Life Post-Wubs

April 28, 2015 by

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Ok, so I’m exaggerating. Our weekend wasn’t that terrible. Besides our horrific nap and bedtimes after saying goodbye to the Wubbanubs forever, the girls had a marginally good time.

We didn’t have dance class this weekend, so we stopped by the Farmer’s Market. 

Amelia does some light reading. 
The girls are no strangers to picking herbs. Our garden always looks like we have little bunny scavengers picking through the produce. 

Two bulls in a china shop. 
We gave up on explaining to the girls that oxen do not want to be pet/brushed like Bandit. 
Potato sack race!
Amelia found it hilarious that everyone around her was jumping around in sacks. 
Samantha’s race ended in frustrated tears after she kept tripping. That hair desperately needs a trim– she’s constantly brushing it out of her face. 
Scavenging for veggies. 
Playing veterinarians. 
Future vet. 
WHY AM I WEARING LAB GOGGLES?

Crepe break for lunch. Daddy makes the best crepes on Saturdays!

Family photo time at Salt Creek Beach Park. We filled the girls up on bribes snacks pre- photo shoot in hopes that they would cooperate. Not sure if we got any big smiles, but they didn’t cry, so that’s something.

It’s hard work being cute. Where’s the other treats your promised us? 

Celebrating the fact that there were no photo shoot meltdowns. Random foods the girls are addicted to: cilantro, red onion and olives. 

Pass the guac. 
YOU TOOK ALL THE CHIPS, AMELIA. 
After dinner, we walked around the Dana Point harbor and the girls got hopped up on frozen yogurt/answered questions from a dozen fans. My favorite “twinterested” strangers included a sweet couple who had twin great grandchildren and twin grandchildren. They were adorable talking about how fun it is to see the relationships develop between the twins in their family. I tend to agree!
Another random grandfatherly guy walked out of a restaurant to ask us if the twins know that they are twins. Good question! They definitely know each other’s names and refer to each other separately (can’t identify one another correctly in pictures, however), but I don’t think they realize that not everyone in the world has a twin sister. 
Bribe accepted. Mommy and Daddy are suckers. 

Lots of love, 
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29

April 24, 2015 by
I’m officially less than a year away from 30 and I’ve definitely been feeling the love this week!
Back track to a few weeks ago to birthday celebration number one. Phi’s birthday is on the 2nd and mine on the 22nd, so we thought we’d celebrate right in the middle…sans Parker, Samantha and Amelia, of course. 
The significance behind the fact that we went to a restaurant called Twenty Eight didn’t even hit me until a few days later when I realized I was about to turn 29. Whoa. 
We all ordered a few small dishes and sampled each other’s. How could we not order food entitled “Hello Spring” and “Caramel Lace Prawns”? YUM.
April birthday girls. So fun to chat and have a real meal without kids interrupting us!
Fast forward to my actual birthday…woke up to some half-eaten almond flour waffles and frittata, compliments of Jake, Samantha and Amelia. The girls have enjoyed the excitement building up to their birthday and have requested to “read” every single one of my cards the past week. 
When it was present time, S and A were super excited that THEY were having another birthday and had fun opening my presents. My gift from S and A was this very hilarious pop-out book they had handcrafted with the help of some scissors and a laminator.  Each page has a pop out picture of someone in the family. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing– it looks awesome in person!
   
For my birthday, I originally requested a day off to finish Spring Cleaning (i.e. finishing the purging/organizing rampage I’ve been on the past week), but I decided to pick up a few things for our family pictures this weekend instead. Let’s just say shopping alone is amazing!
While I was out, Jake took the girls to Pretend City. As I was flipping through my photostream later, I found these taken by Jake. I don’t even want to know what was going on here. 
Sammy the horse? 
While the girls napped, I had a dentist appointment. Yes, ON MY BIRTHDAY. You may recall that a few months ago, I had a screw drilled into my jaw where I have a tooth missing and it’s taken a few months to heal. This past week, they needed to take the mold for my new tooth/crown, which was painless, but not the most pleasant experience (didn’t love the taste/feel of clay in my mouth). At least my dentist gave me movie tickets for coming in on my birthday.
The girls had an early dinner before Ana arrived to babysit. So glad I didn’t have to clean up this mess. Also, I love that they look like inmates in these outfits. How fitting. 
Cake time. 
Jake kept asking the girls whose cake it was and Amelia consistently responded, “Mommy’s cake,” while Samantha repeated “Sammy’s cake!” Nice to know she understood whose birthday it was. I love that every birthday here on out will automatically be re-designated as Samantha’s birthday.
The girls had been singing “Happy Birthday” all day and were over the moon when we finally got to sing it for real. 

Stuffing their faces with sugar– just in time for the sitter!

Family selfie, complete with Samantha’s frosting nose. 

Amelia highly disapproved of her sister’s rude finger-licking. 

Thoughts of our little tornadoes were far from our minds as we enjoyed a sunset dinner at the Montage. Love this guy!

After taking an intentionally long time to eat and walk around the beach, we returned home to two little girls who were most definitely not sleeping. We knew we were in trouble when we could see the light on in their room from the driveway. Good thing I could play the “It’s my birthday” card.
29 started out with a bang (literally- Samantha somehow fell out of bed last night and has a goose egg on her forehead) and I felt so blessed to share it with this lovely crew of mine!
Lots of love, 
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A day in the life

April 22, 2015 by
A day in the life of S and A…
Samantha came barreling out of her room at 6:45 a.m. looking for me. Every morning, without fail, she asks “Where did Dada go?” with those big, blue puppy dog eyes. Every time I say, “Dada went to work. But he’ll be home after naps and will give Sammy a big hug.” That usually placates her for an hour or so until she asks again. 
Last week, I decided to take the girls to Jake’s office to give them a better concept of what “work” is. It had been a while since we had visited the office, and we were basically run over by the other lawyers and secretaries crowding around S and A, so I didn’t get any pictures. Let’s just say the girls are satisfied that Daddy does not, in fact, go to an awesome park every day without them. 
Anyway, Amelia slept in until 7:30 (she usually sleeps a little bit longer than S), so Samantha and I made some pumpkin waffles, eggs and green smoothies together. Every five seconds, it was “Where’s Ba? Ba sleeping?” “Ba” is Samantha’s name for Amelia– we’re just running with it. After S finished breakfast, “Ba” eventually toddled down to join us and then it was breakfast: part two. 
After second breakfast, we walked Bandit, the girls took baths and then it was off to gym class. Although we pulled into the parking lot a few minutes early, we ended up being ten minutes late to class due to Samantha throwing a tantrum over not being able to have another snack (or was it not being able to bring her stuffed giraffe into the gym with her? Or was it that she wanted a wipe to dry the hand sanitizer off her hands? I lose track). 
Gym class is always a little mini break for me and the girls love it. A win win. 
Playdate with Grace after their gym class. Grace is so sweet and even says Amelia’s name perfectly. It CAN be done, girls. 

Home. Potty. Lunch. Clean up the disaster that is the aftermath of lunch. Potty. Naps. Freedom!

As soon as the girls wake up from naps, I have to take a second to mentally prepare myself. Their batteries have been fully charged while I’m nearing empty and they are like little tornadoes until their heads hit the pillow for the night. 
 Post-nap “helping” with a painting project. 

Amelia knows just how to push Samantha’s buttons. 
And she thoroughly enjoys it, too. 

Looking like ghostly white little ragamuffins, the girls ran to greet Jake when he got home and the three read books and played with some stamps on the floor while I took a breather and started dinner.

Dinner is usually pretty quick and consists of chatting about our day, telling the girls that yes, we know their food is hot– blow on it, and that no, they may not have another piece of chicken//pasta/bread until they eat their peas and carrots. Amelia typically complies while Samantha pretends and then spits them out or throws them to Bandit when she thinks we aren’t looking. Once we tell her that Amelia is beating her in the veggie eating race, she’ll stuff a handful in her mouth. She’s definitely motivated by competition.

After dinner, we usually walk around the neighborhood or go out on the trail, but this particular night, we checked out one of the parks that’s been on the girls’ bucket list. Just in case you’re keeping track, we’re now on outfit change due to spillage #3.

S and A tired themselves out climbing up the hill, up the ladder, and down the slide approximately 932 times. This was arguably the tallest, steepest slide the girls have been on to date, but they didn’t seem to care about the height– they were up there with all the other five year olds having a blast.

Many of our friends say the girls are talking a lot more these days. It’s hard for me to tell since I’m with them everyday, but I definitely feel like their speech is improving. It’s so cute hearing them talk about shapes, colors and the world around them.

Pull ups. 

Amelia– our happy little sprite. 
This girl wears me out. I love her anyway. 

Race around the square. 
Back at home, we read bedtime stories (I read one each before checking out, while the girls usually con Jake into reading at least five) and then it was lights out at 7:30. And then we’ll do it all over again the next day. 
Lots of love, 
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San Clemente playdate and first movie

April 21, 2015 by
Over the weekend, the girls hung out with their friends, Maliyah and Allie, at Courtney’s Sandcastle and Sensory Garden in San Clemente. We’ve been meaning to check it out for a while– it’s an awesome playground designed to foster exploration of all the senses and is completely accessible for kids with disabilities.

The playground definitely lived up to the hype– if only we lived a little bit closer. The only downside was that it was so huge, Jake and I didn’t get to chat with the Wrights much because all of us were constantly chasing our own kids, who, predictably, wanted to play on opposite sides of the play area. #Parentsoftoddlerproblems.

First stop: the sound garden. 

Samantha plays her gong song. 
Amelia sang along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while playing the piano. 
The sensory garden had a little area with a variety of fresh herbs you could pick and smell/taste. S and A went straight for the mint, of course. We have a ton of mint growing in our backyard and the girls love munching on it. 

The girls spent a good amount of time at the mini tide pool pointing out starfishes, shells and the like. 
Samantha and Maliyah at the water ball fountain. 
Can’t believe Baby Allie is already walking…she’s quick, too!
Anytime Samantha sees letters or words, she starts shouting, “ABCs!! ABCs!” and doesn’t stop until we sing the song. She thought attempting to do it in sign language was hilarious. 
Samantha fell off the platform at our playground at home a few weeks ago and hit her jaw on one of the metal twisty slides on the way down. I’m used to seeing the girls fall/get scraped up, and usually don’t bat an eye, but this was one of those times that made me gasp in horror. When you can hear the SPLAT on the ground, you know it’s bad. 
She actually wasn’t too upset considering it was a hard fall, but when she started acting really tired during dinner, we decided to take her to the doctor to make sure she didn’t have a concussion. She was fine, but man, did she have a bruise! Ever since then, Samantha has been a tiny bit more cautious when climbing things (and by cautious, I mean she now actually looks for a split second where she’s going). 
Amelia protests Samantha hitching a ride with her on the dino. 
After playtime, we ate a picnic lunch with the Wrights and played on the football field. Leave it to Maliyah to bring plenty of balls for everyone to play with (that girl loves balls!)

Catch!

NO photos argh!

Fine we’ll pose. But only ironically. 

But wait– there’s more… After our playdate with the Wrights, S and A stayed up way past their bedtime attending our neighbor, Isabel’s, birthday party. The girls thought the “drive-in” movie was pretty much the best thing ever (we watched Alice in Wonderland outside in their driveway).

Good thing the other 11-year-olds didn’t mind Samantha and Amelia constantly squawking about all the animals that showed up on screen (“Hop hop! Bunny! A cat! A cat!) After their initial interest in the movie wore off, the girls curled up in our arms and cuddled with us until we finally decided to put them to bed. I don’t get many chances to sit quietly and hold the girls individually these days, and sitting with Amelia just made my heart melt. She is the sweetest girl.

It was close to 9 p.m.– definitely a record late night for S and A. After tucking them in, we took the monitor outside and finished the movie with everyone. We’re excited for more movie nights this summer!

Play dates and movies– our girls are growing up!

Lots of love,

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