Is this Still Spring?

 Claire

On a recent shopping trip, I picked up a fun new summer toy for the girls since its been getting warmer and warmer here. For a while they used them as swords, then I showed them how to blow air at each other, and then daddy came along and started a water fight with our squirt toys. Claire was able to pull the water in and shoot really well to get Chris who claimed the other pair, now I have to go get two more if Shay and I want to join the war. She has a few favorite shows that she likes to use her own toys to help her play like Number Blocks that she can make out of her own blocks. She has an owl, cat, and dino that become the PJ masks unless she is in the tub then it is a sea horse, turtle, and sea lion. Her imagination is amazing!

Shay 

She likes to join in on most games that Claire is playing but sometimes comes up with silly things all on her own like pillow case ghosts. Hers fell off one and she put it over her head instead of letting me fix it so Claire copied her and they fell over their bikes and toys until they got sick of it. Her smile for the camera is getting so good especially when I use my fancy new camera to take Sunday dress up pictures. She is in love with looking at herself when we scroll through my phone camera roll so of course she wants a turn taking pictures. Chris was able to get her to count all the way to 10! Her words are still rounded and doesn't have the precise letters in most of them, but I understand a lot of things she is saying these days. The inflection of "your welcome" is probably the cutest and it makes me happy because she is so helpful and polite.

Exercise

For a while my exercise has been 3 days of a full body weight lifting regimen with bike rides or walking to the park in the evening and extra cardio on my off days. I'll be taking a break while on my trip to visit family, but I'll be getting into 5 days of weights like Chris does and might not get as many bike rides. I enjoy listening to books and podcasts for my hour long bike rides and usually follow the same track up and down a minor road with a bike lane. I get a lot of sun from it but I don't know if you can tell from the picture. Sometimes I pass a house that loves to decorate, for summer there are a million windmills, and Halloween was VERY decked out. I didn't think to go that direction when it was "winter" because I wasn't doing as much biking, but I do wonder how crazy their Christmas decorations were.

Great May Days

 Claire

She has become our little artist and is so fun to ask for a drawing and get a real answer, like a dog, or the one in the picture I got is a birthday cake! We got her some more chalk outside although I was worried she would wet them again, she mostly just draws layer upon layer in the same spot then gets it all over her face and hands. There are some trigger words like 'park' that get her way too excited and they both go crazy with excitement jumping around not helping get shoes or anything. We got to go play at a friends house twice again this week and Claire learned about riding on top of a car that Shay likes to drive.

Shay

She likes to color too but more often she adds a line to what Claire has drawn and then wants to show us and say "tada". She will also show off when I build her a castle fort in the living room out of our cushions to me even though I'm the one that made it. The towers she makes out of our flower toys are her favorite things to show off and get help building really really tall. Her words are getting clearer too! When she says words like castle, love you, milk, please and a few more to sound more regular. Then the words she really knows are no, I, more, mommy, and daddy. I just constantly look at her and realize how beautiful she is, as well as Claire sometimes and I love them so much!

May Fun Times

 Claire

I think it is really fun to talk to her these days when she has so many fun things to say and I can see her using her words to express herself. She likes to say, "let me think" when I ask her about letters and she would rather trace them than tell me their names. Then she is constantly learning specific words like parrot and bumble bee and making us use the more specific word instead of just bird or bee. She likes playing games constantly these days and has so many different ones I'm loosing count. The new one this week is daddy robot which we also got from the show Bluey like her other freeze and follow the leader. I had to tell her that daddy needed to charge when he had to go back to class and she gets sad that he has a low battery like her iPad does sometimes. Both Claire and Shay feed off each other when they want to dress up like princesses but it helps them play hug the princess and dancing so I like it.

Shay

Her communication is getting so much better too and when she wants something I make her copy my full sentences to first calm her down and to give her practice. The mimicking of my mouth shapes when I mouth out the sentences for her makes her make funny faces and I worry what I look like. She knows a lot of her colors, letters, foods, and body parts so now she just needs to start saying them correctly! Her naps were better planned this week and the only time she fell asleep not in her bed was on the way home from church then she didn't sleep very long. She also is just the silliest girl sometimes and I caught her holding her face when she was watching cartoons this week! She also decided she was a big enough girl to ride her bike all the way to the park and back which is a mile away and she was able to do it too! She has so much energy it is not fair, especially since I'm extra tired this week from a minor cold.

Cooking

This week I finally attempted the Pad Thai my dad makes as our special treat when we would visit them, but now that we lives so far away I've missed it! He gave me the recipe and a tutorial and it turned out good even though my noodles were a little under cooked. Now I have another recipe in my monthly routine that I've been doing for so long now, and I get to feel like I'm at home. The girls didn't even try it but they watched us and liked to point out that we are eating something, they are so goofy sometimes. So far we haven't been very successful at getting them to try new foods, but luckily they have the ones they like so they can't still get some food.

Happy Mother's Day

Claire

Well I didn't get a picture of their outfits this week but the first picture is one from last week's poke-a-dots that was still fun! Claire sometimes asks me to get her a computer when I tell her she can't play with mine, so I taught her how to pull up the keyboard on her iPad and now plays computer sometimes. She likes finding the emoji pictures and showing me all the cool items, it is like a treasure hunt for her and its fun to help her learn some more words she didn't know before like kiwi and mango in the fruits. Shay came up with a new game that Claire adopted with more excitement that brings leaves into my house...yay...but they like collecting the colorful ones off the ground that are still there and bringing them into the playroom. 

Shay

This little girls just loves olives! And as you can see in her picture, is testing out new smiles for the camera...or maybe there is something in her mouth still. Either way, she is cute and I think she was trying to put them on her fingers so I helped her and it made her very happy. This past week was kinda odd for her because she fell asleep on the couch twice and the first time was right before Chris and I went on our date. When I tried to move her she woke up and then didn't nap for the rest of the day! Next time I let her sleep on the couch as I snuck away. She got a hold of my phone and took 29 pictures of the ceiling and one of her hair so I threw that in the mix since she loves seeing herself on the screen of a phone.

Park

The new friends they find at the park each time we go it really entertaining. This week they were playing for about 2 hours with them and helped build castles, played follow the leader, hide and seek, and tag. It was very fun and I'm excited the older girls that were there had fun even though their age difference was so much. The days I drive Chris to school and then go to the park, we spend a lot of time there waiting until we can go pick up daddy. There are other days that we try to only stay for a little since Claire rides her bike and if she spends a lot of energy there she won't make it the whole way home without getting tired. Altogether we have a great life here and there are many parks we have visited after being here for 10 months.

Date Day

I put this section at the end because not everyone will make it all the way down here and I wanted to put this memory and glimpse into our lives in. We don't get to go out on dates much because of COVID-19 restrictions, being on a tight budget from Chris being back in school, and not knowing too many people in this area to watch the girls. Now recently we have had many offers to watch them and have been meaning to get out but we finally got the right motivation and and incentive. A Mother's Day gift card and a plea from our new adopted grandma to spend time with our girls made this date happen. We went out during lunch to avoid large crowds to a very yummy Korean BBQ place I've heard great things about since moving here. Luckily we know how to make every night special between us and even though we don't go out on a 'date' very often, we are constantly dating each other.

 

Starting May

 Claire

She continues to teach Shay things I don't what them to do like climbing up the counters to get to what is on top, so now I have two monkeys! The new game they love is getting tails (a ribbon pinned to their pants) and wearing their sunglasses as ears and being cats. They like me to make them a cat castle with the couch cushions and they both get a side that has a blanket door, then they bring their pillows and blankets from their room and play or watch a show. Our mornings are so lazy these days and Claire is like her daddy and sleeps in while Shay comes out on her own. It is funny to hear how cute Claire is just because she has these sayings like "I can't do it, I'm so small" when she wants an apple that high up on the counter.

Shay 

As well as copying Claire doing all the funny stuff she has her own idea and starts the adventures when we go to the park. Often she will see something and go running in excitement so they can play on it like a tire swing or a wall mural.  I wanted to get a picture of them when they were in their cute poke-a-dot dresses so Claire hugged her sister which was so sweet. They like to play dress up now because I found some more dresses they can now fit in (even though they are a little big), and Claire will say "hug princess" and they hug. It is fun to hear them play together and Claire understand what Shay is wanting now that she communicates better. Her pointing and insisting noises are pretty great at communicating what she wants something she can't get herself and she looks very cute at the same time. 

Everything Else

Chris is still doing well in his classes and we are half way done with this quarter already! I was able to finally find an appointment to start my vaccination so I'm excited to get back to normal life once 'herd immunity' is done. I got really tired and felt my body feel a little warm but sleep great with no chills like Chris did so I'm grateful for just a sore arm. I was able to go to the store for our groceries and go to the park before I got really tired and took a nap to restore enough energy to cook bread and pizza. Chris was very supportive and babied me a little letting me nap and relax, but then was jealous when I slept really well while he remembered his shots.