Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Last Day

of the first session of swim lessons.


This week the girls begin ballet... The girls can't wait to put on their tutus!

The Fieldtrip

The girls went on the field trip last week. They were both so excited. Olivia was happy because she was going to play with her friend and Ava was ecstatic because...
There was a whole lotta dirt to play in.
Ava spent most of her time at the farm making a castle in a huge tire track. It had rained the night before so the dirt was 'fresh' according to Ava. She had all the parents gathered around while she dug and dug and created her artwork. They watched in amazement how she was having the time of her life and that she was so in touch with nature.
We stopped to take our usual portrait...
And then the bunny arrived and the kids cuddled and smooched all over it's pint size face.


Ava, the true lover of animals, kissed the bunny and the chick on their heads. She held them both while all the boys around her were too afraid. She shows no fear...
And here's the gang going on the hay ride... What a great day out in nature!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Daddy's Girl

Dave and Olivia went to the A's game to collect their first bobble head of the year. According to Olivia- she just loves baseball and the A's...

And as you can see she's dressed to prove it.

Ava and I spent our time shopping for potting soil and other necessities so we could finish our garden. Plus we bought a few fun item to enjoy while we were alone. It was nice to spend the day with my Avacakes.

Friday, April 16, 2010

My Starfish and Minnow

You can't see it here but Olivia swam on her back about 10 feet unattended by her teacher. It was a big day in swim history. Olivia came running from the pool yelling, "Mommy, I can swim!!!"

Ava, on the other hand, was asked to follow directions... She is still young and there were six 3 year olds in the pool with one teacher... At least when she was asked to swim she shredded like nobody's business.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Silly Girls

Before swimming lessons the girls decided to get loose by doing the Limbo...

Once they were finished playing it was time to get their new swim suits on...
Ava's fab pose...
Olivia's fancy pose...
In the pool and smiling...
Off for a swim with her teacher...

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Swim Lessons

Ava blew me away yesterday at her very first non-parent swim lesson. I was worried that she wouldn't listen to her teacher or she'd bounce around and go under water and choke but quite the contrary she did everything fantastically. When the teacher said to blow bubbles, her face was in the water blowing bubbles. When the teacher would say, "Who wants to go first?" Ava was right there responding, "MEEEE, I do I do." I am relieved that she listened to her teacher and that she enjoyed herself so well. She reminded me several times that she is a big girl now. Yes, Yes she is.


Olivia did well too. She had been swimming independently in lessons before so I knew she had what it took to follow directions and swim like a fish. I was very proud of her swimming with all the big kids. A little scared that she thinks she is bigger than she is... but I am feeling more and more confident that she can handle things on her own. She also reminds me quite often, "Mommy I can do it for myself." I just need to remember that sometimes and let her...

Monday, April 12, 2010

What Was I Thinking?

I let the girls watch Snow White a few days ago and now I'm getting questions fired at me like, "Are our apples poisoned? Will someone give me a poisonous apple? Why did the witch do that? Are my carrots poisoned?" Get the picture? It may be awhile before they eat any apples in their shiny red form. Thank goodness for applesauce. I think we will work our way up to Alice in Wonderland.... I can only imagine the line of questioning stemming from that flick.

So today has been fun. Since we killed TV time a few weeks ago eliminating all but the occasional movie we have had a lot of free time to do other things. I thought that life would become harder as I basically fired my trusty babysitter but actually the girls just play with the puzzles more, Ava is back to wanting to read books and not just the Dora ones, they build all the time, and they play together better. Weird I know but I actually think they have been fighting less often without the TV on.

Today we woke up and the girls built their daily castle out of Legos while I prepared their breakfast. Then we got dressed and headed to the pet store. The girls watched the mice and hamsters run around a little bit and we bought some dog food and headed to Kindermusik. The girls sang, danced, and played their instruments and just had fun. Ava wanted to hold a little girl's hand but the girl didn't want her to so Ava was upset but then this baby began interacting with her and she was back to being happy again. Olivia made friends with a few girls right off the bat and they sat together for the entire class. Somehow other kids just love her and she befriends them so easily. Then we came home and the girls played with their games while I made them some noodle soup. The morning flew by and so far the day has been a success. Later today they have swim lessons... as long as there isn't any lightning. We'll see how that goes. Toodleloo!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Making Lemonade

Fresh squeezed...
by kids...
with help from Daddy...
is the best kind.

The Week

Ava is back to being her normal self. Every day this week we went to play soccer, walk the track, climb all over the jungle gym, and just kept active. I feel like we are doing the most that we can to control her weight physically and as far as what she has been eating she is eating very healthy. I'm thinking though that her 2 hour nap everyday might need to be ceased since that brings her resting metabolism down. I'm going to check with her doctor and see what he thinks and go from there. But all in all she is happy and healthy and full of energy.

Yesterday I got the bright idea to take the girls to Six Flags for Spring Break. I figured if we only walked around to see the animals Ava should get plenty of exercise. I brought along with me reinforcements, my friend and her daughter (our new babysitter), to help with the girls. We got there at 11 A.M. and arrived home at 7P.M. That should give you a good guesstimate of how much fun everyone had even though it seemed like there were millions of people and somewhat long lines for rides due to the fact that it was the last day for spring break. No wonder we could bring a friend for free with our season passes. I don't think I'll be taking the girls by myself anytime soon on one of those days. We'll be sticking to the days kids are in school and go early in the morning. But alas, we had fun.

The girls wanted to see the whale show like always. We sat down in the 3rd row of the splash zone. Right when the whale came swimming out there was this whoosh, and the whale lifted it's tail and splashed us all. It mostly got my pant leg wet and part of my face, Olivia was surprisingly dry (and quite upset she didn't get more wet), and Ava suffered the brunt of it. Her whole face was splashed- right after I lathered her down with sunscreen. She cried and wanted to leave so we left Olivia to sit with our friend and her daughter and we moved back a few rows to safety. We were still in the splash zone but not low enough to get wet. The rest of the 20 minute whale show Ava repeated this mantra, "I want to get outta here right now...." So she literally sat behind me the rest of the show and used me as a shield. She wouldn't even look at the whale swimming. I felt for her because honestly she did get drenched but it was super hot outside and the wet clothes felt good. But getting splashed in the face by a killer whale at three years old can be quite scary. Once we were outta there she was fine and went to have a snack and see the butterflies.

Both girls slept the entire way home and held on tightly to their flattened pennies. Today Ava has recovered from her trauma and she says she wants to see the whale again but just not get wet. No psychological damage has been thankfully. Whew. Olivia is scheduled to go to a birthday party tonight for a school friend which Dave is taking her to so Ava and I are free to do whatever we want together. I need to think of something cool that she will love. Maybe we'll go bowling...

On a different note:

Two days ago I was driving with Ava some place and she had brought along her lamb that she won at the Egg hunt. She yells to me, "MOMMY, MY LAMB CRAPPED IN THE CAR!!!!"

"WHATTTT??" I said.

"My lamb CRAPPED all over the floor!"

I look over my shoulder to see the stuffed lamb with it's leg spread and the imaginary CRAP that had fallen to the floor. And then I explained that that wasn't a nice word and we won't be using it anymore. Although Dave and I are always talking about which of the pets has crapped somewhere in the house... I guess we are going to have to monitor ourselves so we don't say it anymore either.

So later that day Ava replaced her naughty word with "shootamonkey." Thanks Dave for creating such great vernacular for our kids. Now every time something happens that would require saying, "oh shoot," I get to hear, "shootamonkey." I guess it is better than crap.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter

Wow. If only I realized what I was doing wrong like 5 hours ago I could have had this post done this morning.

Easter week and weekend were quite amazing. The girls had a blast at the egg hunts we went to. They gathered around 150 eggs all by their little selves. Dave and I smiled on the inside because this meant WE didn't have to buy any candy or fill any eggs for the hunt at our house. Yes, We are that lazy. And since over the week they only were given 2 eggs at day to crack open... well that left A LOT for our yard.

Lady, again this year, was first out the door and cracking the eggs. She preferred the gummy candies wrappers and all. Ava squealed in delight- Literally like a little pig all over the yard. Happy doesn't describe the joy that was oozing from that little girl. And my dearest Olivia... she was on a mission, no time to talk, no time to dilly dally. There were eggs out there and she was going to retrieve them.

After the hunt we had breakfast, deviled some eggs, woofed some deviled eggs down (no one chewed- we all just swallowed 'em whole), the girls took the jeep to the park and played baseball and soccer, Dave and I played footsies in the hot tub during their nap, and generally we just enjoyed each others company. Even though it was a Sunday it felt like a totally different day. Like an extra nice day added to the week where no one cried over toys being taken, there wasn't any work to do, and we didn't have to rush around for anything. Okay, yes, the dog still shit in the house, but what the hell else is new. That being said we had a marvelous Easter Holiday week.

Here's a slide show of some of the highlights...

Thursday, April 1, 2010

New Friends

We went to the park today after preschool to kick the ball around again since yesterday was so much fun. While the girls were playing a few other kids came over and asked if they could play too. Olivia introduced herself and they started passing the ball back and forth. She was quite a little player... and made friends really easily. I was so proud of her and happy that I was able to witness her mad skills.

Ava played sticks with one of the other girls. For some reason the girl didn't want to kick the ball around with the others so Ava helped her dig in the dirt.