Random February

February 25, 2019 by

Almost every weekend in February was rained out, which meant softball games were cancelled and we had to find alternate ideas of things to do inside, which are not plentiful around here! Home Depot craft to the rescue.

So much rain this month!

Group hug!

Every day, Meredith asks when Eleanor can share her room. I’m not sure how Eleanor feels about that.

Samantha had her yearly eye appointment and her eyes are looking good.

Another rainy day project… the twins made a car, complete with steering wheel out of a box and styrofoam.

Post-bath silliness.

Hey, sis.

After four weeks, Amelia got her cast off! Her arm wasn’t completely healed, so she wore a brace we could take on and off for another two weeks. Amelia was so happy that itchy thing was off of her.

Organizing Jake’s coin collection.

The girls were torturing playing peekaboo with Eleanor.

Back at the school’s fundraiser during the fall, I won a silent auction item of a pizza party for Samantha and six of her friends with Miss Holly. We planned it for the half-day before President’s Day weekend and the party was a blast! I thought Miss Holly was just bringing pizza for Samantha, Amelia, and the friends Samantha chose for her party, and thought that was pretty brave. But Miss Holly actually had them MAKE the pizzas. I can barely handle making pizza with our three, let alone eight kindergarteners/preschoolers. Miss Holly is a pro and everything was so organized and ran seamlessly. The kids even made dessert pizzas afterwards. Miss Holly told me that now she understands how Samantha must be at home— Samantha is usually so quiet and reserved at school that her teachers never believe me when I tell them how rambunctious and silly she is at home. At the pizza party, Samantha and her friend, Emily, were dancing like crazy to the music Miss Holly put on and were being super silly. Miss Holly said it was fun to see Samantha come out of her shell!

Amelia felt lucky to be one of the friends Samantha invited to the party.

My friends, Venus and Debi, came to visit Eleanor and she just ate up all the attention.

Eleanor presided over our sushi feast.

Park day with Maple.

On the hunt for poor rollie pollies who would die from the elements, neglected in the cage Meredith put them in.

Unicorn sighting.

Explorers on a voyage around our neighborhood.

Meredith with her rolly pollies and her new dog.

Meredith in her natural habitat– photos from Aunt Sarah when she came to visit.

Giganto-baby.

I came downstairs to find the girls had attacked Eleanor with hairbows.

HELP ME.

Eleanor had been crawling backwards since December and every day, we tried to encourage her forward with no luck. We figured out that some of her footie pajamas were so tight around her chubby thighs that her mobility was restricted! She seemed to do a little bit better naked, but still didn’t crawl for real until a few days after her 8-month birthday.

 

Typical 4th kid… Eleanor crawled for the first time and no one was around to see it!! Lots of chaos going on in the background, courtesy of the twins. I walked in and thought, “Hey, how did you get over here?!” and then realized she must have crawled!

Lots of love,

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Cousin Susannah Visits

February 20, 2019 by

Aunt Juliette and Cousin Susannah from Colorado visited for a few days and the girls were so excited to hang out with their cousin! Juliette and Susannah hung out at the beach and toured around while the girls were in school and over the weekend, Susannah stayed with us while Juliette was at a “Sister’s Retreat” in Newport Beach with some of Jake’s sisters.

Susannah has seven brothers!! With two sets of little twin brothers!! I can’t even imagine. So our very girl-centric family must have been a shock to her, but she seemed to love it and was so helpful and fun with the kids. She’s also great with hair and did a nice job curling their hair and putting it up. All the girls loved hanging out with Susannah, but Meredith grew particularly attached and wouldn’t let me help her with anything while Susannah was around.

“I want Susannah to help me go to the potty!”

“I want Susannah to read me a story”

“I was Susannah to get me dressed!”

I had to tell Meredith to leave Susannah alone so that she wouldn’t feel smothered and would want to come back!

 

We went to Aliso Creek Beach for the afternoon and had a beach bonfire. It was nice, but chilly for us, and we laughed that Susannah was constantly walking around in tee shirts and shorts, since this felt like hot weather compared to the snow she was used to.

Eleanor loved having an extra cuddler around.

 

Glasses and beach waves twins.

 

Lucero, Kennedy and Sebastian joined us for the beach bonfire. The kids hardly played in the sand at all because they were so occupied finding sticks to build a “nest.”

We were sitting down closer to the water, when I looked up and saw about 100 seagulls going crazy over something by our bonfire pit. Thinking I better go check it it, I ran over to our stuff, only to find that the evil gulls had somehow reached into our bag and pulled out a sealed, unopened Costco-size bag of hot dog buns and were fighting over it, ripping it to shreds! We’ve had seagulls steal sandwiches and other food that was just lying around before, but never have I experience that cunning of a seagull at the beach. Our hot dogs were bunless that night.

S’mores times.

 

When we got home from the beach last night, I asked where Sammy’s glasses were and we decided they must be in the car and that we’d find them in the morning. When our search in the morning did not turn up her glasses, I started getting a sinking feeling. I was not paying $800 for new glasses again! I remembered that Samantha had been lying on the sand, and Meredith had kicked sand in her face, at which point, Sammy had taken off her glasses and put them down so that we could get the sand out of her eyes. After interrogating her, we surmised she never put them back on, so they were still at the beach! I told her if we couldn’t find them, she would be doing a lot of chores to help pay for her new glasses, and she was pretty upset.

After they left on their rescue mission to the beach, I was already online picking out new glasses options. There was NO way they would be able to find them! Either they were lost in the sand, or someone took them.

Much to my shock, Sammy returned home, triumphantly, with her glasses! Jake had asked Sammy to say a little prayer in the car, asking Heavenly Father to please help them find the lost glasses. When they got out, everyone went to the bonfire pit we had been at the night before and searched. Amelia and Susannah saw something catch the light right below the fire pit and Amelia pulled out Sammy’s glasses, which were half-buried in the sand. A miracle! Samantha was SO happy to find them, and I couldn’t believe it!

Riding the ferris wheel at the Spectrum with Susannah.

It had rained so much that we went to see some of the waterfalls on local hikes.

Don’t know what Sammy’s deal is!

 

Susannah accompanied us to the park several times, and Meredith basically ignored me, preferring to play in the sand with Susannah and begging her to swing her.

Every parent has to put in four hours of volunteer duty at the snack bar for the season, and lucky for us, Susannah was there the weekend it was Jake’s turn (the league cut us some slack since we have two on the team and just made us have one parent put in the volunteer hours instead of both parents). Susannah helped with the kids during the game, while Jake was on snack bar duty.

Post-softball game park fun.

Susannah figured out a way to bribe Eleanor to crawl in a certain direction– she loves that Roomba!

Lots of love,

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Softball Season: Team Pink Penguins

February 13, 2019 by

Starting in February, the twins joined their very first softball team. While they generally enjoy tennis, gymnastics, and other individual sports more than being team sports girls, we wanted them to at least have the experience of playing on a team and learning the game. Capo Girls is a really fun girls league that starts at the 6U level, which was perfect for beginners Samantha and Amelia. They’ve unfortunately inherited my lack of coordination when it comes to throwing and hitting balls, so we practiced in the weeks before the start of the league and the girls actually enjoyed playing catch and learning to hit the ball. Tennis definitely seemed to have helped their hand-eye-coordination! Amelia, especially was doing awesome hitting the ball without a tee, until she broke her arm. Bad timing!

Their coach, Coach Valerie, coaches high school softball and has a niece on their team. She makes the game fun and is so positive and encouraging. For their very first practice, she had the team playing tag to teach them running to the bases, and she always makes a game out of practicing catching, throwing and hitting. At the first practice, she announced their team color would be pink and asked the girls if they had any suggestions for their team name. Amelia came up with “Pink Penguins” and Samantha immediately seconded her sister. There were several other suggested names, but it came down to Pink Penguins or Pink Cocoa Bears from another girl (which I personally thought was adorable). The team voted and chose Amelia’s name– I guess it’s very useful to have a twin sister and always vote in a block!

Aunt Sarah had been in town for a few days visiting before going to Palm Springs for a conference. She had to leave before the twins’ first game, but as a former softball player, she was proud they were trying it out.

Their first game the week prior was postponed because of rain, and it was pouring on the morning of the rescheduled Opening Day and game too! Everyone huddled under tents and drank hot chocolate/ate breakfast burritos for an hour waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually, it did, and it was finally time for a little team parade and then their first game.

Go Pink Penguins!

I have to admit that half the appeal of softball is the adorable uniforms.

 

All the older girls made a big deal out of the younger players to get them excited.

Batter up.

The actual softball field was too muddy to play on from the rain, so they improvised and played on a field nearby. It was quite entertaining to watch the girls at bat!

Learning the rules…

Go Samantha!

They remind me of old-school Nintendo Mario Brothers running around. Those little legs!

 

It was hilarious watching the twins in the outfield. Amelia sat down half the time and chewed her mitt. When we asked her why she wasn’t running after the ball, she said that the other girls were, so why bother? Can’t beat that logic. We started bribing them with gum and tic tacs to at least TRY to run after/catch the ball and Samantha, in particular, started getting more into it. Amelia could have cared less and stared into space most of the game!

Games are very low key at the 6U level. They don’t keep score, everyone gets as many tries as they need at bat (toward the end of the game, they do coach pitch), the outfielders’ only job is to throw it to first base every time, and the last batter up in the line gets to do a home run! As far as team sports go, it’s the perfect low key environment for non-competitive Samantha and Amelia.

Meredith is the team’s mascot and cheerleader. She’s already made friends with everyone on the team and everyone requested to play with her on the playground afterwards. She DESPERATELY wants to be on the team. Maybe she’ll be more in to team sports than the twins?

We make it fun by hitting up the snack bar after the games– food always seems to leave a good impression on the twins so that they are more motivated to play!

Lots of love,

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Samantha & Amelia’s First Piano Recital

February 12, 2019 by

In preparation for their first piano recital, Miss Jenny started Samantha and Amelia practicing their two songs in December for their February recital. We were getting pretty sick of hearing Indian Song, Skip to My Lou, Alouette, and When the Saints by the time their recital rolled around!

The recital at the recital hall was planned for a Sunday, but since that interfered with our church start time, I told her we’d be happy to host a recital at our house on a Saturday. There were several families who couldn’t do the Sunday recital either, so we planned the recital with Miss Jenny and the families, with about fifteen people planning on attending to perform and watch. I had planned to borrow chairs from my friend, Phi, whose son, Parker also took lessons from Miss Jenny and was doing the recital hall recital, and Miss Jenny asked everyone to bring some food to our house for after the recital. Things were all set, until two days before the recital, Miss Jenny told me two of the families were sick and didn’t think they would make it, and she was sick as well! The other families didn’t mind postponing, but after hearing the girls practice the same songs for two months, I didn’t think I could listen for another week!

After telling Phi what happened, she generously offered to have a little mini recital at her house the next day since her in-laws were not able to make Parker’s recital a few weeks prior. She put it together totally on the fly and we were so grateful! She had originally planned on hosting us for dinner as well, but Meredith and Eleanor both had colds, so we decided to just come over for the recital while Jake watched the two sick girls at home, and came over at the very end so he could switch me places. It was so nice of Phi and family to host a little recital so the twins could at least play for someone! After all their hard work and talk of the recital, I really wanted them to have a chance to play for an audience other than our family. They were so excited to go to Parker’s house and it was a treat to hear Parker too, who is so talented!

I put together a little “program” and Parker was the MC for the night– such a natural!

It was fun for the girls to see how good they could be if they keep practicing– Parker is amazing!

We had practiced going up to the piano, sitting down correctly and getting hands in position for literally MONTHS, but both girls were on a silly streak and did not do anything we had practiced! Maybe they felt too comfortable being at Parker’s house! I had to bite my tongue at their posture!

The girls had been playing their songs perfectly by memory for weeks at this point, but I think having an audience threw them off just enough to forget what they were doing! It required a lot of me silently repeating to myself, “They are five. They are five. They are five”! They still tried their best and it was the perfect first introduction to performing for an audience for these shy and silly girls!

 

Amelia was very brave with her poor casted arm.

We had practiced SO many times what to do if she got stuck or couldn’t remember (go back to the beginning of the measure), but I think the pressure got to Amelia and she needed a little help!

I went up to help her a little bit at the end of When the Saints too.
After everyone performed, Maple and Parker gave a special performance of their dragon dance for us, complete with an authentic Vietnamese/Lunar New Year dragon! We clapped along and thought they did AMAZING, especially cute Maple!

Jake arrived at the end to come in and say hi, leaving poor sickling Meredith and Eleanor in the car. Meredith was SO upset to not be able to come in and play with Maple, but Phi had a little “treasure box” that she let everyone pick something out of and Maple sweetly picked out a toy for her. We were so grateful to the Nguyen family for hosting the twins’ first recital! It turned out to be so much more fun with friends.

Lots of love,

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