Balboa jokes

per usual, I'm behind on posting after our trip. This is one of my favorite videos from Balboa. Amelia is a crackup.

6th Birthday

Gina set up a craft party for M's 6th birthday.  All the neighborhood girls came over for the afternoon last week.

From 2009_08_26

Here are some fun highlights


and the photos

Walking around

Tom started taking steps the last few weeks and I finally got him on camera.

tom and noah

some great photos and video from one of the daily baths at Irvine over Christmas.

From tom and noah

skiing

Last weekend I took M skiing for the first time.

We were up at 5 am; in Big Bear just after 8; and dropped her off at ski school at 8:30. I skied by myself and checked up on her during the day. She loved it. The first part of the video below is when I checked on her mid morning. She said she wanted to do the afternoon lesson for sure. The second part is much darker, around 3:45pm. The lesson ended at 4, we had some hot chocolate and she asked if I would ride the lift with her.

Two hours later, I realized there was no stopping, as Snow Summit has night skiing, so I asked if we could break for the day and go get dinner.... We left at 7pm and were home in SM just around 10pm. I had a great day skiing for the first time in 8 years and after my knee surgeries. We are looking forward to skiing with grandma and grandpa in Mammoth later next month (note to self, be sure to bring chap stick...).

The wheels have come off...

This past weekend, M woke up and said she had a dream about riding on a two wheeler. Naturally, we seized the moment and headed to the playground with wrench in hand. She and I took off the training wheels and after a few tries she was up and running. Learning to stop was a bit of a challenge but she's mastered it. This video was taken later in the day when we returned to the playground to show mom her skills (it is MUCH different free riding on the playground vs. narrow city sidewalks... we will master that next week).

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd

Last week Windows gave me a notice that I was running out of hard drive space on the home PC. This is a sticky problem assuming you don't want to simply start deleting files. Video presents the biggest problem as you basically need 2x the file space to burn to a dvd. After lots of musical chairs with files, I freed up a whopping 50 gigs (which only a few years ago seemed like an ocean of space).

As a part of the process, I've found lots of video that needs to be shared before the kids are old enough to tell me not to. Personally, I'm glad the lost break dancing videos from Needham are still lost.

Here is M from the pre-school talent show last year. Gina took this video and tells me it is only half of the routine. Fun stuff.

KINDERGARTEN!

Here are some pics of Maddie on her first day! So far, she is loving it -- it shouldn't be a surprise that some of her favorite new discoveries are the cafeteria (!), chocolate milk and popcorn Fridays. She also loves the playground and show and tell.

We are all a little surprised that there is homework in kindergarten, but luckily it isn't anything too stressful. For yesterday's homework, we read "Duck for President," and Maddie drew a picture of her favorite part of the book -- "Running a state is very hard work. At the end of each day Duck was covered from head to toe in hair spray, ink stains, Scotch tape, fingerprints, mayonnaise, and coffee stains." [It is at this point in the book that Duck decides to run for President because being governor is "no fun at all."] Maddie enjoyed drawing Duck, and especially loved to cover him hair spray, ink and coffee stains!

So far, so good.

At long last . . .

Finally! Some new pictures of Thomas -- he has gotten so big and he is a crazy crawler now. He loves to get into things (of course) and is fascinated by doors and drawers. His main source of entertainment is Maddie and he thinks she is HILARIOUS! (Just what Maddie needs -- an audience!) He has two new teeth, and (surprise, surprise) loves to eat!











This last picture is Tom with his cousin Noah. We are fairly certain that Thomas started crawling so that he could keep up with Noah, who is FAST and quite literally JUMPS around the room (like a little frog)! I think these two have many years of fun (and mischief) ahead.

pro growth

Jack Kemp donated his papers to Pepperdine University and they have announced plans to establish the Kemp Institute for Political Economy.

Here is the summary and plans for the Kemp Institute.

fun with kids and food

better late than never

I am behind in posting new photos as T's crib is right next to the desktop on which all our photos live. While he has his last meal of the night, I grabbed a few that I thought you would enjoy.








"can you tell I just swallowed my third peep of the morning?"





This last one is very sweet. Willa on the far right and Thomas were born just a few hours apart on the same day in Nov. and spent weeks together in the NICU. All the kids were over tonight for some late afternoon coloring and fun on the floor. Both M's are wonderful big sisters.

a few more at 8 weeks

thanks for all the requests. everything they say about taking fewer photos of number two is true. sadly.

Fun with Physics

We needed a field trip this Saturday and so struck out for Griffith Observatory. After wandering the park aimlessly for 30 minutes we were told we used the wrong entrance. It was a short, but steep walk up the hill to the observatory (thanks again to Matt for carrying #1 daughter).

This is a wonderful museum with a spectacular location. We've been talking about the planets at night before we go to bed, so M was very excited - T, not so much. Lunch overlooking the Hollywood sign was a highlight. Here are a few fun shots.


wait, that's better.

Lessons with Matt

We've been having fun with the racquetball out front. I didn't have the camera when Matt got it stuck in the tree, but when M tossed it down the stairs into the neighbors garage, Matt saw this as a teachable moment in the usage of tools.











Now if he could just get her to stop yelling in her brother's ear...

night shift

thanks Matt.

home

We were delighted to bring Tom home yesterday. He is doing great. 6lbs 6 oz.

year #2

I love this class photo from the 2nd year of pre-school. Of course, I like last year's just as much.

A few more from today, day 3