Talking Whiteheads

March 2019 Fun

March 25, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

We had a very rainy and unusually cool winter, which bled into spring. All the rain made everything green and gorgeous! We didn’t have time for everything on our bucket list this summer, but we did check off quite a few.

Hiking at Casper’s Wilderness Park.

Meredith loved school and begged to go more than two days. On Wednesdays, all the girls stayed for an extra hour and loved doing fun projects with Miss Erica, who is the Queen of Pinterest Projects. Every Wednesday, the girls would groan when I came to pick them up and asked to stay longer.

Samantha and Amelia were jealous of the fruit loop rainbow project Meredith did in her class, so we did it at home.

St. Patrick’s Day chocolate pancake breakfast.

St. Patrick’s Day at school.

Visiting with Great Grandpa!

During one horrible week, the girls were sick with fevers, snot and coughing, all within a few days of each other. Amelia was so sad about going to school by herself… until she got to go on a special Daddy Daughter date for waffles.

Once Samantha was all better, she went on a Daddy Daughter sandwich date.

Helping with treehouse construction.

I am Meredith. Hear me ROAR.

Playing 52 card pick-up.

Building epic block towers and screaming when Monster Baby Eleanor crawled over to destroy the city.

Eleanor’s favorite homemade mac n cheese.

Someone went overboard on the bubbles.

So proud she can stand!

Scooter ride around the neighborhood while sisters were in school.

Tennis practice.

In March, the twins stayed after school for an art class with the 1st grade teacher, Miss Iumi.

Their final cute paintings.

Softball was in full swing, with a practice and game every week. While the girls tolerated practices (mostly because of the tag games they played plus donuts), they alternated between staring off into space and refusing to run after the ball at all during the actual games.

Jake: “Why don’t you run after the ball, Sammy?”

Sammy: “Because someone else will get it.”

They did like trying to hit the ball and running the bases! The first few games, they played the game with no tagging outs, but the last few games, the coaches decided the girls were ready to play for real. The first time Sammy got tagged out, she cried hysterically and refused to play. She sure ran fast the next game though and never got tagged again.

Art and writing projects!

Amelia was no match for this 27-pound baby.

Meredith and her bestie, Maple, at our Tuesday park date.

The girls climbed the tree at the end of our cul-de-sac every day after school.

Sammy the sloth.

Eleanor’s favorite pastime.

Sammy in her natural habitat.

More science and art projects!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: art projects, caspers wilderness park, creek, daddy daughter date, eleanor swings, Great Grandpa, hike, hiking, kindergarten, Maple, March 2019, miss erica, miss iumi's art class, neighborhood, park, preschool, school, schoolwork, scooter ride, softball, spring bucket list, st. patrick's day, tennis, treehouse

Grandma Celeste Visits

March 16, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

In March, Grandma Celeste flew out from Utah to come visit for a week. Grandma Celeste always has the most fascinating stories about growing up in a log cabin in the wilderness of Alaska, and entertained the girls with tales of her adventures as a young girl– making friends with Eskimos, encountering bears, exploring the woods, you name it! She’s written a few fiction and non-fiction books about her life and that of her parents, so she had lots of material to draw from for her story-telling! I don’t know how many times I can downstairs to find the girls sitting at the table listening to a Grandma Celeste story!

We had a very warm week while she was here and made it to the beach a few times.

Floating on logs in the creek… don’t want to know what’s in there.

Cooling off in the pool.

Enjoying a soak in the hot tub after a long day of running around.

The girls thought it would be funny to dogpile on grandma and wake her up. Welcome to our world.

Grandma Celeste accompanied us to the twins’ softball game on Saturday morning. Meredith occupied herself with trying to catch Eleanor and apply sunscreen to her entire body.

Grandma Celeste loves to paint, especially in watercolors, and brought some of her supplies along. She set up her canvas and painted on the beach and spent hours painting with the girls at home. She painted them some still lifes of some pretty lilies we had in our house:

She helped the girls paint some water colors of their own and they had a blast since they LOVE art.

After hearing all of the Alaska stories from Grandma, Amelia and Samantha chose Alaska for their state research project at school.

And since the girls all love flowers so much, we took a day trip to see the millions of ranunculus flowers at the Carlsbad Flower Fields.

After taking a wagon ride through the flowers and playing on the fairy playground, the girls did a scavenger hunt.

Thanks for coming, Grandma Celeste!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alaska, aliso creek beach, carlsbad flower fields, Grandma Celeste, March 2019, painting, watercolors

Happy 6th Birthday Samantha & Amelia

March 11, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

For the girls’ 6th birthday this year, we gave them the choice of having a big party with all their friends like last year, or going on a trip/activity. Without hesitation, they chose going to Grammy’s in Utah and going skiing! We went at the end of February and had a little early celebration in Utah.

For their actual birthday, we celebrated as a family and the girls had their much-anticipated birthday celebration at school.

Early morning birthday balloon drop!

The girls love seeing their birthday poster hung up outside and their birthday wreath on the door.

Our traditional Funfetti birthday pancakes!

Later on, the sugar overload continued with a unicorn birthday cake.

The girls’ answers change weekly.

Presents from Aunt Sarah!

Waxing nostalgic with Polly Pockets from Grammy!

Cake face.

Bonus treat– Great Auntie Lynn took the girls out for Yogurtland!

Even more exciting that celebrating as a family is the school celebration. The girls look forward to it every year! They get to bring in a birthday poster with pictures and sing “The Earth Goes Round the Sun” and walk around the circle for each year of their life. Their favorite part is getting to make their own cake in class and licking the spoon!

Samantha makes her cake.

Birthday twins!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Milestones Tagged With: 6th birthday, funfetti birthday pancakes, samantha and amelia's 6th birthday, school birthday celebration

Meredith’s First Time Skiing

March 3, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

The kids’ favorite part of our Utah trip was going skiing. No surprises there since the twins loved it last year and had been begging to go back. Months prior, I had asked the twins what they wanted to do for their 6th birthday and they both chose skiing instead of having a big birthday party with friends! Even though Meredith had just turned 3 and wasn’t old enough for the group lessons, we decided to bring her along and have her try it. Of course, she took to it like a duck on water and loved it. Eleanor had a nice Grammy-baby date at home while the rest of us skied for a few days.

Getting the gear on is always the hardest/most frustrating part for parents and the girls alike! The girls made snow angels while we were registering them for ski school.

While the girls were in ski school, I did a private lesson and Jake tagged along. Our instructor was a lady from Quebec and was a no-nonsense teacher! I finally learned to be more stable and not cling to Jake while getting off the chair lift (always the worst part), and learned how to turn much better so that I wasn’t completely terrified going down the hill. Jake learned a few techniques too, although by the end of the lesson, he was sick of going down the blue and greens with me and left me with the instructor while he went off to find a black diamond! In the afternoon, Jake went back out with the twins, while I hung out in the lodge.

We put Meredith in a 1 hour private lesson and I was shocked at how much she loved it! She was skiing in no time! After her lesson, she went to the kids club to play, had lunch with the other kids and even took a nap. I went to check in on her a few times and she mostly ignored me because she was busy chatting away with the other kids and teachers! After the first day, the ski school told us that even though she wasn’t technically old enough to be in a group lesson with the twins, she did so well her first lesson that they were going to let her try the group. But when we got there the next day, the head instructor told us there were a lot of kids in the ski school that day and she’d be better off doing another private lesson, so we did that again and she was happy!

It’s hard to say what Meredith loves more… skiing or softball?

This was Samantha and Amelia’s second year skiing and they picked up right where they left off last year, learning turns and at the end, finally graduating to the real ski lift on a the big runs.

The first day skiing it was freezing and started snowing pretty heavily during the afternoon. On the second day, we had the nicest blanket of snow on the ground which made for excellent skiing.

In the afternoon, while Meredith was in the kids club, the twins took turns going with Jake on the chair lift on their first big run. They did awesome! I’m always surprised at how little fear they have– they are definitely already better skiers than me.