Sunday, October 7, 2018

September 2018

We had a great time camping at Doheny State Beach, as we always do. We had a great group of friends, yummy food (& s'mores), bikes (which Landon barely spent time away from), sand toys, snuggle time in the tent (when Daniel went to bed one night, Brooklyn didn't even open her eyes and just scootched right over to cuddle with her daddy), boogie board surfing down the sand hill, little waves and a chilly ocean.

 




 

 




 


 








Guess who started Tiny Princess Ballet classes this month? Brooklyn loves doing the side shuffle while facing her and Zoe's tummies together and holding hands, "unicorn walks" with her fingers, "Cinderella walks" on her toes and "mermaid stretches" laying on the ground the best...and wearing tutus and "ballerina hair" (bun). 
 

 

 









This boy loves building and creating things! Legos have taken up most of our time this month. We take them very seriously!
 

 



Bike riding (and scooters and skateboards) is the second favorite these days!

 

 

So much so that we've had several dinners in the front yard between rounds of riding. Labor Day we rode bikes in the neighborhood and ate hot dogs & cupcakes with the cousins, Uncle Peter & Auntie Amber. Brooklyn LOVES going as fast as she can on her balance bike...

...and she has caught on to riding a pedal bike! We're still working on starting and stopping, but she can balance and pedal all on her own!!!







Happy birthday, Daddy!




He loved his birthday cards from the kids!
 

We had a fun adult night out in Temecula (drinks at Luke's, dinner at Devilicious, a missed reservation at the speak easy, Pub House after and Daniel and me to Lucky Stone) to celebrate Daniel!





Grammie and Papa babysat. They're the best! They even came to Brooklyn's preschool because she wanted to show them the toys there. Grammie came with me to pick Landon up from school so Landon could show her his classroom. She played babies with Brooklyn, balloon volleyball with Landon and Legos with both.
 



Brooklyn has caught on to Landon's love of making cards for people. Now she makes her own, which are tiny pieces of paper she has cut (occasionally with colors drawn on them) in an envelope with stickers.

We watched a whole bunch of home videos, mostly of when Brooklyn was a baby and Landon was 2.5-3.5 years old. They were SOOOO cute! It was only 2 or 3 years ago, but it seemed like so long ago (and we forgot about so many of the cute things they did!).

Most days when Landon's at school Brooklyn and I play her favorite game, princesses and snakes (with the snake castle from Uncle Matt Matt). A few days we've recently gone to the library.

Landon joined Daniel for part of his workout.

Landon enjoys doing homework when he doesn't have to. But ask him to do an assignment, and it's like pulling teeth! His first school project was to make a book box. We clearly haven't started working on the "less is more" concept.
 

Brooklyn loves school too! It's such a cute preschool too. They've had a firefighter some to the class (although she refused to try on the helmet or boots). And she still loves her Baron's salads! We had a lunch date one afternoon while listening to an accordion playing. Landon later asked her if she had any "kid beans" ('kidney beans') in her salad.

We had a play date with Briella and Keela where the kids hatched (hammered) dinosaur eggs (dino toy inside ice inside a balloon). It was fun to hit the ice really hard and get big chunks off!
 


Landon hid in the back seat of my car when I picked up the girls. They didn't notice he was there until we got to frozen yogurt, got out of the car, ran to the door and Landon snuck up to the door behind me. They loved the BRIGHT blue Cookie Monster froyo! Later we did a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood while on an evening walk, which the kids LOVED!

Daniel and I had a long weekend away in SLO and Santa Barbara. It was an amazing trip! We started out with a hike up Bishop's Peak with some random horses. One of the horses came right up to us and wanted to be pet.





We went to Firestone, Sycamore Mineral Hot Springs and Farmers' Market.

We spent time at Pismo Beach and The Cliffs happy hour.
 

Unfortunately, the Pismo Pier is still under construction, but we walked on the pier in Santa Barbara, right down the street from our hotel. There, we found a pelican and a sea lion!
 


 

We rode bikes (a looooong way!) to a restaurant on the beach (and spent some time on the beach there as well).
 


Our big night out was to dinner and the Jason Mraz concert at Santa Barbara Bowl. We had great seats (my birthday present from Daniel), and had a fantastic time! 
 


 

 



 

We didn't worry about the kids, as we knew they were in great hands with Grammie & Papa, Auntie Gail & Uncle Fred and Peter & Amber. They may have had even more fun than us (swimming, puzzling, building Legos, going to Luv to Play, eating at the teppan grill, going to mini golf, playing in a soccer game, having a sleepover with their cousins and watching a movie)! (As an added bonus to MY weekend, in her spare time, Grammie cleaned my house!)

 



Brooklyn and Daniel planned a daddy-daughter date, and when I asked where she was going to go with him she informed me that, "We are going to a different state to a winery to pick the grapes off and put them in black buckets." They ended up going to Farmer's Market and bringing me flowers, met us at Landon's soccer game, watched cars and played games at the car wash, stopped by Daddy's work for some candy & art, met Landon and me for lunch and played on the playground at Wilson Creek Winery. She dressed herself in Daddy's favorite outfit of hers (her Giant's jersey). It's too bad those Giants didn't make the playoffs like the Dodgers did.
 

 

Meanwhile, Landon and I went to the movie theater to see "Christopher Robbin" and played together at Veteran's park.

 

Landon and Jacob participated in Crazy Hair Day at school. They both had yellow color in their spiky hair with glitter, though it's not easy to tell in this picture.
 

We had a bit of construction in our yard. They took out the grass, trees and bushes on the side yard, built a retaining wall near the fence and cemented the rest. We're all excited to have use of that area for basketball (Landon and Daniel have been playing a bit of "HORSE" lately, riding and games (and as an outside toy storage area so the rest of the backyard looks nicer)!  
BEFORE:
 

DURING:
 

 

AFTER:
 

Landon loved watching the guys work (and the cement truck too!) and has decided that instead of being an astronaut (since he now knows they have to wear diapers) he wants to do some sort of construction or gardening when he grows up. When the guys were partially done with the retaining wall Landon an I went outside to check it out, and he said, "It looks so good I can't even stop looking at it!"


And we finally got a new BBQ!

I began volunteering in Landon's classroom once a week. It's fun for me, and, even better, Landon loves it! After introducing me to his class, while the teacher was talking about parent volunteers, he reached his little hand up to mine, held it and scratched the inside of my palm (our super secret way to tell each other we love the other without anyone else knowing we're doing so). On the way home he told me that I did a great job and asked if I could go everyday, and at dinner he toasted to me being in his classroom. If only he knew how happy he made me!

I love the relationship these two have! They have so much fun together...and they think the other is soooo funny!

Brooklyn's preschool class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch for class pictures.


Amber took Brooklyn and Zoe while I dropped Landon at school, and, of course, Brooklyn was having fun but refused to smile for the camera.
 

The photographer tried to get her to smile by asking, "Who's your favorite princess?" Brooklyn replied, without breaking her straight face, "I don't LIKE princesses." Luckily Zoe was there to make silly faces at her, which worked like a charm!

 


Once I got there, we checked out pumpkins, raced around the hay circle and had a picnic snack.
 

After that, Brooklyn and I went to the Temecula Duck Pond to check out the ducks, turtles and this big bird.

We had a breadstick picnic and ran/twirled around on the grass. Later she asked for "almond eggs." It took me a few minutes to figure out she wanted an omelette ('omelette eggs'). 

 

Landon is really having a great time playing soccer this season. He is more aggressive and goes for the ball. It's much more fun to watch! He has even scored 2 goals (one was a kick-off that the other team totally missed) but was more proud of his pullback move that he did (they practiced it during practice and the coach told them to do it during the game, and he was excited to be the first one to do it)! He even loves practice - he has a great coach that does fun drills & games and really fun friends on the team (that they get to play with on the playground before practices)!
 




I can't get enough of Landon's notes, cards or anything he writes on his own. The transitional spelling is so cute and reminds me of when the kids were just learning to speak.
Nobody can come in here (the kitchen) unless you are hungry.

4 turtles (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Yummy froyo break!

I spent a day making pierogis for the family. I was excited that it took less time than usual with my new pierogi press...until Daniel calculated that it took over 4 minutes per pierogi to make. In any case, it's a yummy tradition. We started a new tradition that day as well. We had our first family meeting, and the kids got their first allowances ($1 per year of life). (They were more excited about the snack and activity at the end of the meeting than the allowance!)

Landon has started enjoying making breakfast for himself and Brooklyn occasionally. When he does, he wants to do it without any help at all...and it always includes a peanut butter and honey sandwich (his favorite thing to eat...for any and, possibly, every meal). It's really fun to see how determined and proud he is!

The kids love playing hide and seek before bed. This particular night they couldn't find Daniel and, for some reason, thought he was hiding in their bathroom. Both were too scared to go in, then when they heard him in our bedroom they were even more scared. It's like they were in a haunted house!

We love going back into their bedrooms before we head to sleep to kiss them goodnight and see what positions they're in. Landon is usually sprawled out on an edge, and Brooklyn is usually snuggled up under her comforter against the wall.

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