I got a laminating machine for $20 last time I was at Costco.  I had wanted one for a while, but Todd was against the extra plastic it would use.  I convinced him it was for the greater good of the children and their activities.

Today I needed a quick activity after rest time and before dinner.  As I was walking down the stairs with the girls I saw the laminator in the office and the idea was formed.  We will make placemats for dinner!  

I love the fun and creative things we'll do and make with this fancy new machine!

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With Maisy in school some mornings and Maren's morning nap now a distant memory, I needed to start giving Maren, now a year and a half, some activities of her own.

So rice play it was.  I just spread out a big sheet, gave her spoons, different sized bowls a strainer and some treasures to find in the rice.

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At Costco today, we met 3 SF Firefighters.  Maisy became very intersted in their profession, so I decided today would be the day I'd teach her about fire safety.  I'd seen this post (where pretty much all these ideas came from on a blog I follow called Confessions of a Home Schooler) a while ago and today was the day to use it!

First I demonstrated different ways to put out a fire.  

1. Water (take away the heat and oxygen)

2. Lack of Oxygen 

3.  Fuel (taking away the fuel for the fire)

We let the candle burn all the way to the bottom.  Without the wax, it went out.

After the excitement we settled back down to do a few fun activities.

Firefigher Matching Game

Now I want to try to get in on a little Fire House visit!  We'll see how successful I am at that.  

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We had a ton of strawberries left over from our Coachella weekend and I couldn't think of any other way to use them than to make Strawberry Jam.  It was perfect timing and great fun for a play date!

I cored and washed the strawberries in advance.  Then separated them into two big bowls.  Put aprons on the girls and let them mash, mash and mash with all sorts of tools.  They thought it was great fun and were very happy with their mad mashing skills.

Mashing Maisy.

Maren could not quite figure out what on earth the girls were doing, so she just looked back and forth in wonder.

After we had 4 Cups of mashed strawberries, we put them in a pot with 1/4 C fresh lemon juice, 4 Cups of White Sugar and a long continuous peel of an apple peel (for the natual pectin).  

Then we mixed it up and put it on the stove to cook.  We stirred until the sugar disolved then turned it up to boil it for a bit.  We tested for the proper amount of jelling, then scooped off the foam.  By this time, the girls were over the jelly process and were onto playing some make believe game of Kid-Mommy.  

I ladeled the jam into sterilized and hot Kerr jars and we came up with 5 medium sized jars of jelly!

The girls tried it right off the stove on toast.  They seemed like very happy campers.  I wouldn't know, I don't eat strawberries, but it was fun to make!

Tonight we are going to tackle apple butter.  (We have a lot of left over apples too!)

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Maisy's schoolmate, Olive, moved back to the UK last week.  To help her get settled in her new home and to let Olive know her friends still think of her, Maisy had the idea to write her a note and give her some artwork from her friends from California.

Maisy drew Olive a picture of them together on the beach. She also made a paper puppet Maisy on a stick to send to Olive with a nice note saying that she missed her and hoped to visit one day.

Olive also has a little sister Maren's age, so Maren drew a picture, that way Rosie wouldn't feel left out.

Maisy and Maren were very happy about their combined efforts!

Maisy also got to learn where the UK was on a map and how long the post might take to get there.  Of course, Maisy was much more into the fact that her friend got to move to a land where queens, princes and princeses actually exist!

She was so proud to get to put her post up in the window to send to her friend!

Hopefully we'll get to keep this going for a while.  It's fun to hear what Maisy thinks is important to tell her friend. 

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Masiy came down stairs dressed like this:

She filled it with smallish rocks and some bark.  She came inside and washed and dried the rocks after her collection was complete.

We got out our dinosaur reference cards so we could do "research" to try to figure out what kind of dinosaur she had unearthed.  

She picked out the rock that was to be the dino's head, so we looked at all the cards and picked the dinosaur that had the most similar shaped head to her dino skull (rock).  Then we filled in the rest of the rocks to make the body, legs, arms and tail.

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We were invited to a natural Easter egg dyeing party with friends and kiddos.  The kids all loved it and made some very pretty eggs.  

We sat the kids at a long table and helped them set their eggs in jars of dye made from plant products.

It was great to have so many parents around to help out and so many very patient and interested children!  Super fun.

Afterward we went next door with the Stewart family for some dinner.  It was definitely one of the best Tuesdays we've had in a while!

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I saw the idea for this on Pinterest.  We had paint and we had TP rolls, so we went to town.  It took two days to do because we had to let the bunnies dry before we decorated.

Our finished bunnies.

Happy Easter!

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Wow- that happened quickly!  February and March have really rushed by us.  For some reason, I haven't been feeling like blogging, but figured I should do a little catch up before it all gets away from me.

We took a trip to LA in February for my step brother's wedding.  Congrats, Mike and Janet! Luckily enough while we were down there, we were able to visit Disneyland again with Kim, and the boys and Sarah and Drew and their girls. (Thanks again Uncle Bob!!)  We all had a blast!

From LA, we were home for a day and then headed up to Tahoe to meet up with Mimi, Papa J and Uncle Steven for some skiing.  It felt great to get out and ski again!  I hadn't skied since before I got pregnant with Maisy.  Unfortunately coming off of a week in LA, the girls' schedule was so messed up and they were so over tired and cranky almost the entire time.  Maisy refused to go and play in the snow.  We have a brand new sled that has never been used.  Hopefully next time she'll feel more adventurous and want to get out.  Maren was a happy little snow girl at least! I think we were all a bit exhausted, because we didn't take any pictures with our good camera- only tiny little shots with our phones....  next time we'll be more with it!  We are still so glad we went and look forward to the next adventure!

Kim came up for a special sisters' weekend.  It was great.  I can't believe we've never thought to do this before!  Pedis, a movie, a couple of drinks all with no kids!  Thanks to Rigo and Todd for being the main care takers that weekend.

We've been keeping busy, doing a few activities with the girls.  I saw on Pinterest you can make sidewalk paint using equal parts cornstarch to water with a few drops of food coloring. 

Maisy painting it up!

Maren had her well baby visit last week and had her last shot before kindergarten!  She weighs 22 lbs 8 oz and is 2 feet 8.5 inches tall.  She is talking up a storm and is very determined.  She does not like being strapped in or held.  She wants to experience it all first hand!  She and Maisy are getting along very well and are becomming great friends.  Maren loves dancing and being outside. She is not a fan of being left at the YMCA daycare, though.  We need to work on that just a bit.

Giddy Maren. Photo courtesy of Steven.

Other than that, we've been busy at home crossing things off our to-do list and planting our vegetables in the garden.  We are excited to see what we can get to grow!

Hope your spring is off to a good start.  With all this rain we've had lately, I'm ready for SUMMER! Coming up next is our Coachella trip!  Can't wait!!!

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We saw on Pinterest, that you could write a letter to a Disney princess and she'd write back.  So we decided to give it a go.  

Write a letter to:  Walt Disney World Communications P.O. Box 10040 Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-0040 (color post card) or Walt Disney Company Attn: Fan Mail Department 500 South Buena Vista Street Burbank, CA 91521 (Black and White autographed photo).

Maisy wrote a very sweet letter, complete with a picture and a picture key.

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I saw this idea for making button hair pins from a post on Pinterest.  I had cute bobby pins, I had a boat load of buttons and I was armed with my grandmother's sewing bins.  It made me happy to think of Grandma while using all of her old thread and needles, knowing that she would be proud that I am using her sewing items for cute crafts for her great granddaughters she never got to meet.

I let Maisy browse my Pinterest boards and she picked this project for today.  So, Maisy chose her favorite buttons.  This actually kept her quite happy for about 30 minutes.

Then she and I picked the buttons to match up and we got out our tools for finishing our project.

While I sewed the buttons together and to the bobby pins, Maisy stayed busy opening a pretend bakery.

After the buttons were sewn onto the bobby pins, I added a bit of super glue to hold them in place.  I have two words of caution if you try this at home.  Only use a bit of super glue, otherwise it can leak through your button holes and ruin your buttons and creation.  Caution number two:  Make sure the super glue is completely dry before you put them in your child's hair. I had to use a bit of my strong arm skills to get a couple of these out!

Finished products!

Maren modeling a purple/black button clip.

Maisy wanted to have a few in her hair.

Then as we were leaving for dinner Maisy wanted them ALL in her hair, on both sides.  

I can't wait to get these into our hair clip rotation!

In other news, we are finally all well!  Let's hope we stay that way.  We were hit with a stomach bug this last week.  Maisy is still the only one is hasn't hit, so we are hopeful, she can escape it. Poor Maren had a rough go of it.  She kept signing "all done" and saying owie owie each time the threw up- which was often.  I felt a bit like a new parent since the girls have never had a stomach bug before!  I had no idea what to do- but we figured it out.  Then it hit Todd, then it hit me!  I was grateful for my long restful day in bed, where no one asked a thing from me and I could nap as much as I wanted.  Small price to pay! ha

Hope you all stay healthy!

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We had a progressive activity day today.

Early this morning I suggested Maisy draw a picture and I'll write her story about it.  This is what she wrote:

So the picture is of Maisy with her hands behind her back looking side eye at the cake with a candle on it on the table.  On the floor she's drawn her bed and a rug and above her head is a light.

Our next activity was inspired by pinterest.  I decided we would start out by going for a walk in Tilden park down to Jewel lake, have a picnic and look for rocks for our end result project of painted heart rocks.  

We turned looking for rocks into a pretend game of us being paleontologists going on a dig for dinosaur bones.  So we dug and dug for the perfect dino bones with sticks.

We came home and I put Maren down for a nap while Maisy scrubbed all the rocks in the sink. When she was done, she went for a nap. 

I woke Maisy a bit later and the rocks were ready for painting!

Here are just two pictures from an amazing birthday party we went to for our friend and neighbor 1 yr old Sage!  It was at the Bay Area Discovery Museum on the most perfectly warm and beautiful January day EVER!

We've had a great start to the year!  Maren is now a total walker and is very determined to WALK. She really no longer wants to be held or in a stroller or a grocery cart.  It makes outings adventures.  She sure has spunk- that Maren!

Maisy is surprising us daily with her talents, her compassion and how in tune and alerted she is to everything!  

Both girls are such joys!  I'm a very lucky mom.

Next week we'll be heading to LA for my step brother's wedding and we'll also make another trip to Disneyland with family and friends! Yay- for LA!

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For some reason today, I got out a lot of clothespins.  I didn't have a plan, I just decided to start clipping them on the kids toys, clothes, and such.  Boy did they get into it!  We were building all sorts of strange things and clothespinning odd things to normal things!  All in all, it was about 45 minutes of entertainment.  Not bad for something invented in the mid 1800's.

Still super fun- who knew?!

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A lot has happened in the last week or so!  So much celebration.

I'm a Christmas Eve baby, so we celebrated my birthday with friends last Monday with dinner out. It was a nice gathering.  I really appreciated all who came to help celebrate with this time of year being so busy! We did a small family celebration on my actual birthday.  It was a fun pre-quel to Christmas.

This night was also Mo's last night with us.  Boy did he throw a bash!  That crazy Elf on the Shelf knows how to have a good time.

The next day was Christmas.  The girls were great and slept in until 8.  It was me who kept waking up hoping it was time to get up!

We must have all been amazingly good this year because......

It was a special year!  All the gifts were so thoughtful and wonderful.

The girls LOVE them!

Maren is really into books right now. She loves to mock read them.  It's hilarious to listen to her jumble on in nonsense words while pointing to pictures and flipping pages.

I got Dance Central 2 for Christmas and Maisy happily joined in.  She actually did pretty well keeping up!

We had a few days of trying to get back to normal at home.  There was a lot of stuff to organize!

We celebrated New Year's Eve at our house with friends.  We did the east coast version and celebrated at 9.  It was perfect!  I made the most super yummy carnitas, if I do say so myself. You HAVE to make it!

We spent New Year's Day completey ridding our house of anything Christmas and took a walk from a book that details the hidden public stairways in Berkeley.  We only got through about a quarter of what the walk should have been, with the girls, but we completely enjoyed looking at all the fancy houses and walking off some carnitas!

Here is to a happy and healthy 2012. The last year has gone by so quickly, we have been so fortunate in many ways and for that we are very thankful.  We look forward to spending the next year making more memories, living, loving and laughing with all!

Happy New Year!

Love,

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

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Just a quick wrap up before the big day!  All the shopping is done, most of the presents are wrapped under the tree and now we are just waiting for the big guy.

We are all so excited.  The older the girls get the more exciting it is all becoming.

Maisy and I have been baking up a storm and we are now done with that as well.  Maisy was a very good helper.  She was the master counter of scoops, pourer and egg cracker.  

Maren had her 16 month well baby visit and is perfectly healthy.  She is able to walk and will sometimes.  She walked all the way down the hall at the doctor's office toward her vaccines.  She is now 21 pounds and 4.7 ounces and is 31 and 1/4 inches tall.  She is saying lots of words! Some of her favorite words are "raspberry and blueberry".  She says them quite clearly.

We made our annual trip with our friends down to Thompson St. in Alameda to see all of the pretty lights. 

The walk was cold, but dry and fun.  Santa was even there!

So, I found this cut out on Pinterest, that I cut out and let her color.  She seemed quite happy with it.

Maisy's really into jokes that usually are not jokes at all, but she loves telling them and having us laugh at them.

We are on a 2 week break from school and are looking forward to relaxing around the house with nowhere in particular to go.  The girls have kindly started sleeping in until 8.  It's been lovely!

Merry Christmas!!!

Love, 

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

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We got our tree last weekend, the inside of the house is all decked out.  I'm lagging a bit on the outside lights, but we'll get there.  The point is- that we are in the holiday spirit!  Our newly adopted elf, Mo, arrived yesterday.  We love our Elf on the Shelf!  Maren named him Mo. I think she actually just wanted to see "more" of him, but it sounded like she was calling him Mo, so Mo it is!  After reading our Elf on the Shelf story and getting our elf comfortable on our windowsill, Daddy and Maisy decided to make a card for Santa that Mo could take to him on his nightly reporting to the North Pole.  This is what Maisy came up with at 3 and a half years old.

She drew many presents below.  Most of them are for Maisy, a couple are for Mom and one is for Maren.  Dad doesn't get any.  Poor dad.

1.  Pink headband

2.  Necklace

3.  Pink beard.  Todd actually found one on Etsy. We are having a difference of opinion on whether we should make this happen.  Not really sure why she wants a beard, but it's pretty funny.

4.  Sparkly dress

5.  A really really big big big bathing suit with big arms and legs so nothing can bite her.

She allowed the elf to borrow the card to show Santa, but she wants to keep the card in her possession.  So, Mo showed Santa last night and this is where we found Mo after his first expedition back to the North Pole.

Mo suggling up.

Maisy investigating the Elf on the Shelf.  

He ended up in a shoe box Maisy decorated the other day into a nice winter scene with cotton balls, tissue paper, odds and ends and, of course, Santa.  I guess Mo missed the North Pole. Super excited to see where our Elf on the Shelf, Mo, will end up each morning!

Hope your holidays are off to a jolly start!

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Maisy often asks to do activities.  There are so many kids activites on Pinterest I've been eyeing, that I was happy to try a few of them out.  Most of these activites below are my version of other people's fancy crafts.  

1.  Christmas Button Tree

I had some green felt that was already cut out in circles.  I just drew  the outline of a tree and glued some ribbon to the outline and had Maisy fill in the middle with buttons.  

She really liked this activity.  When it was all dry, I stuck it in a frame from Target.  Now we will have a piece of Maisy art for years to come.  It will be fun to bring out each year.

2.  Make your own Snow Globe

I used a cleaned out small little mustard jar.  

I hot glued a plastic little zebra to the top and Maisy filled the globe with glitter, fuzzy balls and water.  Maren goes crazy watching the glitter settle.

3.  Make an Airplane out of popsicle sticks and a clothes pin

Maisy painted all the parts and we sprinkled glitter on them.  

Then I hot glued it together.  

We decided it was missing a pilot, so we glued a giraffe to the top.

4.  An I-spy water bottle

I had a clear 1 liter bottle.  I found a bunch of items that could fit in the bottle and put them out on a plate for Maisy to put into the bottle.  Maisy put in lots of things, feathers, a straw, sequins, beads, fuzzy balls, rubber bands, a penny, a clothes pin etc.

Maisy fit those all in the bottle and poured in the glitter.  

We added water and I super glued the top on.  Both Maisy and Maren LOVE looking and playing with this. 

5.  Gel Sensory Bag

I got a cheap bottle of hair gel.  Maisy and I sqeezed the gel into a large ziplock bag.  We added some glitter and a few drops of red food coloring to the blue hair gel.  Maisy then got to see the colors mix as she played with the gel.  I took clear packing tape and taped all edges of the bag to reinforce it a bit.  

Both Maren and Maisy really enjoy playing with this.  I had them play with it on a white background so they could see the imprints their hands make when they stamp or make lines in the gel.  We are going to play with this with flashlights when the girls wake up from their nap.  

On a side note, we did an interesting study with UC Berkeley, where a researcher came to our house to video us for 3 hrs.  They wanted to watch second children in their second year of life, with their siblings in their normal environment.  It was a bit difficult at first to act normally, but then after a while, we just got into our thing and forgot the researcher was there.  They want to do a follow up taping about three months from now.  I'm very curious to ask the researcher more infomration about what they hope to learn after our next session.

Just a quick update on Maren at 15 mos, she's still not walking but has taken as many as 8 steps several times, she's just not ready to go for it yet!

More later!

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

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We had one of the best Thanksgiving holidays and breaks that we can remember.

Kim, Rigo, Elijah and Evan made the very long drive from LA.  The drive was made worse by 5 hours extra traffic coming and going, but I think it was worth it!

So we had a very sibling Thanksgiving complete with Steven too!

We deep fried our turkey again this year and it turned out as delicious as ever.  Everything was just perfect!

The boys were the turkey masters, with Todd being top bird watcher.

Steven and Todd bringing in the turkey.

The next day we were even luckier to have Perla, Marc and Luke come and join our group for brunch.  It was so fun to see the kids together and get to catch up a bit.

The next day we took Elijah to see the Golden Gate bridge.  He's been talking up a storm about it!

The next day we headed out into the City to take in the sights of downtown.

Can't wait to all get together again.  We are very thankful this year for all the wonderful family and friends we have in our lives!

To you all- we love you.  Hope you have a safe and happy holiday season!

Love,

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren

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Just a quick post prior to Thanksgiving.

Lots of preparing for Thanksgiving has been going on here, so activities to keep Maisy busy have been helpful!

I saw the idea on Pinterest.com to give a preschooler a strainer with pipe cleaners to thread through the holes. I gave Maisy these items and she made "boquets" with them.  She was very proud of her creation.  It also kept her occupied and quiet for over 40 minutes!

Todd and Maisy went out on a nature walk not too long ago.  They pressed the flowers they collected.  Maisy found them and wanted to play with them, so I came up with a way she could use them.  I decided to have her help me frame it for art for her room.  She brings home so much art from school, so I thought we could use a little piece of her art for the background and then put the flower on top - and pop it into an unused frame we had.  Maisy was so proud to be able to display her work in her room!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and if you are traveling, hope all arrive safely.

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