Fairies and Watermelon

This time,  I CAN believe it's been a week. We've had many activities and a big milestone! My babysitter also found a full-time job in her field and started on Monday :0(. It was only 5 hours a week, but was my a good time to do quick errands and grocery shopping.

Last week we met some other homeschooling friends at La Petite Playhouse in Redwood City. This is right across the street from where I used to work at Kaiser. It's a fabulous indoor playground and the girls wore themselves out while I talked with my friends. Woohoo!

I ordered Elsa and Anna dresses 6 months ago through The Little Dress Shop. They were so excited and were acting out the movie on the stairs. 

We had a nice park date in Union City with other homeschoolers. All the girls were playing castle in a gazebo and a couple of them wanted to 'defend against the boys' with sticks for swords. Maggie wasn't into this and said, " I don't want to come back to this park again." Turns out it was the girls rather than the park. We had a good talk about 'using our words' and that it's O.K. to say that you don't feeling like playing something and suggest another activity. Avila also was disturbed by the game and started 'rescuing' snails. They all pitched in to create a lush snail rescue center. They had a blast watching the 'mommy and baby snails' slowly crawling all over each other. 

 This is a photo of Mary's necklace from Kauai that is now in pieces. Mary told Maggie she could wear it and then tried to take it back. We learned that we shouldn't go back on our word or pull on an object or it will break. Isn't everything a lesson?

Folding hand towels is a good way to earn $.10 around here

We finally got our car back from they've repair shop and the girls got to celebrate with free Pelegrino sodas!

Mary had a great time in her gymnastics class with friends.

We rushed over to the library for story time. Afterwards, the girls turned in their reading challenge and earned stickers and a bag of packaged cookie mix. They also got their name up on huge board!

We did a little shopping at the all-too-expensive Marketplace and had to try this new chocolate! I just love when the girls push the carts. It's a little chaotic keeping them from running into the glass olive oil aisle or touching vegetables that they think we need, but it's pretty darn cute. 

One of our homeschooling groups had Guide Dogs for the Blind come visit us. One woman is blind and brought her guide dog and the other is a 15 year volunteer trainer who trains the dogs in her home. They gave a wonderful presentation and we presented them with approved doggie chew toys. The highlight was getting a chance to pet the dogs. 

 We got a surprise at Larry's work party in Walnut Creek (besides the ridiculous heat) - Maggie lost her tooth. I thought something looked odd and asked her to smile at me. My heart sank as I realized it may have fallen in the pool or she must have swallowed it. Then, I saw the watermelon!

Lucky for us, one of Larry's colleagues is a Fairy in her other part time. She had just come from a party and was in her Fairy costume, wings and all. She made balloon animals for all the kids and was pretty believable, in an annoying way. We went to tell her about the tooth and she came up with an elaborate story of how she knows the tooth fairy in our area (didn't know there was more than one) and her name is Apple and plants the teeth in her yard and grows teeth trees. O.K. Needless to say this really made the whole experience come alive for Maggie. She was excited about writing her note and leaving it with her tooth under the pillow.

Fairy is second from the left. 

As I mentioned, no more daytime sitter. Mary drew this picture of her on her first day at her new job and it made Tamara's day. 

 Here are the girls having crazy amounts of fun at another park date in the Peninsula this week.

We started the evaluation part of Drawing with Children, the Monart Art School program today. This was to let me know where they are and at what level we can begin the lessons. I think they did pretty well copying the image above. I was surprised. Maggie has also decided that because her name is written to the right, that now her letters have to flow to the right. Totally logical, but we will need to work on that...haha.

Bakels and Starchy Magnets

I can't believe it's been a week. Nana and Papa arrived Wednesday night to celebrate the 4th with us. We had such a great time! I took notes here to remember some goofy conversations. 

The girls were asking why rice was sticky. They LOVE plain white rice. I told them it was the starch and named some other starchy foods. Mary then says with a big smile."do magnets have starch in them? Haha. Now, this could have been a teachable moment, but I'm pretty sure she remembers their science class on magnets and don't want to miss an opportunity to laugh with her!

In another conversation with Nana, Maggie said, "if you have a bagel and you have to bake it, would it be a bakel?" That's all Nana's fault for getting them a joke book last year. I hear many play-on-words or corny jokes (made up and memorized) and puns (those would be Larry's that he definitely got from his dad). 

Here is a summary of last week:

                                          

Instead of paying attention during the calendar, they were playing go fish with the days of the weeks magnets.

A little PF Changs to-go after returning an iPhone that we found during a park play date. The apple rep told the girls it was so honest of them to bring it in. Maggie is doing her anything-but-a-smile bit which is quickly followed by, 'Can I see the picture?" where she laughs at her antics. 

                                                  

Mary at Cardiologist. This is her yearly checkup for her premature junctional contraction. Apparently she grew 4" last year. Probably pretty average, but that sounds like a lot!  Taking her blood pressure was nothing compared to the EKG and 24 hour holter monitor. She was a trooper!! Praying she grows out of them. 

Maggie had to get her tutu on because Mary did for gymnastics. We tried to hide the holter monitor as best we could. 

Mary's excited to see Maggie after her lesson. Maggie was completely fine going to class without Mary and she was much less distracted! Having Nana and Papa there to watch probably helped too.

Candy land! One of them usually runs off and pouts in they are losing and the other tries to cheat in some completely obvious way... and that's just Nana and Papa!  Kidding, of course. 

                              

Maggie and Avila waving flags during Alameda's 3 mile, 2.5 hour parade (marketing campaign).

Girls with their best buddy.

Mags swimming with Papa on the 4th. He swam with them for hours a couple days in a row. How nice to have lounge chair time!!

                                            

Kids in a candy shop with ice cream in very hot (99) Danville. 

Maggie (this was her favorite anti-smiling picture), Nana and Mary outside ice cream/candy shop.

Hanging on papa at church. Right after this I thought, "Did I seriously just take a picture in church?"

Thanks Nana and Papa for coming up to see us! We love you.