New Year’s 2019

January 1, 2019 by

While the rest of our family left for Portland/Utah/Wyoming, only brave Grammy stayed for a few extra days past New Year’s! She courageously volunteered to watch all four girls so that Jake and I could drive down to San Diego for the Utes Bowl Game and stay overnight in San Diego.

Our friend and fellow Ute fan, Lucero, went to the bowl game with us, as well as Kennedy and Sebastian, plus Lucero’s sister. It was cold and rainy, but fortunately our seats were in the suite level, and we were so grateful we weren’t watching the game in the miserable rain. Little Sebastian understandably started to get tired, so they ended up leaving at half time, something we probably should have done too! The second half of the game was a disaster and we’ll just say Jake didn’t want to talk for like three hours afterwards.

We walked the coast and Seaport Village on New Year’s before driving back home to relieve Grammy of her duties!

 

Back at home, the girls had a little New Year’s celebration of their own. Grammy was pretty exhausted when we got home, but everyone was in one piece!

Eleanor had a great first day of 2019 on the swings.

After New Year’s, we took our annual new year’s beach photos at Aliso Creek.

 

Attempting to get Eleanor to sit up long enough for a quick shot.

Good job, Eleanor!

2019 here we come!

Lots of love,

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Happy 2018

January 1, 2018 by

Meredith is already SO over 2018…

Happy New Year!

So excited to be done with all the moving and craziness of 2017 and looking forward to an undoubtedly crazy, but perhaps more fun 2018.

Beginning 2018 off right with some twirling.

We had some onlookers watching our little photo shoot who freaked out when Meredith kept stepping in the water in her stockings and sandals!

Meredith is usually always game for yelling, “Cheese!” whenever I break out the camera, but was feeling uncharacteristically grumpy today.

Maybe a little spinning would help?

Not feeling the 2018 joy.

Time to break out the graham crackers!

Suddenly everything is better.

Princess Amelia.

The queen on her throne.

Take me to the sand, loyal subjects.

Change of clothes and sandcastle time.

Sammy makes a sand angel.

2018 here we come!

Lots of love,

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Happy New Year 2017!

January 29, 2017 by

The Lunar New Year yesterday reminded me I needed to finally get around to posting New Year’s pictures! Now that Meredith is a little older, we are excited for the coming year and all the new adventures it will bring.

Meredith’s goals for the year include learning to walk, adding to her vocabulary enough to argue with the twins, trying peanut butter and honey, figuring out the mystery of the auto sensor trash can lid, and mastering shoveling sand into a bucket. Samantha hopes to learn more Spanish beyond what Dora has taught her, try green eggs and ham, learn to ride  bike sans training wheels, master the cartwheel, visit a planetarium, and finally follow the rules of Candyland, instead of just picking random cards from the stack and moving her piece wherever she wants. Amelia’s goals include improving her dolphin plank and chasse moves in yoga/ballet,  mastering the world geography puzzle at preschool, going camping, using dot dot markers properly, traveling to America (we can’t convince her she already lives here), and riding a bike sans training wheels.  Our family word of the year is FUN (or SILLY, according to the girls). We hope to reach all our goals this year!

    

Lots of love,

 

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New Year’s Resolutions 2015

January 6, 2015 by
Before getting together to brainstorm their resolutions for 2015, S and A had a good laugh reviewing last year’s resolutions and reflecting on their progress over the past year. 

Here’s how they did:

“Resolution 1: Take higher-quality naps. Learn how to lie back down and go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of a nap and standing up in crib, wailing. Ditto for night-time sleep.”


Progress: Nap time is definitely a mission accomplished. The girls are usually champion nappers, finally consolidating their two naps a day down to one three-hour nap around 18 months. Night time sleep was much improved, albeit hit or miss when the girls had episodes of teething, sickness, vacation…so pretty much every other week!

“Resolution 2: When at all possible, resist the temptation to pull sister’s hair and steal her toys/Wub (pacifier). Refrain from laughing at sister when misfortune befalls her, such as a tumble or bump. (This one was mostly for Samantha).”


Progress: Hair pulling is no longer an issue, but I feel like I’m a referee all day long breaking up fights over who stole what toy. A toy that is usually EXACTLY THE SAME.

“Resolution 3: Work on perfecting table manners. Or at least learn to get the majority of the food into mouth instead of on the floor. Remember that there is an appropriate time in which to blow raspberries…NOT after a spoonful of sweet potato puree has been put in your mouth.”

Progress: I don’t know if this is even possible, but the mess on the floor has actually gotten worse now that the girls are eating pretty much the same meals as we are. Purees were comparatively easy to clean; bits of quinoa or spaghetti sauce flicked every direction– not so much. Bandit has been having a field day.

“Resolution 4: Learn to delay gratification by sitting still for two seconds during diaper changes instead of writhing, twisting, and screeching, thus lengthening the time spent on the actual diaper change by 70%.”

Progress: The girls are still wiggly worms, but if I entertain them with a song or story, they’ll usually sit still for three seconds.

“Resolution 5: Allow mommy to dress us up and take pictures of us without too much eye-rolling. Maybe even try and smile for the camera occasionally…it’s the least we can do after pulling out every single item of clothing in her drawers and spreading them across the house.”
Progress: Mission accomplished! The girls are so used to me taking pictures by now that they will actually pose for me, pick out their own accessories and take selfies on my phone all the time. Amelia often points to my camera sitting around the house and says, “Mama!” Is that a bad sign?

“Resolution 6: Learn baby sign language. (We’ve been working on this, and the girls definitely watch us with interest anytime we sign and say a word, but have yet to sign anything themselves yet). Also, learn Spanish…and English, for that matter.”

Progress: The girls can sign, “milk,” and “more,” but never really went beyond that. I guess it wasn’t much of a priority once they started talking. As for the Spanish, Jake speaks with them off and on in spurts and the girls attended a Spanish class during the fall for an hour each week, but obviously, did not learn much Spanish from such short exposure.

“Resolution 7: Learn to walk. Enough of this crawling business.”

Progress: Mission WAY accomplished.


“Resolution 8: Learn the difference between what’s edible and what’s not edible…start with sand and rocks and go from there.”

Progress: I wish I could cross this one off the list, but alas, Amelia still likes to try sand once in a while.

“Resolution 9: Keep both socks on the entire day. “
Progress: I laughed remembering how I used to get so annoyed by the girls constantly taking off their socks and leaving them all over the house. Now, I feel like half my life is washing their socks and matching all those cute patterns up again.

“Resolution 10: Give mommy and daddy a break every once in a while. We sure kept them on their toes last year!”

Progress: HA. Not a chance. I’ll hand the girls this one though since it was a fun, enjoyable kind of crazy this year as opposed to barely surviving/feeding/diapering/keeping both girls alive kind of crazy.

And the girls’ resolutions for 2015? After much contemplation, the girls came up with the following: 
Resolution 1: Finish Potty Training. Hallelujah! I cannot wait to start potty training these girls and get them out of diapers. They HATE going in their diapers and are so ready to be done. 
Resolution 2: More using actual words, less pointing/grunting. Working on speaking in semi-intelligible sentences will be a biggie this year. 

Resolution 3: Start a book club. Because what good is having a twin if you can’t discuss the latest NYT best-seller together? 

Resolution 4: Meal time EXTREME makeover. Refrain from playing musical chairs while eating. When you don’t like something on your plate, push it to the side instead of forcing it into sister’s mouth or throwing it over your shoulder. Eat your veggies instead of pretending to eat them to make Mommy clap with joy and then spitting them out with a mischievous grin on your face (that one’s for Amelia). Reduce amount of food tossed on the floor and walls to the point that hazmat suits are not required for clean-up. 

Resolution 5: Try a new sport. I am counting down the days until the girls are old enough for soccer!

Resolution 6: Cheer on the Utes at our first game. (Only included because Daddy forced us to).

Resolution 7: Indulge Mommy with as many cuddles, hugs and kisses as she wants. (Only included because she forced us to). 
                           

Resolution 8: Learn to say each other’s names correctly instead of pointing at one another and saying, “Baby!” as if the term were derogatory. YOU ARE IDENTICAL TWINS. If you call sister a “baby,” you are calling yourself a “baby.” (Samantha was clearly not happy with this discovery).

Resolution 9: Try not to ruin Aunt Sarah’s wedding by eating all the flowers and/or running up and down the aisle squirting guests with applesauce pouches that we’d smuggled in our fluffy dresses. No promises on this one. 
Resolution 10:  Stop being so cute on trips to Costco so that we don’t get stopped ten million times. Not likely. 
Resolution 11: A compilation of resolutions we found on Buzzfeed: 
“I will stop licking all the balls in the ball pit.” 
“I will stop squeezing out half a tub of toothpaste every time I brush my teeth. Also, I will brush my teeth.” 
“I’ll delete fewer of mom’s apps.” 
“I won’t repeat the unfortunate marker incident of May 2014.”
“I’ll make sure books aren’t upside down when I pretend to read them. That’s so awkward.”
“I’m going to finally break down and figure out this utensil business.” 
“I’ll have all my middle of the night freak outs between the hours of one and four a.m. only.” 
“I won’t toss as many random things in the cart when my parents’ aren’t looking.” 
“I’ll limit tantrums to 2-3 times a week, tops.” 
“I’ll let my parents unload the dishwasher in peace. But man, will I miss watching them freak out when I pretend to reach for the butter knife.” 

One last resolution: Help sister get candy canes out of her hair whenever she needs it.

Bandit’s resolution: Bribe the girls into feeding me more scraps and sleep 17  hours a day instead of my usual 18 hours. 

Lots of love, 

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