Week of Nana

At home

For Monday and Tuesday we had the girl's friend I watch over for the day so we were at home doing crafts, taking walks around the block and playing. We spent time playing games in the evening and catching up on all the things we do here in California since this is the first time she has visited us here. On Wednesday, we went to a big park with a lot of areas to play in and there were a lot of friends around too. Then we went on a craft finding mission to things for the girls to start making fun things and learning how to cut papers and glue. They used little puff balls and buttons and craft paper to make a rainbow on cardboard and we have extra material to use next time. We made a bead necklace for each girl that has the alphabet and rainbow colors out of my old beads and some from nana.

Thursday

In the morning we went to a children's museum for the girls to have fun exploring, learning, and playing with all the other kids who were there. We had reserved a 90 min spot so that's all we could stay for that long and the girls got to do everything there at least once and some of them more than once. They still didn't want to leave when time was up and Shay was sad to leave the kitty she had been carrying around there. I liked best when I matched them in their new outfits and hair so they were so cute when they would be away from each other or a little and then find each other again and hug. When we got home we relaxed for a bit and ate lunch then got ready for our beach trip! It was the first time going to this beach and it was a ways to walk until we got to the water but there wasn't anyone at our little beach and I made a castle and the girls helped decorate with shells they found in the water with daddy. 

 

Fairytale Town

This is one of the big things in Sacramento that people have told me kids will love so we went on Friday and spent the morning letting the girls explore. There were a lot of slides that the girls rode several times each, they liked riding in the tractor and trains, and playing pirate in the ship with a new friend Claire made all by herself. They fed the "big pretty fish" since nana had some quarter to buy it and got maps to help them find all the places around the park. Now that we are home they keep finding the maps and telling me they want to go back to the castle place so now I have to try to not disappoint them after such a fun filled week. I feel bad we won't be doing all these fun things anymore and just get to have their friend to watch and play with.

More Birthday

Birthday

This week we celebrate Chris joining me in the 30s and becoming 30 flirty and thriving just like me, haha. He said he doesn't feel any different than yesterday but I said the same thing and still have grey hairs growing. Joint pain and hair problems are just the beginning of our issues and we will only continue to grow old together. I am constantly grateful for him in my life and feel happy for how he has made me a better person through our years together. I'm working on ways to spoil him but he is really focused to studying for his big test coming up in 11 days so he mostly gets yummy food that I know he likes and alone time to do practice questions. 

Claire

As we have been practicing her writing skills she has developed a funny habit of not wanting me to watch her while she is tracing the letters. I can look when the page is done and be excited at how good she did but if she messes up she wants to fix it before I can see it. She also continues to create fun new ways to play with play dough instead of using the letter cut outs I bought for her. I don't mind because my house has turned into a mural of tape with letters, numbers, and shapes on the walls and floors like some children's museum. They enjoy finding the letters, playing number hopscotch, and learning new shapes like trapezoid and hexagon! We pretend not to remember the shapes and Claire will tell us "no that's a hexagon" like she's the math teacher.

Shay

For being a year and a half younger than Claire, she is already recognizing all the things that Claire knows and they play with the letters without us sometimes. She usually sings the easiest part of the Alphabet song then Claire will finish it for her because she doesn't know it all. Mostly, I'm excited that they like learning in these ways and keep trying to find more things for them to learn, like spelling words and trying to sound them out. She can do most of the shapes, and she is very fast with the things she does know so she usually finds the things we are asking for before Claire because she remembers where they are. She knows how to count but doesn't recognize what they all look like at random yet but she has confidence when she is finding the wrong one.

Nana

We get to have a visitor this week and her name is NANA! The girls and I went to the airport yesterday to pick her up and had a great first half day with her showing her all their fun things. We did puzzles, read books, made a yummy dinner, and went to bed early because she had been up so long. There are many plans to go places this next week that we are excited for like doing a children's museum and hopefully if the weather is nice and the air quality gets better we can go to a place called Fairytale Town and going to a beach. I'm excited to have her around we get to talk and cook together, we want to do a little sewing project and play games.

Claire's 4th Birthday

Birthday

Chris and I did some very special fun Pintresty things to make Claire's birthday extra fun that she loved and said thank you for over and over. I measured and mapped out a rainbow maze, moved the couch and rug, cleaned it, then Chris and I used colored tape to complete it in our living room when they were asleep. Chris had the awesome idea to spread out the alphabet letters through out the maze so they can find them and go through the maze and learn. For the morning we taped up some balloons to their door so when they woke up and opened the door they all fell in and surprised them. We were so excited to make her life magical since she has blessed us with such wonderful times being parents.

Preparations

The party planning was so fun for me because I was excited to make it a fun party for Claire and her friends. I mentioned the banner last week that has been up for a while, but I also worked on the rainbow cupcakes with food coloring in the batter and frosting. I bought and cut up fruits and snacks in the colors of the rainbow including strawberries, Nilla wafers, mango, green grapes and kiwi, blue fruit dip, and purple grapes and put them in matching bowls. Made a punch piñata box with treats and prizes inside each cup as the main game of the party, but also bought white gift bags to color as another activity that will hold their winnings and party favors. 

Party

Although I invited a lot of friends, only one was able to come and it was a small party. Shay was excited that he brought a mom friend to play with and Claire was excited he brought a car she could play with. They started with playing with the balloons and showing off their maze while the pizza was cooking, then we all enjoyed food and sang Claire happy birthday so we could eat the cupcakes. We colored the party bags and I brought out a bunch of stickers they could use to decorate their bags, then punched out the piñata cups to fill their bags. It was a little out of control but since there were only three kids they tried to all go at once and get all the prizes and candy. We opened presents next and then played with the presents! There were bubbles, puzzles, play dough, and a spelling game that entertained them for the rest of the time. When their friend went home, we looked at the other gifts and practiced writing in her new preschool practice book, dipped into the sidewalk chalk, and came back in because it was too hot outside and looked through her new hair clips instead.

Claire

She now says "I'm four" when asked instead of she will be four because we kept correcting her, and she gets so happy when someone tells her happy birthday. All week she kept asking when her friends were going to come over for her birthday and I would show her the calendar to explain what Saturday is and how many days were left. We had a lot of deliveries this week and every time she wanted to see inside and I had to hide it from her and tell her it had to wait until her party. When I was moving our couch around she came up with a puppet game and used some figures to put on a show for us that didn't have any premise but was adorable anyway! She posed for her picture to show off her new PJs like a bug I guess and wore her new dress to church today too.

Shay

She has had just as much fun with all this birthday fun as Claire except when she couldn't also open presents when Claire was. She gets to play with all the same presents, but not being able to unwrap them was painful for her especially when I was trying to get videos to send 'thank you's to the family that sent them. My sweet girl doesn't know how to not have attention on both of them together since all she knows is how much we love them both! One Sunday morning Claire and Shay took a bath to wet their hair after breakfast and we used Claire's new hair curlers to get some pretty waves. I love my sweet girls so much!

Visit

We had our first out of state visitors come stay the night on their way to see Redwood National Park and they brought their dog with them. The girls were so excited for a fury friend and sad that they only stayed one night, but Chris and I enjoyed the girls going to bed early because of their busy day. We were able to play a game and catch up with family we don't get to see that often! I had cleaned out my previously called sewing room to become the guest room, and now we are ready for my mom who is coming to visit next week, too! Such an exciting time August has been, and now we prepare for another visit and another birthday next week.

Starting Birthday Month

 Birthday

When normal families celebrate back to school during August, we celebrate birthdays all month! To start us off, I have my unexciting birthday of getting special treatment and extra yummy food. Turning 30 is one of those bigger milestones I should celebrate, but I've been having too much fun planning Claire's birthday party next week to try anything for myself. I enjoyed a mini at-home spa night with a bubble bath and doing my nails, made crepes as my birthday breakfast, and plan on finishing off my specialness with a steak dinner. Ever since I had my own place in college my birthday presents have always been more useful things instead of playful things. This year we got me a fancy kitchen thermometer, a new mouse for my computer, and resupplying my gum stash. I got some birthday money from family that I plan on using for something special too. I put a birthday banner I made for Claire's party up already to have a little decoration for mine and we will most likely keep it up until after Chris's birthday.

Claire

With the many packages we have been receiving in preparation for birthdays, Claire found a fun new game to play with the part she gets to have. She lines up the wrap and jumps on them to make a big popping, and when I caught her doing it she was lining it up with the sound on a show she was watching which was even more fun. She knows that mommy has a birthday and then she has a birthday, but she hasn't realized that daddy has his birthday soon too. I'm excited for the rainbow party theme because she also just showed me she remembers the order of the rainbow by making a chalk rainbow all by herself! She got into measuring after she saw me using the tape measure around the room prepping something special for her party that you guys will see next week! She measured the tall block tower she built, the table, the height giraffe, and anything that was in reach.

Shay

She is becoming more and more helpful and loves to work together when I'm trying to clean, do dishes, fold cloths, and literally anything. I love it but I also hate it for how unproductive I feel while I'm helping her help me work. She likes to play with the play dough with her sister and makes me roll her half into a ball over and over while she flattens it over and over. Recently they want me to make cats out of their play dough because daddy did it for them. She wants to start conversations with me and will strongly say "mommy" and when I say "yes Shay" she will mumble incoherently so I don't know what she actually wants. I think its cute because it happened three times in a 5 minute span on our way to church this morning. She loves playing with anything that has letters and we have been going through popsicles like they are water so I made some simple alphabet puzzles with the cleaned sticks. I do the puzzles but she likes figuring out what the letters are once its done.

Also, they were being really cute before church while daddy was betting ready and dancing so I started singing that they kept asking for more songs.

Wrapping Up July

 Claire

The new fun thing Claire has been obsessed with this week has been puzzles. We have a few puzzles we did 3 days in a row over and over again then I downloaded an app that she can do the 9 piece completely by herself. We have also worked really hard on starting to write and teaching her to use a pen correctly by writing her name. She can copy when I write the letters first but hasn't yet remembered the letters well enough to write them by herself. She also likes to copy when we draw things like trees, snowmen, fish, and all the other things in the book we practice in. I always tell myself I should have started teaching her earlier when I look at how much Shay already knows and Claire gets so distracted, she is much more hands on and likes to do instead of just sit and learn.

Shay

This week I made some potato soup and was cooking bacon when Shay came in and told me I was making the house stink, so she now knows strong smells. I just need to teach which ones are good and which are bad! She gets really excited when I come home from things and she wants hugs and kisses but usually she doesn't have a shirt on so I can't take a good picture. She still gets upset when we leave but I think she is getting better because she went to nursery just fine, she didn't want to leave when it was over even. I think she is going to be a music lover like me because she has been singing "Let It Go" and wanting to watch the movie so often this week. We have dance parties and she sings along to the chorus to any song Elsa sings in either song, she especially loves when she holds out notes so she can join in.

Daycare

We had a friend come hang out all day both Monday and Tuesday! The girls showed him their bikes and we need to get one for him because the scooter is too hard and going around the house together is fun. He showed them how to clear a plate and eat everything instead of leaving it half of it for mommy to serve next meal. The girls were a little possessive of some of their toys, but would share sometimes and started teaching how to say sorry by giving a hug and a kiss. Usually when Chris goes into class we end up going to the park because it gets us out of the house, gets him to school without paying for parking, and gives us a reason to actually leave the park in less than 3 hours. Since we had our friend over Chris figured out how to ride his bike and when he gets home his hair is very wind blown and it was too good to pass up a picture.

Crafts

I found some play dough I've had for way too long and decided since it says 2+ that my girls are finally ready to try it out. They loved it! We used tiny rolling pins and cookie cutters that I never use to roll it out and make shapes, Claire's favorite is the star and Shay just likes rolling her half into a ball. More specifically having me roll it into a ball so she can practice flattening it. I took an evening and put together some party invitations to Claire's birthday party and I've given at least one away at church so now it's official and I can't back out. I keep thinking she is probably good without one and would be just as happy with just presents and a treat but I know she loves friends. She is so social and deserves friends to play with her so even though I don't look forward to all the work it takes I am excited. The first big "work" was to pick a theme, it is rainbow because she said that was her favorite color and it is super easy to put rainbows everywhere and call that decorating!