Hodgepodge

Let's go all the way back to Halloween to start with. We took both of the girls to Disney on Ice "Mickey & Minnie's Magical Adventure". It was Hannah's birthday gift from my mom and we all went on Halloween day...which I discovered was a great day to go to Disney on Ice b/c there were not very many people there. Samantha started the show in my lap but by intermission she was sharing a seat with Hannah b/c they were sharing a gigantic box of popcorn (for $7!!!) and then after that they wanted to stay in the same seat together...so cute! Hannah told Samantha before the show started again that if she gets scared she can hug her and that Hannah would hug her if she got scared. Well at one point during the second half I look over and they are both hugging each other!! I tell you it was the cutest thing ever and if it weren't so dark at that moment I would have LOVED to have taken a picture of it, but I couldn't. But I do have a cute picture of them sharing their popcorn in the same seat.



Here we are all getting ready to see the show:



When we got back we were just in time to go out trick or treating. Here is the neighborhood "gang" getting ready to all go out.



Trick or Treating was so much fun and Samantha did an AWESOME job...it was as if though she had been trick or treating all her life! She would climb up each step and push her way past all the older kids to get her candy and then say "gank goo (thank you)" and then sit down and slide down the step and off to the next house she would go. Here are a few pictures:





Here she is climbing up that difficult step that everyone seems to have at the houses in our neighborhood:



And here are our fabulous pumpkins:






The "loot" the girls raked in that night. A few nights later the "Halloween Fairy" came and traded the rest of their candy for some toys.



Samantha enjoying one of her candies and of course you have to wear sunglasses on your head when you eat it:



This last weekend we went to Apple Hill and had some beautiful weather. The girls of course rode the horses. They were not next to each other but rather across from each other while riding the horses and Samantha discovered this about 1/2 way through. She was so excited to see Hannah riding the horse too and would point and smile at her. Hannah did the same thing back and it was just too cute to see the girls all excited to see each other.





We tried to go visit Boeger after at his winery but apparently he doesn't work on the weekends anymore. The winery is really beautiful this time of the year but we were definitely getting a lot of looks from people who were there to taste wine in peace and here we come with two kids. I wanted to say, "Really I am not here to wine taste with two kids, just coming to see if the owner is here". So I took the girls outside while Adam stayed in the wine tasting room to ask if Justin was there. Outside I was even more uncomfortable as people were having peaceful picnics out there and here come my running and screaming girls. Luckily we found some large leaves and I managed to get them to sit down while we waited for Adam to come back out.



We had a beautiful sunset for our ride home that we could not quite capture from inside of our car on the freeway...but we tried!





Just recently, Samantha has really enjoyed playing dress up with Hannah. Normally Samantha does not like Hannah to do anything for her but she freely lets Hannah dress her up and they even play quietly like this together with no screaming or yelling at each other...it is so nice. Here are my princesses:



A plastic fire hat is such a great accessory:



And of course you need sunglasses:



This is random but I came out to my car the other day after work and it was covered in plastic along with all the other cars around me. I couldn't figure out if it was a fraternity prank or what it was about. It was really annoying though b/c it was a massive plastic sheet that was knotted underneath my car. It took a lot of work to get off. After that I couldn't just leave the massive plastic sheet there so I had to stuff it in the back of my car. Right after that I discovered that the fraternity was having their roof redone and that is why the plastic was there and I could have just thrown it in their yard...darn it! I never drive but on the one day I do this is what happens! Ugh!



Last but not least Samantha has her first dentist appt this week. Hannah set a GREAT example by going first and being so very cooperative while the dentist looked at her teeth, cleaned them, flossed them and put fluoride on them. Samantha seemed to be in complete awe as she watched Hannah get her teeth clean.



Next it was Samantha's turn and I thought it was going to be a nightmare b/c after all she is my wild child. But it turned out great. She was a real ham on the chair and enjoyed opening her mouth and showing everyone her teeth. Hannah was a great big sister and stood right next to Samantha the whole time she got her teeth cleaned and helped instruct her what to do next.

Happy 5th Birthday Hannah! (Posted Late)

So I am the worst mother b/c I never posted a "Happy 5th Birthday" to Hannah on her actual birthday last week on 10/20 (and to my brother on the exact same day). I know I have said it before but I am really going to try and be better about posting more frequent updates here rather than just on FB. Adam gets mad that FB takes away from me posting updates here.

I don't have the pictures of her actual b-day uploaded yet so pictures of that are to come soon but she celebrated her birthday circle at school the day before her birthday because on her actual birthday they were doing this whole Fall Festival celebration and I thought it would be too much for the teachers to do the birthday celebration, costumes, pumpkin patch, animal petting zoo, face painting and all the other stuff that comes along with the Fall Festival on one day. The night before Hannah and I made cupcakes in ice cream cones...so much fun and much easier then I thought it would be.



Each year for birthday circles the parents, or I should say moms make a birthday poster with pictures from each year of your child's life so the teachers can talk about it. For this year I decided the theme would be what Hannah was for each of of the past Halloweens. It was so much fun to reminisce.



Samantha excited to be sitting with her big sister on the wall before coming into circle and at circle time with all the big kids.







Hannah's birthday circle set up and Hannah going around the "year" for each year of her life.





Samantha and Hannah enjoying their cupcakes.





And finally here is a picture of the girls in their doggie costumes. At first Samantha wanted nothing to do with hers but once Hannah got her costume all Samanatha wants to do it wear hers around the house. I have had to hide it just so we can get a break from it! :)



I just thought I would post this one too b/c it was funny to me that while I was trying to get a picture of the dog costumes, Tulip in her real life dog "costume" walked by as if to say "hey get a picture of me too!".

Mommy & Hannah Day

I took Monday off and Hannah and I had a special day together. Hannah has been asking for a day with just her and I and so I thought it was a great idea. We started off the day by going mini golfing at Scandia in Fairfield.



Hannah was not too thrilled with mini golf but I got a hole in one on the 18th hole and won myself a free game! That was exciting. After that since it was pretty hot outside we went inside to play some games. Hannah really wanted to have a try at the "claw" thing where you NEVER win. It is that game where you manuever the claw usually above a stuff animal or toy and then it drops and you hope and pray it is going to pick the toy up and drop it to you but it doesn't. Well they had a machine full of these balls and Hannah wanted to try and get a ball. So I thought we will just try. One our very first try we got one! I was shocked! Well of course Hannah wanted to try again and get a ball for her sister...but I was thinking this would never happen again and on our 2nd try it didn't. Then we tried again and got another ball! Craziness!! Hannah and I were jumping up and down with so much excitement. Well now we had a purple and pink ball but Hannah really wanted a blue ball...but I didn't see any positioned really well to be picked up so we decided to go try some Skee-Ball. Hannah discovered that the tickets that come from this game can be traded in for prizes and that was really exciting. I attempted to teach Hannah how to play Skee-Ball but she didn't really have the technique for it yet. We then tried this jump roping gaming but that was a fail also...but we got more tickets just for playing so that was a big bonus. It was at this point that we made our way back to "the claw" to attempt to get a blue colored ball for Hannah. We tried 2 times with no luck and I was going to give up but Hannah really wanted to try again so we tried one more time. This time as the claw dropped down it picked up 3 balls! I couldn't believe it!! I really didn't think it would make it with all 3 balls over to the drop spot but it did and we got all 3 including a blue colored ball!!! Hannah and I were super excited and jumping up and down with so much excitement...it was awesome!! I would have gotten a picture of this but my camera battery was really low which really made me mad that I didn't thing to charge it before going on my adventure with Hannah. Anyway, we now had 5 balls one for everyone in our family, including Tulip. I then played some more Skee-Ball to use up our tokens and earn more tickets so that we could trade them in for a cheesy prize which ended up being a fan for Hannah and 2 hershey kisses.

Next it was time for lunch so we went to McDonalds, or old McDonalds as Hannah calls it. Hannah had a kids meal and it came with a blue Strawberry Shortcake doll which made Hannah super excited again because she loves the color blue right now. Here she is eating her lunch while sitting on the cheeseburger guy.



Next it was off to go play in the indoor play structure which Hannah has been asking to do for some time...we never go to McDonalds. Here she found another 4 year old girl and they played for a good 45 minutes. I had to pull her away from McDonalds so we could go to our last destination..the Jelly Belly Factory! Here we went on a tour of the factory. This isn't a great picture but it shows you how super excited Hannah is to be at the Jelly Belly Factory.



We couldn't take pictures on the tour of the factory itself but we got a great professional picture taken of us on the way into the tour. I have it on Facebook but I haven't scanned it into my computer yet, but as soon as I do I will post it. It wasn't cheap but I had to buy it b/c Hannah is actually looking at the camera and smiling nicely which rarely happens these days.

After some shopping at the Jelly Belly store next we went to the Halloween store to look for some Halloween costumes...still don't have one. And then next we went to Michaels Craft store to shop for some birthday party items. As we were driving home in the car I said to Hannah, "Did you like our Mommy & Hannah day?". She tells me, "Yes, but we didn't do enough." What?!! I couldn't believe it b/c we had done so much! I recapped with her all we had done and she then agreed that we had done a lot and said she wanted to do another Mommy & Hannah day....awww. There will definitely be another one b/c we had a great time.

On the way home she fell asleep and when we got home I really dreaded waking her up b/c Hannah is usually SUPER cranky when you wake her up when she has fallen asleep in the car. I brought Adam & Samantha out to help me and as we wake Hannah up she wakes up with a smile and the first thing she says to Adam is, "Daddy we got 3 balls at once from the claw!". Hilarious.

By the way I posted two posts today...below is my recap of our weekend.

Busy Weekend

This past weekend we were super busy. The girls had gymnastics as usual on Saturday morning and then we headed to Elk Grove to Adam's Dad's house to celebrate Adam's sisters 40th birthday and her son (our nephew and Hannah & Samantha's cousin) 8th birthday. We had a ton of fun playing in the pool and Adam's sister had just picked up a brand new puppy, an 8 week old white German Shepard....so cute! We got a half way decent shot of all 5 cousins, which is VERY rare to have them all together. Its sad but they just don't get together enough and they all just love each other so much.



On Sunday Adam had a Masonic event in SF and my brother was visiting from Alaska so the girls and I headed down to Marin to visit him. We first made a brief stop to visit Nali which is always fun for the girls. Then with my family we went to Chronkite Beach. It was super hot in Marin but of course out at the beach it was pretty chilly as you can see from how we are bundled up. Hannah and I enjoyed looking for sea glass and running in and out of the waves. Samantha was cool off the waves so she sat and played in the sand with my mom. Here is a picture of Samantha helping bury Hannah's legs.



At one point I was feeding Samantha some yogurt and my brother was down in the waves playing with Hannah. Well a massive wave came in and he yells to Hannah "Run! Run!", and then goes running off...do you think he bothered to pick Hannah up and help her run away from the wave...nooooo! I was yelling at him and poor Hannah had a look of horror on her face as the wave came in and she fell in the water a little more than she wanted to. Seriously, don't know what is wrong with that boy sometime...that was the end of him "supervising" Hannah by the ocean.

Towards the end of our time at the beach Hannah and Samantha snuggled in between my brother and Dad and enjoyed just looking out at the ocean.



Most of last week and this week city workers have been resurfacing our street and this has been GREAT entertainment for the girls...especially Samantha who just LOVES trucks. I came home one night and Adam had little chairs set up in the door way and the girls were sitting there watching the worker trucks go by. It was so much fun for them they ended up eating dinner there too.

Over 100 and no power - awesome

Yesterday summer finally decided to show up here in the valley and it was over 100 degrees in Davis. As we come home we are looking forward to cooling off in our air conditioned house and relaxing and watching some t.v. when at 7:30pm the lights & air conditioning go out. I run outside to make sure we are not the only ones and quickly learn that it is just our street b/c our neighbors behind us have their lights on...darn! So I finish putting Hannah to sleep who feels it is necessary to have her flashlight even though it is time to go to sleep and then I attempt to go fold laundry by flashlight. I find this is ridiculous and it is getting quite warm inside even with the windows open. Adam is already outside talking to a neighbor and so I head out there to join him. Then a few other neighbors join us and we end up bringing beer and wine and cookies outside to the sidewalk and end up talking in front of our houses until close to 10pm.

The night ended up turning out to be not too bad...it was actually fun, although it was hot and mosquitoes were eating us alive. All the kids also stayed asleep through it all (we all took turns going in to check on the kids to make sure they were not screaming in the house as we were outside on the sidewalk). The power finally came back on at 10:15pm and the kids slept through it all. Today is suppose to be even hotter so I hope PG&E has everything under control b/c while I loved the social hour I would really like my air conditioning tonight. :)

Hannah completes the California Kids Triathlon!

Yesterday Hannah competed in the California Kids Triathlon in Woodland. She competed in the 6 and under division and I competed with her b/c it was the parent/child division. Since this was her first triathlon (and mine too) and she cannot swim completely on her own yet we sign up for the p/c division. This is the first year they had the p/c division and Hannah's friend at school Kate and her mom, Heather competed too...which is how we found out about this triathlon. I was a little worried about Hannah being able to complete a 25 yard swim (1 lap), a 1 mile bike, and a 1/4 mile run but she did FANTASTIC!! I was more than proud of her. Here are some pics of us competing in this triathlon...which by the way the main goal of it was to finish not to "place" and everyone who finished got a medal so I really like that about it.

All our stuff set up in the transition area...I was originally going to bike with Hannah but of course my bike had a flat on Sunday morning so I ended up running next to her as she biked...which was the better choice anyway b/c I was able to help her maneuver on/off curbs...etc.



Hannah and I before we are about to start with our numbers written on us...for you bus nerds out there notice my cool bus # 1014. :)



Hannah and I in the pool waiting for our count down to begin and me pointing and showing her where we are going...


And we are off!! Check out that good kicking action going on by Hannah...


And we are still going...there are about 10 pictures of Hannah and I like this (but I won't put them all in)...still going and going SLOWLY in the pool...Hannah was just leisurely kicking her way down the pool...hilarious.


Still going...notice there is no one else left in the pool anymore. :) I love Hannah's non-competitive nature...I on the other hand am super competitive, but I was good and just encouraging her along but not with too much pressure.


Finally out of the pool and running to our bike transition area:


Getting Hannah dressed for the bike ride:


Helmet, glasses, check!


Mommy's turn to get ready for her run...Hannah waiting patiently on her bike:


Almost ready to go! Again...Adam took a lot of pictures of me getting ready while Hannah just sat on her bike and waited...too funny. It is really hard to get your socks on when your feet are still slightly wet!


And we are off on our 1 mile bike/run!


Here we are coming back in to transition to our 1/4 mile run. Along the bike route there were people on the sides cheering and Hannah asked "Why are they cheering for us?". Too cute. In this picture she is really going for it and giving it her all on her bike. Again I am so proud of her:


Here we are on our way to go running. Hannah really wanted to hold my hand...it was so cute. I told her she should use her arms to power her run but she wanted to hold my hand...how could I resist. :)


Coming back in from our run. Notice we are still holding hands. At one point on our run Hannah had to stop b/c her legs hurt. We walked and got some water and I told her when we came around this curve we were going to run again and she did...what a trooper!


And crossing the finish line! They even announced our names...it was very cool. We finished in 24 minutes and 1 second. :)


High Five! We did it!


Posing for a picture with our cool medals.


Hannah's friend Kate who also competed was cheering us on as we came in since they were in the group ahead of ahead of us. Here she is with her friend after they both finished. So cute.


Again I am so proud of Hannah for finishing and enjoying herself. She is excited for the next triathlon and really wants the whole family to compete in one. I told her it will be a few years before Samantha can but we will as soon as Samantha is old enough. And of course Hannah will compete again, but this time it will be Adam's turn to compete with her.