Leafy Sea Dragon and Awkward Silence

We started our morning with our basic chores of getting dressed and the making the bed. I was proud of Mary for starting on her bed without having to remind her. I guess with 4 year olds if you do something 50 times, it starts to become automatic. Just wish it had only taken 5 times.

Maggie and Mary started talking about bible school as soon as they put their camp shirts on. Mary said something about the deer group, but Maggie corrected her, "Mary, it's the Chinese Water Deer group." Then Mary pointed to an animal on her shirt and couldn't remember what it was. Maggie quickly blurted out, "That's Fern the Leafy Sea Dragon." Luckily they are in the the Hedgehog group which is pretty straight forward.

We finished the only school activities we are doing this week; bible story, Pledge of Allegiance, calendar and writing/tracing. The writing of the letter Q turned into drawing rectangles, squares and triangles. The good looking ones are mine...haha.

Love this book!

                                         

We decided to bike over with the trailer. They were cracking me up while I was getting all the ridiculous biking equipment down and hooked up. Since I didn't write it down, I can't remember any of it. Wish my mind was as sharp as theirs!

Maggie cried this time at drop off. The same cranky old church lady was pretty much pushing me out again. I guess I am about the only mom who walks all the way in with them, but I really just want to say, "back off old lady!" I realized that wasn't the Christian response and instead said my goodbyes and left. 

After camp many of us stayed and had a picnic while the kids played with their new toys.  I met a new mom and the first questions is always, "Are they starting Kindergarten this year?" First I say, 'No, they are not old enough yet (since their birthday is December 5th).' and then I say, "But we are Homeschooling for now.'  Awkward silence followed by an "Oh, wow! That's neat, but I could never do that."  Another awkward pause. I explained that I had never even thought of homeschooling before we had the girls and that it's all pretty new and different to me, but we love it so far.  Blank stare and that was pretty much the end to the conversation. Luckily my homeschooling friend Windy was sitting next to me and we continued to talk about it!

                                               

After the bike ride home, we were all tired, especially me. The girls still had energy to teach me the dance to the Jesus song and Maggie said, "Mom, you are getting pretty good at this!" She's such an encouraging teacher, that Magster. 

While I was doing something in the kitchen, it became way too quiet. This is what I found; the girls reading while listening to Christian music. Love it! And no, this doesn't happen most of the time. Usually Mary is upstairs raiding my closet for shoes and Maggie is dumping out several bins of toys and stuffed animals. 

                                

Weird Animals and Tears

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School at our local Baptist Church. I kept joking that they were kind enough to let the Catholics come. It's called Weird Animals and is a program that can be purchased for any church or organization. The message is that Jesus loves them in all their differences and imperfections, just as He loves the weird animals that they will learn about. I got their snacks ready with a little love note, but was a little irritated that one of the coordinators tried to give them back to me because she said they provided a snack. She said popcorn, but turns out it was jello. I am not that much of a health nut, but that's not exactly what I'd consider a substantial snack! Glad Mary insisted they hold on to theirs.  Seeing their friend Avila and her mother, who was volunteering, made them feel safe.
I was looking forward to some ME time, but I was fighting back the tears as we said goodbye. I hope they didn't notice.  Man, I love these girls!!!

My tears subsided after talking to Larry and started to take care of few of my To Do items. While waiting for them to be done, I talked to many moms that I knew from around town.  The girls walked out hand in hand just as they had walked in. They had a blast and Maggie said, "I love camp!" This is the girl who wept weeks ago when I told her about signing her up for this. She thought it meant they were going camping without us for 4 days. 

Here they are showing me the dance they learned with the theme song. These darn Jesus songs always make me cry. 

Between afternoon book reading, we start talking about how God loves us even when we are not perfect and that His love is perfect. Mary looks at me and says, "You are perfect Mommy." I said humbly, "No, I am not perfect." She immediately starts crying. Perplexed, I began thinking of what she could have meant based on our conversation.  After a few guesses, finally she agreed that she meant her love for me was perfect.  So sweet. 

After books, we got to squeeze in some painting before my Yoga class.  I tried to show them how to draw something first with pencil and then paint it. I suggested we continue our train theme and use rectangles and circles.  Maggie wasn't having it and instead painted a picture of her on a crane, with the sun and sky. Mary drew and painted a hula girl and her walking a black dog (O.K., sort of following directions). I am the only one who followed the instructions, but isn't creativity best expressed when you come up with your own ideas? Apparently. Sometimes I just need to get out of the way. 

One More Train

We went on a family adventure today and took CalTrain from San Mateo to Palo Alto.

The train depot is in a great location right between Stanford University and downtown. We walked through an underpass (is that a word?) or tunnel to get to University Avenue.

We had lunch at the University Cafe which was pretty good. Mary made basic shapes out of the napkins and gave us a pop- quiz. Then she wore them. Maggie and daddy were thoroughly entertained.

Next was a little walk followed by ice cream and coffee. Kudos to Scoops for having coconut sorbet for me!!!!

                                          

Maggie said on the walk back to the train, "I am going to run out of energy!" 

Surprise and Art - 6/20/14

The girls hadn't seen their best friend Avila all week and were so excited to see her at MOCHA, a children's art studio. 

They were sad that we had to make a dental appointment first for Maggie, but I wanted to get her loose tooth checked.

The Dentist asked me to come look into her mouth. First he showed me her 6 year molar that had grown in half way! What? Then he showed me the x-Ray of her front adult tooth pushing out her baby tooth. What I thought was a broken root, was actually her adult tooth cutting her gums. Crazy early!

 We made it to MOCHA right when it opened and had a blast with Avila making something at each art/craft station.

Above is Maggie's teepee.

This is Mary's.

Here is my doctor. I cut my finger while washing a steak knife. The girls took such good care of me. "Mommy, it's going to be alright. Take a deep breath. We will take card of you." They got me a bandaid and Mary squeezed triple anti on it first (a trick from her babysitter) before putting it on my finger. They both put on my white tanks for a doctor's costume and told me to go lie down and rest. Then Maggie gave me a shot in face. Ouch!

We had tennis date night tonight and I beat Larry 6-3! Yes!

More Trains - 6/19/14

I was bound determined to give the girls another train experience this week because our unit study is trains. We have several books from the library, but I love for them to have hands on experience with the subjects we are studying. The thought of going to the Peninsula to ride CalTrain after my workout in the morning and before their Taekwondo in the afternoon sounded tiring, so we opted for the horse drawn train at Ardenwood Farm.

                                                  

The girls immediately started playing with sticks (big surprise) and tried to build a fort. I love that  knowing they were going to the farm, they still wanted to wear their girly dresses. Some mornings they just have to dress like "twinsies" and this was one such occasion. Glad they at least chose the cowboy boots!

Maggie had quit a spill while climbing some dusty stairs to see the sheep. She cut her lip, but otherwise seemed OK...I discovered another injury later in the day :0(

The girls got to pump some water from the well and milk and pretend cow!!!

The girls discovered some baby geese and fed them some flowers. I have never seen geese go so crazy for food. I got nervous they might get their little fingers. Maggie, of courses, asked for a baby goose.  We then saw a pea-hen with her babies. So cute! Then, Maggie sai she wanted a baby peacock in house. It is a new animals every day.

We walked by the Patterson home and one of the volunteers working on the house greeted us. He was cute old man in his late 70s and he asked if we had been on a tour. We hadn't, but apparently he was also a tour guide.  He asked us to sit down on the Queene Anne style porch and gave us the history of the farm and home. It was a fascinating story, but I think he forgot I had two 4 year olds with me. They were very patient, but then Mary asked if they could go play and fearing they would soon be a fidgeting mess, I said yes.  It was such a great treat to listen to him, but the girls were running amuck in the gazebo over yonder and I had to excuse myself.

On the way out of the farm we stopped at the produced stand and bought lots of fruits, veggies, and flowers. My recently fruit averse Maggie promised she would try peaches, apricots and plums. We'll see.

We sat outside for dinner, just us three girls, while daddy was at his men's night. The girls set the little kid pink table and convinced me to use paper plates and plastic utensils for easy clean-up. Smart girls, except now my back hurts from sitting on a tiny chair...haha. 

While brushing teeth, I noticed Maggie's front right tooth was loose, apparently from the fall. I guess we are goin to the dentist tomorrow!

A Day in the Life

We had a rough start this morning. Bible reading went smoothly. We prayed for Pappy who was undergoing surgery. Getting dressed was fine. Then before making her bed, Maggie insisted on wearing her birthday hat and then had a meltdown because it wouldn't stay on. She threw it several times and ripped it. Poor Maggie! Poor mommy!!

Finally, she decided to join in on her morning routine and help with the calendar. She had to do Pledge of
Allegiance and tracing by herself in order to 'earn' her breakfast cartoon.

Luckily, I got a little break! Our sitter Tamara arrived after breakfast (and did their reading lesson :0)) and I went to an amazing dance class and to Costco!

What a cart!!!! Would have been a great shopping trip except for the creepy toothless, old dirty guy who kept chatting AT me, staring and touching my groceries...as Jimmy Fallon would say, "eeewww!"

After lunch, the girls started turning boxes into vehicles with a little mommy help. This is the double decker bus and below that is a boat. So creative!

The Sears repair guy showed up at 1:30 for a 1-5 service window- miracle!!!! It will cost over $500 to fix our microwave. Seriously? The warranty just ran out, of course. Apparently, our contractor installed the oven without a shelf to sit on, so they won't even fix it until we get a shelf installed. Geez.

Off to the park for a quick picnic. Maggie is using a lasso that Mary made and we are cheering her on.

We just heard Pappy's surgery went well!! Praise God!

Off to take a shower and wash my hair, finally!

Pretend Play

Poor baby elephant had an accident and is in the hospital. I love the imaginations these sweet girls have. 

                                       

Auntie Linda came for a visit today and she and I talked so much that I forgot to take pictures. The girls rode their scooters while we walked to the park. 

I had no time to make dinner because I had to give the girls a bath after they showered each other with 'snow', as they called it. It was a sort of Quartz sand/powder! I didn't have enough time to cook dinner, so we had an weekday out to dinner treat at Toomie's Thai. Maggie and Mary each ate 4 chicken satays! Growth spurt - as if they really need one. 

                                              

Tilden Steam Train

It's rare that we have a day with nothing planned. We decided to go to the steam train in Tilden park. We also had a nice picnic in the park across the street. I, yet again, forgot the spoons, so we converted the foil tops and they got a kick out of that! Maggie loves turning trash into treasures, so she really appreciated this.

                                                                   

Afterwards, we took the long winding road back down towards Claremont, got gas with a wonderful view of the magestic, stark white Claremont hotel. Maggie exclaimed, "I want to go there!" Mary replied, "Right now?" "No Mary, another day," Maggie said in condescension tone. I reminded them that daddy took them there when they were babies so that I could have a girls overnight here. They were overjoyed, even though they don't remember a thing.

I had the bright idea of getting ice cream, and found a place on Yelp with lots do sorbets for me. It was Tara's ice cream on College Ave. and had so many hippie flavors that the girls couldn't find nothing they liked. Fearful that they wouldn't get anything, they settled on dark chocolate, but apparently that was a bit too granola for their taste ns it ended up in the trash!

Frozen surprise!

February 5th

 6 year old girls pushing M&M. They may have been smaller and we're getting quite winded.

Story time at the library. 

Chalk Drawings

I love this elephant by Mary. 

This Maggie's baby bird and mommy bird.

Winter 2014 - It's Been Awhile!

OK, so it's been two years since I have posted anything on our blog. The Facebook craze took over, as well as a little laziness. The twos and threes were busy, fun, blissful and challenging with Maggie and Mary!  We have now entered into the 4s and so far, so good. Well, that's not entirely true, but I am feeling very positive right now.

Fall and Winter

It's been quite a long time since I updated this blog. It looks like the girls were about 18 months during my last post! They turned 2 on December 5th! Can't believe it! Where has the time gone? They are so smart, happy, polite and adorable. They melt our hearts each day with their smiles, hugs and kisses. We love them so much!

The past 6 months have been busy with activities and travel. I still take the girls to their music class each week and either the zoo or Academy of Sciences. They also love the park and are getting more bold with climbing and slides. They are running a lot more and we sometimes take the ball to the park and have them practice throwing and kicking. At home they are still really into their books and pretending they are reading. Some new toys they are into are Mr. Potato head, Disney and animal figurines, mini kitchen, purses, stuffed animals and baby strollers. They continue to like coloring on their easel and ask me to help them write their name and make shapes. They also LOVE playing in the car and pretending they are driving, adjusting mirrors and pushing buttons!

Maggie and Mary just had their 2 year old well visit at the doctors. They had a clean bill of health. They are almost 33 lbs (95th%), almost 3 feet tall (85th%) and their heads are still in the 99th% (that's why they are so smart!!). The doctor was impressed when I told him they each brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, peas, corn and sweet peppers along with most meat and fruit. Their favorite new fruit are raspberries, blackberries and clementine oranges (small and seedless). They are also off the bottle and just drink milk from a sippy cup and juice from their straw cups. We moved from the highchairs to a booster chair a couple months ago and they really like it!

Their intelligence continues to amaze us (may be because we are first time parents!!) They know their entire alphabet (upper case and most lower case) by sight and in sign language. They can count from 1-10 and are practicing 11-20. What's more amazing is that they know all their colors, which is very advanced! Their vocabulary is also huge. They pretty much repeat any word we say and are now stringing together 2-4 words. Some cute things they say are "what the, what the?" , "God bless you", "amazing!", 'love you", "watchya doing?" "here ya go". Mary and Maggie are also very polite. We taught them to say thank you, sorry and please in sign language, so now that they are talking they say these words all the time, usually on cue, "Whats the magic word?" or "Say sorry to your sister."

They are very happy girls when they are well fed and sleep well. Luckily this is most the time! We have had a few melt downs and tantrums, usually when they are sick or we are traveling. We feel extremely blessed when we talk to other parents of toddlers who report tantrums every day! We started time-outs when they were around 19 months and they have worked really well. Mary is better at them since she's had more practice :o). Maggie is pretty good at minding and taking direction. Mary usually wants to do the opposite of what we ask.

They really love and care for each other. The other night after Mary had a time-out, Maggie came up to me with a mean face and hit me softly and then said "time-out" and then went and sat with Mary in the living room. Then just recently, Maggie has been pretending to whine and be sad. She waits for Mary to come up to her and ask "wrong?" "OK?" and pat her on the back. Maggie then laughing hysterically. They also hug and kiss each other randonly, as you can see in the pictures.

We went down to Orange County and saw Nana and Papa (Maggie and Mary get extrememly exciting to see them!!!) in September and December and both times went to Disneyland. The girls loved It's a Small World ride and talked about the "boat" ride and loved hearing the song for months later. During our most recent trip they were very excited to go on the Winnie the Pooh ride. They were both excited to see the actually live characters while we were standing in line to meet them. Maggie freaked out as soon as we got close to Tigger and Pooh, but Mary just loved them. They have also been a bit scared about Santa this year, so we didn't even try to get pictures with him.

The girls both love to play with our phones, mainly because there are games and movies. This was a Godsend on our long flight to see Gaga and Pappy (Larry's parents) in North Carolina over Thanksgiving. The weather was amazing and they really loved being with their other set of grandparents who spoil them. We decided to stay in a hotel because Larry's sister threw her back out on Thanksgiving and she really needed our bed. The girls would get upset when we left Gaga and Pappy's! When we were on our way to their home in the morning, the girls would get all excited and say "yay!" and "Gaga, Pappy" They got their first nice baby dolls with lots of accessories from Gaga and Pappy. Right away they started feeding their babies with the bottles! So cute!

Since I last wrote, I started introducing some cartoons. We are pretty selective and try to choose the ones that are educational. They love Super Why! (reading, phonics) and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which is surprisingly very educational for their age!), Sesame Street (Elmo!!!), Thomas the Train and Angelina Ballerina (they love dancing around like ballerinas!) By far their favorite is Mickey Mouse and they ask for it daily, but we limit TV to about an hour. They saw their first movie a month ago and are now hooked on the new Winnie the Pooh movie. I have to admit, it's adorable and very intelligent!

Here are some photos. Enjoy!

Summer

Hi everyone. We are doing well here in Alameda. It hasn't been the warmest of summers, but we are looking forward to our Indian Summer in September and October.

Maggie and Mary are doing well. In the past few months they have improved their climbing to the point where we can't really leave them alone in the living room for more than a few seconds. All the childproofing in the world doesn't seem to help keep these little ones from finding something new and dangerous! We hired a mother's helper this past month a couple days a week. It has truly been a Godsend and we will be sad when she goes back to college in September. She helps me take them to the park, zoo, Academy of Sciences, etc. so that they can get out and walk and explore.

The girls took swimming lessons with us and like last year, they seem to like the water. Mary is determined to blow bubbles (she now says "bubbles, bubbles" as she drops her mouth in the water, thinking that will produce the desired effect) We got life vests and floating vessels, but haven't foudn the time to use them yet!! The girls are still practicing their American Sign Language (they know about 80+ signs), but are talking as well. This past week they are literally trying to repeat most everything we say. We practice their numbers, letters, colors and shapes and I am amazed that they are becoming proficient in most of these areas. They do know a bit of the sign language alphabet, so pointing out each letter won't be too far off. They still love to read their books and have found favorites that we checked out from the library. Now I have to buy them...Goodnight Gorilla is one of their favorites!!

Our home has been in dust for about 5 months. We renovated the guest bath and our HOA replaced all of the upstairs balconies due to dry rot. NO more projects for a little while!! Oh what a pain! The attached photos are from about 17-20 months old. It's been challenging to keep up with posting pictures on this blog since I post daily on Facebook. We found a wonderful photographer, Darwin Sayo (www.shadesofbeautiful.com), who took the beautiful family photos at the park in our neighborhood.

18 - 20 Months

15-17 Months

Hi everyone.
All is well here with the Parente family. We had a busy month with the girls catching some nasty flu bug while Larry was away on business. We got through it and as always I learned a lot from the advice nurses at Kaiser during our middle of the night phone chats.

The girls and I keep busy during the week with Music class at the library on Mondays and Farmer's Market on Tuesdays. We also go to the Oakland Zoo and Academy of Sciences in San Francisco where the girls see lots of fish and penguins. They love going to parks and I feel like I have visited most of the ones in Alameda. My favorite are the fenced in parks, as you can imagine. They love climbing play structures, going down slides and swinging.

They are talking a lot more, but most noteable is their mastery of about 50 signs in American Sign Language...well, mastery might be overdoing it a bit-they have their own versions of some signs. They are now trying their hand (budump-bump) at the finger alphabet.

Enjoy the photos:

15-17 months

February-March

The girls are doing very well. Maggie and Mary now know about 30 signs! They are not perfect, of course, but they clearly know the words and try to sign as best as their little hands and arms can. Their newest signs are Cold, Hot, Elephant, Dirty, Clean, Stop, Go, Wait (which is great when I am asking them to be patient and wait, they start signing it and it buys me some time!)

They are still eating well and we have added strawberries, bananas (never really liked these until recently) and Fish (breaded, of course). No food allergies yet...yeah!!! Mary is our speed eater and stuffer (like Larry and I, unfortunately.) We have more choking issues with her. Maggie has really slowed down her eating, so we are usually waiting for her! At least someone in this family eats properly! Mary has officially caught on to the straw sippy cup & thinks it's the coolest thing! Maggie picked this up over a month ago, but Mary just wanted to chew on it and would get very frustrated.

We are practicing shapes, colors and stacking blocks. The girls love reading their books and we think they are finally over eating them. I love to catch them quietly sitting in a corner each reading a book...precious!!!

Luckily we still are pretty tantrum, screaming, crying free! I hope it lasts!!! We get some whining from Mary when she wants something, but she can sort of tell us what she wants and it's over pretty soon. We are ultra blessed with these good temperament twinsies!!!

My pictures taking has slowed down since I got the Verizon iPhone. I take most my pictures on it and post to Facebook. Here are some videos and a link to some recent pictures.

February-March