Twin Fairies

Shot this earlier today.

Playing on the lawn

Just a fun short video shot yesterday when it was hot and the girls wanted to play.

First friend's birthday party

On June 13th, the girls went to their first "birthday party for a friend." It was Kaiya Hatashita's 3rd birthday. She is just 8 days younger than our girls. It was SUCH a great time; although, I got a bad sunburn on my back. Here are a few photos. In the next 1-2 days, I will post pictures from the girl's birthday party here at our house.

Star Wars and Star Trek

Well, I know it's a bit early, but I decided to introduce the girls to Star Wars via Episode I. Just before that, I arrived home with my four Star Trek glasses from Burger King. Given their interest in the glasses is what prompted me to show them the Wars. I know I could have gone with a Star Trek movie, and that is a natural progression. But the fact is Episode I has a lot more kid-friendly elements than any Star Trek movie.

Crafting Birthday Cards

Today is my mom's birthday. It's been raining for several days, and since we can't play outside with the girls, we decided to do something fun indoors. We made Birthday Cards. Sarah and I went to Michael's yesterday and picked up some supplies. Then we put a sheet down in the front room and proceeded to have a great time.

Winter Wonderland

We woke up this morning to white snow covering everything. I think I got up around 6:45 and snow there was about 1/2 inch on the ground. It was still snowing, and I think before it stopped we got 3/4-1" on the ground. The girls decided to put on their warm clothes and play for a bit.

Fun around the house

Nothing major, just some fun pics of Ella and Emily around the house. I *think* Lucky is warming up to Ella. :)

Gymnastics

The girls started a toddler gymnastics class two weeks ago. They already had three classes and it's going well. I will post some pictures and short videos soon.

Christmas Cookies

On Friday night after the gym, Sarah got the great idea to bake some Christmas sugar cookies. Sarah did the baking and we all had a great time decorating.


Here's a quick video:

Gymnastics Class

On the Friday before Christmas, we took the girls to Miyagi Gym in Auburn. They teach gymnastics for people from 18 months to 18 years and I think even older. We went to the Parent and Toddler class, which is 18-36 months. They are four week sessions. The first time you go, they let you "tryout" for free. Friday's class was the last one of the year and the end of that 4-week session.

The class started at 9:15 am and went for 45 minutes. Sarah and I went together. There were probably 6-7 other children in the class. There was one other dad. We recognized one of the mom's from Placer High School. She was a grade or two above us. I think her name was Tina May (Sarah remembered her more than I did). It took our girls the typical 15-20 minutes to warm up, but then they were playing like everyone else.


The first activity was a warm-up, which was just running around the mat on a white line. After 3-4 laps, they began what I would consider the more structured activities. They had the children run an obstacle course that involved climbing up pads, hopping down, crawling through tunnels, riding a see-saw, and walking two different directions on a balance beam. The girls still weren't totally into it, but they had fun.

Next was another, more involved obstacle course. The children had to climb up a ladder, hop onto a pad, run up a padded ramp, go belly-first onto a hexagonal "log," roll along the log and do a somersault off, hop backwards about 5 feet, then climb across horizontal bars. It was great fun, especially the backwards hopping. The girls did a Great job. I was surprised at how well they went up the ladder and across the horizontal bars. We have some video of them hopping backwards, too.

Emily:

Ella:

After several laps for each child, the teacher brought out a parachute, and we played various games, all of them involving balloons. At the end of the parachute games, the children got about 5 minutes of free play. Here's a quick video of Ella (white and pink) and Emily (blue and grey) playing with the balloons on top of the parachute.

And here are a few stills from the class.

Grandpa Bud's and the Piano

We went to my dad's house on December 14th for a few hours. The girls had a great time playing with the piano.

Christmas Lights & Parade

We put up Christmas lights the weekend after Thanksgiving and then went to the Holiday Light Parade in Auburn. It was cold, but we had a great time.

Here are a couple shots, and more to come

Because I promised to add some pics this weekend, here are a few teasers, but I have more updates coming this week. Here's what's coming:

• Christmas lights and parade
• Grandpa Bud's and the piano
• Gymnastics class
• Making cookies

And there will be some short videos, too. I'll have these updated and posted by Christmas Day.

Pictures coming this weekend

I will have some more pictures coming this weekend. One cool update is that both Ella and Emily can recite practically the entire "Night Before Christmas" story by heart.

Christmas Tree Decorating

This weekend we started putting up Christmas. Sherri came over and helped Sarah put up houses on Friday. Sarah and I put the tree together on Saturday, and we decorated it on Sunday. Sarah and the twins got up early on Sunday to make their first garland. This one was out of paper.

Thanksgiving

Thought you all would like to see a few pictures of the girls at Thanksgiving.

Quick Update - Halloween, Forts, and the Phone

Okay, so this is going to be quick since it's almost bed time. I will post some pictures over the weekend and probably modify this post.

Halloween:
We had a great Halloween with over 100 trick-or-treaters at our door. Ella dressed up as Dorothy and Emily was Little Red Ridinghood.


Forts:
Yesterday, Sarah and the girls built their first fort. I think that is so cool!

Phone:
Today on the phone, Emily was talking to Doug and I asked her to give the phone to Ella. For the first time, Emily said to the person on the phone, "Here's Ella." Also really cool.

Alpaca Ranch

On September 27th, Sherri and I took the girls to a tour of some alpaca ranches around Auburn and Loomis.

The Twins with Grandpa Bud

Last month (I know, I should have posted this sooner), I went down to my dad's house to visit while his half-sister Sharon and friend Christina were in town. It was great to see everyone, but it was especially wonderful to see Dad interact with his granddaughters.

Bandon Trip, Day 3: Let the Harvest Begin!

Sorry for the no-post last night. Internet wasn't working. Here you go a little late.

Well, the bug bit both Darryl and Steven last night. At around 9:00 or 9:15, they hopped in their SUV and high-tailed it to the docks. In about 3-3.5 hours, they came home with 24 crabs!!! Sarah and I had called them around 10:30 or so and knew they had a half-dozen crabs, so we put a pot on the stove and started it heating before the boys came home. I believe they said they got home around 1:30 am. I remember waking up to the smell of smoke and cooking. (Steven and Darryl told us later that they almost set off the smoke alarm.) Anyway, Sarah and I woke up to a fridge shelf and vegetable bin full of crabs.



Good times! Those of you who've known me for a while know that I'm not a big fan of seafood historically. However, Sarah's been gradually winning me over to things like salmon and shrimp. Crab is still one that I'm working on. I like crab meat, but the shells that one sometimes gets mixed in with the meat are not so great. Having said that, there's more than a little satisfaction in catching the little guys (you can only keep the males) and then "living off nature." I know that sounds corny, but I like it. Needless to say we had crab for lunch and dinner. In fact, Darryl and Steven had crab for breakfast, too.

After discovering the crabs, the first thing we did in the morning was all head down to the beach below our house. The tide was pretty low, so we were able to find some star fish, sand crabs, and other cool little sea "things". We made some sand castles, too. Aside from the wind, the weather here is great.


After the beach, we all headed in to town and went to a few shops - mostly the Toy Room (where we bought a few things for the girls and ourselves) and the Cranberry Sweets factory outlet (where we samples everything we could and bought a few treats). We had a great time and then headed home for lunch. Lunch consisted of crab sandwiches. The girls went down for a nap as did I. :) I think everyone but Sarah took a nap.

When dinner rolled around, we had crab salad. Good stuff, really. We didn't do much until it was time to put the girls down for the night. Before doing that, Darryl got an urge to get a Dairy Queen Blizzard, so us three boys hopped on our bikes and rode to DQ. We bought four Blizzards, put three of them in our water bottle holders (the fourth I carried in my windbreaker pouch) and headed home. When we arrived, the girls were still awake, so I put my Blizzard and Sarah's in the fridge (more on that later) and helped to put them to bed. When I came out, everyone was playing Mille Bornes, which is a card game.

I grabbed my Blizzard and sat down to join them. Come to find out that while I was putting the girls to bed, Sarah went to the freezer to find her Blizzard. (Remember, I put them in the fridge, not the freezer.) She saw that the one she thought was hers was half-eaten. She thought I had eaten it (it was really Steven's) so she decided as revenge, she would eat MY Blizzard half-way (which was actually Darryl's). So she sat down (the boys were still doing other things before starting the card game) and started to devour what she thought was my Blizzard. Shortly thereafter, Darryl opened the freezer to get his Blizzard and exclaimed in bewilderment, "Where's my Blizzard?!" at which time his heart sank. He thought the mean lizard-like Godblizzah had stolen his creamy, frozen goodness. Sarah said, "Oh, no" and quickly apologized. But it was too late; the damage was done. When it was all said and done, everyone but Darryl got their full Blizzards, and Darryl was the one who really wanted one. :(

Now I owe Darryl a Nerf football and a Blizzard.

Oh, I almost forgot that Ella and Emily started a new game. They were making pretend tacos and sharing with each other.