EasterFest2013

Easter is so FUN! Here we are dying eggs Friday afternoon. I had a lot of extra energy that day, and it's a good thing. I boiled 10 eggs and none of them broke, until Eliza dropped one. But that beats our record.

Eliza, clearly, has a future in modeling.

You cannot beat that smile.

Anna did a great job decorating her eggs.

Saturday morning I hid eggs in the yard for the girls.

And Calvin played cheerleader while they searched

Happy Easter! Always Be Awesome!

Calvin: 7 months

These pictures are about 3 weeks old, but this was Calvin at 7 months. 

 He liked getting up on his toes while learning to crawl. He is now crawling with good form 3 weeks later.

 Eliza loves to play with Calvin and they spend time in his crib once in a while. These are classics.

How it's done

How 5 year olds peel oranges:

How a 2 year old peels an orange:

March Madness inspired Fitness Game

For every:

• 2 point basket - do 5 squats  

• 3 point basket - do 10 pushups 

•  Foul shots - jog until they have been shot 

•  Turnover - do 10 lunges 

•  Time-out - do 15 shoulder presses

Other exercises you could swap in may include:
Bicep curls
Rows
Reverse lunges
kickups
leg raises
sit ups
crunches
etc...

 

Calvin and Eliza

Eliza and Calvin are thick as thieves these days. Anna accused her of "hogging" the baby, but the truth is, Anna has never showed too much interest. Eliza likes to kiss or hug or squeeze his cheeks all day. I assume these two will always be close because they are so close in age and I look forward to watching them play together. Poor Anna wishes Eliza was older, or at least more communicative but they are getting pretty good at playing together too.

Zoobee zoobee zoo

We went to the Zoo! The weather was comparably beautiful (50) so we packed a lunch and went on up. There were plenty of people there but it wasn't crowded, which was wonderful while we checked out the new section with bears and etc. half of the zoo is under construction for the new African savannah habitat which is going to be awesome, opening 2014. Fortunately it is the boring half, no train rides or playground though we could see all the animals.

Anna's Birthday!

Anna turned the big 5 years old this week and she got a big party at Kangaroo Zoo and I didn't take a single picture and I forgot candles to put into the cupcakes! She had lots of friends come and play with her.

She is 5 now and big and bossy as a 5 year old is want to be.

"AHH you guys! i'm 6 months old!"

the caption for these can be the same "AHHH! GUYS! I'm 6 months old! can you believe it!"

Please vote for your favorite, enter a number 1-4.

mine are 1 & 3

Recipes that Don't Work: Apprenticeship

Anna has gotten into the cooking/baking scene and, like her mother, tends to do things her own way. She has asked a few times to make her own recipes these videos reveal her secret recipes.

This one just came out of the oven and it smells reasonable. If it didn't have undisclosed amounts of salt and pepper, I might try it. I still might.

New Family Pictures

Since Princess Kate went ahead and revealed her official portrait last week, I thought it only fair that we do the same. We desperately needed them and my talented sister in law Robyn was, I'm sure, chomping at the bit to shoot them for us. I had a great idea that we take them at a sushi restaurant, it more accurately reflects our personality as a family I think.
There were a lot of favorites, here is a sample.

Kudos to Robyn for figuring out how to do this while crammed into a booth with low lighting, and also for eating sushi, she was very brave. If you would like to see more of her work go here.

Opposition Therapy

On of our great troubles with Anna is that she's always "bored". No matter how many times we tell her that is not our problem she continues to expect us to fill all her waking hours with our attention. As I was lamenting about this in my journal a few nights ago I received a bit of inspiration: "opposition in all things". Anna can't be contented with playing all the time because that's all she ever does! Other than preschool 3 mornings a week, her life has no structure. So I decided to get strict about her chores again. Before she can watch shows or play with friends she has to do a few very simple chores. The best part about this is that when she complains that she "hates doing chores" I can smile and assure her that it will make playing more fun. And the more she hates something the more she will love playing when it's over. It's revolutionizing my attitude which makes it easier to enforce.

Additionally there was a quote in Downton Abby this week that I have since typed up, printed and hung up in the kitchen: (it's best if you imagine Maggie Smith saying it) "Anna dear, you are a girl with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do!"

Breaking it in

Here is a late Christmas present for Calvin. I finished it late last night and after all that work was having serious doubts about letting a known spit upper use it, but I made it for him and I can tell he likes the bright colors. At least I can cross it off my projects list.

My degree in Eliza Communications

So here's a good example of Eliza communicating. The girls were eating breakfast as I took Calvin into my room to give him breakfast and read a little of my book. Then Eliza came in wanting to play. I asked her if she finished her breakfast, of course she had not. So I asked her to go back in and finish - this is where it gets tricky. She made her slurp for drink sound and pointed at the ground. I wasn't really paying attention to her and what she said didn't make sense, so she repeated it again, "slurp, point to ground" then again "slurp, ground" and again until I started guessing. "your drink is on the floor?" no. "you want your drink on the floor?" no. "you spilled your drink" uh huuhhh she answered as if that fact was obvious 5 minutes ago. Awesome. So not only did I decipher her language, but I got to clean milk up off the floor.

5 months and some sillies

 Calvin is 5 months old now and still a charmer. I don't know what else to say about him, we love him to death.

Here is Eliza's cheesy smile face. She asked me again and again to take her picture, so I have about 20 pictures of her like this. They make me laugh every time. She's hilarious.

Anna may be the most photogenic child ever. Mostly I love the photobomb that Calvin is doing in the background.

 Here's another picture of silly Eliza. She's a ham.

New

So this is the new thing at our house. We spent New Years anticipating and setting up a 10 gallon aquarium on the kitchen counter. And when I say "we" I do not include myself. It was mostly Ben and Anna. This was not my idea, in fact in pretty sure we agreed never to get pets when we got married. Nevertheless, there they are. Anna bought two basic goldfish with her own money and named them Phineas and Isabella. Ben got one big calico named Buford and a small fan-tail goldfish for Eliza named "Nemo" (of course). They have been all the rage for the last two days. Frankly I'm surprised they are still alive.


Update: Isabella was found dead the next morning and Phineas followed her that evening. They were replaced by bigger, stronger fish. A black one named Nightmare Moon and a big Goldfish named Rarity.

Rebirth

Check out what Husben got me for Christmas!

He also included some large iron-on numbers, so the question I put to you is, what number should I put on the back? The original was #2, so consider that.

Manicures

The girls allowed me to cut their nails this morning after I promised to paint them. Eventually it came to me, and the girls painted my nails. They each did one hand. Anna did pretty good, Eliza... I don't think she skipped any colors.

Record Keeping

(This is not supposed to be of interest to the general public, this is more of a record keeping entry.)

We sat down tonight with the girls and tried to list all the words in Eliza's profoundly limited vocabulary. She's over 2 years old now and we struggled and split hairs and were able to only list around 50 words/animal sounds. (Luckily she supplements with lots of grunting and pointing.) And here they are:

Mommy

Mom

Mama = grandma

Bampa = grandpa

Dada

Nana = Anna

Baby

Yeah

Hi

No

Hehe = horse

Hahhah = monkey

Meow = cat

Duck

Woof

Ball

Pop = popsicle or lollypop

Ffffff (exhale) = Iron Man or any Avenger

Thffff (inhale) = drink

Blue

Yellow

Bubble

Purple

Boo

Me

Ain = again

Nemo 

Home

Yum

Yummy

Ta-da

Beep

Weee = anything fun, like slides, swings

Ick

Nope

Oh

Up

Dow = go

Bow = goodbye

Holp = help

Hello

Owie

Bee = any insect; also, all letters

Em = Aunt Emily

Bobo = Uncle Jethro

Hey

Moo

Uh-uh

Uh-huh

Ma = kiss

Mmhmm

Boop = boot

4 Months of Fun

Calvin is already 4 months old, he's a joyous perfect boy. He's great at sleeping, smiling, and spitting up all over everything. He is also starting to grab at things.

He loves sitting up and sucking on his fingers (As a child, I sucked my index finger rather than my thumb, that's why it's important). And his sisters love him.

Here is a sneak preview of what Calvin is getting for Christmas. I found a tutorial with pattern on instructables.com and finally got it done last week. He already loves his Hobbes.

 Eventually Anna got antsy during the photo shoot and wanted to take some pictures, here's just one of the many that she got.

Stats: 13.2 lbs. 8.4%
23.75 inches 4.06%