Evolution of the Handshake

Have you ever wondered where the handshake came from...well, I will let you know. If you watch kids on the playground, in your home, at daycare...wherever kids are at it will become quite obvious. When kids meet, the like to lift their shirts and show off their belly buttons. It doesnt matter if it is a boy or girl, black or white, short or tall and skinny or fat. Not only do they like to show you their belly buttons, they like to touch them. They start with touching their own, then they like to reach over and touch their new friends. Sometimes they will reach across and touch each others at the same time. At that point their arms cross each other, just like in a handshake. At some point in time, it was decided that it is improper to touch anothers belly button and it would be more prudent to touch hands instead. I'm thinking it was a women that decided this. Why do I think this you ask, because when was the last time you saw a woman slap another woman on the butt...guys dont give it a second thought....women get appalled.

Here is a funny story from the other day. After daycare the kids usually get some juice and a snack. Their snack for the day happened to be some pretzels and raisins. When I got home from work, Wes was still carrying around a few raisins in his little mits. Why he didnt eat them and was saving them for later I do not know. I like to lay down on the floor and play with the kids while Diane makes dinner or gets into a discussion why I am laying on the floor and not putting an addition on the house or something similar. Wes comes over and starts playing around. He lifts up my shirt and starts poking my belly button. I dont give it a second thought since he is just saying hello and they both like to do it. About fifteen minutes later after Wes was done and had moved on to help out in the kitchen Mia comes over and starts playing with my belly button. She starts saying raisin, raisin, raisin...I'm like, yeah you had raisins for snack. Well, lo and behold, she reaches into my belly button and takes out a raisin. This cracked Diane up. Well, for the next few days Mia would come over lift up my shirt, play with my belly button and say raisin, raisin, raisin...

I dont know about other places, but here in Denver we have been inundated with ED ads. I bet there is one at every series of commercials. My favorite lately has been the little blue pill ad, viagra, with the guy walking down the street, window shopping or on his way to the doctor. He starts a conversation with his reflection on whether he is going to talk to his "doctor" about his little problem. Now stop and think about it for a second, this guy is going to see his doctor about not being able to get a woody and is talking to an imaginary friend who happens to be himself. He obviously has more pressing issues and really should be seeing a psychologist about getting a padded room and a little white jacket.

Guess I got off onto a tangent, according to Diane, this is all about the kids....did you know that the toilet locks also work on blonde girls named Diane....she couldnt get the lid open because it had a toilet lock...maybe I should put one on every toilet, at the very least, it will stop her from clogging the toilet every few days.

Tale of the tsunami....makes you stop and think, what the heck now. Denver doesnt have tsunamis. Diane was acting crazy again, trying to snap me with the towel, running around waving her arms around like Bruce Lee, making crazy karate kids sounds. She stops midstream and says "I'm fast, I'm like a tidal wave" I'm like, tidal waves arent that fast. If you are a tidal wave, then I am a tsunami. She is like, nuh uh...I'm a tsunami. I said, you cant steel my ideas. I then told her there is no way you are a tsunami. You are a big rock, no you are a big flat rock, then expanded to, you are a big flat rock on level ground. That is the speed of Di. So if Diane asks who is more like a tsunami, you will have the whole story and not just her convoluted version about personality.

What is up with the kids? They like to run around like Indians at a camp fire. Wes likes to hit and bite. He spends his evenings, at least most of them, in time out for various offenses. They both go up and down the stairs without any real problems. Their vocabulary increases more and more each day. They know a lot of their colors. A few weeks ago they were both playing with the activity cube. It has bent wires with beads, and all kinds of other activities on it. All of a sudden they both started pushing beads from one side of the wire to another and counting. Simultaneously, they started counting...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten....me and Diane looked at each other and said wow, I didnt know they could count to ten. Then I said, yeah, but I'm pretty sure they skipped nine.

They have both been in toddler beds since they were about 16 months old and stopped falling out after about two weeks. They are still really good sleepers and sleep for ten hours a night. I cant believe they are also still taking two hour naps in the afternoon every day. I'm trying to teach them their left and right. We just started to try and get them potty trained. They have had their potties for a few months now but never really tried to get them to use them. Since daycare doesnt try to potty train them until they enter toddler two, we didnt think it productive to put a lot of effort into it. Mia has pee pee'd into hers a couple of times and Wes took a duce this past weekend. Now wont you really be looking forward to future blogs and hearing about them using the potty....more toilet stories, they just change from Diane clogging the toilet to the kids.

If you havent heard, my brother David and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy this February. He didnt bother to call and tell me. My mom called, not me, she called Diane and starts straight into this dissertation of seeing what baby stuff we have left and if we still have the baby blankets and I'm sure several other items. Diane was like, what are you talking about babies stuff for, what is going on. My mom was like, I'm sure you know, if you dont then Chris does...nope, no such luck. Once she spilled the beans, it made a lot more sense. So I figure the only way anyone else is going to find out is via my blog. Congratulations and best wishes to them, even though he didnt bother to tell me. So much for the rich uncle buying expensive Christmas presents every year for the kids.

I think that is enough for now. I will try and post another soon since I didnt write a lot about the kiddos. We will all be home for Turkey Day.

Thanks to the Strongs for lending us the play tunnels and house in the pictures below. They really like playing with them.

Basement, basement, basement......

So, have you been wondering what the Tepen Clan have been doing for the last 2 months?? Please refer to the title of this blog....that should have all of the answers you need. Besides "the basement" we really have not been able to do too much. Chris has been working down there every weekend since the last update. I actually got to get some of the painting done, at this point I'd say I'm at about 60% finished. Chris has about half of the tile done and he just installed the cabinets for the bar area today......it's actually starting to look pretty cool now! Hopefully the granite guy can come out this week to get started on counter tops, the granite we picked is SOOOO COOL! We have pretty much spent our entire summer working on the basement.

We did manage to squeak in some down time. We had a few visitors this summer....Chris' Aunt Jean and Uncle Denny,friends Beth and Skip, and Chris' mom and dad, and my mom is visiting this coming week - see you in a couple of days mom. We went to a couple of BBQ's, the most recent at the Nuetzel's which we thoroughly enjoyed. We hope that my friend Deni and also that my friend Sharon and family will be able to see us in the upcoming months. Oh, and Denny and Jean, we had the kids in the superman t-shirts just yesterday and I totally forgot to snap a picture of them....I will try to do that next time, they were really cute in the shirts!

The kids are really changing quickly now. It's amazing how rapidly their language and comprehension have taken off in the past few weeks. The are totally obsessed with being outside. They love running around and kicking a ball and playing in the sand. They are going up and down the steps really well now. They totally LOVE corn on the cob, Grand Junction peaches, grapes and cantaloupe. Oh, and Wes can put down more baked beans that most adults I know......of course, this also has it's downside if you know what I mean - ha ha!

Enough rambling....how about some new pics. Enjoy!

Where is the summer going?

So ok....I know it's been a little while since we updated the blog. I seriously can't believe that it is the end of July already. Chris has been very busy with the basement and I have been busy taking care of the kids, so we have neglected the blog a bit. The summer has been going pretty good so far. The kids are really enjoying playing outside. We often have playdates with our across the street neighbor's son Blake, and they all play well together. Wes and Mia both LOVE going down the slide at the local park. Mia is really getting into the kiddy pool, but Wes still hates to get water on his face. Wes is obsessed with sitting on the potty. Every time he asks to sit on it Mia begs to sit on her's as well. Wes has not actually gone in his, but Mia has made pee pee twice and was very excited as we bought potties that make music when you go in them. I know this all must seem incredibly fascinating - not - but alas it is our life right now. Chris had a crew of friends over this weekend to help drywall the basement. I'd say at this point it's about 80% drywall - not too bad. Thank you to all those who gave up their Satuday with their family to come to our house and hang drywall in the basement. And a special thank you to Amanda for helping on both Saturday and Sunday - you rock!! So that's about it. Here are some new pics of the kids. Hope you are all having a great summer so far - Diane

Diane's Title goes Here !!! she's got nothin'

Slow blink. Anyone know what a slow blink is besides Diane? It is when I turn and look at her after she makes a completely silly comment about something nonsensicle and very very very slooooowwwwwllllly blink my eyes in response to her comment. Diane is now "very offended and stuff". I asked her what the "and stuff" part includes and I get my usual response that I give her, 'dont you worry about what and stuff is". Enough quibbling, on with the weekend....

Four score and four days ago, we were all excited about going on vacation for a long weekend up to Grand Lake without the kids. This vacation has been in the works now for two months. We had to plan that far ahead in order to line up the baby sitter to watch the kids. We tried teaching the dogs to watch them, bathe them, feed them, change diapers etc, but I guess old dogs cant learn new tricks. Allie's idea of giving them a bath was to lick the graham crackers off of their hands. Guinness is the disciplinarian of the two. He likes to growl at them if he doesnt want to be disturbed. So, that plan just wasnt working out.

Diane has a great friend in Suzanne that volunteered to watch them for us for the whole weekend. We were originally going to come back on Saturday, but she insisted on us staying until Sunday. Bless her soul, that is what makes a real friend. So, Sunday it was. Her daughter Grace and Suzanne were going to watch our kids. They did a trial stay for us on the Rockies opening day where we went to the baseball game and stayed overnight downtown after the game.

Leading up to the weekend was pretty typical. Diane was paranoid that Wes or Mia were going to hijack a car or hold up a bank or something and we werent going to be able to go. She was following them around making sure they stayed out of trouble, stayed off the tables, didnt climb up onto the couches so they didnt fall off the back and break a limb. But, she was not able to keep daycare from revealing its wrath. The daycare attendee told us on Wednesday that Wes was really fussy and was crying all day. We just wrote it off as she didnt know how to distract him since she was new, or his teeth were still bothering him. He acted pretty good that evening for us, so we didnt give it a second thought. He also had a little spit up of his milk after dinner which we didnt think much of either. La La La, we are going on vacation....no kids, just beer and late nights for the both of us. We were destined to stay up until 10 even if it killed us.

Then all of our months of detailed planning fell apart. During the night, or early morning sometime, Wes puked on his bed. It was only a little one, so the plan goes on. We warm up the bottles, feed them both. They are both acting fine, lots of energy, throwing things they shouldnt be throwing, getting into things they arent supposed to be getting into. Wes had a wet burp, followed by another wet burp, then a cottage cheese throwup, however small it was. So we let them rest in their rooms while we get ready, hoping for the best, but really knowing in the backs of our minds, this isnt going to turn out well.

Time for breakfast. We give Wes some water thinking it would be better for his tummy than milk. Five minutes later, he projectile vomits. More water, more projectile vomiting. We take away the water, Wes screams. Cussing could be heard in the distance, must be the neighbors arguing again. We give Mia breakfast, at least she isnt sick too. Time to call Suzanne and let her know the story.

Amazingly, Suzanne tells us, "No problem, I've taken care of a sick kid before". Very hesitantly, Diane agrees to go ahead with our plans. Wes has actually been acting very normal so far except for the vomiting. He finally hit a wall around 9:30 and fell asleep on a pillow on the living room floor. Mia was constantly going up to him and rubbing his back and saying his name. After the two hour baby sitting orientation course, we are ready to leave. The course includes very detailed directions on how to do everything from changing a diaper, to feeding rituals and tieing your shoes. Thanks to Suzanne and Grace for being as patient as I am everyday in completing the course. Your diploma will be mailed in six weeks.

We were hoping for the best, hoping it is only a 24 hour bug. Wes didnt throw up anymore after we left. He was acting better and started getting into trouble again. Then Friday afternoon crept up on them. It was Mia's turn. She threw up 6 times in two hours right around bed time. Poor poor baby sitters, we felt so sorry for what they are going through.

So you are saying, at least the two of you get to enjoy your time away. Think again. Diane started getting sick on Friday afternoon. She took a nice nap instead of shopping while I went and played golf. I knew right then she couldnt be feeling good. The next morning Diane was walking around like a hunchback, moaning like a zombie and snarling like I pissed her off. She had spent the whole night, how to put this....in the bathroom. She couldnt decide if she wanted to sit on the toilet or hug it like her best friend. The noises eminating from in there kept me awake most of the night, I cant imaging what the people next door thought we were into. She was pretty much sick the rest of the day. She took a nice nap that afternoon after going into town and walking for five minutes, sitting for fifteen and repeating the process. I think she is really happy that it is a small town.

By the end of the day Saturday, she was feeling better but not 100%. We were able to go out to eat where I had an amazing smoked elk sausage and poorly smoked buffalo ribs. We then headed to a brewery where she was nice enough to let me drink a couple of beers before heading back to the hotel. Come to find out later that the hugging of la toilette ritual was also being performed back home by Grace. Now that is a babysitter taking one for the team.

We came back on Sunday late morning. Everything looked good, the kids were happy to see us and we think Suzanne and Grace were happy to see us show up too. Giving thanks to them cant show how much we really appreciate everything they did for us while we were gone. Although everthing didnt go as planned, it was good to get away for the weekend and had a nice time.

Soap Box

I'm looking for some sympathy. I just got home from work the other day and was sitting on the couch. Diane did a little of her favorite hobby, shopping, after work. Pretty much the first words out of her mouth was "This is a very nice box !!!" I was like, the usual, what? I dont understand what you are talking about. Sitting on the floor was a box, a plain brown box probably 18" in each direction. She repeats, "This box, it is a really nice box." So, I was like, what makes that box soooo much nicer than any of the other really nice boxes you have stored in the basement, in the garage, in the closet upstairs and I'm sure she has some secret stash of boxes someplace that I havent discovered yet. She replies, it doesnt have any writing on it so when I mail something in it, I wont have to scratch anything out. Ok then.

What is up with the kids you ask. Driving Diane insane is Wes' priority. He likes to stand right next to her, hug her leg and scream "up", very loudly. He will scream for 20 minutes straight without stopping until she gives him her attention. Gotta love it. He also likes to crawl up onto the coffee table and dance for us. He knows lots of words and discovered he could kick a ball last week. He thought it was awesome using his leg for something other than walking and running. He has his four pointy teeth coming in at the same time. He likes to line up his farm animals and play with them. He also loves knocking down block towers.

Mia is her usual sweet self. She spends most of her time defending herself from Wes. She knows lots of words and taught Wes how to climb up onto the coffee table. She is a go getter. She also learned how to kick a ball last week. The ball is almost as tall as she is though. She likes to take the barnyard sheep and walk around the room with it in her hand going bah bah!!! There isnt a block tower that lasts more than 30 seconds around her.

They just had their 18 month checkup last week. Mia still isnt 20 lbs yet, but really close and is 30.25 inches tall. Wes weighed in at 25 lbs and has a vertical reach of 31.5 inches. Mia is at the very bottom of the growth charts and Wes is about the middle. Both of them checked out to be very healthy. We bought them their first potty last week. They havent used it yet, but like to sit on it and take it apart. We just bought them a sandbox today, but they havent had a chance to play with it. See the other post from today.

Wes thinks that anything that is round is a ball. He calls blueberries, "ball", the canteloupe on the counter, "ball", the potato we give him to chew on because his teeth hurt "ball". Since he likes to chew on the little fingerling potato, we started calling him tater...then in recognition of Ron White, it evolved into Tater Salad.

Here are some pictures. Thanks to Dianes mom, my favorite mother in law, for the outfits. They look adorable in them.

Twisted Pretzels

What has the world came to. I was sitting home while the kids were napping and Diane was out shopping for a new purse or something. Tiger Woods was making another amazing comeback in a golf tournament. Seems just like any other day here at the Tepen's. Then all of the sudden sirens start blaring, the dogs are up pacing around acting all nervous. I was like what the heck is going on. I walk out onto the back deck and look around, nothing too special, the typical afternoon thunderstorms we get. More sirens going off now, I'm thinking, uh-oh better wake the kids and head to the basement. It wasnt even raining yet. As I was walking towards the stairs, I glance towards the front door and have to take a second glance because I couldnt believe I saw what I thought I saw. I walk out onto the front porch for a better look. The neighbors are all out looking up at the sky. Lo and behold a funnel cloud. It wasnt anything too special at first, just a small little dropdown. I was thinking, all this noise for this little thing? Well, it didnt take very long to grow. It was not very far away from the house. I felt some relief that it was a few miles away, but still an amazing sight watching it grow from basically nothing to a full fledge tornado. Now it wasnt one of those big midwest cat 5 ones, but pretty good for Colorado.

Wes and Mia preparing for our big storm:

Progress of the funnel cloud as it passed us by

A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning.

Ok. It didnt happen on the way to work, it was at bandcamp. No really, this morning when we were getting the kids ready for daycare, in their bedroom, it happened, and I'm not lying this time.

Mia likes to put the dirty clothes in the hamper when we are putting them in their clothes for the day. She opened the sliding closet door and put her sleeper into the hamper. She then closed the door. A minute later, she sees Wes' sleeper on the floor and decides that needed to be put away too. So, both Wes and Mia walk over together to put it into the hamper. She then closes the door, with Wes still inside the closet. He starts screaming because he is now in the dark closet, alone and doesnt know how to get out. After a few seconds, Mia opens the closet door back up and tells him "out, out, out". Wes just looks at her and then she tells him "get out, get out". Be the stubborn son, he ignores her, so she just closes the door on him again. Pretty funny, might have had to be there. This time though, he just opens it back up and walks back into the room. At least he is a quick learner.

Wes also learned a new bad habit at daycare this week. He will take a swig of milk from his sippy cup and hold it in his mouth. Then after a few seconds he will spit it out and it will run down the front of him and onto him and anything under him. fun fun fun.