Monkey See Monkey Do

For the past few months, Hayden has been especially interested in everything Caleb does. If Caleb takes off his shirt, Hayden wants his off. When Caleb goes to the bathroom, Hayden follows. If Caleb takes medicine, Hayden wants some too. (We've actually used this to our advantage at times when Hayden needs tylenol but refuses it.) This goes for other things like standing at the window, taking vitamins, spitting, whining, putting on shoes, riding bikes, dancing while waving a spatula in the air. You get the idea.

Yesterday Caleb dropped a matchbox car on his toe and was crying. Hayden saw Caleb sitting on my lap while I consoled him. Apparently Hayden decided he wanted to be consoled too, so he laid down on the ground and deliberately banged his forehead on the floor. He stood up rubbing his head and said, "Ow," and then promptly came over to sit on my lap for some comfort. What a guy.

A little excitement in South San Jose

Over a thousand wildfires are burning across California. Two weeks ago the air in the Bay Area was heavy with soot and the sun turned some strange color for several days. It smelled like a campfire outside and our vehicles had a thin film of wood ash. All this was from the wildfires that are over 100 miles north of us. The wind happened to be blowing in our direction all week.

A few weeks before that, there were some fires a bit closer. These were still over 15 miles away, but we could see the smoke rising in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

But on July 5, we had a wildfire just a few hundred yards from our house! Granted, it only was a half-acre brush fire that was quickly brought under control. But it was still quite the site with a fire helicopter scooping water out of our lake and dumping it on the flames. I got some great video! Here are some pics I took:

The helicopter was a lot lower than it looks in the photos. When it first came through our windows rattled much like they did in the earthquake we had last year.

We could see some smoke but it is not evident in the photos. Oh well, at least we didn't have to evacuate.

A New Family Friend

With our upcoming cross-country flight to Buffalo this month, we have been trying to find things that will entertain our boys on the trip. Caleb handles the long rides pretty well, but Hayden has a hard time. He's squirmy, doesn't like sitting on our laps, and has a short attention span for toys and books. We've been searching for a DVD that will captivate him for more than 60 seconds at a time. Who knew it could be so difficult to get your kid to watch TV? We've tried Baby Einstein, Caillou, Sesame Street, and a bunch of other shows. The other day we turned on Barney, a show that we don't typically watch. Much to our surprise, Hayden started dancing, clapping, and clucking his tongue with the music on the show. He watched most of the episode! While I'm not sure that he will enjoy Barney as much on the airplane (when the volume is lower and he isn't free to dance around), it's our best bet so far. Hopefully the big, purple dinosaur can come through for us. Below is a picture of the boys dancing during the show.