Wordless Wednesday

HAPPY EASTER!

We had a really fun Easter weekend. We might argue it was the BEST Easter EVER. Aunt Liz, Uncle Scott, Sergei & Sasha came up to celebrate with us. Amelia and Zoë were so excited they were here and Amelia in particular had a lot of fun!

Zoë got passed around a lot and as long as Mommy was in view, she was normally okay with it.

Amelia was adorable in her Easter dress... and she knew it...

There was an Easter egg hunt after the church service and Amelia actually understood it and had fun... they also learned from last year and had an "Under 4" section - she her eggs weren't stolen by crazy 10 year old boys this year...

Sister love!

Do I have something on my face?

Not my child.

It was animal day at school last week. Amelia requested that her face be painted like a zebra - she was the only one who asked for that. Of course!

Admiring her new grill.

And then a snake came to visit. She canNOT be related to me if she is touching and then HOLDING snake! O M G.

Family Dinner

We are averaging about 5 family dinners a week now. It has been nice to finally create a room where we can eat dinner. Even if that room is only 8 x 8. Like many things in this house we embrace our inner sailboater when we eat dinner.

Last night while Heidi and the girls were in Grammie's sick bed I finally moved a real sized table into the dinner room. Amelia is big enough to sit on a real chair and it is much easier for Heidi and I to sit on adult chairs.

Tonight we sat down for a dinner of spaghetti and shrimp bisque (leftover night). We also had garlic bread which included an uber garlic piece that Amelia had created. She let the powdered garlic pour out for a solid 5 seconds. Anyway near the end of dinner I thought we could read a little of the bible. We had missed church today and with Easter coming I thought it was a good idea to read a little of the background. I picked a Passover passage from Luke and I thought I would read a few verses. Five words in Amelia started shouting SHUT UP. Heidi told me to ignore her. Amelia kept shouting SHUT UP as I read the passage. Finally near the end she swatted at me and we put her in time out. She wailed, "I want desert!" from her time out spot.

Family dinner.

9 Months!

Our little princess was not up for her 9 month pictures this month. Oh well, Mommy still thinks they're cute...


We've been a bit behind with posts this week, but for good reason! Both kids have been sick, Mommy got sick, we've been filing our taxes (never too late, right?), and applying for financial aid because we're both going back to school! Yay! we are super excited. Tom is only 12 credits shy of his masters and I, not wanting to be outdone, am likely going to enroll in an online program that will get me a 2nd masters degree in Reading. :)

We'll post more cute pictures soon!

sidenote: as a highly educated person, I am admitting I don't know if it's Masters or Master's Degree...

Sushi

We went out for sushi tonight and I met Heidi and the kids at the restaurant. I walked in and the kids were on one side and Heidi was on the other. Zoe and Amelia were so cute. They were playing with their chopsticks and giggling. I was so glad to see them.

I was excited for the toro but it was a little dry. As was the maguro. The uni was excellent thought and is my new favorite. And as always my Alisha roll was awesome.

I'm already hungry for more sushi.

Sister fun

The girls have started playing together just in the past few days and it is awesome to see.

Amelia got a sandbox from her Aunt Liz & Uncle Scott for her birthday and it was finally warm enough to set it up. She was so happy (and so are we because she is occupied for long stretches of time....)

But she also let her sister join her in the sandbox!

Then inside before bed they played together at their activity where we dumped flour for them to play with.... Amelia was talking to Zoe and Zoe was just, as you can see below, eating flour :

Happy girl - she really gets it that her sister is someone she can play with . I love love love it.

We got some good sleeping taken care of over here. In this first picture Amelia clutches her new bowl that she made at a paint your own pottery place... We had picked it up that morning and she didn't want to give it up for naptime :)

Amelia naps at school in the loft - Tom arrived to pick her up and she was still asleep so he got to wake her up - we and she love it when this happens!

Zoë fell asleep sitting up...so she just tipped right over and cuddled herself up!

We went on our first trip to the park this afternoon after school - Zoë loved it!

And then we got home and Amelia put herself into the Johnny Jump Up...

Wordless Wednesday

"Let's wrestle"

Last night Zoë was crying after I put her to bed and so Amelia said to me, "I will go check on her." She headed on upstairs and the crying stopped. I was fixing something in the kitchen and after about 5 minutes thought I'd go see what was going on. As I am heading up the stairs I hear lots of squealing and then Amelia said, "Let's wrestle."

I turn the corner into the room and see this:Zoë saw me come into the room and let out a huge high pitched shriek of excitement. If I could have translated for her it would have been "MOM, AMELIA CAME AND GOT IN MY BED AND IS PLAYING WITH ME AFTER YOU LEFT!" She was so unbelievably happy and thrilled - it was as though she knew it was special and that she knew they were being naughty. I laughed with her and was so happy to see them together like this. I immediately yelled downstairs and said, "Daddy, you'd better get up here and see these girls!"

BOINGGGGGGGGGG!!!!

Amelia said, "Let's cuddle."

My heart still swells with joy when I look at these pictures, which, interestingly, are a bit fuzzy from the iPhone because SOMEONE was using our digital camera last night and put it "away" on a shelf somewhere... That someone just turned 3...

Chatterbox

About the cutest video ever. This is Amelia all day. Non stop dialogue with herself. So I guess that is a monologue?

Birthday Traditions

When Amelia turned 1 I thought it would be fun to come up with some traditions that we as a family did on birthdays... it was the coming up with ideas that was tough. I asked around - not many people had many ideas except that they liked my idea; I googled "birthday traditions" and got some interesting hits...not appropriate for a child's birthday... So, over time I've come up with a few and think that this year I've hit on some that will actually work.

Tradition One is to have a picture of Mommy with her baby on every birthday. This has been fun and I'm glad we started it...

Tradition Two is for the birthday girl to open a new outfit in the morning that she can wear to school that day. In this case, the birthday girl's sister got a matching outfit - I think that could be a fun tradition for the sister, too, to have something to open...but it probably won't be matching as they get older :)



Tradition Three: I came up with this one in the car and I really don't know how but I am pretty excited about it. The idea is that on their birthdays, each girl will need to do something nice to honor someone who is important to them in their life. Obviously right now I do the picking - so this year I picked Amelia's teachers. My friend Jill taught me how to make these cute and easy bags and I baked some goodies and stuck them inside and included a nice card.

Amelia "helped" me and was pretty excited about it. She picked which teacher got which color and was pretty indignant about it...




I worked hard with my sewing machine...only needed to rip seams 4-5 times...


The finished product -- each had their own "issues" but overall it was fun and the thought that counts, right?

Bathroom Baby

Two thoughts related to the bathroom.

1. Best purchase of my life so far has been a galvanized bucket to keep the used kitty litter in. I used to keep it in bags and they would break on the car ride to the dump and malodorous havoc would ensue.

2. Zoe is not a good bathroom baby. Those of you who have ever had little ones or baby sat for them know that when you are alone you have to take them in with you whether you are taking a shower or up to something else. Well, Zoe is terrible in there. I was taking a shower the other day and had the curtain 1/2 way open so I could see her. While I completed my 4-5 minute shower she took all of the toilet paper off of the shelf where we keep it, had found some scraps of toilet paper to wad up and put in her mouth, and was headed back behind the toilet when I got out. I fear for her future.

Tom