Todd and I at California Adventure hamming it up!

We left Friday at noon right after we picked Maisy up from school.  The ride down was quick-ish, until we arrived in the LA area at 6.  It only took an extra hour to get through traffic- so it wasn't too bad.  We had only one minor incident on the way down.  A huge semi truck to our right blew a tire right on us.  Strips of tire beat loudly against our car in a crazy flash of noise, sound and vibration.  We all had little heart attacks, pulled off to the side of the road, inspected the car, calmed down and continued our trip.  No damage was done and it gave me a nice little adrenaline jolt that caffeine cannot rival!

We woke up on Saturday and headed straight for Disneyland!  We met our friends, Sarah, Drew, Marly and Mykah there.  We even got to see James for a bit!  Later in the day Kim, Elijah and Evan met us.  

Marly, Sarah, me and Maisy.  Love all being together!

Happy Maisy and Auntie watch the parade.

Elijah scaling the late rabbit.

A big thank you to my Uncle Bob, who is security at the Mouse's House. He signed us in as an employee guest that day!  The more we go to Disneyland the more we love it and the more we feel the NEED to go again!  We ventured into California Adventure this time as well.  One day is never enough in the land of Disney!  

Maren on the Nemo submarine ride.

Maisy and Mykah rode the Matterhorn for the first time with the adults.  We used parent passes and the girls went with their dads first, then asked to go again and went with Sarah and me next.  Maisy got a little worried in the middle with the abominable snowman creature, but asked immediately to go again.  

Maisy and me on the Mattherhorn

She definitely wants the big kid rides.  Another highlight was the water fountains at California Adventure.  Marly and Maisy had the best time just running around and getting all soaking wet.  Thank goodness we had extra clothes for them!

BFFs!

"I can't believe I'm being allowed to do this!"

Maisy hugging her friend Mykah.  The love was felt that day!

Unfortunately as fireworks were about to start, the park got swarmed with people, the kids were sleeping and we were exhausted, so we took off early.  Next time, we'll have to hit Disney on a weekday.

Sunday was Evan and Maren's First Birthday Party celebration at Nana and Papa's house.  As always, thanks Nana and Papa for having the party at your house!  Maren and Evan split a cupcake and the day was a pleasant and fun gathering of family and friends.  

Happy Birthday, Evan and Maren!!

The family has exploded with babies lately!  It's so precious to see them all together.

Maisy hugs, baby Emma and Evan.

So great to be all together!

We headed home early the next day and made it home in time to grab pizza.  Now we are back into the swing of things here. 

Maisy has continued to have play dates with her friend from school.  They get along so well.  It's really less work when Juna is at our house because they totally entertain each other and look at me like I have 3 heads when I walk in the door to try to join them in play.  

Juna and Maisy play princesses

Maren wants to play too!

Todd leaves this Saturday for at least a one week trip, maybe two week trip to include possibly London, Paris, Miami, Brooklyn.  I'll be here with the girls.  I don't know how people do this alone!  I'm already booking play dates for both me and the kids, so I don't go insane with no adult interaction!

Maren is so close to standing on her own.  She could totally do it, but just doesn't trust herself.  She's getting very verbal and signs often.  She likes to point out lights, hats, dogs, eating, washing and bathing.  Those are her favorite signs.  We go the library weekly to sing and read books where we meet our special friend Velia!

Velia and Maren meet at story time at the library.

Maren is showing interest in drawing with Maisy now.  Maisy decided to give her an art lesson today.

That's all for now!

Love,

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

Todd and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this year on Sept. 16th.  It's amazing how fast the years keep coming.  Time flies when you're having fun, huh?  It's been a fabulous first 5 and I'm so excited for all that is to come!  

I've been taking Maren to toddler library and story time on Tuesday mornings while she and I are solo.  She really enjoys the songs and all the attention!  I love the undivided attention I can now give her while Maisy is at school a few mornings a week.  She is really starting to babble. It almost sounds like talking, but you just can't make out the words!  She is pulling up on everything and is getting more confident, but has yet to stand or take a step alone.  I'm down to nursing her just once in the morning, so it shouldn't be much longer until she is totally weened.  I'm not looking forward to having to watch what I eat again- the breastfeeding diet is about to end.  Booo!

Since Monday is our only day all together without other commitments, we try to do special stuff that we want to make sure to do together, like visit friends or the zoo.  Last Monday, we did both!

Maren at the zoo on Monday. It's our full day with sister, Maisy, to do fun stuff.  

Maisy petting a very brave and relaxed cat at the petting yard at the zoo.

Maisy has been going to a Nature and Science class on Wednesday mornings through Berkeley Parks and Rec. While Maisy is in class, Maren and I attend Wee Play at the same center.  I am so impressed with the high quality and the resources available to families in our community!  Wednesday's topic was bugs, bug finding and catching.  Maisy was so brave she even let an earwig crawl on her!

Maisy next to Ms. Denise and Coach Marvin learning about bugs with friend, Mila.

After nap I did a little extended learning with bugs and we learned about arthropods as a group and the sub-group insects.  I did this print out worksheet from Orkin where we cut out a bunch of arthropods and then put them into sub groups (arachnids, insects, crustaceans).  Then we learned about the different body parts of insects (exoskeleton, head, abdomen, thorax) and that insects in particular, only have 6 legs.  We also did insect coloring sheets from a blog I follow, 1plus1plus1equals1.com, and letter practice as well.

Learning her bug writing

Maisy has been doing so well with the start of her three morning a week program at her pre-school.  She's made a very good friend and her mom and I also get along very well.  Maisy has had a couple of play dates already!  We are going to swap kids every other Tuesday for play dates at each other's homes and the girls are thrilled. 

Today while walking home from school Maisy mentioned something about playing with some kids rather than others and I just wanted to make sure she was being kind and not excluding kids, so I decided today would be a mindful kindness teaching day.

First I cut out a LOT of pictures of people's expressions in magazines.  I did this during nap time.  When she woke up our "activity" for the day was to first sort all of the pictures of the people and the emotions they were feeling into different piles.  We ended up with:  Happy, Silly, Proud, Thinking/Thoughtful, Shy, Hopeful, Angry/Upset, Pain, Worried, Serious and Sad.  After she sorted, she glued all of one type of a feeling on to a page with the feeling written on top of it. 

Glueing down her feelings

Then we sorted the full pages according to how she likes to feel and what types of feelings she likes/dislikes.  We talked a bit about why some people may get sad/angry/happy, etc., but, just as if on cue Maren started crying and fussing amidst her happy alone playtime.  I went over and gave her a hug and showed Maisy how a hug might make a sad person happy.  But Maisy took it one step further and decided to bring her books and started a game of peek-a-boo with her using a fire hat, that had her giggling in no time.  

Peek- A-

BOO!

Sisters play

We finished up with playing a little board game I printed about kindness.  Maisy liked it.  Maren just wanted to try to eat the die.  

Yay she won! (Well, really I did, but I told her she did)

I plan on using these pages for further discussion about the feelings and what may make a person feel a certain way and on the pages that don't have many pictures, I want to do some free hand art with her to help express the emotions on the page. 

I have a whole list of kindness activities I dug up and saved today, so I'll be working them in regularly.

Tomorrow after school we are headed out on a road trip to LA.  We plan to visit the Mouse's House while we are in town (thank you Uncle Bob!) and celebrate baby cousin Evan's 1st birthday!

More later!

Love,

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

 

Gathering lemons.

Getting a 1/2 Cup of butter.

I used our felt fraction pie pieces to simultaneously teach the idea of 1 Cup, 1/2 Cup, 1/4 Cup.  She actually got it!

While our cake was baking we went out to pick some veggies in the garden.  Maisy decided to take our goods to school tomorrow to give to her friends and her teachers.  It's fine with me since we pretty much don't eat what we grow anyway.... it's kind of just for fun.

Picking the reddest tomatoes.

Maisy counting her tomatoes in her fancy garden picking Easter basket.

Soon after the cake was ready!  Maren and Maisy were ready to try it and though I may have had mixed reviews, the girls gobbled it up!

Yum, Maisy and Mom!

More later- Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

Checking the doctor's tools out.

Reading up on toddler care while waiting.

Maisy had her first day of her preschool year today.  She did great with no tears this morning at drop off.  She was very happy to see that her friend from last year, Juna, was there to play as well!  I can't believe I have a real one year old and a real preschooler.  Where do the years go?

Maisy and me just before we got in the car for school today.

Hope your school year is off to a great start!

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

Congratulations to Kim and Brian, who got married August 20th.  We had such a great time at the Hide Out and being a part of their special day.

Maisy rows her boat in Kirkwood, CA

Just a day after returning from Tahoe, we jetted off to Lake George, NY to visit Todd's hometown.  We took the red-eye out for the first time.  It was actually kind of nice and made the flight seem very quick, because we all slept for a good portion of it.  However, the 4 hour layover at 4 am in Chicago wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  Thank goodness they have an amazing play area there, where we spent most of our time with Starbucks in hand.

Fake plane posers.

Mama and Maren play in the tunnel.

Driving the cargo around.

It was a very mellow time.  We visited with family and kept it delightfully low-key.

Visiting Todd's 101 year old grandmother, Alice.  

Grandma and Maren Alice.

Papa J and the girls.

Papa J's back was not treating him well, so he gave me a lesson in cleaning the pool.  I have added a new talent to my repertoire.

Haley helping me frog spot.

We made the family room into a safe little gated room for the girls to play.

Maren in the playroom.

Mimi and Maisy bake.

Uncle Steven and Maisy read one of Uncle Steven's favorite books!

We even got to experience our first hurricane there!  We had to postpone Maren's East Coast birthday party a day and we lost power for over 24 hours. It was quite an experience for us.

Maisy preparing for all the water falling from the sky.

Mimi and Papa J threw Maren a very happy birthday gathering of family.  Thanks, Mimi and Papa J!!!  It was a joy to see all of the family we haven't seen in over a year.  Thank you everyone who came to wish Maren a happy birthday!  We wish we could see you all more often.

Happy First 1st Birthday, Maren!

We got to visit our new baby cousin, Tatum.

Tatum, Thalia (Todd's cousin), Maisy, Becky and Maren

Unfortunately, though, today, was a bit of a sad day.  Mimi and Papa J had to say goodbye to their wonderful Golden Retriever, Haley.  She was just 10 years old.  She had a splenectomy in June and it had just been a bit of a rough recovery since then.  We will miss Haley's happy smiling face and warm, kind heart.

Haley and Papa J by the pool.

We arrived home Tuesday and Maren's actual birthday was the next day.  We took her to Fenton's for her first ice cream sundae.  At first she wasn't too excited about the ice cream, but then she decided it was super tasty!

Happy birthday, Maren... happy birthday, Maren.

The next day Maisy had her first trip to the dentist.  We went to Piedmont Pediatric Dentist.  The hygienist was amazing as were their facilities, but they made us wait about 25 minutes to see the dentist at lunch time-  the girls were pretty antsy.  I was not pleased that that part of the experience.  Maisy did really well though, and got a clean bill of dental heath.

Maisy getting her grill cleaned.

We had our West Coast edition of Maren's birthday party here on Saturday.  We had a super fun time with all our friends and Nana and Papa.  Thank you to all of our party guests.  We loved seeing you all!!  

We closed off the driveway and let the kiddos play there with bikes, chalk and an easel.  Todd and Papa barbecued a delicious chicken and veggie lunch.  We had a make your own peanut butter and jelly bar for the shorties.

Maren in her cupcake party dress.

Maisy riding a trike bike with her fancy headband on.

Nana and Papa at the grill.

Birthday cake!

The kiddos helping Maren to blow out her candles.

Becky, Todd and Maren.  Thrilled we survived our first year with TWO kids! :-)

We opened presents after nap time.  Maren has been the most lovely baby.  We cannot believe she's already 1!  Time has gone by so quickly.  She is getting more and more confident with pulling up on things, but has not yet stood on her own.  She now has 3 teeth on top and still only 2 on the bottom.  She's signing a bit more now and has a few words she says, but she definitely is vocal and knows how to get her point across!

Maren LOVES her tights (thanks, Emily!)

Maisy was a very enthusiastic big sister helper.

Pure joy!

Maren's Birthday crown.

We went to brunch this morning at Luka's Taproom, one of our new favorite brunch spots as a farewell to Nana and Papa.

Maren, Nana and Papa.

So, the summer is definitely coming to a close.  Maisy is starting her full 3 day am sessions of school (Tues, Thurs and Fri) this week.  She is also going to take a 45 minute science and nature am program on Wednesday's through the City of Berkeley Parks and Rec for only $30 through Nov.  What a deal!  If you're looking for something like that for your wee one- cheap, check your city's park and recs listings.  Maisy also wants to take a dance class, but we have yet to sign up for those.  I feel I'm already over scheduling her!

Whew- that was a lot of update!  Thanks for keeping up with us.

Much love,

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren