Tea party for 10?

Sophia was invited to a costume tea party at Gymboree for her good friend. She hasn't gone to Gymboree for awhile so she loved being there, dressing up, having a tea party, and of course celebrating one of her best friend's birthdays. She started off in her Tinkerbell costume, but as the day progressed she changed into some of her friend's many costumes. She found two different Jasmine costumes, who is her current favorite princess.

She and Sydney had fun racing through their cups of tea (actually apple juice) and looked more like they were drinking shots than sipping tea. They played lots of fun games and also loved seeing Gymbo the clown and getting balloon animals made by him/her. Note: they never say whether Gymbo is a boy clown or a girl clown and it is funny to hear the Gymboree teachers refer to Gymbo as sh...he. Sophia wanted a snake and loved it until we got in the car and then was completely devastated because it instantly popped when it touched the hot seat belt buckle. It was a long sad ride home. But she did get lots of fun party favors, which managed to cheer her up about the time we turned onto our street.

Feast with the Beasts

Our zoo had a special night last Friday where we could have dinner there, see the animals, and also see gymnastics, a magician, storytellers, jugglers, a giant slide, a climbing wall, and more. The line was crazy and we almost just went home, but finally we made it inside and had a little fun. Not too much because most of the fun things had long lines and we just skipped them. We did get to see some animals, gymnastics, jugglers, and hear a few stories. Tessa loved the giraffes...she pointed at them and said "giraffe" twice. Sophia like the stories...she always loves to hear a good story. They both loved the popsicles...and I loved that it was all free for zoo members!

Funny Girls

My girls are always saying or doing funny things...so I thought I might share a few of the latest...




First of all, we are hoping for overseas orders...I know some people may think we are crazy but we miss living overseas and want to see more new places...not to mention I'm not thrilled with the idea of my kids going to school here! Anyway, lots of wonderful sounding places currently have jobs open for Chuckolate...Hawaii, Greece, Spain, and Turkey are the ones I am interested in the most. I was telling Chuckolate maybe we should ask the universe to give us orders, like in that book The Secret. Sophia overheard and said, "Mom, could you ask them to get me a unicorn too please? I really want one for a pet." I hadn't realized she was listening and didn't understand what she was talking about for a minute, then thought it was quite funny.


Tessa talks a lot lately. Long, complicated sentences stream out of her mouth, though they are completely unintelligible and I am not sure how to respond when she looks at me, waiting for my reply. Sometimes we can understand her, though. Like last week when she was eating peas, beans, and chicken. Chuck asked if she wanted peas or beans (expecting her to point to one of them) and she said, "schicken!" He gave her the chicken and she smiled.



Sophia decided, after watching the Olympics, that someday she will be in them for both swimming and gymnastics...two of her favorite activities. She is wearing her sister's hat in this picture, as a swimmer's cap, and pretending to swim around the room.





Last weekend we had a garage sale and I tried to sell some of my old toys that had been in storage for 10 years. Sophia wanted to keep most of them though. I let her pick a few to keep (such as this lion and dog) and put the other toys on a blanket for Sophia to sell. I told her she could keep the money and put it in her piggy bank. She walked around following people (for the first half hour), saying "Do you want a toy? Here, you can have one." One nice lady offered to give her a quarter or two, but didn't want to buy any toys. Sophia missed the point though, and said, "No thanks. I already have a dollar. Here, do you want it?" and tried to give her money away!


One of Tessa's favorite games is pointing out body parts. I tried to teach her "where's your nose?" awhile ago, but she must be independent like her sister and will point to almost any other body part but not to her nose. I will ask her to point to her arm, her head, her ear, her nose, and she gets every one right until we get to the nose! Then she just looks at me, like why am I asking her to do such silly things.



Last Sunday Sophia and I went back to I Scream Ice Cream with our friends Sydney and her Mom. The girls played dress-up there and I got a few funny pictures. I don't know what kind of expression Sophia is making in the first one!


On Monday night I came home from the pool to see Tessa climbing on the new slide and Sophia about to watch a kid's show. The slide was in a neighbor's yard with a "free" sign and I thought it would be great...but it will be in the yard soon...our living room has enough toys! Anyway, when Dora came on Tessa started dancing, so I ran for the camera and caught a bit of her in action.

Just today Sophia made me laugh again because we were in the car and decided to stop by the pet store for her and Tessa to see the animals and she said, "Someday you should play a trick on me and tell me we are going to do some boring shopping and then really go to the pet store to see the animals like we are today. That would be fun." So I said, "Oh, ok. But we aren't really going to the pet store today. I decided we have some boring shopping to do instead so maybe we will go to the pet store another day." I thought she would see through my obvious plan to trick her, but she said, "Oh Mom! I really wanted to go to the pet store. What shopping do we have to do? Can we go to the pet store when we are finished?" I could barely stop myself from laughing as I told her we were going to a store with only boring grown-up books, no kid's books or anything with pictures. Then we pulled up to the pet store and she said, "Why are there pictures of animals on this store?" Finally I told her I had played a trick on her like she had told me to do and wasn't that funny? She laughed too, but not as much as I did when she didn't realize I was tricking her!

Train ride to hail

I received a flier from the botanical garden, with promises of 'Old Time' music at the heritage farm. So of course, we packed up a lunch and headed over to check it out. (I am so glad we have a membership there...it is well worth it!) The music was indeed good and we enjoyed seeing the cow, sheep, goats, horses, and chickens, plus vegetable garden and orchards. However, we also watched the train go by (it goes from the zoo to the botanical gardens and aquarium...about 20 minutes one way I believe). Sophia hasn't ridden the train since last fall, so we thought it would be fun to take it for a round trip.

And it was fun...even when it started hailing. It is amazing here how one minute the sun is shining, then a rain cloud rolls in and there is either a few drops or a downpour for a few minutes (almost 20 today), and then it is gone again. Luckily we saw the raincloud start to roll in before we got on the train and opted for a car with a roof...though with my fair skinned baby I probably wouldn't have gone for the open car anyway. The first few drops were heavenly after a long hot afternoon, but then they got bigger and suddenly the roof wasn't helping much and I noticed a few pea-sized chunks of ice bounce onto Tessa's stroller. I felt a little sorry for the poor people huddled together in the open car, but then again, it had already started raining by the time they got on and shouldn't they know better?

We all laughed at the rain, at ourselves for taking a joy ride in it, and at how fun it was to cuddle together for warmth and protection, even as we were pelted with rain and hail from between the rails of the train (we were in the cattle car). Luckily, Sophia and Tessa thought it was very funny, though they both allowed us to cover them up as best we could...even putting Tessa in the stroller and covering her completely with the shade at one point. Then the rain stopped...the train ride ended...and we went home with lots of fun pictures. As always, you can click on any photo to see it larger.

Pooh-san...then and now

Poohsan is Winnie the Pooh's affectionate nickname in Japan. One of my former students (thanks Ayumi!) gave Sophia a Poohsan outfit when she was born, which has now been passed down to Tessa. Well, she was wearing it the other day and we all had lots of fun taking her picture. Just because I love to see every picture imaginable of my girls, I looked back to find one of Sophia wearing it. She (above) was about 2 months older than Tessa (below) is now in these pictures, and look how much more hair she had! I don't think Tessa will be catching up so soon. But Sophia's didn't have that stylish way of sticking straight up like Tessa's...no matter how much I wet it, brush it, or pat it down!Tessa wanted the nectarine first, not the cereal!She still loves looking out windows and sticking her tongue out!

Here Tessa was delighted that she had found her sister under the blanket.

Jump, ABQ Jump!

Sister's shoes and sister's booster~I'm ready to go!

Another new fun place we've recently discovered is ABQ Jump. They have 7 bounce houses and giant inflatable slides, fun for Mommys as well as kids! The sisters and several of their friends loved it...and we will definitely be back again. Pictures were tricky because the kids were constantly in motion. Getting that picture at the end was the toughest...hot, hungry, excited kids + a slippery slide = no good picture! But plenty of good memories.

Patrick was unsure of those big slides at first, but he sure got the hang of it quickly!
My little daredevil Sophia had no fear at all...she liked going down head first and later told me that sliding down the ladder side was fun too!