Who Let a Zoo Loose Cal Elite Recital

May 28, 2017 by

For their first gymnastics recital, Samantha, Amelia and the Tumblebee squad transformed into squeezable little polar bears for their part in the “Who Let a Zoo Loose?” show. Getting a hundred kids dressed in costume, in and out of their performance, complete with equipment and set changes was really impressive on the gym’s part– they’ve obviously got this down. My favorite part was not shelling out a fortune for a recital costume we’d never use again; instead, they have you show up, find a costume that fits and rent it for the performance. Easy and fun!

We sent Jake as our family representative to Cousin Ben’s law school graduation that morning, and I had a babysitter watch Meredith, who would not have lasted more than a few minutes at the show, so it was a Mommy Twin date!  I was really nervous sitting and waiting for the girls to come on, imagining that they would flat-out refuse to come out, be paralyzed with fear as soon as they saw the crowd, or have a meltdown with all the blinding lights, loud music and general sensory overload. They were one of the very last groups in the 45 minute show to perform, so I can’t imagine how their coaches were keeping all the kids busy backstage, but I didn’t hear a peep.

To my shock and relief, the girls seemed completely unfazed when they crawled out of their polar bear cage and took the stage. Since they didn’t really have a routine they practiced during their regular gymnastics class, the kids pretty much just followed what their teacher was doing, and some of the little bears lost their way. They were still adorable! In the video, Samantha is the second to come out of the cage and Amelia was one of the last ones. Love the near-polar-bear-cage-fail at the beginning.

Even for the older performers, the recital did not really showcase all the skills the kids practice in class, like the beam and bars, but with such a short performance and having to herd 15+ groups of kids in and out, I can see why they made it simple.

It was fun watching the other gymnasts perform to see what they do at the higher levels and I wish Samantha and Amelia could have watched. But the very best was the babies! Everyone let out a collective “AWWWWWW” when the toddler class came out in plush tiger, lion and bear costumes and “performed” (i.e. sat on their parents’ laps and did a few somersaults) and swayed to “Rainbow Connection.” Not a dry eye in the house. After the performance, the girls were proud of themselves and thought the whole thing was worth it just to get a cake pop from the treats table afterwards.

Meanwhile, in San Diego…. congrats, Ben! 

Lots of love,

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Mother’s Day 2017

May 26, 2017 by

It was a special treat this Mother’s Day to join Samantha and Amelia for a “Mother’s Day Tea” at their preschool. They were very excited to show off the gifts they had been working on (and even more excited to eat donuts and lemonade)!

Amelia couldn’t wait to show me “Mommy’s new purse” complete with jewels.

One day a few months ago for her share item, Amelia brought in a solar lantern we had bought at a craft fair from our friend, Melissa, who makes these themed jars  for boutiques. Miss Becky loved it so much, she asked me if I could get the information on how to put these together, and Melissa generously donated all the mason jars and solar lids for the kids in Amelia’s class to decorate for Mother’s Day gifts. After placing them by a window during the day, they shine the prettiest glow at night. The kids did a cute job on their beach theme.

Samantha was excited to show off her bag and the surprise inside.

I love my new bouquet of hand flowers!

It’s taken me more than a few birthdays/Mother’s Days/holidays in general to realize that Jake can’t read my mind when it comes to my ideal day, so the past few years, I’ve taken to writing a list of activity and gift ideas on a shared Google Doc a few months in advance so that Jake can pick a few and have a base to work from. Just enough time to forget what I had put down so that’s it a semi-surprise, but enough structure that Jake isn’t left totally clueless and decides to make a 5-course meal with the girls at 5 p.m. with no prep done and everyone screaming and hangry (I took over and just ordered a pizza that year!)

Saturday, our favorite twin babysitters, Charlotte and Claire, watched the girls, while we had brunch at Las Brisas (although, we had just barely missed the Saturday brunch cut-off by ten minutes and sadly had to order from the lunch menu… seafood does not sound very appealing at 11:30 a.m.!) Still, we had relaxing time by the ocean and took a stroll afterwards. Jake took the girls for the rest of the afternoon and I worked on some photo projects at the library and read for hours! The library is a totally different experience without the girls in tow… divine!

Sunday, the girls and Jake made a very nice breakfast of apple pecan overnight french toast (gluten free, no less) with eggs and a homemade orange julius smoothie. I was impressed!

To Jake’s chagrin, the girls had already spilled the beans on the heart plates they painted a few weeks ago. They were very proud and still ask me to eat every meal off of them. Meredith was like a bull in a china shop during their painting outing, so well done, Jake, for the attempt!

We all spent the day as a family and after church and naps, headed to the beach. Normally, outings = just more work for me, but after handing off my packing list, Jake took over and I sat in the car with a book while he and the girls gathered and packed all our beach gear, prepared a picnic dinner, and got everyone in the car. The beach was actually a pleasant experience when I could forgo the packing, loading, unloading, taking everyone to the disgusting bathrooms and sanitizing everyone afterwards, brushing sand off everyone, unpacking the cars, throwing wet towels and suits into the laundry and hosing down everyone afterwards.

The only thing I ever really want for Mother’s Day is a good picture with the girls, and since  no one really cooperated for a sit-down picture (surprise of the century), our candid ones will have to do this year.

We played several rounds of ring around the rosie and duck duck goose.

On our last Mother’s Day at the beach a few years ago, the girls were so CUTE and cooperative! I guess the fact that two out of three are twice as stubborn as two years ago, plus adding one more into the mix do not make very good odds for getting nice pictures!

Sammy was smiley, Meredith was distracted and Amelia was decidedly NOT interested.

Cute big sister.

Meredith does not enjoy too much love and goes crazy when the girls make a hug sandwich out of her, especially first thing in the morning when I grab her out of her crib. GET OUT OF MY BUBBLE!

Maybe Meredith would cooperate? Nope.

Of course, the girls happily complied for photos with Jake.

  

Lots of silliness happening.

Sammy was singing at the top of her lungs and Amelia was trying to break free and boogie.

Amelia was ready for a hoe-down.

When you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Rock climbing, shell hunting, seagull chasing and sand angel making.

Jake and the girls only forgot one thing… Jake’s dinner. They didn’t mind sharing.

Speaking of food, I don’t know if Jake has been secretly coaching them behind the scenes, but an unexpected Mother’s Day gift was that for the past few weeks, the girls have been randomly telling me “thank you for the delicious food!” at most dinners. This has never happened in the past without someone prodding them, so I’ve been very pleasantly surprised (and slightly suspicious).

All alone on her little island.

With our hair blowing all over the place for 90% of our pictures, the girls became my hair stylists.

More dancing on the sand!

Thank you for a lovely Mother’s Day!

Lots of love,

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Post-Camping Spring Break 2017

May 5, 2017 by

After our camping excursion, we spent the rest of the girls’ Spring Break hanging out and enjoying a leisurely and mostly unplanned week together. Instead of rushing off to preschool three days a week, we ate breakfast for as long as we wanted and the twins did puzzles and crafts during Meredith’s morning nap. After Meredith woke up, we went to the park, the pool or a class and napped/played the rest of the afternoon. I thought the week would drag by having the twins home in the morning an extra three days a week, but it was nice not rushing anywhere and not feeling like a chauffeur for a change. I don’t know if it’s their age or skills learned at preschool, but the twins are mostly cooperative playing together and occupying themselves without much intervention from me. Meredith absolutely adored having them around as her constant entertainment, too!

An outing to the playground and sensory garden in San Clemente:

The girls requested to do soccer again (I’m thinking the fact that Daddy takes them and gets them a gatorade afterward may have something to do with it, since it didn’t seem like they were way into soccer last go around!) One of our friends is from the UK and is a director for Playtime Adventure, which brings UK soccer coaches out here to lead a cute intro program for preschoolers. It’s a lot of games, running, hula hoops and a little bit of kicking soccer balls thrown into the mix. The timing is tough since I have to wake the girls up from their naps to make it on time. so they were groggy and cranky at their first practice, but claimed they liked it.

According to Jake, this is how most of the practice went down:

Pool time with the Wrights. Meredith was totally not interested, and I chased her around the perimeter of the pool the entire time.

At Pretend City, Meredith was finally old enough to really interact with the exhibits and her sisters were proud to show her around.

Meredith’s favorite place as of late has been the car… unless I try and buckle her in. The minute I open the garage, she starts hitting the car and squawking, toddler speak for open up! She likes to crawl all around the car and get in the driver’s seat. I’ve learned to let her play for at least ten minutes before we have to go anywhere or else have to summon up superhuman strength manhandling a screaming, strong toddler into her seat. Her favorite word recently is, “NO, NO, NO!”

A happy morning at the park. I must have had at least 450 birthday celebrations so far this year as the girls like to bake me birthday cakes and cupcakes three to four times a day in the sand. I’m always obligated to stick around for the birthday song and blowing out of candles to make it complete.

The girls’ Grace and Zen class is our all time favorite! It’s all very low-key and fun, with the kids learning cool animal yoga poses, a few simple ballet moves, and then they get to read a book, color an inspirational coloring page (last week’s was a mandala with the words “Peace begins with me”), and relax at the end with soothing music and an eye pillow scented with lavender. I really wish they had this exact same class for adults, coloring page included, because I would definitely be there.

Gymnastics with Meredith is wild and crazy. She will sit in her stroller with snacks for about fifteen minutes, before shrieking to get out and from then on, it’s just me chasing her everywhere. Unless I can find a class for them on the weekend or get a sitter for Meredith, the girls’ gymnastics days may be ending soon!

Due to Samantha’s eye appointments, Meredith and Amelia have been going on some Daddy-daughter lunch dates at the Spectrum by his work and have enjoyed having some special time together.

For my birthday, the girls each wrote and chose the illustrations for books they created at Storymakery. Sammy made me into a mommy fairy, while Amelia chose to make me into a mermaid. They loved authoring their first books and have made more at home with construction paper, marker and staples (which have turned out just as cute and creative, if not more so).

Meredith found no need to write a story when the keyboard was so entertaining.

Sammy shows off her favorite hair accessory and road rash from a biking accident.

The girls were looking at old pictures and came across the ones Aunt Sarah took of them in their dressers. They decided to recreate the look!

 

  

Somehow, the girls woke up and snuggled in my bed while I was showering, and pretended to be fast asleep when I found them.

During the frantic rush of routines that is bedtime, Meredith was reading by herself at the bottom of the stairs! While the twins love storytime now, they could never sit still long enough to so much as look at a picture book at that age. Meredith is so methodical with her page-turning, it really looks as if she’s reading! She will pull books off the shelf and bring them to me every nap and bedtime, flip through most of the pages with me, and then jump off my lap to select a new book. When things get chaotic, she just reads by herself!

Another Daddy Daughter date to cap off Spring Break!

Lots of love,

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Sammy’s Glasses

May 5, 2017 by

Many friends we haven’t seen in a while have run into us recently and are surprised to see Samantha with glasses! The scoop is that earlier this year, at her preschool’s annual eye checkup, the ophthalmologist who came to test all the kids sent a note home saying Samantha was testing far-sighted in her left eye. We brought her in for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Rakov to get re-tested and sure enough, she was obviously having a hard time seeing far away in her left eye.

Interestingly, her left eye is the same one that is a tiny bit smaller than her right, and has always been that way since she was a baby, due to the torticollis she had (she can blame Amelia in the womb for squishing her!) Even after neck stretching exercises and physical therapy as a baby, her head still tilts slightly and the thinking is that this may have something to do with her vision issues in that eye. Interesting how everything is so connected!

We had a few mommy daughter dates getting fitted for her new glasses– the right lens is normal since she sees 20/20 out of that eye, and her left lens has the corrected prescription. The hope is that by strengthening her left eye early on, she may not need glasses or contacts in the future.

Samantha enjoyed choosing her new glasses and took her time with all the options. After much deliberation, she chose pink and purple Lilly Pulitzer ones with butterflies on the sides. We think she looks very intellectual with them on!

The first few days Samantha started wearing glasses was mostly rough on Amelia. “I WANT GLASSES TOO!!!” was the constant refrain/sob around our house for the first week. It was impossible to explain to her that her eyes were working just fine and that glasses aren’t usually something you WANT to have… in her view, glasses were a special privilege! I thought about getting her fake glasses for about two seconds before deciding that sooner or later, they were going to have to get used to the fact that even though they are twins, they are separate people and won’t always have the same things! The earlier they get used to this, the better!

A bonus for people who aren’t able to tell the twins apart is that now they have an easy way out!

It was Spring Break during the first full week Samantha started wearing her glasses, and she did a great job keeping them on and placing them carefully in their case at bedtime. She’s been fine wearing them at the park, yoga/ballet and gymnastics so far, although I feel like I’m now in charge of an extra kid because I’m so paranoid about something happening to such an expensive accessory. Samantha has felt really proud of herself learning to put them on correctly and echoing the words of her optometrist, she always tells us,”When I wake up, my glasses wake up; when I go to sleep, my glasses go to sleep.”

The hardest day for Samantha so far was when we returned to preschool after Spring Break. Even before we got out of the car, she was obviously self conscious about the glasses and started crying that she didn’t want to wear them. Amelia and I coaxed her into coming out to the playground where we fortuitously found a girl in another class who wore glasses too! We asked Cassidy if she liked her glasses and she gave us the whole run-down on how she takes care of them and how much she likes them. Bless her sweet little soul!

Samantha was visibly relieved and excited to show them off to her friends after that. She received many compliments from the other kids and Miss Holly said she was eager to share about them during circle time. After the first day, I haven’t heard any more complaints from her, with the exception of one morning when Amelia apparently went around telling all their friends that Samantha’s eyes were “broken” and that’s why she needed glasses. That didn’t go over well with Samantha!

We had another follow-up this week and after some testing, Samantha’s eyes are already working together better and she can see perfectly in her left eye with the glasses on. Even Samantha has remarked about how well she can see far away now. We are grateful for the routine eye check a few months ago, as we never would have known there was an issue otherwise! To be continued…

Lots of love,

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