hike

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

Random February

February 25, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

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,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bow attack, eleanor 8 months, eleanor crawls, february 2019, hike, home depot, miss holly's pizza party, venus

San Diego Wild Animal Park and January Activities

January 15, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

While Aunt Sarah was in town for Auntie Lynn’s 60th birthday, we took a girls’ trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, a.k.a. the twins’ and Meredith’s true home. Someone in my Mothers of Multiples club was giving away free tickets that were going to expire and she couldn’t use, so on a whim, we took a day trip down there! Being a Tuesday in January, we had the place to ourselves, which was perfect for these three wild animal sisters.

I hatched!

Thank you for always feeding me snacks, Aunt Sarah.

Gorilla skull!

Keeping this crew in line while waiting for food is torture.

We love the Wild Animal Park, not just for the open space and roaming animals, but for all of the playgrounds throughout the zoo. I strolled Meredith through the shady tiger trails until she fell asleep while the girls played at one of the playgrounds.

The lorikeets seemed hungry that day! Meredith was still asleep and didn’t feed the birds, but I doubt she would have wanted to… she’s still traumatized from getting bit at the Living Desert zoo in Palm Springs and will randomly hold up her finger and say, “Birdie bite me!” when she sees birds.

Aunt Sarah had a photo shoot at a cute bookstore for some clients in Newport Beach and brought the girls back some fun new books for storytime.

While Aunt Sarah was in town, we also hiked to Ortega Falls, which we had been wanting to check out. There was only a trickle of water, but the girls had fun rock climbing and were entertained watching a family with legit rock climbing equipment scale the rock walls.

What it’s supposed to look like when there’s water:

I want snack!

In other January news, Noah stayed at our house overnight while the grown-ups were at Auntie Lynn’s 60th birthday party, and the girls all loved having a guest over!

Meredith has spent her whole life sitting and watching the twins do their activities, and finally got to do a gymnastics class of her own. The class for her age group requires the parents to be in class as well, but she wanted nothing to do with parental supervision and acted like she didn’t know me! Even though she’s not old enough, the coach said she could move up to the next level in which parents don’t need to be in class and she absolutely loves it.

Looks like we need some more practice on those cartwheels…

Skating lessons!

The best part of winter? Watching it on TV on an unusually hot January day at home.

Orange picking!

We had what seemed like an entire month, but was really a 10-day period at the end of January, where all of the girls were SO sick and fell like dominoes, one after the other. I thought for sure it was the flu, but it turned out to be some kind of bad respiratory virus. The twins missed a combined week and a half of school, and were not happy about going alone when the other twin was home sick. To help make her feel better on her first day back at school, with Samantha still sick at home, Jake took Amelia on a morning Daddy Daughter Date before school. This special fruity pebbles french toast was enough to coax her into being at preschool by herself that day! Where is my french toast reward for taking care of sick kids for an eternity?

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: aunt sarah, Cleveland National Forest, cousin noah, daddy daughter date Amelia, gymnastics, hike, ice skating, lorikeet feeding, Meredith gymnastics, orange picking, Ortega Falls, san diego wild animal park, waterfall

Memorial Day 2016

June 8, 2016 by Rebecca Whitehead

Over Memorial Day weekend, we went on a “hike” with all three girls plus Bandit and must have looked like quite the caravan to all the mountain bikers we passed along the way.

Jake somehow balanced 70 pounds of twins plus a 17 pound baby in the front across three different creeks without even getting his shoes wet. Impressive! I carried myself and fell in the water every time.

We brought the double stroller to carry our stuff, but of course, Samantha and Amelia begged to be pushed part of the way.

Snack break.

Pretending to be stick-wielding bears in a cave… or something like that.

Our friends, the Nguyens, hosted a festive Memorial Day barbecue at their new house and the girls definitely approved of the menu. Phi and Michael went overboard and served some amazing ribs, tri tip, and salmon for the adults, plus hot dogs for the kids… clearly, we needed more protein!

Me, Phi, and Jessica with the babes: Meredith, Maple and Owen.

Meredith chilling with Lily.

Party on the couch.

Maple was obsessed with touching Meredith.

Me, Sarah, Phi, Jessica and Sheela with the gang. The kids had a blast running around together and bouncing in their blow-up bounce house as we all feasted. The best part about get-togethers with kids is that they all entertain each other. Lily read the twins books, Parker jumped with them in the bounce house, and Maple chatted with Meredith. A big thanks to the awesome hosts!

And if all that excitement wasn’t enough, we burned some energy that afternoon at a park with some perfect scootering paths.

The girls’ scootering skills have really improved as of late. They are fearless.

A week later, the girls carried on their American pride by accompanying us to the polling station and showing off their “I Voted” stickers . Won’t be long until they are voting for real!