charlie, you didn't get diddly-squat from us, but you didn't seem to mind much!

The Ranch Files: Mud, Mesquite Thorns, & Campfires

My nephew Austin driving my parents' electric golf cart, along with my other nephew Nick and also Tori -- and a slew of children!

Skip felt like the king of the world on this tractor.

Here's a glimpse of the muddy conditions.  This is Zadie with her cousins Jonas and Max.

We just spent the past five or so days at the ranch in South Texas.  This ranch has been in the family for 100+ years and, though I only visited a few times when I was a kid, it was very significant in my dad and granddaddy's childhoods.  And it's very important to me that my kids get to spend time there not only because of the history but also because I want to have a place where they can run "wide open and sideways" (as my dad says) and also engage with nature.  According to my naturalist uncle, South Texas is one of the best wildlife spots in all of the United States.

Tori said she thought that was baloney because she's now been there twice and hasn't seen much nature.  It's in a very low rainfall area and is in the midst of a long-term drought, but somehow every time we visit it rains buckets, which means that Tori hasn't been able to see all the wildlife we've been talking about.  The local government should pay us to vacation there just to help them out with their drought.

Lots of rain means serious mud, so our vacation was full of rubber boots, muddy clothes, and the constant battle of trying not to get your vehicle completely stuck in the mud (which happened numerous times).  South Texas is also full of mesquite trees, which are great for more flavorful barbecue, but not so great for having around small children.  Each of our kids had to have mesquite thorns removed, which made them a lot more careful about where they were walking.

This is the first part in a series of blog posts I'm going to do about our trip to the ranch.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving

I fell behind on posting about Thanksgiving because I was waiting for a great photo, and now I have one!  Tori's sister Katie is always responsible for getting a group shot and it's amazing that she manages to get all of us together and even knows how to use the timer function on her camera.  Far beyond me.

We rotate holidays between my family and Tori's family, so this year we spent Thanksgiving with her family in Seattle.  Her brother Zach has a big house with lots of room for our enormous group and her mom rented a 15-passenger van for all our adventures.  Our adventures were cut a bit short by the fact that it rained most days, but we made the most of it.  This photo was taken during a break in the rain, when we all scrambled to a beautiful park and played kickball (a family tradition).

It's fun to just take a few minutes to look at all the people in this photo.  Now that is a big and crazy family!

Halloween Photos

Finally getting a chance to post some photos from Halloween.  Tori did a great job on Zadie's costume -- she was Pippi Longstocking -- and Skip's costume also turned out well.  He ended up being a farmer/cowboy, even though originally we were going to make him Pippi's friend Tommy.  And Charlie was Pippi's monkey, which worked out well since it kept him warm on a fairly cold (for California) trick-or-treating night.  So we didn't pull off a theme like we try to every year, but they were still pretty cute.

And I was particularly proud of Tori for telling the kids they could eat an unlimited amount of candy that night IF they ate all their dinner.  We stuck to our promise and Skip, in particular, completely gorged on candy.  I don't think he's ever experienced anything remotely like that.  It's kind of funny for me to think about how all his food is so tightly regulated and healthy and then all of the sudden his parents dress him up in a funny outfit, tell him to go knock on people's doors, and he gets to eat all the candy he's ever wanted.  Seems kind of overwhelming, but he adjusted just fine.

It was a really fun night and one of those times when I tried to stop and pinpoint why exactly I was having so much fun with my kids.  Frankly, I wish I felt that way more often (instead of being tired or hurrying or nagging) and so when it happens I really try to figure out what is making me so happy and how I can replicate it in the future.  I think it was fun not to have any rules and just let the kids do whatever they wanted.  It turns out that I enjoy my children way more when they're eating tons of candy.  I'm sure that goes both ways.

Fall Weekend w/the Grandparents

We're fortunate that we get to spend a lot of time with my parents, but I guess because we see them so frequently we always forget to take photographs.  So I made a special point to get at least one good photograph for the blog this weekend.

This is a photo of my parents taking our kids to a little pumpkin patch in their brand-new MOTORHOME!  They drove up to see us Saturday afternoon and spent the night in their motorhome nearby our house.  It's a special treat because they haven't really had any incentive to come visit us in L.A. since we don't have any space to accommodate them.  Now that they have this motorhome, hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more of them.  

We went on a mini-road trip with them today to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and the kids got to run around in nature for a little bit.  The kids were very happy cruising in the motorhome because it has a television and so they watched movies the whole time.  The best part was that we didn't have to pull over when they had to go to the bathroom!

Easter 2011

I'm far behind on my posts, but rest assured that we had a nice Easter weekend (a few weeks ago). Our town has a big Easter egg "hunt" extravaganza. I can't even guess how many hundreds of kids attend, but it's not really a hunt since they put them all in the grass in a big field and then they line the kids up in a circle and when they say "go" all the kids sprint to fill up their Easter baskets. Kind of a funny scene. Here are some scenes from that weekend...

Zadie and her good friend Xixi with some goose (am I supposed to know who this is?)

I love this picture, especially of Tori!

This Easter egg hunt was at Tori's relatives' house in Studio City, but unfortunately Skip napped through this one and missed it. This is the white Easter dress I forced Zadie to wear (as my mother once did to me!).

President's Day Weekend w/Grams

Miracle of miracles, I finally figured out how to get the photos off our new camera. This serves me right for always making such fun of Linda for not knowing how to do the same and for enthusiastically taking photos that go into the "black void."

These are photos from President's Day Weekend, when my parents were out of town and we all took over their home. Linda was in charge of my nephew Gavin while his parents were out of town and so we had four kiddos (Zadie, Skip, Charlie, and Gavin) and managed to have a great weekend despite the weird rainy weather.

It's waaaayyyyy more fun to have a bunch of kids at my parents house than at our dumporama. Check out all the fun stuff for kids to do -- they can play on the deck on the mini "roller coaster," go in the jacuzzi, etc.

Starting Christmas Traditions

Zadie and Tori start unwrapping the ornaments.

Except for the really high ones, Zadie ended up doing all the decorating and I think she did a pretty good job.

Sidney came over with a gingerbread house kit and Zadie was quite a fan of this experience, especially because it involves gum drops!

This is the first year Zadie really gets Christmas and she's pretty excited about it. She's loved learning about all the traditions, like decorating the Christmas tree, building a gingerbread house, and of course the advent calendar. It's been fun for us to start creating our family's first Christmas traditions.

Skip isn't really interested in Christmas traditions, but he thinks it's really fun to pull all the ornaments off the tree. I tried to enforce a "no touching" rule and then Tori convinced me that I was being really controlling and I needed to let go. That's the Christmas spirit!

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010 was noticeably more challenging than Halloween 2009. I considered staying home with Charlie and letting Tori take the older two kids out trick-or-treating, but I really didn't want to miss the fun (and the candy) and so we met up with friends in Manhattan Beach and made it happen. It was good thing, too, because I don't think we could have managed the three of them on our own.

Before heading out to trick-or-treating, we stopped by the local Halloween fair and Zadie won third-place in the costume contest. She has now been the Tin Man two years running, so it's kind of like how my parents always dressed me up as a black cat every year (black leotard, with black stuff on my nose and cat ears -- very easy). Hopefully we'll be able to think of something new next year, but Tori really wanted to go with the Tin Man again.

And at the last minute we kind of threw together a family theme -- I was the scarecrow, Skip was the lion, Charlie was Toto (by virtue of being a small creature in a basket and for no other reason), and Tori was Dorothy (by virtue of her red shoes!).

4th of July Extravaganza

The whole gang gathered on the back steps!

This family portrait is even nicer when you consider that we woke Skip up from bed to take it!

We haven't had a photo of the Zadie Zoo in a while on this blog. I like this smile...

Can I sell this photo to a croquet magazine or something?

Ladies Pro Croquet Tournament!

Every year Tori's dad sets up this massive slip and slide into the river behind their house. And, yes, this is Tori taking poor Skip on a ride!

As I was mentioning, we got together with most of Tori's family at her dad's house in the Central Valley. What I didn't mention was that it was tons of good old-fashioned fun, all very typical of Tori's family! Her Dad has a really beautiful place and we loved our time there. Zadie and Skip loved it too because it meant they basically ran around naked for the entire weekend, played in the water, and jumped on the huge trampoline. And Zadie got to stay up late and play with her twin cousins Bailey and Rihanna. Fun all around.

Easter Egg Hunt

This past weekend was Easter and we had Grandma Linda, Tori's sister Katie, and her baby Gavin all staying with us. This was quite interesting since we only have a two-bedroom house, but the most interesting part of all was that every single night we had a different sleeping arrangement and every day we would spend forever plotting out where we'd put everyone. It was like a complex LSAT question or something.

Katie and Linda were kind enough to babysit for us on Saturday while we went to a baby shower and a birthday party (date time!). While we were away, they went to the store, secretly bought candy and plastic eggs, and then hid them in the front yard. I was really surprised how quickly Zadie spotted them through the window and of course she wanted to run out there right away.

Unfortunately Katie was still snoozing for the photos, but I did catch some photos of Zadie and Grandma Linda in their pajamas. Zadie was pretty cute -- she can really muster a lot of joy for candy!! Too bad for her we hardly let her eat any of it and soon thereafter she kind of forgot about it.

$80 hat

You may recall from a previous post that Zadie had a $40 hat that she loved and wore everywhere. It was kind of her signature look at the playground and in her classes. I've never owned a $40 hat, but we were on a bike ride and I stopped to buy her a hat at a fancy boutique and I felt silly leaving without buying something (see my need to justify the purchase?).

Anyway, after our November visit to San Francisco, the hat was never seen again (here she is in one of the last photos with her hat). This was very sad because it really was the only hat Zadie would wear and it fit her personality so well. I hope some kid is really enjoying that hat.

Tori and I had already decided not to give our kids any presents for Christmas this year since (a)

they don't really get the concept and I'm in no rush for them to get on board, and (b) my mother gives enough presents for a village of children! But then one day I was near that overpriced children's boutique and I decided to check and see whether they had the hat. They did and I bought it for Zadie. She wrapped it up and Zadie opened it on Christmas. It was a really adorable moment because Zadie still doesn't really understand presents and we had to open most of her presents for her, but she opened this one and she was really excited to see her hat again!

So, as obnoxious as it may be that my daughter wears a $80 hat, it was still kind of worth it.