A Picnic at the Temple

Sewing Helpers

This is what it looks like when I work on sewing projects....

....no wonder I'm so slow at getting anything done.

Twenty-Eight

We celebrated my birthday on Saturday with James taking the entire day off of school and by going to the Festival of Books at USC:

There was an awesome station where they had some fun reading books

and decorating crowns to wear.

 At another booth they made masks

 and did some more coloring.

We spent a couple of hours during the morning at the Festival and had fun.  That afternoon we went through our closet and separated everything into 3 piles: garbage, recyle, and keep.  Fortunately, the keep pile was the smallest.  I am in a getting rid of mode and it felt so good to go through the closet.  I wish we had taken pictures....but we got rid of a fair amount of stuff....best birthday present ever.

In lieu of candles we decided to go with 28 sprinkles.  I had 2 willing helpers:

When James got home from his meeting we had some cake and ice cream!

Carlsbad

In honor of surviving and being almost finished with the dissertation we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Carlsbad, CA.  We were spoiled with an amazingly nice hotel (thank you to Grandma and Grandpa's Hilton points).  Amazingly nice.  We also splurged and bought 2 day passes to Legoland.   Between the fun hotel and being able to walk a few yards into Legoland the girls were in Heaven.  Here are a few pictures of the days:

Our rather ghetto transportation from the car to hotel room.  We could have used the carts, but had to take the stroller in anyway....so why not load it up?  Do you like that majority of our stuff is food we purchased at Target before checking in? 

 We were really excited about the hotel!!

First stop was the swimming pool, but it was a little cold, so they spent a few minutes in the hot tub.

 Right outside our private entrance to Legoland from our hotel!!


Our first stop at the park was probably the favorite:  it was a major jungle gym with ropes to climb and slides to come down.

 Here's they are at the top of the slide

 ...and at the bottom.

 James right where he belongs!!

 Flying high on the helicopters.

 Hannah's first time driving a motorized vehicle.

 James trying to keep Sofia inside the boat.....a rather difficult task.

 Enjoying the choo-choo train as the only riders.

 Digging for dinosaur fossils turned into playing in the sand.

 Having fun on the Safari ride.

 Sofia finally gave in to a nap....

 while Hannah played some more.

 Discovering the splash pad.

 Trying to stay out of the waters' reach.

 Here she is trying to decide if she'd rather play or sleep.

 Very blurry proof that I was there.

Apparently she got her second wind....food will do that for her.

Swimming at Home

The girls were helping me put away laundry the other day and came across their swimming suits.  I told them we were going to be going swimming the next week and they got really excited.  Within minutes they had their swimming suits on and had gotten out a beach towel for the 'water.'

They didn't want their dolls to miss out on the experience!

Sleepless in LA

We have decided Sofia is some freak of nature when it comes to sleep.  She is 2 yrs 2 months old and has been fighting her nap for some time.  Really?!!!!  I'm not sure I'm completely ready for that yet.

She goes to bed at about 7:45-8:00 pm, but isn't asleep until almost 9:00 and is up by 5:30 in the morning.  That doesn't seem like enough sleep, but she's happy so we figure she doesn't need much sleep.  

Lucky her.  Unlucky us.  

Last night she was up from midnight - 3:00 am.  She still woke up at 5:30 and acted her normal self.  

Until we figure out what her deal is, we are giving up sleep....it's overrated, right?!

Dinner's Up!

The other day Hannah was helping me make dinner in the kitchen when she decided to make her own dinner.  Here she is hard at work:

Her masterpiece included: uncooked pasta noodles, oil, water, peanut butter, garlic, fajita seasoning, Italian dressing seasoning, cinnamon, and a little cheese.  Scrumptious!!

Life in the Bathroom

I think I've spent more time in the bathroom this past week than the rest of my life.  Combining a pregnant lady and potty training will do that to you!!

I procrastinated as long as I could, but finally decided it was time to potty train Sofia.  After training Hannah pretty early and really disliking the process I was in no rush to do it, but I wanted Sofia trained before the baby comes in July and that means training her before we move in May....which means it's about time to do it.  Bummer.

Day 1 - started great with a positive experience and her going to the bathroom several times all on her own.  Then came her first accident which completely changed everything.  She became terrified to go and cried whenever she needed to.  There were lots of tears and lots of unsuccessful trips to the toilet.  By the end of the evening I needed a break so Hannah and I went for a walk.  We came home to this:

Apparently she sat like that the entire time we were gone.  

Day 2 - Definitely better than day 1, but still quite a few tears.  She was doing better, and by the end of the day had pretty much stopped crying when she needed to go to the bathroom.  But, she started complaining of her stomach hurting and ended up with a decent case of diarrhea.  So much fun!  Lots of fast running to the toilet.  She pretty much had the bathroom down, just lots of necessary trips to the bathroom.  I wish I would have counted the number of runs to the toilet...in 1 hour there were over 30!!!

Day 3 - We finally ventured out of the house with friends to the park.  This must be a true sign of friendship to be willing to go with us.  We made several trips to the bathroom at the park and we survived!!

She's doing great overall.  We haven't had any accidents since day 2 and she seems to have it down, although we are still making lots of trips to the bathroom.  

I wish I could have had a quarter for each trip I made to the bathroom in the past week.  I'd be loaded!!  But, at least we're done with diapers for a few months.

 

Sunday Walk

Every Sunday we take a walk around campus.  Here's what we usually end up doing:

Running up and down the hills making silly faces

Picking up leaves and making our way towards the water fountain to toss them in.

More silly faces.

 Trying to play in the water when no one is looking.

And lots of climbing.