Friday, March 30, 2012

Oh My Goodness!!!



This is what Mikaela does if you say "oh my goodness" she throws one of her hands on her head.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Date Night


Gotta take advantage of having the parents around!!

Horsing Around

Naomi and Mikaela both love riding on the princess cars and trikes in our house. It was only a matter of time before they made the trike a two person ride. Mikaela turned the trunk of the trike into a second seat.





Monday, March 26, 2012

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Nay Nay and Cee Cee


Naomi's has a best friend at school. They are seriously the silliest kids, calling each other Nay Nay and Cee Cee.

Memory


Naomi has incredible memory. Last year, Austin picked up this little memory game for her. She easily schooled all of us in it, and after awhile had all the cards memorized, so it wasn't really much of a challenge since she knew exactly which pieces to pick up without even looking at the card. Now she's moved into bigger sets with 72 cards and can still beat most of her opponents. This past weekend she challenged both her Nai Nai and Yeh Yeh...lets just say, youth reigned victorious.

Monday, March 19, 2012

"Mommy"

Mikaela’s really good at saying the word, “Mommy”. Of course she has no idea what it means. Or maybe she does.
Every time she wants something, especially when it’s more food, she yells out, “mommy!” Over and over again until she gets what she wants.
My theory is that she’s so used to hearing Naomi say, “mommy, can I have”, or “Mommy, I need, “ or “Mommy I want” etc, so of course, she’s learned that “mommy” is simply the term to use when she needs something.

She also knows the word, “Apple” which we got really excited about last week because she pointed to an apple and said it. But then later this weekend she was holding a ball and said, “apple” as well. Oh well.
Other words she’s picked up: “Uh-Oh” whenever something drops, “Whoa” when she’s excited, “up” when she wants to be picked up.

Growing up and learning to let go


The weather is quickly turning to spring, although, did we ever really have a winter this year? Not that I’m complaining. We enjoyed the warmer weather this weekend and spent some time outdoors. Austin’s mom and dad have been visiting us this past week, so the girls got to spend some extra quality time with them as well. On Saturday, we all went out for a walk for lunch, and stopped by the local bike store. At a playdate last week, Naomi had a chance to ride her friend Emily’s “big girl bike”. She could barely reach the pedals, and had a hard time getting the bike to move at all. I spent a lot of the afternoon pushing her around the block while Emily zoomed around us. That experience definitely wet Naomi’s appetite for getting her own big girl bike, and after watching how well Emily could ride, I realized we definitely should be spending more time outdoors just playing with all of the outdoor toys we have. Sometimes we get so tired and busy from work, it’s just easier to let the girls play indoors in a contained environment. Anyway, at the bike shop, they had two bikes which Naomi could fit, she picked the pink one, surprise!
After lunch she spent the afternoon practicing, I’m so impressed at how good she’s gotten. She practiced more on Sunday afternoon as well, and can confidently pedal all by herself now, in fact if I try to grab the handle bars she’ll usually knock my hands off. She can turn on her own (with only one small spill so far), break, and is starting to get more confident with braking.
Watching her bike around, I couldn’t help by get a little anxious. Ok, a lot anxious. When she goes down hill, it took a lot for me to not yell out for her to slow down, or to simply grab the bike and slow her down myself. I kept having to brush off thoughts of her falling and getting all scraped up. When she did fall down yesterday, it took a lot for me to not rush to her and baby her immediately. Instead, knowing it was a small spill, I stood back and let her pick herself up, and watched with pride as she jumped back on her bike, instead of wimping out and declaring she was done.
I guess we’re all growing up in a way.