Last Day of Gymnastics

The Fall term of Gymnastics ended the second week of December. Parents are not allowed to sit in the gym and watch, save for the first and last days of class. While Quinn and I watched through the windows from time to time, I was still surprised by Ella's progress in such a short time frame. When she started, Ella couldn't really do a forward roll on her own (or was too timid to really try), and couldn't climb the red cylinder, even from a step. She is getting much better at hopping on one foot and finding the courage to try new, difficult things, without worrying too much about the potential failure. You wouldn't know it from the looks of things, but all these girls seemed to really love the class, and even Teacher Jackie, who runs a very tight ship. I think we're going to sign up for another session.

More photos and videos for the truly dedicated HERE

Snow Day

Thanks to Greg's sometimes erratic scheduling at the hospital, we were able to take a weekday morning trip out to the mountain for some snow time. We found the bunniest of all bunny hill sled track on a snowshoeing/cross country ski trail and just hung out for a while. The kids had a blast climbing around on the snow, eating it, face planting out of the sled, and just general face planting. We had fun too, once the "Its too cold" tantrum subsided.

Many more funny photos, I had to post them

HERE

Somebody got a good Christmas present...

But, I think I like my iPad better.

I really wish I could remember what exactly they are looking at here. Or, maybe they're just hanging out over another heater...

Thanksgiving

Okay, people, this is really embarassing to admit, but this is the only photo I have that is Thanksgiving related:

We made nut turkeys a couple nights as a family art project with Ella. The four in front are our family...can you guess which one Greg made? The two little pinkish-purplish ones are the girls. I took the photos of the whole flock so Ella wouldn't freak out when I tossed them.

Despite my lack of photographic evidence, we did have an amazing holiday! Maeve and Gill came from Denver on Thursday in time to eat a fabulous meal at my dear friend's home, with her family. The food was insanely good, and we all had a blast. There are several cute photos out there somewhere~ if they happen to make it to my inbox I'll update later.

On Saturday, David arrived and the celebration continued. We went out for coffee and shopped and ate and had a great time together as a family.

Heater

Atleast 10 times a day one could find Ella in this exact one square foot of our house. It seems the coldy rainy of winter has done nothing to cure her clothing aversion. As long as she can hear the click--whrrrrrrrrrr of the furnace, she'll always be able to find warmth in her corner of the dining room.

They're baaack

Quinn's hives have come and gone since summer. We thought it was/was just strawberries, but seems to be other things as well, or possibly nothing, just a reaction to a virus. We were scheduled to go back to the allergist for testing the day before our flight to AZ for Christmas and I ended up cancelling. She gets spots of eczema and has had small hive outbreaks since mid-December. I think we'll be going back in January to get the testing done, just in case.

***My baby book chronicles for Quinn are lagging even worse than the blog, so I'm trying to atleast keep a record somewhere for the time being. Maybe once they're both in grade school I'll complete her First Year book***

Note to self~

Tempera painting with 6 colors and window crayons do not a stress-free playdate make. But, they had fun!

Dress Up

It seems I can only get a real smile and a pose if she's in costume...

Highlight of my Week

Revisiting the Stroller

April 21, 2009

December 1, 2010

Kitchen Help

Quinn is in the not-actually-helpful helper phase. While this makes preparation much longer and messier, she is quite cute, saying "Hep, Hep, Hep" pushing her little chair across the kitchen.

Indian Summer

We had several warm dry days well into October this year, allowing the girls a lot of time to play outside in the afternoons. It was really quite beautiful to see all the leaves change colors against the blue sky. We spent many hours at the park collecting leaves, chasing squirrels, swinging, running and fighting over the rocking frog.

Writing

October 13, 2010

Ella had a big interest in writing for about a month or so. She was able to let go of her perfectionist tendencies and be happy with what she wrote. Since then, she has moved on to writing long zig-zags as notes. I'm also a tad embarassed to admit that she is also teaching herself phonics on our iPods and iPad. So much for the No Video Game rule. But, she is learning to read and write with it. Totally self-motivated~ she knows all the consonant sounds and some vowel sounds, and now some 2- and 3-letter group sounds, using those to sound out some words.

Plumper Pumpkin Patch

A few photos from a not very pumpkin centric trip to a pumpkin patch.

They were happier than they look...the sun was super bright!

Proof that we did go and pick our pumpkins from the field another day, on Sauvie Island:

Family Portrait

Clockwise from top left: Dad, Mom, Ella (devil horns are barettes), Quinn. Hailey is blue blob in middle. Pink signature under Dad's body. She has been doing the many armed E for months now, no care to limit it to 3. I think she thinks it is fancier this way.

The proud artist

October 9, 2010

Leaves

The three helpers

Impromptu Tea Party

October 4, 2010

Bathroom tea party. I don't remember what I was doing when they got up to this, but when I went looking for them, here is what I found.

One reason why Sesame Street is so awesome:

Veronia

October 1, 2010

We took a morning drive out to Veronia for a walk and a coffee break.

Nice little paved trail through the woods

Hailey actually got to come along on the outing

Inside the wood pellet storage building from the old lumber mill

Evidence of sisterly love, not always so apparent

Entertainment at the coffee shop

Stone House

September 27, 2010

We hiked the Lower Macleay Trail to the Stone House with the foursome of littles in an attempt to enjoy the last few days/weeks of warmish, dryish days. The big girls spotted some trout in Balch Creek, one stroller tire popped and they all found the "treasure" at the end...the Stone House! Much shreiking and shouting and running around ensued.

Besties

Glamorous girls striking a pose

On top

The little cabooses chasing their sisters

Hiking back out

Late Summer Sun

September 25, 2010

Last swim of the season, with the Murrow girls

Quinn was really into Naomi

New Stage

We waited nearly a year and a half for this to happen: Playing together! Holy freaking exciting! I can kind of cook a meal without having to entertain! I can sometimes go to the bathroom without a two man audience! I can go to the basement to put in a load of laundry without worrying Quinn will find a way to kill herself!

*not the best pictures to demonstrate this, but cute nonetheless*

In unrelated news, Ella is still into photography, especially self-portraits and landscape

"Awwww, that's a cute one Mommy"

Monkeying Around

When Quinn learned to walk we finally installed a baby gate at the top of the stairs. Now we can actually play upstairs without worrying about the baby tumbling down. She has a habit of crawling upstairs to find pacis any time we don't put up the gate at the bottom of the stairs. (A completely foreign concept for me, Ella wanted nothing but to be by my side at this age and wouldn't have dreamed of climbing all the way upstairs without me accompanying her) This created panic in her mother, and led to several crashes down a few stairs. During the past two weeks, she has learned how to climb down on her own. What a relief.

Hunting for pacis lost under her crib

Building a tower of matryoska animals

Rolling around and general craziness

They like to hide in their bathroom to hoard barrettes. "Mom don't come in."