Raspberry fingers

Needless to say, Kyle & Emily love raspberries! And what fun they are!

5 little raspberries sitting on our fingers

Get in my belly raspberries

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, delicioso!

Kite festival

This past weekend was the annual OB Kite Festival. The kids had a blast making their own kite, riding the carnival rides, jumping around in the bounce house and getting their faces painted.

Flying Ellie! Weeeeeeee!

Kyle sliding down the giant slide!

Emily's turn!

Beautiful kitty, meow meow, meow!! Emily was beyond excited to get her face painted. Neither her nor Kyle have ever had their face painted and they sure were ready! Good thing because last year at this same event, they both flipped out about getting a little design painted on their hands!

Jungle cat and kitty cat

Lullabye

Jeff taught the kids how to sing Billy Joel's Lullabye song. Now, we all often sing it together as part of their night time songs. Kyle and Emily know the words to it quite well and will sometimes insist that only they sing it together. The video is from November 2009 when we had it playing at our house through the television so they were singing and dancing to it. The video is in 2 parts for space / memory reasons and also to skip the humming part in the middle when they aren't singing and dancing.

Lullabye, Part 1


Lullabye, Part 2

It's such a beautiful song.

Lyrics, taken from http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lullabye-Goodnight-My-Angel-lyrics-Billy-Joel/5777D01ECBFF10EC48256870001FDBF1
Goodnight, my angel
Time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Wherever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away

Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu
lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu

Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullabye
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabyes go on and on...
They never die
That's how you
And I
Will be

Kyle, Emily, Ben & Davie dance party

The kids discovered the juke box at Papa's house this winter. And did they have a great time dancing together!

Dominican

A few videos from our trip to the Dominican this winter for Karen & Pete's wedding. I'll add pictures from the trip when I get some. :-)

Emily getting her hair braided on the beach. It amazed me (1) how well Emily sat still through the entire process and (2) how fast these women can braid!!

Emily with her hair braided. She was pretty thrilled about this. And I didn't have a still camera with us so the video has to do.

Emily running on the beach after getting her hair braided. I love her little footprints in the sand. Kyle wasn't too happy at this point as he was hot and ready for his nap. And the waves or sound of the waves were irking him. He did do quite well with the ocean otherwise.

Emily's pedicure

Remember Emily's pedicure this winter? Finally some video from it. I know you were all in suspense! What I really like about this video is how intently Emily watches her toes being painted. She's just taking it all in.

Emily feeds Ike

I've clearly been slacking on posting videos. Well and actually taking videos for that matter too. Anyhow, now that I've downloaded the videos from the camera, here are some from the past few months.

Emily feeding Isaac. She sure loved this. I like how she searches for his eyes to make eye contact and they both LOVE the camera! This was from December 2oo9 so Emily is about 3.5 and Ike almost 1 in this video.

What's under those covers?

There is a giant mountain of covers in Emily's bed, the blinds are closed and the lights were off.

She had tucked her babies in for the night after having their bath. She bathes them and feeds them every night before we have our dinner, while I'm making diner, and tucks them in. She's even so thoughtful to close the blinds and turn out the lights for them. She may even turn on the fishies or rainbow for them too! Too sweet!

Kid's museum - new and improved!

Today we went back to the Children's Museum for the first time in a long time. We had a membership before, but it had expired. Plus, the kids weren't huge fans of the museum because it had "those silly vacuums". In the entrance there were vacuums that had harmonicas attached to them which made an awful, discordant noise that really irked the kids and caused a lot of tears. Anyhow, they redid the exhibits in October so it's a new place and we had a blast today!! And made even better by the fact that our science museum membership gets us in free there all month!

Kyle & Emily started off by driving the bike / cars / chariots. They are really quite neat. You pump it up and down to make it move forward or backwards and that pump is also used for steering. They were quite good at maneuvering their chariots once they got the hang of it. In fact, we raced a bit and they were far more nimble than me.

We also had fun climbing the wall and ropes. Kyle was quite the climber scaling the wall to the top and then insisting on traversing the wall. He is getting very good at climbing walls and figuring out how to stay balanced and move to the next hold. No pictures of this unfortunately as I was spotting him. They also enjoyed the rope climb, though not as much as the wall.

We also did a lot of painting on the whale outside and blowing bubbles. They used to have an old VW Bug to paint, but now it's a whale. That was a good time as always. Emily got pink hair courtesy of the paint. She was near meltdown, but quickly perked up when she was reminded that her hair was PINK!! What could be better on a little girly girl than pink hair!

Finally, we went downstairs to see what was there. Previously, the downstairs was quite lackluster and we often skipped it. Now, they have a rainbow bouncy house tunnel. There used to be a giant pillow fight (room filled with mattresses and pillows to jump all around on) on the top floor, but that was removed when they redid everything in October. Anyhow, this rainbow tunnel is a gem!!! Kyle & Emily had a BLAST jumping the length of it to their hearts content. I wanted to get in and jump with them!

Ta-da!

Quiet Mommy our animals are sleeping

This morning I went into the kid's room and was greeted with pictured scene below and Kyle & Emily gently whispering "Be quiet Mommy our animals are sleeping." Kyle & Emily had tucked in their animals on the floor with their deedees and were watching them sleep. They even kept the blinds closed so it was still dark in there. Way too sweet.

Zoo

We took a group tour of the zoo with some other mama friends and their kiddos. We got to meet Shani, a wildcat up close with the trainers. And then a tour of the giraffes where there were several new baby giraffes. Well actually one new one and several other youngins.

Shani the wildcat

King Kyle climbing the gorilla statue. He just perched up there for some time. He was quite content.

Monkey wrestling!

Jacques the Peacock spread his feathers!! We always see Jacques (we gave him this name after Ry-Ry's baby toy) prancing around the zoo, but never with his feathers out. He must have been showing off for the flamingos.

Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras!

Tree Climbing

The kids and I had a great time climbing trees in La Jolla after brunch on Saturday. They were quite impressive with their climbing skills as well as their problem solving skills. At first, they were asking for lots of help on where to go next and how to reach up to that next branch safely. But they quickly got the hang of it and were little monkeys. Emily, especially, loved the climbing and couldn't get enough of it!

Life is a bowl of cherries

Yum!

Ahoy!

Sunday, the rain cleared up so we biked down the harbor to check out the boat museum for their Family Day. We boarded the boats in the harbor - The Star of India, a retired submarine and a few others. 

Cabrillo

What a beautiful day! The kids and I headed up to Cabrillo for a nice hike and view of the cliffs and ocean. They sure were troopers!! They walked / hiked / climbed for at least a mile, probably closer to 2. And they still had energy! So we went down to the tidepools for a little ocean education. We caught up with some park rangers who were finishing guiding a field trip so we asked some questions and they showed us a sea anenome, shore crab, water crab, chitons, lichens, barnacles, and several other sea creatures that I can't recall.

Heading down to the tidepools. Behind the kids was where we saw a shore crab sunning himself when he wasn't scared and hiding under the rocks.

A little climbing

The phones in the lighthouse room. There's a recording on it playing, but the kids always pretend they are talking to Daddy.

Handy Manny

This weekend with all of the rain, we found some fun indoor activities. Apparently, the first Saturday of the month, Home Depot has a kid's building session. This was the first we had heard of it and decided to check it out. We sure weren't disappointed!

Handy Emily ready for action!

Daddy & Emily hammering

Hard at work hammering

Kyle & Mommy working together

Kyle hammering

Kyle hammering, armed with safety glasses

Rainy day

Did I mention it never rains in San Diego?! Well, it has rained for the past 2 days. And way back in July, we got Emily a princess cupcake kit. She has constantly asked when she can make those cupcakes, to which Jeff has replied, "it's for a rainy day." Well every rainy day since then, in Chicago included, she has remembered and asked. Today was her day though! Three year olds certainly have AMAZING memory!

Eating the freshly decorated princess cupcakes.

Emily's canvas. Yum!

Kyle decorating his "motorcycle cherry" cupcake.

Twin duo

Now, it never rains in San Diego, except maybe 10-15 days of the year. Well last night was one of those times. And of course, before any rain, I rode over to games and dinner at Corvette Diner on the bike with Kyle and Emily in the trailer. Awesome. Normally, they really dislike the rain. Normally, they want nothing to do with it. Normally, they'd much rather stay inside and remain dry. They must have been so jazzed from "Corvette Diners" games, dinner and their Lollipop song (which they learned from Papa's jukebox), that they insisted that we ride over to the music open house in the neighborhood and play some instruments. Nevermind the trailer was soaked. Nevermind they were soaked. Nevermind they were stuffed in the trailer with their balloon pink doggie and motorcycle. Nevermind it was nearly bedtime. They were on a mission! So we went and had a jam session. Kyle started off on the drums, Emily on the piano. They also tried out the bongos, steel drums and various little hand instruments - shakers, maracas, tambourines, etc. I think the drums were the biggest hit though. ;-) It was a very fun night together.