Starring...Elaine!

The kids love to dance....LOVE it. Eli is actually turning out to be a pretty good dancer. He listens for the rhythm and he'll really get into it. Elina....not so much. That girl needs some help. I think she has been watching "Seinfeld" behind my back because her moves are reminiscent of Elaine's famous dance....the thumbs, the kicking, the thrashing of the body. To her credit, Elina does add her own flavor with the facial expressions and punches...yes, punches. In addition to all of this, she also emphatically says, "Yeah!" throughout the performance. It's the icing on the cake. You tell me what you think...
I love that Eli just kinda goes over to the side to do his own thing. And then he eventually gives up because Elina's dancing goes against everything he believes. As George Costanza would say, "Sweet fancy Moses!"

A Break in the Spring

Spring Break was nice and relaxing this year. We made it a point to not really plan anything. I told B that I wanted Spring Break to be exactly what it was supposed to be--a break. I needed a break from waking up at 6:30am before the kids wake up so that I can get myself ready first. I needed a break from rushing the kids out of the house to get to school on time. I needed a break from driving back and forth from school. I needed a break from making lunches. I just needed a break...and so did the kids. And it turned out to be a seriously enjoyable Spring Break.

There was only one day out of the whole week where we had to get out of the house by 9am...and that was just to go down the street to the St. Patrick's Day party.

On the other days we slept in, ate breakfast at 10am, relaxed in our pjs, had picnics in the backyard, played with friends, rode bikes and scooters until it was dark out, made crafts, and just had a grand ol' time. The biggest outings were hiking at Government Canyon on Pi Day and then Morgan's Wonderland on St. Patrick's Day. Elina's most exciting day was having a lunch date with B. B took Elina out to Madhatter's to have a tea party. She picked out fancy clothes for both of them to wear--a tie for B (he never wears ties!) and a fancy dress for herself (the dress she wore to Aunt M's dress rehearsal in Philly). It was a dream come true for Elina! Before the actual outing, she was telling everyone that her Daddy was going to take her on a date. It was cute and they both looked great!
B and I managed to get a lot of things done around the house as well--that's always a nice bonus. And it was nice for Elina and Eli to spend some more time together. Eli definitely misses having his big sis around on most days, so over the break they got to play a lot together. Siblings are definitely more fun to play with than parents sometimes.

It was sad to see the break come to an end. Elina and I both said that we wished Spring Break could last forever. Now it's back to the grind...but not for much longer. I know that summer is right around the corner. We can't wait!

Rainbows and Green Everywhere!

St. Patrick's Day was full of fun this year!

First the kids woke up and had to follow a ribbon rainbow to their little "pot of gold." This was an idea I got from my friend KL. I tied a red ribbon to an orange ribbon to a yellow ribbon and so on. Then I had it lead from their bedroom door to the location of their gold. For their "pot of gold," I wrapped up their green shirts but I didn't have any "pot of gold" treats on hand. The night before I dug through my pantry and found Easter colored chocolate-covered sunflower seeds...oh well, they didn't really care that it was irrelevant to St. Patrick's Day. They just cared that it was a treat. Phew!
Then the kids had the usual green breakfast...green eggs, green milk, and painted green toast. They used green milk to paint their bread, then I put it in the toaster oven, and voila...green toast! The kids love painting their own toast and it's super easy to do.

That morning we went to RT house for a St. Patrick's Day party in her backyard. There were lots of kids dressed in green. Cute!
RT did a great job. The kids learned how to act like leprechauns (kicking their feet in mid-air), got St. Patty's Day face-painting done, hunted for coins, and then drew leprechaun homes with chalk.

Unfortunately, my kids didn't use the chalk at all because they were too mesmerized with all the roly-polies on the ground that cloudy, cool morning. Of course!

Then later in the day we went to Morgan's Wonderland with Elina's good friend from school, A. We spent 5 hours there and had a blast. It was great except that it was hard to keep an eye on the kids at times because EVERY KID was wearing green! I love that on St. Patrick's Day everyone really wears green. Not everyone wears red on Valentine's Day or orange on Halloween...but on St. Patty's Day everyone seems to own a green shirt! Love it!
Unfortunately, I didn't do a green dinner this year. All I could manage was green jello for dessert (thanks, KL!). The kids didn't seem to mind though.

I think I didn't have any more green left in me by that night because during the days leading up to the holiday, I did a lot of rainbow stuff with the kids. First we made rainbow pudding and then we made rainbow cupcakes. Both were great fun and we'll definitely be making these things again next year!
We hope that everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day with rainbows and pots of gold!

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day kind of snuck up on me again this year. It's spring break now and I kept thinking about St. Patrick's Day, too, so I almost completely missed this nerdy holiday. KT and her family are no longer our partners in crime for this holiday, so we had to find another family to join us in our silliness. We invited Eli's good friend, T, and her family over for some pies for dessert after dinnertime. We had been out during the day, so I couldn't manage to do dinner and dessert. Plus, I bought my pie at the store....wow, I didn't really put much energy into this, did I? Regardless we had a great time. (Although I managed to forget to take a group picture!!)

J, B and I had a little competition to see who could memorize the most digits of pi. Of course, B won. He's too good with numbers! I think this year he memorized about 90 digits. I had about 40-50 memorized, but the digits slowly flew out of my head when it was my turn. I needed a lot of help and there was a lot of ummmm-ing and ahhhhh-ing. It's not like I could ever beat B anyway. J definitely did better than I did. T's parents (RT and FT) didn't even bother memorizing any digits, so it was just the 3 of us. Here is B reciting some digits. In the first video he starts off by showing us how nerdy he is...the second video is him still reciting digits (after 2 minutes of filming have already gone by)...

I even got us nerdy glasses to wear while we recited our digits. These glasses were terrible-looking on us adults. On the kids they were cute...on us, not so much. The nose was hideous and RT mentioned that the color they used on the nose is not any human being's skin tone. They made for funny pictures though!I guess Pi Day is just a reason for us to get together with friends and eat some pie....and memorize some random digits.
Earlier in the day we didn't do anything pi-related, but we ventured out to Government Canyon State Natural Area for a hike with the kids. The kids had a great time looking for bugs to collect in the bug jar and we all enjoyed hiking around. In the picture to the right, the kids have caught a roly-poly and B's just helping them keep the soil moist. We also saw lots of butterflies, grasshoppers, and lizards. Elina even packed her own bag this time...complete with water bottles, an etch-a-sketch, and a magna doodle. Seriously??
During the hike, we had wanted to connect to another trail, but a lot of the trails to go that particular way were closed. So B decided he wanted to be a trailblazer and find another way to get to that other trail (because we were at a point where it was really close to the trail we were on). This is a good idea when you don't have 2 kids and a baby on your back...but B thought otherwise. We went off-trail and it was an experience. It really wasn't that bad or for that long of a period, but Eli managed to get pretty bad scratches on his legs (which he was very sad about). While we were off-trail and surrounded by branches and thorns, Elina said, "I wish I had some scissors so I could cut the plants down so we could get through." Ha!
Anyway, it was a great family day complete with some physical work and some intellectual work...we hope everyone had a wonderful Pi Day, too!

Q and U Wedding

Last Friday, in a beautiful garden ceremony at Elina's school, Mr. Q and Miss U vowed to spend the rest of their lives together.

Cute, right? (This is one of the many reasons I have come to love Elina's school!)

Every year the 2 kindergarten classes at Elina's school put on the Q and U wedding for the school. Elina's class randomly picked a Miss U and the other class randomly picked a Mr. Q. The rest of the girls and boys were in the wedding party and could dress up on the day of the wedding. This was a great opportunity for us to re-use the beautiful flowergirl dress Elina wore for Aunt M's wedding in Philly this fall. I was thankful she could wear it one more time before she outgrows it! Here she is with her good friends from school--
Here are some other cute pics. I love that Elina is all dolled up, but she's still in the woodworking center using a hammer and a screwdriver. I also love how Eli has his hand on Elina's shoulder during circle time. Eli always joins in during circle time if we're in the class.There are only 4 girls in Elina's class (including Elina), so her chances of getting chosen to be Miss U were high...but Elina decided to withdraw her name because she said she would be too shy. We were all surprised about it, but she said she just didn't want to talk in front of everyone. Oh well. So Elina's good friend, LG, got picked to be Miss U. Elina wasn't sad about it at all because she knew she could still get dressed up and that's what's most important after all. Here are the kids during the procession--


The ceremony was very cute. Elina's teacher oversaw the ceremony and declared that Q and U would share a wonderful life together spelling great words such as "quiet" and "queen." At the end, the wedding party blew bubbles into the air. It was great!
Then there was a little reception in the classroom. There were wedding-themed napkins and plates, as well as fancy doilies. The groom's side provided yummy cupcakes with "qu" written on the tops. The bride's side provided the juice boxes. It was such a cute little event to help the kindergartners remember that Q and U are usually together in words. It won't be until later in life that the kids will learn the other words that Q and U do not spell together (e.g., qat) in order to win games such as Scrabble. But for now the Q and U wedding will do.

New Milestones (Already!)

Evie just started doing some really big things, so I have to dedicate another post to her (even though I just did the 11 month post).

Here is a video of her saying "uh-oh." I love it! I didn't include one in the 11 month post because she still wasn't doing it on command yet. Now she's got it down pat. And she definitely knows how to use it. So it's her first official word! Who knew that would beat out "dada"??
Evie also started "clapping" today. I use quotation marks because her claps don't really produce any sound just yet. She just understands the command and will push her limp hands together in a clapping motion. (What's up with the limp hands again??)
In conjunction with the clapping, she also started signing "more" today. The sign is supposed to look like the picture to the right, but Evie just puts her limp hands together for "more." I know it's similar to the clapping, but she definitely does it as a response when we ask her if she wants more of something. Sometimes she'll even just use one pointer finger to point at the palm of her other hand. That's actually how the other kids did it in the beginning as well.

Oh, and the other thing I forgot to mention is that Evie now has 6 teeth!! She has 4 on top and the 2 on the bottom. And her two top teeth look HUGE! (Please ignore the boogers in her nose in this picture...it's hard to take the "perfect" picture with a baby.)
Pretty neat, huh? Like I've said before, it's amazing how quickly babies change!

Let's Fly a Kite

This weekend we went to Austin for the Zilker Park Kite Festival. We were really worried about the 90 minute drive since Evie did not perform well the last time we had a long car ride (she cried for an hour during the 2 hour drive to the Tough Mudder). I'm happy to report that this time she had a perfect trip! It definitely had something to do with the fact that she woke up at 5:50am though. By the time we left the house at 8am, she was already getting ready for her morning nap. And then on the way home, she took another nice nap. We were so glad she cooperated!

The day before the festival, we decided to try out the kids' new kites outside because it was a super-windy day. We are definitely new to kite-flying, so in the beginning we probably looked really silly out there. Our kites kept crashing to the ground and we were running around like maniacs. The kids thought it was great fun! In the end we got the hang of things and Elina even started flying her kite by herself. This video is partially sideways, but you can see that Elina really got it down...



The festival was definitely lots of fun! Even getting to the park on the school bus shuttle was fun for the kids since it was their first official school bus ride. The only bad thing was that there wasn't enough wind to really get the bigger kites going. There was this huge blue bear that they were trying to fly, but it never QUITE made it. When the wind was stronger, it would start to take off and everyone would cheer and clap....but then the wind died down and the bear would fall back to the ground and the crowd would say, "Awwwwwww!" It was really funny!

And whenever the wind would pick up, you could see tons of tiny beautiful kites in the sky off in the distance. It was really awesome to see.


Here is Elina attempting to fly her kite. Since the wind wasn't cooperating, sometimes we had to create our own wind by running...Elina thought that meant running around aimlessly and then running underneath her kite...which did not end well since the kite just landed on top of her!


Next year we will definitely be going back. It was well worth the drive and since we arrived fairly early, the crowds didn't bother us too much. Let's just hope that it's a little bit windier next year!

Evie is 11 Months!

Ok, so now I'm getting sad that Evie is 11 months old. What's up with the first year flying by so quickly?? Now we're on a countdown until her 1st birthday...
Here are her current stats--
Weight: 17 pounds (same as before)
Height: 27.5 inches (she's grown 1.5 inches!)

This month she learned to do lots of cute things--

She waves "bye bye" with these limp-y hands now. It's weird because she used to do it normally, but all of a sudden she started doing it this new way. The minute you ask her to say "bye" or "hi," her hands just flop down.



She FINALLY learned to play "so big." I admit that this is completely my fault because I don't have as much time to play baby games with her. But she finally picked it up and she loves to raise her arms up high.


She loves to crawl and cruise on furniture. She's quick, too. With these new skills, she can now find every single morsel, crumb, and piece of dirt on my "clean" floors and carpets...and consume them. It's not fun to find her chewing on the weirdest things on my floors.



She loves to pick up food and feed herself. I admit that I'm not very good in this department either. It's just because we're always rushing off to some place at some time during the week. I really need to be better about letting her have time to play with her food because she absolutely loves it. But at least I know she can do it, right?



She is good at copying us. She especially likes to smack her lips.


She says the usual syllables like "dada" and "mama" a lot, but we're still not sure they are first words. The funny thing is that we think her first word might be "uh-oh." Whenever we say it, she repeats it. And we've noticed that whenever we drop things or even if she drops things, she says it. It's just funny to hear her say something like that.

It's really amazing how quickly they pick things up. She has already given up the military crawl and is a fast crawler. She also used to go from standing to sitting like the collage below...where she'd lower her bottom without bending her knees until she was sitting. In a week she's learned to just bend her knees to go from standing to sitting. It's definitely been another fun, but quick month!

What Is Going On Here??

Yesterday I left Evie in the exersaucer while I ran upstairs to get a shirt for Elina. Elina was sitting at the table right next to the exersaucer and J was taking a little nap on the couch nearby. All of a sudden, I heard Evie screaming and crying. I ran out and saw that Evie was laying on her belly on the floor next to the exersaucer. Elina was nowhere to be found because she was in the potty and then J woke up and ran to Evie while I ran down the stairs.

That little girl had actually crawled out of the exersaucer...I didn't even know that that was possible! I mean, there are no built-in straps or security devices in the exersaucer. I think it's because babies aren't supposed to be able to crawl out of them! Poor Evie had a mark above her eyebrow and kind of under her eye as well. I think she landed on the fin of a fish shaker that was on the floor next to the exersaucer. None of us know how this all happened. We can only guess that her foot caught the inside of the seat, so she managed to push her entire body up and out of the exersaucer and she completely face-planted onto the floor. Poor thing. It always breaks my heart when babies fall because they have NO IDEA what just happened to them....and they couldn't even break their fall in any way. That's just sad.

Then Eli has had 2 injuries within the last 3 days. The first time he was running, slipped, and hit the side of his head on the exersaucer and cut his head and scraped his neck by his ear. Then the following day he was riding on top of Elina's back (she was the horse and he was the cowboy...I know, it's a disaster waiting to happen!) and he slipped off and hit his chin on the side of a table. This resulted in a bloody, bruised lower lip.So lately there's been quite a bit of crying over here. I hope this doesn't go on for much longer. I prefer laughter over wailing...don't you?