Party Like a 2 Year Old

Matea's much anticipated "Elmo Booday" finally arrived this Saturday and I think it lived up to her expectations. She got to play with her cousins, eat ice cream cake, and test out her new gifts. She got some bears from Great-Grandma that she immediately fell in love with, a pink bike from Grandpa and Grandma Cindy that Bella's breaking in for her, some pink Crocs from Devin that she insisted on putting on right after opening, a trampoline from Grandma, and lots of cute clothes and just a few toys (a mommy's dream!).

I can confirm that she's acting like a 2 year old now. Bella has scratches on her face to prove it! And, she threw a book at me in the library this morning right in front of one of the employees. I'm going out of town this weekend on a scrapbooking retreat and I'm feeling like Friday won't get here soon enough.

Good Friends, Good Weekend

I'm stuck in the recliner, waiting out a migraine so I figured it's as good a time as any to get around to updating the blog.

These pics are from a few weekends ago when our friends, The Olson's, visited. Bella and Avery are almost exactly a year apart and Matea and Riley are just over a year apart. All of the girls got along really well even though Matea wasn't quite sure what to make of Riley. Matea's never really been around a mobile baby and seemed pretty put off by Riley's obsession with her pacifier. I think she was excited about a baby coming and getting to play mommy but Riley wasn't interested in that. She was more interested in Steve. Seriously, this baby girl loved him! She kept planting kisses on him and gazing at him from across the room. Very sweet - except to her daddy who wasn't getting nearly as much attention.

Jaron, Jenni, Avery, and Riley live in San Jose so we only get to see them a few times a year. We all wish they lived closer - if only Jaron was willing to take a 75% pay cut to work in this area.

Bella's been talking about Avery since they left and wants us to plan a trip to their house NOW. On their last day here, we all went to Morro Bay and then they headed home from there. Bella didn't realize they weren't following us back home and cried for quite a while when she realized Avery wasn't in the care behind us:(

Happy Birthdy Matea!

It my booday now Mommyyyyyyyy?

I've heard this question at least 20 times this morning. And when I tell her it's not until Thursday (which of course, means nothing to her), she yells, "NO! It my booday!". I also keep hearing, "It mine Elmo booday pah-ty". I think the girl will have lots of fun this weekend.

Swim Lessons: Part Two

Today was Bella's last day of swim lessons. She had fun but after 10 days and $70, I sort of thought she would have learned something. I don't know that playing motorboat and holding an adult's hands while jumping in from the side of the pool is going to help her if she falls into a lake.

















































She did go off the diving board for the grand finale today. She insisted that an instructor be there with her and spent a lot of time negotiating with them about when they would drop her, when she had to let go, etc. She's like her mama, very cautious and careful, so I was just happy to see her try something new and scary.

Fourth Fun

We had a really fun holiday yesterday. Spent the day hanging out around the house and then crashed our friend's neighborhood block party. Bella spent hour after hour on the water slide and since Matea was too tiny to crawl up to the top, she occupied herself with eating treats.

Both girls did sparklers but Matea couldn't seem to grasp the concept of only holding on to the very bottom of the stick so she only did a few. Once the real fireworks started, she kept covering her eyes and saying, "I'm cared, I'm cared" (scared).

Swim Lessons

Swim lessons got off to a rough start. Lots of sitting on the steps doing nothing while the teacher repeatedly asked the kids, "What do you want to do now?". I'm not paying you $70 to ask her what she wants to do, I can do that at home for free. So after speaking with the 18 year old head honcho at the end of day two, we arrived to find a new and much improved teacher yesterday.

Bella's really enjoying class but has no problem letting the teachers know when she doesn't want to do something. Yesterday she actually gave her teacher the "talk to the hand" while saying "no, no, no, no". Luckily, after persistence from the teacher and an evil eye from mom, she always follows through with the task and ends up smiling.

I still think they're kind of babying the kids and am hoping they'll take a few steps back from the wall and just let them go soon but we'll see.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Wednesday was Steve's 31st birthday. I took the girls shopping at the Dollar Tree where Bella picked out a blue and green stretchy worm for Papa and Matea found a ping pong ball gun. Then they completed his gifts with pink butterfly and flower balloons, just what Papa likes. We set up a "celebration station" and jumped out and screamed "Happy Birthday!" and blew horns when he got home from work. We went out to dinner at Applebee's, came home and watched a movie and had delicious cake from Coldstone Creamery.