March Recap

Here’s our random March photo dump:

While almost everyone else stayed inside or went to indoor play gyms with their kids on rainy days, we took full advantage! It doesn’t rain very often and the girls always get so excited (plus, I wanted to get as much use out of our rain gear, which mostly gets neglected the majority of the year). The girls love to walk to the top of our neighborhood, place leaves in the gutter and run all the way down the street, following their journey downstream.

Singing in the rain.

Lots of spring cleaning happened, especially on rainy days.

Amelia: “Mommy– do you want to have kids so that they can do work for you?”

Me: “Yes, Amelia. You’ve figured it out!”

Rainy day fort building.

In between the rain we had some random hot days!

Checking out a new park with Gavin.

We go through about 1.5 billion pieces of construction paper per day as the twins LOVE to color/draw/paint, and Meredith tries to copy them (although she is not allowed to have markers anymore until she learns to put the caps back on consistently). The twins’ favorite is drawing hearts, rainbows, our family, cats, and themselves. They’ll run up to show me their creations and even though I’ve explained where they can hang up their most treasured works of art and that we can’t possibly save every single one of the drawings, heaven forbid they find them in the recycle bin! I have to be pretty sneaky about it.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Samantha, Amelia, Meredith, Maliyah and Allie created a “leprechaun nest” at the park in order to hopefully attract leprechauns. On our next visit there, the nest was mysteriously missing, so the girls concluded their experiment to lure leprechauns was a success.

Meredith and Sheela get some one-on-one time.

Our weekly Tuesday park date group!

Cupcake, yum!

Lazy day harmonica playing on the swing.

Park playdate with Parker, Maple, and Jenny.

Bug hunting.

The girls were so excited to have Great Grandpa over!

Post-church walk around the creek.

Meredith is the youngest out of the kids in her little gymnastics class, but she keeps up and can’t wait to go whenever we tell her it’s gym time. Her favorite part is putting on her leotard.

 

Check out my new shoes!

Making waffles on a Saturday morning.

Samantha and Amelia got it into their heads that they absolutely needed to perfect their cartwheels and practiced non-stop.

The twins attended their first baptism for their friend, Kennedy, and now they pretend to “baptize” each other in the bath.

Meredith on her Strider!

I normally don’t include stuff on this blog that doesn’t involve our whole family, but Sheela’s surprise 40th bday party is an exception because the girls helped out with the cake tasting, decor and other party planning shenanigans for months! Sheela’s husband, Todd, booked an awesome private room at a restaurant and was great with putting together the catering menu and so many of the little details. I was very impressed with his party planning organization! Phi, myself and our families had a blast in the months leading up to the party putting together the decorations, doing cake tastings (the husbands and kids were not complaining about that one!) and selecting the desserts. The party turned out amazing and Sheela was so surprised and loved it!

Todd ordered these hilarious “Sheela” face cut-outs, so this is what Sheela saw when walked into the room:

Phi and I were sad when it was over because we had so much fun with the planning! Between Sheela’s and the twins’ party, it was a March full of big events interspersed with everyday fun!

Lots of love,

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February Randomness

Our February started out on the not-so-lovely side with a domino effect of sickness which spread like the plague through preschool and then our house. Fortunately, I remained unscathed, but from the tail end of January until the middle of February, at least one person was sick at our house!

The girls missed a week of school, with Amelia and Samantha coming down with a fever, congestion and lingering cough within a few days of each other and Meredith getting the worst of it. I was at the pediatrician’s office four times within six days and basically lived at the pharmacy. I was sure it was the dreaded flu, but it turned out to be just a really nasty cold with accompanying coughing that lasted forever.

I probably need to work on my nursing/compassion skills because I was so sick of taking care of sick people by the end of the ordeal and could not keep my crankiness under wraps! We are so lucky to have such mild weather all year long that I forget what it’s like to be stuck inside the house since we are usually outside for a good portion of each day, and the quarantining due to sickness really took a toll on my sanity. We went on short walks every day and played in our backyard a little bit, but I didn’t want to venture to the park either with friends or by ourselves so as not to infect anyone. That, combined with being out of preschool, was basically torture!

Amelia was well enough to go to school after a week, but Samantha was a few days behind her and needed a little bit of extra time to recover. This was the first time Amelia was at preschool without her sister and was understandably distraught, so Jake took her out to a special Daddy Daughter breakfast before school to help lift her spirits. Fruity Pebbles French Toast = Happiness. I don’t even want to know how much sugar was in this and had to make a conscious decision not to freak out when I saw this picture!

A few weeks later, Jake took a jealous Samantha out to breakfast all by herself.

Finally feeling back to normal!

No one at San Clemente beach on Super Bowl Sunday– the perfect time to go for a beach walk after church!

I’m sure people thought it was super cute that someone named Amelia loved her boyfriend, Sam!

Impromptu rock art in honor of mom.

The youth at church had a fundraiser one weekend where they came by anyone’s house who signed up and did all the yucky jobs no one wants to do. Free labor? Yes, please! They sprayed out/cleaned our outdoor trash cans for us, weeded, and hauled a bunch of stuff to the dump. That afternoon, they held a carnival fundraiser and the girls had a blast getting their faces painted, playing with bubbles and taking turns rolling each other around in a giant blow up ball.

Samantha and Amelia decided to join me during my pregnancy pilates workout.

We finally made time to make it down to the HOA office and got the girls IDs for our neighborhood skate park. It’s normally full of boys on scooters, skateboards and bikes doing backflips, but this afternoon was calm and the perfect time for the girls to try it out. The boys who were there were very encouraging to the twins!

Meredith on her Strider– she rotates between her bike, her plasma car, her scooter, and being pushed in her stroller. I’ve learned the hard way that she will usually give up riding whatever her vehicle of choice is halfway to the park and my huge, lumbering pregnant self will end up carrying it to the park and back. I’ve learned to ALWAYS bring the stroller so I can at least prop her abandoned vehicle on top and push it.

Amelia swings like Tarzan at our neighbor, Naomi’s, gymnastics birthday party.

One of the girls’ favorite activities at the park is collecting flowers and building nests! Parker and Samantha work on a detailed bird habitat.

Picking beautiful flowers at the park.

Since we moved last summer, I’ve gone through three different gardeners. Labor is cheap and everyone on the block has a gardener, but I just can’t understand paying for them to mow our tiny patch of lawn and blow leaves around, especially when they would do a decent job the first month or so and then completely slack off after that! I had finally had it with the noise of the leaf blower during nap time and the fact that they were blowing leaves into our pool constantly, so we’ve been doing our own work ever since. Maybe one day I will find the dream gardener I’m looking for– someone who actually knows something about plants, loves plants and takes care of them! In the mean time, Meredith and the twins have been our free gardeners!

We need to hire Maliyah’s dad, Jared, for our next birthday party. He kept all the kids entertained with a superhero obstacle course and games during Maliyah’s birthday party. The kids all made superhero capes that were super cute– what a fun theme!

Practicing third position at ballet class.

Meredith takes some time to chill out and eat her favorite foods– fruit and cake– at Kennedy’s beach birthday party.

This is what happened while the twins were supposedly “napping.” While they usually take a short nap at preschool, they only nap about 25% of the time on the days they are home.  To retain my sanity, I am very strict about a mandatory daily quiet time, and when they don’t fall asleep, they are usually pretty good at coloring, reading books, listening to books on CD or quietly playing with toys in their room. I am usually resting/napping and Meredith naps for 2 to 2.5 hours, so the hour and a half of twins’ quiet time is non-negotiable! This particular afternoon, they were a little too quiet!

A morning at the park and a chance to get some energy out at the expense of local wildlife. Poor duck!

Lots of love,

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San Diego Wild Animal Park and January Activities

While Aunt Sarah was in town for Auntie Lynn’s 60th birthday, we took a girls’ trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, a.k.a. the twins’ and Meredith’s true home. Someone in my Mothers of Multiples club was giving away free tickets that were going to expire and she couldn’t use, so on a whim, we took a day trip down there! Being a Tuesday in January, we had the place to ourselves, which was perfect for these three wild animal sisters.

I hatched!

Thank you for always feeding me snacks, Aunt Sarah.

Gorilla skull!

Keeping this crew in line while waiting for food is torture.

We love the Wild Animal Park, not just for the open space and roaming animals, but for all of the playgrounds throughout the zoo. I strolled Meredith through the shady tiger trails until she fell asleep while the girls played at one of the playgrounds.

The lorikeets seemed hungry that day! Meredith was still asleep and didn’t feed the birds, but I doubt she would have wanted to… she’s still traumatized from getting bit at the Living Desert zoo in Palm Springs and will randomly hold up her finger and say, “Birdie bite me!” when she sees birds.

Aunt Sarah had a photo shoot at a cute bookstore for some clients in Newport Beach and brought the girls back some fun new books for storytime.

While Aunt Sarah was in town, we also hiked to Ortega Falls, which we had been wanting to check out. There was only a trickle of water, but the girls had fun rock climbing and were entertained watching a family with legit rock climbing equipment scale the rock walls.

What it’s supposed to look like when there’s water:

I want snack!

In other January news, Noah stayed at our house overnight while the grown-ups were at Auntie Lynn’s 60th birthday party, and the girls all loved having a guest over!

Meredith has spent her whole life sitting and watching the twins do their activities, and finally got to do a gymnastics class of her own. The class for her age group requires the parents to be in class as well, but she wanted nothing to do with parental supervision and acted like she didn’t know me! Even though she’s not old enough, the coach said she could move up to the next level in which parents don’t need to be in class and she absolutely loves it.

Looks like we need some more practice on those cartwheels…

Skating lessons!

The best part of winter? Watching it on TV on an unusually hot January day at home.

Orange picking!

 

We had what seemed like an entire month, but was really a 10-day period at the end of January, where all of the girls were SO sick and fell like dominoes, one after the other. I thought for sure it was the flu, but it turned out to be some kind of bad respiratory virus. The twins missed a combined week and a half of school, and were not happy about going alone when the other twin was home sick. To help make her feel better on her first day back at school, with Samantha still sick at home, Jake took Amelia on a morning Daddy Daughter Date before school. This special fruity pebbles french toast was enough to coax her into being at preschool by herself that day! Where is my french toast reward for taking care of sick kids for an eternity?

Lots of love,

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5 Things We’re Loving Right Now

  1.  Dinners at the park.

Can’t beat leaving the mess there and built-in entertainment. We’ve been having picnic lunch or dinners weekly, either by ourselves or with friends, and I’m sure the girls would be okay with eating at the park every night if they had their way.

Playing crack the egg with the Erpeldings, who hosted taco night at the park.

Amelia, Grace and Samantha love to hang out together at the Coto park and play duck, duck goose. The girls’ version is a loose interpretation in which whoever is tagged as the “goose” runs around the entire park a few times before sitting down. Sometimes, both twins will get up and run around, even if only one twin is tagged. All rules are thrown out the window!

The girls climbed up the rock to get away from the “baby monster.”

More park fun: pushing Allie on the swings at Sendero.

2. Being Helper of the Day

The Helper of the Day at preschool is in charge of preparing the snack that day (i.e. MOM does it all) , raising the flag, selecting who gets to be dismissed for snack and playtime first, feeding the goldfish and birds, AND gets to sit next to the teacher during preschool. Obviously, this is a huge deal, and Samantha and Amelia ask me every preschool day if one of them is the helper that day, at which point they don’t just take my word for it, but have to look on my phone calendar to verify.

I also have to prepare for a massive meltdown in the morning for whoever is NOT the Helper of the Day. Amelia is assigned to be the helper at preschool about twice a month since she has less kids in her class, while Samantha is the helper every three weeks or so. We are 3/4 into the year, and neither of them have learned to tame their jealousy when it comes to the other twin being the helper. Samantha is the helper at the end of this week, and I’m already trying to think of ways to break the news gently to Amelia.

3. Tricks

Samantha and Amelia are constantly being jokers around the house, stuffing used food wrappers in our shoes, unrolling toilet paper, and hiding little toys in my makeup drawer. On April Fool’s, it was my turn for revenge!

I told the girls there were some brownies in the oven and asked if they could help me get them out. Brownies for breakfast!

They were confused when they found Brown E’s in the pan, and just kind of looked at me like, “What kind of person would do this???”

Still not really getting it…

Unperturbed, they were even more excited to find lollipops on their plates.

Broccoli lollipops, that is.

In a strategic bid to act like my tricks didn’t faze them, they actually ate the broccoli!

4. Tumblebees

This should actually be a favorite thing for Samantha, more than Amelia. The girls moved up to the Tumblebee Squad a few months ago and now get to be on a team, learning new moves on the high bars and balance beam in the big gym. Amelia has a hard time transitioning from place to place or activity to activity, and is often shy about entering class, but Samantha usually grabs her hand and leads her in. There’s been a few times where Samantha has completed class solo while Amelia sat out on the bench with me and Meredith, but Samantha has really shined, even without her sis in class.

5. Science Experiments

Many afternoons after naps, we’ve been busy exploring, investigating, experimenting and thinking up any excuse to put on lab goggles. Amelia’s favorite activity is coloring a tray of vinegar with food coloring and using a dropper to squirt the colored vinegar into a pan of baking soda and watching it bubble, foam, and create a rainbow.

Amelia is obsessed with bones and the human body. She’s always asking where things are in the body and what they do, followed by about a million BUT WHY’s????

The girls used a chisel and hammer to score the circumference of a geode and then crack it open to find beautiful crystals inside. This was one of their favorite activities of all time!

When no one was looking, Meredith absconded with the geodes. She wanted to be a part of the action too!

6. Honorable mention: I don’t have a picture for this one, but I had to add on another favorite thing– Moana. As the twins’ movie of choice for our weekly Family Movie Night for the past four weeks, Moana has officially surpassed Frozen as their favorite (angels SING!). They are constantly belting out “No one knoooooooooows; how far it gooooooooes!” and enjoy pretending to be that creepy, shiny crab. I was excited to watch their new favorite movie the first few weeks, but now it’s starting to get old, with no end in sight!

7. I just thought of another runner-up: the Frog and Toad book series. I don’t even know how many times I’ve had to explain which one is Frog and which one is Toad, even though the girls ask to read one of the series at least twice a day. The girls especially love the tale of “Cookies” and “Dragons and Giants,” and usually request a dramatic retelling of those stories at bedtime, in which they are the main characters.

There are so many other favorite things coming to mind, but I will have to save them for another post! Four is fun!

Lots of love,

 

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