Natural History Museum

We had a free ticket so last week we finally made it to the Natural History Museum.  It was pretty fun.  Hannah was a little young for most of the stuff, but it was still fun to show her all the animals they had on exhibit.  And it was kind of cool to see where 'Night at the Museum' was filmed.

Here they are in front of the tyrannosaurus that greets you when you first walk in.

Here we are sitting on a turtle:

Merry Christmas

Here's to remembering the true meaning of the season!

A Whole New World to Explore

We were at the park a couple of weeks ago (can I say...I love LA weather!!).  Here is Hannah's usual spot sitting on the swing.

This is Sofia's usual spot siting on the ground playing in the sand or standing at the steps leading up to the slides.

However, she recently discovered the steps actually lead somewhere and decided they were more fun than the sand.  Here she is climbing up the steps...

 until she got stuck on a really big one.  She worked really hard to get up it....

 ...and, after several attempts, she was successful

Here's Hannah monkeying around:

Sofia has discovered a whole new world....and my trips to the park just got a little more difficult!

2 1/2 Years

I can't believe she's 2 1/2.  Yikes!  She's definitely turning into a 'big girl'.

*She loves pink

* Her favorite thing is to ride her bike.  We do circles around our apartment complex and she has recently learned to actually pedal all the way around (as opposed to pushing the bike).

* 2 is her favorite number...2 pig tails, 2 graham crackers, 2 everything

* She loves to read and sing.  She opens up books on her lap and then begins singing.  Sometimes it's songs we've taught her, but often she makes up her own words.

* She is becoming more independent and wanting to do things without help - I still haven't decided if it's good or bad.

* She is a definite daddy's girl.  The other night we were up on her bed and I was putting her to sleep when James got home.  He came in the door and Hannah instantly said "You (pointing to me) down.  Daddy get up."  Needless to say, James finished putting her down for the night!

10 Months

I can't believe she's already 10 months old.  I don't know where the time has gone.  She is such a cheerful baby (except at night, of course).  She's growing so fast and learning new things all the time.  Here's what she's been up to:

-  The bathroom is her favorite room in the house.  She discovered the toilet paper and learned how to flush the toilet and likes to do so repeatedly (Hannah's already teaching her bad habits)!

- She Loves food and prefers to feed herself.  I have a love hate relationship.  I like having a free hand, but don't care for the mess.

- She recently discovered stairs for the first time at the park and loves to climb up them.

- She loves holding on to something (anything) and bouncing up and down.  I fear she might have my sense of rhythm (poor girl).

- Likes to be tickled.

- She loves the bear hugs Hannah gives her for about 2 seconds until she decides she doesn't like to be strangled/sat upon, suffocated, etc....

Recently her favorite activity includes standing up on the couch and then diving onto the pillows.  She gets a kick out of it and repeats it until she dives off of the couch.

Science Center

This Thanksgiving weekend has been pretty laid back and relaxed for us.  James has been able to spend time on campus getting schoolwork done.  In honor of him finishing up on Saturday we met him at school and walked across campus to the Science Center.  The Center itself is neat, but they have a Discovery Room (aka Toddler Heaven) on each floor.  Can I say AWESOME!!  Anyway, I've taken the girls a few times, but James has never been to the Discovery Rooms so we decided to have a picnic and play.  It was pretty fun, but I didn't get any decent pictures, just a few random ones.

 This is the water fountain in the center of the Rose Gardens.  The building is actually the Natural History Museum, not the Science Center.  The Science center is adjacent to it, but the sun was too bright to get a picture of it.

 Hannah's listening to James who is talking to her from the other end.

 Here they are reading "The Three Little Pigs" and acting it out.

This happened to be the same day that USC played UCLA, so this is the tailgating that was taking place on campus as we walked by.  This is the view of the quad from James' office on the 6th floor of the Education Building.

Our Thankful Turkey

This is our Thankful Turkey this year.  Hannah had fun helping make it - and even more fun tearing it down.  Before throwing it away I thought I should document what we were thankful for.  Here's the list in a totally random order:


Overlapping naps for Hannah and Sofers
Marriage to Britt
Parking garage
Drive thru ATMs (anything drive thru for that matter)
Homemade lunches
Big shopping carts at Target
Family
Free pressure cooker
Hugs at Institute
Amazingly large amount of storage in our small apartment
A small apartment for cleaning
My bike
Runs without the girls
TA position
Pretty flowers
Sleep
Sunshine so we can go outside most days
Health insurance
Blue spoons in the milk carton (compliments of Hannah)
Hannah playing nicely with Sofers
Hot showers
Days of cooler weather for baking
Tuition reduction!!!
Being a dad

Curly Q

I came across these sponge curlers at the dollar store the other day and picked some up.  It has been years since I've used anything like this, but thought it would be fun to try out with Hannah's hair.  She was really excited about them, but I wasn't sure how she would do keeping them in during the night, but she did really well.  Her hair turned out okay, but I forgot to take a picture of the curls the next morning, so there are only before pictures: 

She liked the curly hair.  She kept saying she had circles in her hair.  

Our Apartment

I took these pictures forever ago because several people have asked to see what our apartment looks like, but just kind of forgot about posting them.  They don't really do it justice, but it gives you an idea of where we live:

I've taken all the pictures standing in the doorway of the apartment.

Dinning Room:

Hannah was helping me work on a sewing project!

 Living Room/Office/Bedroom:

 The futon folds out into our bed and it's actually a pretty good bed

Kitchen:

 I decided to take it from afar so you couldn't see any cockroaches!!

Bedroom:

 You can see Sofia's pack n play under Hannah's bed

Here's an inside shot of the bedroom:

This is the bed James built last year during his semester break.  He loved doing it and we love the bed.  Hannah's mattress is in the corner and the rest is play space.  Hannah likes the play area and I love the extra storage space.

That's our 450 square feet of paradise!

Laundry Day

Here are my little helpers getting ready to go do laundry!

Daddy obviously hadn't left for the day considering I never in a million years would have thought to put them inside the basket!

Yummy Cookies

Hannah loves to help out in the kitchen and knows her way around pretty well.  The other day we were having a 'picnic' with her blocks.  She decided we needed some cookies so she ran to the oven, placed the blocks in it to bake, set the timer, used an oven mitt to pull the cookies out, and then placed them on the cookie rack.

What a funny girl.  Maybe we bake cookies too often?!

Our Little Pumpkin

This is the finished pinata.  Hannah and James painted it orange in honor of Halloween...and Hannah kept putting it on her head.

Pinatas

This Friday night James planned our date night and we made pinatas.  It was fun and we took a few pictures of the process.

Here we are gluing the strips of newspaper onto the balloon.

Hannah is so pleased with her sticky hands!!

and Sofers is enjoying her role in the project.

They're Alive

I like flowers, but definitely do not have a green thumb.  I usually buy something and then take care of it for a few weeks, maybe a month or so, until it dies.  Anyway - these are the flowers we've got on our balcony right now.  I've had all of them for at least a month or two.  The pink geranium has been alive for several months!  It might seem silly, but I thought it was a monumental occasion!

sunday dress

A friend from church gave Sofia this beautiful dress and she wore it on Sunday, so I snapped some quick shots before going to church.  Of course, I didn't really get a good shot of the dress - go figure!

We haven't even left for church and Hannah already has a stain on her shirt...typical!

Here's a better shot of the dress. Sofia definitely doesn't mind all the hand-me-downs, but it's fun to have a new outfit for her once in a while.  Thanks Marie!!

air shots

Who'd have thought this sweet, happy, little girl..... 

....would be such a thrill seeking daredevil??

....and this wild, crazy, spunky big girl would be so timid?

Hannah does not like to be tossed in the air...Not at ALL.  It was hard for us to coax her to try it so we could get a picture.  It's so surprising to me since she is normally so daring and adventurous.  I generally wish she would be a little more timid to try some things, but apparently heights are not her thing.

However, Sofer's can't get enough...she loves being tossed in the air.  Dad's arms wear out long before she does.  Here are a few attempts at capturing it on the camera:

Happy Halloween

Here's a picture of the Halloween costumes.  It was kind of fun to make costumes, but I'm really glad I stuck with something very simple.

In case you can't tell, they are Thing 1 and Thing 2 along with the Cat in the Hat.  This is one of Hannah's favorite books and she was really excited about James wearing the hat and her blue hair!

James wasn't home when we left for our ward Halloween party, but here's the hat and bow tie for Cat in the Hat.

Hallelujiah!!

Sofia is a very happy and pretty easy-going baby - and we love it.  We've just been having a hard time getting her to sleep well at night.  She's very consistent during the day with 2 naps totaling 1.5 - 2 hours each day.  As of late, her routine at night has been waking up about 4 times - twice for feedings and twice more we've been trying to let her cry it out.  We recently bought formula to try to fill up her tank right before bed in hopes she'd sleep longer.  The only problem was...she wouldn't touch the stuff.  Not in the bottle or sippy cup, hot or cold.  She wasn't having anything to do with it.  But, I can't really blame her - the stuff reeks!!  Anyway, we have been able to mix it with her baby cereal, but that's about it.  It helped a little, but no drastic changes.  However, last night she only woke up twice.  The first time we let her cry it out, the second time I fed her...and she didn't wake up for the day until 6:30 am.  Can I just say it was....wonderful!!

Grandma and Grandpa Flammer got their mission call.....

.....after several weeks of waiting.......

....and they will be going to.....

.......Budapest, Hungary this January!!!

We're so excited for them and appreciate the great example they have/are setting!

Our New Photographer

She seems to have taken up photography the past few weeks....

I don't have the heart to tell her it's upside down...but she doesn't seem to mind.