anna turned 4

We have tons of photo-worthy fun since moving to California, but for some reason I just have NOT felt like blogging at all. I'm thinking you all may just get a big picasa photo album to look at if  you care to at the end of the summer.

In the mean time, I think Anna's birthday deserves its own post. Her birthday was May 3. She opened a few presents in the morning and then went to the doctor for her 4 year well check. This was not Anna's favorite part of the day and it took FOREVER, but she didn't make a peep at the shots and got stickers and a lollipop.

After the appointment, we went to a park with Daddy for lunch. Daddy came home early and took Anna swimming, which was probably the most exciting part of her day. Then we had spaghetti for dinner and  a pink birthday cake with a smiley face and only one candle, just like she wanted it.

The Saturday after her birthday, we had a party. After going to Disneyland, Anna wanted a Mickey/Minnie Mouse birthday party. I made these cupcakes (without the bows) and forgot to take a picture. I also made Mickey ears out of sticker-backed craft foam and headbands from the dollar store. Each kid either loved them or hated them.

We played in the back yard with balloons for a bit and then played pin the bow on Mickey/Minnie. Then we ate Mickey pizzas (with 3 pepperonis making Mickey on each slice) and fruit for lunch. Anna opened her presents, and then we ate cupcakes. The whole thing took an hour, which was my kind of party.

 From L to R: Nolan (friend from work's son), Johnny (from church), Leanna (a neighbor), Anna, Levi, Holden and Daely (neighbors across the hall). 

After cake, we went to the apartment playground which is right outside our door and played for half an hour till parents came. Anna made "treat bags" with Mickey stickers and some cheap toy favors from the dollar store and Target. She was VERY excited to give them out.

Anna has become a great helper at age 4, and she loves to help me chop vegetables or fruit for dinner, and make all kinds of treats. She loves to do "crafts" which means constructing all sorts of collage-y things with paper, glue, staples, stickers, tape, scissors, and paint. She loves her brother and they play lots of games together. Their current favorites are dance party, rocket ship (we wear bike helmets and sit in their closet rocket ship blasting off and landing and venturing forth until bed time), chase, hiding from dragons or lions, driving the couch car, and mulberry bush.

One of Anna's friends gave her this magnetic jewel mosaic toy for her birthday and it could not have been more perfect for her. I think she spent an hour with it that day.

Anna loves to make up and sing songs. She's learning how to write all her letters and can read a couple words. We love to read together and she (mostly) enjoys preschool. She loves swimming and has recently learned to put her face in the water with goggles on. I think some more productive swimming lessons are in her future.  

Finally, Anna loves primary and her teachers love her too. She sings all the songs, love to hear scripture stories, loves to color anything the teacher gives them, and likes her little friends there. She told me primary is not scary at all, and I'm hoping when she starts school, she'll eventually feel the same way about it. We love our little girl and laugh every day at how silly she is.

levi's two

On March 25, Levi turned TWO!

Sam's parents were visiting earlier in the month, so we had a little party with them. Anna helped me make the cake, and Levi "helped" me frost it.

Levi loves trucks (and really any vehicle) so we made a construction truck cake. There was supposed to be a digger on it, but we only had a tow truck. Thankfully, he's two, and thought it was awesome nonetheless.

Grandma Ruth brought two big trucks, a dump truck and bulldozer along with some foam blocks to bulldoze and dump. I wish we had better pictures of Levi’s face when he opened them because he was SO excited. He plays with them ALL the time.

Levi’s real birthday fell on a Sunday, so he wore this adorable little outfit we got for him. Sam’s always wanted to buy a little blazer for Levi, so when I found them at Target, we went for it.

Later that evening, we had some friends from church over, including his little friend Brooklyn. If Levi and Brooklyn spot each other in church, the whole congregation will know it as they say hello to each other.

We’ve done quite a bit of “making do” here in California, and our wrapping paper has been Anna’s paintings on packing paper, tied up with yarn and hair bows. In the packages here are some dinosaur pajamas (seen in the last photo of the post- they're a favorite), a Curious George DVD (which got a huge reaction from both kids), a set of Cars books we got at the library booksale, and a Mater hot wheels car.

After Levi’s birthday, Grandma Becky and Grandpa Randy brought him this race track which got constant usage for about a week and still gets used at least once a day.

We love our little two year old and how funny he is. He still loves to laugh and frequently asks for tickles or spins. He likes to play dragons or dinosaurs or rocket ship (or some combination of those) with Anna and Daddy. I’m glad he still loves to read with me and will bring over book after book and sit in my lap where I can steal the kisses and cuddles that are harder to come by these days. He’s talking more and more and is starting to make jokes which we love and are surprised to hear from his little baby voice. Aside from the usual two-year-old meltdowns over the wrong color bowl or mistakenly cut banana, Levi is an easygoing kid who is a pleasure to have in the house. Happy Birthday, Buddy! We love you!

nature and nurture

One thing I love about the family I grew up in is that we spent so much time outside together. We went camping at least once a year, and often more. Mom always had us working in her garden and we'd read books aloud as we picked raspberries together. We spent our summers riding bikes together, canoeing, hiking, and exploring the woods and the little creeks and rivers that led to Lake Erie. If we didn't have anything to do in the evening, we'd go on a walk or head down to the beach and watch the sunset over the water.

So when my parents came to visit us here in California the first time in February (yes, I'm catching up), we spent most of our time outdoors. We went swimming (in the hot tub), hiking, picnicking, and to the beach. We wore everyone out and had a wonderful time. When we weren't outside, Grandma was entertaining the grandkids with the toys she'd brought from her house to share with us while we are in CA.

We went hiking at a place called Wildwood Regional Park. I’d heard of a place called Paradise Falls there, so I looked up a trail online, printed out a map, and off we went. The first half of the hike was through open hills, covered with desert plants and cactus. We had a never ending refrain of “Ouch!” from Levi because we had emphasized that cactus was OUCH early on in the hike and not to touch it.

By the time we got to the teepee, which was a little over halfway, both kids were exhausted, but it was cool and breezy under the teepee and some candy from Grandma and the promise of the waterfall was enough to keep them going. Thankfully, after the waterfall, we descended down into a valley along a creek so we were shaded and the kids spent some time snacking and throwing rocks in the water.

Levi was in and out of the backpack and was often carried in Grandpa’s arms or on his shoulders. Those two would sing together and that kept Levi happy. Anna had fallen twice and scraped her knees pretty badly, but we only had one bandaid. She was a serious trooper and finished the hike with only being carried a very little bit and with little complaining. I was so proud of both of them. The total round trip was a little over three miles!

I loved that Anna wore a skirt, sparkly necklace, and sunglasses on the hike. She would not let me put her hair in a ponytail either.

The next day we went to a beach in Malibu. We'd heard the tide pools were cool, and they were, but other than that, there wasn't much at the beach to recommend. We've gone to another beach, Zuma, in Malibu a few times since then and like it a lot more. The day we went was also pretty windy, but that didn't stop the kids from making (and destroying) sandcastles with Grandma, poking around the tide pool, and of course, splashing and RUNNING! We had to nearly drag Anna away from her laps back and forth in the surf. There is nothing more fun and free to her than running through the crashing waves.

Anna thought it was pretty funny how her whole body could fit inside Mama's jacket!

Being silly with all that HAIR!

Snuggling with Grandpa. Levi LOVES his Grandpa's (rightfully so- they are both wonderful!)

RUNNING!

chapters

This one was a milestone, so I thought I'd post it here.

Stuart Little by E.B. White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was the first chapter book I read with Anna. Even though I got annoyed by Stuart, it was a very sweet experience to have her snuggle up to me at night and listen intently to the story. After each chapter I'd ask her if she wanted me to keep reading and she'd nod enthusiastically. Usually, I'd have to be the one to say it was time to be done. I think we finished the book in just 3 days. The best part of the whole experience was hearing her laugh at new words ("Gee Whiz!" was a favorite) or ask me during the day, "What do you think is going to happen to Margolo?" I was so excited that she was getting it! It was one of the first times in her life that I've been able to definitively mark the opening of a new chapter (wink wink), and this is one I've been waiting for for a long time.

View all my reviews

my little friends

"Little friends" is a nickname I've been using for the kids lately, and I thought I'd tell you about how they're doing. (By the way, all these photos are unedited. I'm happy just to be able to access them!)

Easter Sunday- this is really the best picture we got

 Anna currently has a paper chain to help her know how many days there are left until she turns 4 (there are 11 links on it). She goes to preschool for two hours on Tuesday and loves to show me what craft she's made there. She doesn't tell me much more about it than that, so I have to make inquiries based on the theme of the craft and listen for the snippets of new songs or stories that pop up during her play time.

She also takes a ballet class on Friday mornings. The first week, she sat with her thumb in her mouth for the first half of class, and for the second half when the other girls were skipping or galloping back and forth, Anna walked back and forth with her thumb in her mouth. The second week, her thumb was out a little bit more, and she made the teacher laugh with her answers to questions. The third week, she kept her thumb out of her mouth most of the time.

day 1 of ballet class

By this point, I was trying really hard not to feel frustrated. But after the third week, she started practicing skipping and galloping at home. We talked about the ballet words she was learning, and as we pulled into the parking lot for week 4, 10 minutes late, she said, "I think I want to try doing what the teacher does today." "Okay," I said, trying not to sound shocked, "I think that will be fun."

We raced into class and got her tights and shoes on (she didn't want to take the time to change into her leotard and skirt). She sat with the other girls and kept her thumb out. She didn't do any of their isolations routine, but she didn't suck her thumb, and during their plie routine, I saw her trying to get her feet into position and tilting her head a little bit with the teacher. Then, the teacher pulled the girls into a circle and asked them what Tigger does. Anna said, "Bounce!" The teacher said that Tigger bounces on his tail, but girls bounce on their legs and had the girls bounce. Anna just stood there. The teacher said, "Anna, can you bounce like tigger? Can you show me four little bounces?" And Anna pulled up her "paws" and did 4 little bounces, and just like that, was completely involved in class.

(Sorry it's sideways and pixelated. I had just remembered that my camera was in my bag for once and grabbed it out and quickly started filming without realizing that I had the camera turned sideways and on the wrong setting. But you can see how happy her face is at the end, sideways or not)

Her teacher was just laughing with delight for the rest of the class at what a huge change it was. What Anna lacked in grace, she made up for in enthusiasm, and although it wasn't pretty, she's got the mechanics of skipping and jumping her legs in and out, and galloping a lot better than many of the other little girls. I was smiling ear to ear the whole class and will cherish the little videos I took of that day for a long time.


We've been talking to Anna about how she's getting bigger and will be going to school soon, so she needs to start learning how to not suck her thumb, how to not have any accidents, and some better wiping technique after she uses the potty :) She is trying really hard and it's so gratifying to see her remember to take her own thumb out some times and to be able to congratulate her on stone-dry panties. We're learning how to meet her needs for attention and validation and in return she's rewarding us with fewer meltdowns and more help at home. It's a nice exchange and I hope this period of peacefulness will last for a while.

Levi turned two about a month ago and has embraced his new age with full force. He is the classic 2-year-old combination of heart-stopping cuteness and maddening unreasonableness. Thankfully, he spends most of his time in the cute camp and usually saves his unreasonableness usually for dinner time, bedtime, or getting in and out of the car.

I wrote everything above this a few days ago and just got back to adding more. We had some friends from across the hall over for lunch and a playdate today. Afterwards we all went out to the playground together. Our friends have a 4 year old boy who's just a few months older than Anna and a 2 year old girl who is about 10 months older than Levi, but inevitably, Anna and Daley play together and Holden and Levi play together.

 Today, Holden was climbing up the twisty slide, and Levi decided to try it too. He's usually scared stiff when it comes to the twisty slide, but today he climbed all the way to the top and slid down over and over again for about half an hour. Holden would chase him up and down making animal sounds and Levi would laugh and laugh. At the top, he'd always shout, "Hi Mama!" until I said, "Hi Levi!" back. He's also learning how to hold on to a bar (above a slide, or on an arching ladder) and "swing like a monkey."

Besides physical play, Levi still loves trucks and cars and buses. He also likes balls or anything else he can throw. Usually while Anna's at preschool, I take him down to a little run-off creek and we throw rocks in it for 10 or 15 minutes after a walk. He's just starting to learn how to catch and gets really surprised every time he does.



For all his growning up, he still loves to cuddle. Whenever he gets sad or mad (even when it's at me!), and even sometimes just when he's been playing away from me for too long, all he wants is to get a big hug. He'll run to me with his arms open and lay his head on my shoulder and wrap his arms around me. Often he'll whimper "Temple" of "Child 'a God" meaning he wants me to sing I Love to See the Temple or I am a Child of God. He freely says "I wove you, Mama." Ocasionally he'll ask for kisses. I love love love this and accomodate him all the time :)

snuggling with daddy for a story with his "bwankwie"

And finally, a little over a week ago, I picked up a little tykes play cube from someone on freecycle (oh how I love freecycle!). It has been a miracle toy. Today, as I was getting everything ready for our friends to come over, the kids played outside! nicely! together! for an HOUR! Literally. A whole hour. I was in mommy heaven. I now understand why play structures cost so much. It's because they're worth so much.

Here are my two little friends pointing out clouds and trees to each other. Priceless.

I met the mom of a little girl in Anna's preschool today. She's from SLC and was telling me that though they liked the area, she hates the weather. She misses rain and it just gets too hot.

Amazingly, people complain about the weather here all the time. It'll be too windy, or too "gloomy" (overcast), or will rain- which usually means a morning drizzle but will occasionally occupy most of the day. But honestly, it's between 60 and 80 degrees and sunny here ALL THE TIME. And I think there have been two days the entire time we've been here that have been so rainy we couldn't go outside. Two.

Having lived all over the country, I've seen my fair share of crazy weather all across the spectrum and let me assure you, Ventura County, California can't really compete for craziest weather patterns. It just goes to show that people aren't happy with perfection.

P.S. I didn't say anything in response to the mom's weather comments, but I did confirm my suspicions with weather.com when I got home.

Salt Lake City, UT's average highs in the summer are actually quite a bit higher than Thousand Oaks, CA's.

And SLC comes nowhere close to Ohio and especially not Texas when in comes to having rain.

bragging

I'm in the middle of writing a post about some things the kids are up to lately, and it's a little bit braggy I think. Anna made a big leap of progress in something and I'm so proud of her, I had to share. I think this one's OK to share, but I'm sure some other things I've said on this blog have crossed the line, so I found this post from Momastery interesting today. What are your thoughts?

we really did move to california. promise.

I know I've hardly posted anything since we moved here. Part of that is due to some major computer malfunctions that have made accessing pictures (which not only add a little flavor to our posts, but also remind me of what actually happened since living with two toddler/preschoolers has robbed me of my short term memory) occasionally impossible and frequently impractical.

But look at me now! The kids are both miraculously napping (Anna gave that up upon moving to the Golden State) so I'm getting started. Here are some photos of our hotel stay. We ended up being there almost 2 full weeks. It wouldn't have been so bad if we'd had 2 rooms in our suite, but with only 1 room, one of us spent up to 3 hours a day in a darkened room so that the kids could nap. Talk about boring. And energy-sapping.

But we tried to make some fun and had a surprise party one night.





I set up balloons and doughnuts for them to find after coming back from dinner downstairs. The next morning, I added some gift bags with toys from Michaels' dollar section.



Anything we found in the hotel room became a toy and these measuring spoons were perfect for the mini cups of playdough I bought.
b





Other nights we played good guys and monsters and tromped all over the hotel surprising each other and being really quiet so we could sneak up on the monsters

vanity

Today was the first time I cried after a haircut. Is that some kind of milestone of womanhood? Because it kind of feels like it.

The problem wasn't all with the haircut. I'd heard such good things about this stylist that I let myself get a little bit excited to try someone new. I liked her hair, and she was specially trained to cut thick, curly or wavy hair. So I went in, armed with some photos of what I wanted, and after several minutes of her gushing over what great hair I have (and really, it's one of my favorite physical attributes-- when done right, it's pretty amazing hair) we got started.

At first, things looked promising. She reaffirmed that I really don't ever need to shampoo. With hair as thick and dry as mine, warm water, a good scalp scrub and some conditioner are all I really need. Her particular brand smelled delicious and she gave me a great wash- the kind where you feel like along with all the dirt and drugstore product build-up, you're also washing away a little bit of your old, imperfect self.

She asked if we could work with my natural curl, and I said sure since I've had some good cuts in the past with people who've said that. But that's when the trouble started. She started twisting the hair on the top of my head to bring out the curl and pinning it to "give it some volume". If there's one thing my hair doesn't need, it's volume.

Then, she plunked me in one of those giant hair driers and handed me a book about curly hair and said, "Read this. I've underlined a few passages. You don't really need to read anything else." This should have clued me in that this woman was someone who had a message and wanted me to hear it, but I went ahead and read her book while she made me try her awkward foot massage machine that mostly just made my legs tingle.

During the last few minutes of the blow dry, I noticed a Strong's concordance and Bible sitting on her counter and asked if they were hers. She said yes and told me she was learning "the ancient Hebrew" to enlighten her Bible studies. Now, of course this is something I can get behind so I asked her what she'd learned. The first couple things were stuff my mom had taught me in seminary, so I smiled and encouraged her to tell me more.

At this point, she asked if I went to church around here, and I told her I went to the one across the street from the salon. "The Mormon church?" she asked. And when I said yes, I saw a little glint in her eye. (OK. Maybe not. But looking back on this story, it's certainly where the non-haircut portion of the disaster started.)

We moved to the chair for her to start cutting and she slathered a bunch of goop in my hair, parted it on the wrong side-- I told her it was the wrong side, but she informed me my face was lopsided and that this would correct it-- and started chopping my hair SUPER short on top. Before I could gasp, she was half way done.

Right about then, she had also started informing me of why America was going to hell. It started with the fact that our Christmas traditions were all pagan, nothing new of course, but she described in detail testacles dipped in gold and silver and hung on trees. She then moved on to the Easter bunny and the how the Catholics were run by Satan and funded the Muslim church that Obamanation (clever, eh?) was a part of.

Just about the time I was missing my haircut tradition of perusing a People magazine, which I do only at salons and doctors offices, she started talking about this great documentary she watched about the secret cult everyone in Hollywood was a part of. "You know that girl, Taylor Swift? Well, when she was at some award ceremony and that rapper man, Jay Z--no, K something--anyway, when he got up and yelled at her in the middle of the thing, do you know what that was? That was an initiation ritual. All the secret cults do that. Fraternities, the free masons, even your secret mormon things."

At this point, I was speechless, which she wouldn't have noticed since she NEVER STOPPED TALKING. She went on for another 20 minutes or so telling me about government cover-ups, the sign of the beast, the apocolypse, and her favorite conspiracy theories. (Did you know that people who believe conspiracy theories actually use the phrase "conspiracy theory"? I thought they'd be offended by that since that phrase has "paranoid wacko" wrapped up its connotations. But, don't worry, they're not.) She also hinted, with little to no subtlety that she believed the Mormons were all wrapped up in this and that I was doomed to hell, just like those people in John 6:66 (!!!) who turned their back on Jesus.

I could barely hold it in. I wanted to say, "Do you really think they're all in hell? Don't you think a loving Jesus is going to give them a chance? Because I do. I think He's got grace enough to love us all- Mormons, sinners, free-masons, democrats, Catholics, Obama, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, and KANYE (yes, that's who you meant)-- back into His presence if we let Him."

But I didn't because at that moment she said, "There! Don't you love it?! Isn't it beautiful?" and I was just so relieved to be done that I said yes and got out of the chair as fast as I could. I even tipped her. I'm that much of coward when it comes to confronting bad customer service.

Then, I got in my car and cried, and came home to Sam and cried, and looked in the mirror and cried. And then I heard Levi making bubbles in the tub and heard Anna laughing at him, and decided it wasn't the worst tragedy in the world. That will probably be when I go to hell.

a heartful

Aren't they beautiful?

needing some advice

For all of you moms out there who have successfully potty-trained your children, how did you go about night time potty training? Anna has shown zero interest so far, so we haven't pushed it, but I'm wondering if/when I'll need to. We've tried giving up water before bed, but she still woke up with soaking pull-ups, so I don't think that in itself will be enough.
What did you do, and how did it go for you?

we love

...that for Valentine's Day, the movers came! After nearly two weeks, we finally got our stuff, moved out of the hotel, and had a home cooked meal. Then we ate See's chocolates from a heart shaped box. Thank you Sam for buying into Valentine's Day for me.

It was a little less festive than last year, but a happy day nonetheless. Oh, and we did make chocolate covered strawberries; they're a Valentine's Day necessity.

sunshine

We're here. It's so sunny! It's been surprisingly chilly today, but there is SO MUCH SUN! And leaves!

The flight went well and the kids were good. We're jet lagged and just trying to figure out something to do till our stuff comes, but we're here!