Cookie Decorating, Gingerbread Houses, Broken Metatarsals and December 2018

December 7, 2018 by

At the beginning of December, we asked the girls what their favorite Christmas activities were so that we could make a bucket list. Instead of trying to d it all and being frazzled and exhausted, we only picked our favorites and left plenty of room for downtime and spontaneous outings. We loved Christmastime!

The Follow the Star live nativity and international creche exhibit is always a must-do.

Can’t miss our annual cookie decorating with the Wrights. Maliyah and Allie have always been the most meticulous cookie decorators, whereas the twins and Meredith just slap on the frosting and pour as many sprinkles as the can on each cookie.

It’s fall! The leaves finally started falling off the trees in December and Meredith was so excited to jump in a pile!

The twins’ piano teacher, Miss Jenny, brought them some toy Santa boots that they tried to squeeze on poor Eleanor’s feet.

Reagan’s mom from kindergarten dressed up as a totally legit Cindy Lou Who, complete with a wig and prosthetic nose, and read the kids The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Christmas fun at kindergarten.

Santa and Mrs. Clause came to visit the twins’ school and read them stories while the kids drank hot cocoa. Sounds cozy!

Christmas crafts:

Letters so Santa (they had to clarify when Santa came that they meant a toy puppy, not a real one!)

School pictures 2018.

Chilling in the backyard.

Cookie decorating with our neighbors.

Naomi concentrated very hard on her cookie decorating while the twins and Meredith went wild.

The girls love to climb a tree at the end of our cul de sac, and one afternoon, while wearing some boots with a slight heel, Samantha jumped out of the tree and landed “not like a cat,” in Amelia’s words. We thought for sure it was just a sprain, but nope, she broke her #2 metatarsal and had to have a boot on for 3 weeks over Christmas! That’s two broken bones for Samantha, if anyone’s counting.

Samantha did not let the boot stop her from climbing trees again.

We told the twins that anytime you saw someone standing under the mistletoe, you had to tackle them.

Christmas party playdate with Meredith’s playgroup.

Instead of attempting to do gingerbread houses with the girls by myself this year (getting the houses engineered to stand up correctly whilst managing three crazies armed with tubes of frosting is not my forte), we waited for a day Jake could be home to help the, and the whole experience was much less stressful! I just stood back, bit my tongue as Meredith ate more candy than she put on her house, and took pictures.

Eleanor rarely tries to roll over– I think her fat to muscle ration isn’t conducive to rolling!

We bought a small live tree this year for the girls to decorate with their homemade ornaments and other random ones they like.

Mom’s tree that no one was allowed to touch.

Meredith begs us daily to let Eleanor move to her room!

Lots of love,

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Fall Bucket List and October

October 5, 2018 by

At the beginning of Fall (which we started in October since September here is still pretty hot!), we sat down during one of our family meetings and put together our fall bucket list. “Jump in the cold ocean” was the twins’ idea and the pretty much put that down no matter what season it is. We ended up completing our list, except for paddleboarding and making scones (sadly!)

The biker gang: Maliyah, Allie, Amelia and Samantha, with Meredith, baby Corbin, and baby Eleanor tagging along.

We look forward to going up the mountain to Oak Glen every year for apple and raspberry picking, fresh apple cider, mini apple donuts and picking up yummy breads, jams and my favorite flavored vinegars from the country market. This time, Eleanor and I stayed behind while the girls and Jake crossed off their bucket list item.

Playing at Oak Glen after gorging themselves on donuts and hot apple cider:

Swinging outside of someone’s house in our neighborhood.

Checking out a new park in Esencia.

Putting up Halloween decorations and waving to the garbage man.

Soooo many Halloween decorations.

Checking out another park in Irvine and playing checkers.

Dress rehearsal for family pictures!

Jake and I started a weekly date taking tennis lessons, but the girls ended up being interested, so we signed them up too.

They are super silly during lessons, but it’s really helped with their hand-eye coordination and we’ve had fun going to play at the courts on the weekend with the whole family. Thankfully, Coach Elaine has twins of her own just a year older than our twins, so she’s used to the crazy!

Our yearly cookie decorating date with Maliyah, Allie and Corbin. Jodi makes the best sugar cookies on the planet and her girls are very meticulous about decorating them, whereas Samantha, Amelia and Meredith basically dump as much frosting and sprinkles as possible on their cookies, without even bothering to spread.

I went in to school for a few mornings to help Amelia and Samantha’s classes with their Class Platter that they paint for the school’s auction/fundraiser.

There were no other volunteers to paint the the tree, bird design and names, so I took it home to paint. Let’s just say it was not the best looking plate at the auction since I am no artist… the names looked terrible! But it still got some high bids since every mom wanted a piece of class memorabilia and their child’s thumbprint, despite the mediocre artistry.

I helped Samantha’s class with painting the chocolate chips on their Cookies for Santa plate, which turned out adorable. Thankfully, Mr. Michael is a more gifted artist than I, so all I had to do were the chocolate chips!

 

Samantha was very proud of her planets project.

Eleanor chilling in the playroom.

Amelia taking a break on a walk.

Silly Samantha.

Once it gets close to Halloween, we read “The Chocolate Chip Ghost” story for FHE, complete with stick puppets. The theme is supposed to be about listening to your parents and obeying, but all the girls usually get out of it is asking for more chocolate chips.

Samantha’s block creation.

The girls trying on random costumes at the thrift store while looking for a leather jacket for Jake’s costume.

Normal breakfast shenanigans.

The theme for the school’s Annual Dinner/fundraiser/auction this year was Grease, and it was a blast. The room moms worked our tails off for two months to badger people into donating items and money for the auction, and it all worked out, despite people avoiding us the last week for fear of being accosted to donate. The gift baskets I was in charge of were the “Beauty School Dropout” basket and the “Harvest Basket.”

We decided to take Eleanor with us to the dinner so that my mom, who was in town, would only need to watch the other three… never again! Normally such a happy baby, she screamed and cried on and off for the entire five hours! It was right during her bedtime, but with all the noise, unfamiliar people, and loud music, she was so overtired and just couldn’t sleep. So most of the time, while everyone else was eating, bidding on the silent and live auction, dancing and using the photo booth, I was on the streets of San Juan Capistrano strolling in my poodle skirt with an inconsolable Eleanor, hoping she would fall asleep. Jake took a few turns with her in the Ergo carrier, but to no avail. At least we got some use out of the adorable poodle skirt outfit I got her! Despite her tears, she was the hit of the party for everyone but us.

So many cute baskets up for bid this year.

“Beauty School Drop Out”

A rare moment of silence from Eleanor that night.

There were several bids on the class platters, and wanting to earn more money for the school, I kept bidding up the price, thinking I would definitely be outbid. In the end, I ended up winning both Samantha and Amelia’s class platters, which I hadn’t meant to do! So now we own two very expensive plates that I’ve been trying to get some use of!

Our costume for the night: “Teen Pregnancy.”

Let this be a lesson to you, kids.

Poor screaming Eleanor… other parents commented that she looked like she was singing/screaming into the mic!

Lots of love,

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March Recap

March 27, 2018 by

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

February 8, 2018 by

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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