Busy Bee's

I am happyto report that the girls have been doing SO much better together....mommy is regaining some of her sanity! My little Kira who has always been a breeze when it comes to sleep has been putting up a little resistant on occasion. "No, not yet!" is a common phrase we're hearing from her, and a couple of odd napping days too. WHo knows?! They're always changing at this age. SHe is quite ecstatic about her new Elmo shirt, and wore it to bed last night and has had it on all day today too. Pretty soon, she is not going to fall for the, "Oh, it's dirty honey" trick. I knew I couldn't get away with two girls who had no opinion on their daily attire! She reallyloves going to preschool a couple of days a week when I go to the gym, and is very affectionate with the other kids. Family movie night was a big hit too...thanks Papa Jefe and G-ma Susan! Meeting Santa oat the Pearson Air Museum was very exciting too, and both girls loved him! No shyness to speak of! Flying a helicopter got high points too. Our fingers are crossed as we head out to Seattle for the Santa Train tomorrow...no getting sick...please!!!!

Thanskgiving

Mom, and the Moreno's braved the I5 traffic to spend Thanksgiving with us this year, a real treat! The girls had a lot of fun together and loved putting up the Christmas decor. Poor Eva had a 24 hour flu thing...par for the course, but she still managed to muster some spark to help decorate the tree...until she felt nauseous again. I fear she has gotten my weak stomach...the lady who gets food poisoning at least once a year! Eva has really come into her own, and is much more even-keel that she used to be. She uses her imagination really well and goes with the flow much more now. Just as her sister moves into the two's......................

Halloween

OK, a bit tardy (December, instead of Octber) but I am doing it! Halloween was very exciting with the girls. Eva picked out her very own costume from the hundreds at the store. It was narrowed down to a princess, Darth Vader, and a witch. A girls after her daddy's heart! Kira got to wear Eva's old costume! Trick-or-Treating was pretty fun, although Eva got a belly ache almost right away (who knows what it is with er and getting sick on holidays...remember last Xmas, and this Thanksgiving too!) so she stayed in the stroller, and her sister wold bring her candy. Kira thought it was the greatest thing ever, the candy addict. She gets sweets plenty, but she is one of those who is angry and mean about it if she doesn't get it. I guess she'll eventually learn all her her drama will get her nowhere with us. Mike, Toby, and I all dressed up to...all for the immense pleasure of the girls!

Sibling Craziness

I know I am certainly not alone. Sibling strife has been around as long as we have! I remember distinctly some very aggressive altercations between me and my sister (Kirst). And we love each other today very much. That being said, my kiddos have been less than pleasant to deal with for Mike and me lately@! They have this weird dichotomy of adoring each other and insisting on being next to each other at almost all times, but it has been truing to conflict almost instantly. Since Kira's birthday, we have been trying to survive this mayhem, but finally I reached my threshold. I was angry at them all the time, they were sad and mad most of the time....this did NOT feel good, and our ideas were not helping the situation any. So what does any self-respecting teacher do? Research!! I got a hold of a whole battery of highly rated books at the library. I found a particular gem, "Love and Logic from Birth to 6 Years". Short, to the point, lots of real world stories from the parenthood trenches. And I suppose the most telling bonus, the ideas resounded with me. Week one of tweaking? Well, my house feels a WHOLE lot different! My cute little sisters actually PLAYING together with no conflict for large chunks of time?! I keep holding my breath..but it seems to be working! As Cesar Milan of Dog Whisperer likes to point out, it's usually the owners that are the issue, not the dog. Now this may not be 100% true, we have definite genes and personality at work here in our spawn, but it is interesting to think about! We all are trying the best we can, and when you're trying to feed the dog,make dinner, clean up, change diapers, and discipline all in a few moments time....well, I certainly have a breaking point. It's important to take those few deep breaths, re-center, and deal with your kids calmly and not with anger (repeat, repeat, repeat....in my head all the time of late!). And some cute pics, just cause you got to post pictures too!

Happy Birthday Kira Sorrel!

Kira's 2, and I am still trying to grapple with that! We had a mellow day celebrating by doing simple things she enjoys, likes a trip to the park, then an evening restaurant visit for rice and chicken and tortillas, and finally an outdoor neighborhood cake celebration. She loved opening her gifts, definitely old enough to be into it now. Of course Eva was trying to open all the gifts for her ("I just trying to help her!") Yes Eva, we know Eva, but back off anyways! And Eva was also easily as excited about the new gifts as Kira too, I am sure it will be like that for a while. Kira seemed very into the Birthday song, and was singing it as we walked back inside to go to bed, she strings little sentences (3 or 4 words) together now, quite cute!

Crazy Sisters

Yes, Kira and Eva have really been driving me crazy lately. Here, they are just sweet little peas having fun at Ace's 2nd b-day at the Pumpkin Patch. Fast forward to time at home together...well it is a different story. They do everything physical to each other. Last night, Kira found a pair of child's scissors somewhere (I know, how did she get those?! Who knows...she can climb up onto ANYTHING these days, including the kitchen counters to access the upper cupboards--oh yeah, you read it right.)They can't stand to be away from each other, but quickly get frustrated with one another, and do something physical to express that....hit,pinch, kick,pull, spit...you get the picture. I wonder in my head, "My lord...where have I gone so miserably wrong in rearing my children that they do these things?!" I think I need a book on siblings, I am feeling quite inept as a mommy right now. On a positive note, Eva did quite well after a several month break from swim lessons yesterday..picked up right where she left off! And when I finally figure out why my camera cord is not registering my camera's presence, I wil upload some new videos of the girsl too....

Kiddo Roundup

At the end of another day with both the kiddos home..I relish the quiet around me. No one screaming their sister, no crying, no naughtiness, just peace and quiet. I feel like my life sometimes reads like an Erma Bombeck story, but really, which of us in the parent trenches can't claim the same thing? Eva got to harvest several of her garden wares today..she found stray carrot at the community garden plot (which she promptly gobbled down) and them we dug up our sparse school-project potato plant. It never really grew, but lived, so the 4 fingerlings dug out will be all hers! She thought it was very cool to dig them up, and wanted to replant them all right away...we'll try that again next year! She is my avid little gardener, totally in love with watching her plants grow and produce food!
Kira has been especially into fine motor things lately (puzzles, tinker toys, etc) and has become quite adept at her peg puzzles. She can still be pretty shy, but little snippets of coming out of her shell peak out now and then. She is putting basic sentences together now, and loves to climb and jump. Her new catch phrase is "Silly!", which was once an Eva one too! "What's Sat?" is another phrase used alot with books and out and about. She is getting big so fast.

Airshow

The Annual Hillsboro Airshow is an event so coveted in our household, it is talked about throughout the year in anticipation. Mike has done an excellent job getting his girls interested/obsessed with airplanes! Here, Eva sits inside a monster truck wheel...one which we just had a ride in as a family....sounds so right up my alley, no?!! They crawled in and out of various airplanes, helicopters, motorcycles. All the military and government guys there were really sweet to them. You'll also notice that Eva has some shooting muffs on her ears. For the girl who LOVES airplanes, last year's airshow showed a new side of her: terrified of loud sounds. The jets put her over the edge,. Last year, she ran and crawled up inside a canopied pickup that was sitting behind a vendors tent to hide. This year, with the muffs, she just trembled in my arms (poor thing) while the the loudest of the fighter jets did their fly-bys. Luckily, she was brave and watched the whole Thunderbird performance and was only bothered by one, exceptionally loud slow-mo fly by (have you ever seen a fighter jet hover...weird!) Now Kira was just fine and would ask for "more airplane?!" She would exclaim," Wow!!" when something impressed her, and hunt them out in the sky with a, "there it is!" We had a good day and know we'll be hearing about the next one for the rest of the year!

Silly Kids

I am sure we can all agree...our kids are silly for SO many different reasons..some of which actually make me laugh and not cry! Both girls have quite distinct personalities, but both also have a wild side in them too. Kira is well on her way to becoming a football fan, and recognizes the Steeler's and anything football with a exclamations of "FOOTBALL!!" every time. And this dress up time, Eva actually put something girly on!! Ha!! Usually it's just Superman and swords. We can overlook her indecency just this once............... BTW, the jerseys are Mike's new team's jerseys, the girlsloved wrestling in them.

Camping Attempt

So we finally decided to make the attempt to go camping as a family of four. We were thinking back to the last time we had been, and it was 3 summers ago!! WAY too long for this outdoors girl...I guess it is just a testament to how much little ones can change your lifestyle. I was supposed to be at the cabin this week, but we used the plane tickets to go to my Gram's funeral 2 weeks ago instead. Mike had made plans to go hiking with a buddy in our absence, and so my brainstorm was born....camp and then go on a hike together! It should have been easy. I had to break all the camping gear out and make sure everything still worked, and be very discriminate about what we would bring (think big dog taking up the entire cargo area of our Outback...no room for luggage). It was interesting, but we squeezed all the gear in and headed out Saturday afternoon. Although we didn't get the pick of the crop (big surprise there!) we found a walk-in campsite that was nice enough. One minor caveat....the family in residence before us was not exactly clean, so there was half-eaten fruit loops, an entire box of Nerds, and toilet paper strewn about the site (no time to clean up before we moved in). I spent the first 20 minutes picking up garbage thinking Kira just might try and eat some of the colorful tidbits strewn about. Of course she proceeded to do this while I was trying to clean up, multiple times. Gross! Fast forward to bedtime. Eva says she's tired and wants to go to sleep, and at the mention of ni-nights, Kira decides this is a great idea too. Against my better instincts, we put them down together in the tent. Yeah right. We tried removing Eva and letting Kira fall asleep. Nope. The Kira out. Nope again. finally, with two very tired and grumpy girls, we gave up,and went to bed too at 8:55. At least once they were asleep it was fine. Of course at 6:15, a crow cawed outside out tent and we awoke to Kira chiming, "Birdy!!" The morning quickly revealed a grumpy-overtired Eva. One of those, "I want a pancake!. NO! I don't want a pancake" dialogues, you parents all know the one. I realized both girls needed a solid nap for everyone's sanity, so the hike for us a family had to be scrapped. It ended up being a blessing in disguise, as the trail was the furthest from kid-friendly as possible (I took 40 minutes to hike up as much of it as possible for some exercise while Mike played with the girls by the river) Steep, drop-offs, loose gravel on much of the trail..scary! A great work out though!! I went home with the kids and Mike hiked with his buddy. Bottom line: we're glad we went, but know we won't go through so much effort for only one night again!! We had to try, and now we've learned a few things for the next time..............

New Digs

Since the show won't be airing until May 21st, I thought some of you would be interested in seeing a rough view of what the interior designer did with our house last week. We are loving the color and touches all around. I have taken a lot down that we are returning to her, we can't buy it all!! Pardon the mess, you can get the general idea even with it!

New Patio

We finished up a new patio in the backyard, and as most home improvement projects, it was a little bigger than we anticipated! We knew we had a drainage problem,,,but this is ridiculous! River Simpson was around for a few days until we solved the problem. Then there was the issue of the wall that I though was to be nestled into the natural hillside, and the landscaper thought differently...obviously..we had to problem solve so it didn't look so weird. We're happy to have all completed and look forward to using it without friends and family!

"Hello" & "Whistle"

Kira's new favorite word, and Eva "whistling" in the back ground!! We are all finally coming out of our long and miserable flu bug....yes!! We have got to be done with big sickness for a while, right??!!

Eva just finished up another round of swimming and continues to do well and feel comfortable, eventually she'll swim! In another picture, EVa climbed this big rock all by herself for the first time, fun!

Kira's Talking up a Storm

Kira has been talking up a storm lately, and seems to be able to do most one and two syllable words....IF she wants to! She doesn't really do it on command for us yet, but I got lucky here in this clip, she is saying "mirror"
Eva has graduated to the next level of swim lessons and is completely comfortable dunking her head over and over again, so now we set our sights on actual swimming in water skills! I am so over going to the lessons myself, but I hate to break the consistency thing for her. Here you can see the strong Simpson gene-pool effect with Pap Pap and Eva...oh those Simpsons!
The beautiful weather has brought us outside to the garden, and EVa is just as excited as me to see adn count all the "baby flowers" poking their heads up through the garden...

Budding Steelers Fans! No one can blame us for early brainwashing! Pap Pap will be returingfor the SUperbowl this weekend...however I have strongly encouraged them to watch it somewhere else so as not to have their colorful language permeating the household soundwaves. Kira is developing like crazy, saying new words all the time. She has recently really taken a interest in dancing. She will start to shake her bon bon as soon as toy turns on or a song she likes. I have started attending a Music Together Class with her too, and she LOVES it too!

Happy B-day Eva - 4!!

Hard to believe she's 4, but they tend to grow rapidly on us, don't they! Eva was very excited about the green cupcakes and pink ice cream. I'd like to point out she's never had pink ice cream, but she melded two of her favorite things together some months back, so we thought we would capitalize on this request for her special day. Strawberry ice cream is pink...so we went with it. We planted some primroses at her school for the party favors and humored her every request!