Preschool!

Lydia loves Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  She sings the little tunes he sings on the show all the time, and often sings them to comfort Sophie.  Like at breakfast if I leave to use the restroom I can hear her sing "Grown ups come back!"

For months I've watched Lydia approach other kids at the Library or grocery store or wherever, wanting to make friends and wishing that I could form a playgroup for her so that she had regular social interactions with kids her own age in addition to what she gets at nursery.

So after watching an episode where Daniel Tiger goes to school for the first time I asked if that was something she was interested in.  And she absolutely was.  For weeks we've talked about preschool and what Lydia could expect and yesterday was her first day!  The night before we found her a backpack which she promptly filled with stuffed animals.  Daniel Tiger brings Tigey, his Tiger stuffed animal to his first day of school, and Lydia wanted to do the same.  Sophie was a little jealous of Lydia's backpack, so Jon brought one up from the basement for her to wear, and it cheered her up right away.

First thing yesterday morning Lydia walked out of her room carrying her backpack.  Despite still being in her pajamas, she was ready to go!  We found an outfit she approved of, gobbled down breakfast and did her hair as quickly as possible.  We took a picture outside while Soph was still sleeping, hoping that those few extra minutes might allow her to wake up on her own.  She didn't.  And she wasn't happy being woken up.  Lydia was so worried about being to school on time!  And because we didn't want to risk being late, Soph got to be carried around the block in her pajamas.  She was not in a great mood, but she kept it together and the three of us took off and made it to school a few minutes early.  She was on time!

  While she was at school Sophie and I (mostly I) made cookies for Lyds.  And when we picked her up she said, "you came back!"  We then walked home talking all the way, and enjoyed some delicious milk and cookies.

When Jon got home that evening and asked how school was, this was her response, "Corn cobs!  Paint!!  Yellow, red and brown.  It got messy.  She brought me some apples.  They were sour!  There was a tree with monkeys, a swing that birds could swing on at the top of the tree.  We didn't play with cars.  I played with green play dough.  I used a roller and a cutter.  I was making a big birthday cake.  Our teacher pulled out Thanksgiving stuff.  Ms Lisa read a book about the roast beef and the comb inside it.  The little boy set his comb on the roast beef and it melted.  And his dad threw it out the window and the dog caught it."  I am not familiar with this one.  Anyone...?     

All evening she kept talking about how school had worn her out.  She was so tired from school!!  But she's looking forward to another day tomorrow!

Halloween- All's Well That Ends Well

Jon and I are convinced that we had more fun with Halloween this year than ever before and possibly enjoyed it more than our girls did.  Maybe.  For months Lydia has talked of little else other than her dressing up as Elsa in regards to Halloween.  We enjoyed asking her if she planned on dressing up as cousin Elsa, and she'd laugh and tell us no!  Elsa from Frozen!  She's also awaited it's arrival with eager anticipation, including discussing with us just how many days remained for at least two weeks leading up to the holiday.  But for Lyds it wasn't just that.  No, her giddy excitement included insisting on assigning parts to all of us.  Sophie as Olaf, Jon as Sven and me dressing up as Anna.  She would even assign the parts of Kristoff and Hans out to different family members or some of her stuffed animals when it suited her.

Sophie's costume arrived in the mail long before Lydia's did.  And we helped her into it right away.  She looked so great!  She'd wave her stick arms and seemed to really like Olaf's head on top of her own.  Lydia handled that pretty well.  She loved seeing Sophie in it, but asked for days when her costume would be coming.  Jon was tracking it and she would ask over and over again if it was still in China after he'd showed how far it needed to travel on our world map.  When she saw Abby's Facebook video her friends made before she departed for China Lydia mentioned that it might be a good idea for Abby to pick it up.  Makes sense, right?

The costume came and Lydia was not disappointed.  The gloves and the crown were perfect!  One of the most appealing reasons for being Elsa was obtaining her powers.  I remember going for a run at the park and seeing Lydia wiggle her fingers over puddles on our path.  She told me that she was practicing turning water into ice.  I love that girl's imagination!  Her gloves would keep things in check.  We weren't worried. ;)

The Monday before Halloween I had the girls decorate their pumpkins, courtesy of Uncle Isaac and Aunt Amber, and they had a ball marking them up with Sharpies.  Jon came home with pictures of different Frozen characters and Toy Story characters to serve as stencils for our pumpkin carving.  Lydia was so excited!  On Wednesday we stayed up late scooping pumpkin guts, something that the girls were not too keen to take part in.  In fact, they adamantly refused to touch the stuff.  I can't really blame them.  First time seeing the inside of a pumpkin surely was surprising.  Sophie loved watching her Dad use the dremel and see little pieces of pumpkin fly all over the kitchen. Lydia didn't want to go to bed until she saw the jack-o-lantern all lit up with a candle inside.  And she wasn't disappointed.  Olaf looked amazing!  And Jon was back at it again the next night carving Anna in another pumpkin.  Olaf took three hours, but Jon learned some tricks so that when it came to down to carving Anna it only took him an hour and a half.  We'll see if this becomes a family tradition in the coming years...

 

The girls got to participate in some fun activities leading up to Halloween.  They went on a hayride twice, dressed up in costumes from last year, and had their faces painted at the ward party.  I cracked up when Lydia requested to be painted like a pirate after showing her all these cute stamps; things like hearts, flowers and butterflys.  She would not be swayed and the result was one happy pirate!  Sophie wanted a heart, but she wouldn't hold still for a picture so we weren't able to capture that moment.

 

 

And then it was Halloween!  I ended up watching our friends' boys from early morning until mid-afternoon which postponed some of the excitement.  The girls had a good distraction with two other little ones here.  After Jon got home from work we got the girls into their costumes.  Sophie looked fantastic in her Olaf getup.  She apparently didn't like her little pants.  My guess is that they itched because she kept pulling them up and wasn't content until Jon rolled them up for her.  And Lydia made a lovely Queen Elsa.  I tried to make her hair look authentic, but Lyds acknowledged that her hair wasn't quite long enough.  Her braid wouldn't rest on her shoulder like it should, but we did add a little bit on top to make her look like Elsa.  Unfortunately Lyds rolled around in the love sac before we left for the day and that was that!

We were off!  First a visit to Isaac and Amber and then to Grandma and Grandpa Blackhurst.  The girls were happy to fill their baskets, and Lydia was especially pleased to see candy corn!  A new found  favorite treat.  Next we trick-or-treated at Grandma and Grandpa Fraziers where the palpable excitement suddenly came to a halt.  There was a skeleton sitting on the front porch and the girls did not like it.  Not one little bit.  It was bad enough seeing it sitting there, but when it lit up and talked it was really bothersome.  I covered Lydia's eyes when I saw the scary mask moving in the window, and once inside Sophie wouldn't let me set her down.  She stuck with me like glue, and Lydia let it be known that she wouldn't be leaving through the front door.  So after a few minutes we exited through the garage and went a few doors down to trick-or-treat at Aunt Stacey and Uncle Lance's.  The suckers were very welcome after the spooks they'd seen, but it wasn't enough.

On the car ride home Lydia announced that she hated Halloween, and that she wanted to take off her costume.  What?!!  After so much eager anticipation we didn't want the day to end like that for her.  And the thought of her dreading future Halloweens was very unwelcome.  We convinced her to keep her costume on through dinner so that we could go trick-or-treating to a few neighbors before calling it a night.  And then our sweet neighbors came to our house and invited Lydia to join them.  She was all for it!  She, Sophie and I joined Cinderella and her Mom.  Cinderella ran like crazy from house to house and Lyds did her best to keep up.  She only tripped and fell a few times, but it didn't really slow her down.  She was having the time of her life.  Then Jon texted that Uncle Tophe was at our house and we went home to see him.  Lydia ran all the way down the street, so excited that he was there!  Then Uncle Tophe offered to hand out candy while Jon joined us to go to a few more neighbors.  Since this was the first time our girls have trick-or-treated I'm glad that we were all together as a family.  This kind elderly couple had a special gift they wanted to to give our girls.  They sit behind us in Sacrament meeting each week and we've learned that they only had sons, so they've really enjoyed interacting with our girls.  The wife told us she wanted to give them black patent leather purses to fill with whatever they wanted when they came to church.  She couldn't find what she was looking for, but the purses she gave them are darling.  Our neighbors are so good to our girls!  When we came home and the girls saw their loot Lydia's attitude towards Halloween was much more positive, but that was pretty clear when I saw her running around with Cinderella.

And the night ended so much better than it might have.

Trip to the dentist.

Our neighbor recently told us that their three year olds mouth was going to cost them nearly $600.00. So many cavities!  So we decided it was time to get Lydia in for a check up and while we were there, we'd have the dentist take a look Sophie's mouth too.

The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist quickly became Lydia's favorite new book.  She's fallen in love with the Berenstain Bears, and when she discovered that there was a story about a trip to the dentist, she was thrilled!  She related so much to Sister Bear.  She even started talking about her "loose tooth" and wondering if the dentist would pull it out.

Jon had some work done on his teeth a few weeks ago, and had a temporary silver cap for one of his teeth until they could make him a ceramic one.  Lydia thought it was pretty cool.  She talked about all her sharp silver teeth for days.  It took some real convincing to help her understand that silver teeth are not desirable.  We had the girls brush like crazy and floss each night too.  They seem to have decent spacing between their teeth, but we wanted to make sure that no food was hitching a ride in their mouths through the night.

Earlier this week we went to the dentist, and all Lydia's talk of her "nervous excitement" paid off.  She was a champ!  She laid back in the dentist chair, selected King Fu Panda when asked what movie she wanted to watch, and looked so grown up in her sunglasses (the dental hygienists light was really bright and bothersome, so she was offered a pair) while getting her teeth clean.  She chose chocolate toothpaste, by the way.  And she refused the head phones (this little lady is uber sensitive to sound) and just watched the TV.

Sophie sat in my lap while the dentist cleaned her teeth.  Her gums only bled a little.  The dentist warned us that she will most likely need braces eventually, but she was a champ too!  I think she really enjoyed being spun around in the swivel chair while Lydia sat in the dentist chair.  And she really liked having her dad there too.

What did we walk away with?  No cavities!  Lydia took home a Monsters Inc. toothbrush, and Sophie, a Minnie Mouse one.

And they couldn't be happier about it!

Artists in residence...

Lydia started dabbling in different art mediums shortly after her first birthday.  Mulan was her original inspiration.  Thanks to her, Lydia was inspired to draw all over her arms.  I encouraged chalk drawing, play dough, colored pencils, crayons and markers.  On paper.  Emphasis on paper.  She then graduated to neckties, and eventually anything she could get her hands on.  As long as it left a mark.  Each time I found her, I immediately reached for the camera.  Capturing those moments cheerfully, and then reminding her that we don't draw on furniture, was the goal.

Some supervised artwork. 

Cleaning up after taking a pen to the furniture in our Home Teacher room.

 Body wash. It started on her body, but didn't take long before it spread to the bench and the carpet in our closet.

Things calmed down for awhile.  The Sophie got her hands on a green crayon and these ladies put their heads together and went to town on a couple of walls.  So pleased with their masterpiece!

 

Soap, crayons, paint, markers, pens, chalk, play dough.  Doesn't matter the medium....  I'm sure we'll find these little darlings up to much much more mischief in the years to come!

Sophie stats

This little firecracker just had her 18 month checkup.

Here are her stats:

Weight- 20.4 pounds, 4%
Length- 31 inches, 31%
Head circumference- 18.5 inches, 64%

Despite the fact that she's teeny tiny (we're just glad she's on the charts) she packs a punch.  She's energetic, enthusiastic and determined.  She has opinions and she wants those opinions to be known, and she won't quit until she's heard.  She still isn't talking much other than the decisive yes (or more often yah) or no, but in spite of that she communicates amazingly well (she's made up some of her own signs for things like more and now!) and her comprehension is fantastic.  She follows directions like a pro.

"Soph, will you go get your blanket?" "Could you throw this in the garbage for me?" "Where's your pink bear?" Or "You can choose three books." She actually selects way more than three, but I never said that counting was her strength.  Not yet anyway.

She can point to body parts and loves chasing her big sis around.  She insists on sitting in any chair at the dinner table but her own and often bursts into tears when her requests are denied (sometimes she needs to take a minute to compose herself, usually on Mom and Dad's bed) and wants to wash her hands every time she's in the bathroom.  She's interested in everything Lydia's doing, but is happy to do her own thing when sister clearly needs her own space.  She won't slide down the slide if there is anything that remotely resembles an insect on any part of the slide.  She even finds blades of grass bothersome enough to prevent her from sliding down, but once the slide passes her inspection she happily cruises down it again and again and again.  And as much as she enjoys the slide, her true love is the swing.  She gets giddy excited when anyone mentions swinging on the swing. Above all, she LOVES LOVES LOVES reading books and somehow my nighttime routine with her is not nearly as acceptable as what she and her Dad have established.  I can read three books to her just as well, I think, as Jon does, but he sings Constellation by Jack Johnson and Sophie Frazier, an altered Marci Playground song, and I simply can't compete with that.  Why won't Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes cut it?  At least she puts up with, and from what I can tell actually really enjoys it, after bath time.  I'll take what I can get.

And we just can't get enough of her!

Layton Fire Department

The girls and I went running with our BOB last Friday and three miles in we decided to take a break.  We'd made it to Ellison Park and the girls were ready to get out, stretch, and run around themselves.  At the playground Lyds and Soph raced each other on the slides and chased each other on the bridge until they were eventually worn out.  It was clearly time to leave, so I returned Sophie to her seat and Lydia hopped back into hers and we were ready to race home.  Or so we thought.  As we started off I noticed that the stroller was pulling to one side, and on closer inspection realized that the left back tire had lost a significant amount of air.  What?!  It had been fine when we'd left home, and Jon has done numerous repairs on these tires (due to the abundant number of thorns we have in our area) and I was amazed that after all the goo and the insert that he'd put in it that the tire could lose that much air that quickly.  Perhaps if I'd been pushing the stroller the goo could have done it's job and filled in the guilty holes releasing our air, but who knows.  I knew we'd never make it home without some help, and I really didn't want to bug Jon at work even though I knew he'd come rescue us in a heartbeat.

Fortunately for all of us Ellison Park is right next to the Fire Department, and so we took a chance and went in with the hopes that they had a tire pump and would be willing to assist us and send us on our way.  I'm sure we looked a mess, at least I looked a mess!  But they were quick to lend a hand.  One of the gentlemen sitting behind his desk went to look for a converter so he could pump up our tire while the two women in the entrance entertained our girls from behind their desks.  They loved Sophie's curls and learned all about Lydia's pigs and how she's growing up and will be "tall as my Dad" one day.  One of the women went into a closet and retrieved two Junior Fire hats and two sets of bracelets.  The girls were delighted.  It was then that we were directed past the fire trucks  to the equipment that would hopefully do what we needed it to do.  And thankfully it did!  There was some concern from the man who'd gone to find out what sorts of tools he had that he might blow out our tire as he tried to pump it up with just the right amount of air.  Fortunately it didn't blow, and in total it took no more than ten minutes from the time we walked into the Fire Department until we were on our way again, but it meant so much to us!

Oregon

If you want to be shown a good time, go visit Jess and Derek in Aloha!  The twelve hours in the car brought back so many memories of vacations to Spokane.  Maybe it's just the way the Northwest is, but driving around Portland and where the Stott's live felt so much like driving around Grandma and Grandpa Blackhurst's twenty years or so ago.

The biggest difference in our trip verses trips to Washington was that the girls got to watch movies on these little DVD players.  Kept them happy, distracted and entertained.  We tried not to keep them going the whole time, but they certainly were appreciated by all!  I'll have to ask Dad if we were uber annoying, asking if we were there yet five minutes into the trip, and again and again and again long before we arrived.  Lydia asked if we were close early on and then continually noted that we were very far from home.

Jess texted a few hours before we were to reach Aloha and offered us dinner, so we joined Jess and Derek and Derek's sisters and nephew for some scrumptious chicken enchiladas, a recipe I must have!  Then Jess and Derek joined us at the hotel for a swim in the pool.  Lydia was keeper of the stairs, but reluctantly left her safety net to rescue Uncle Derek several times.  You couldn't tell by Sophie's expression, but I think she was enjoying herself for the most part.  Sophie Sophie.  She has one incredible poker face!  But more on that later.  Swimming was the perfect way to end a long day in the car and start our vacation.

The next day we took it pretty easy in the morning and then met the Stott's for lunch at Popeye's.  The girls were not a fan of the food, but Jon felt like it rivaled KFC in it's chickeny goodness.  Outside it was pretty moist and drizzly; the perfect day to spend inside a museum.  Derek suggested the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and it didn't disappoint!  I'm not sure who had more fun... Jon or the girls... We all really enjoyed ourselves, but the girls especially once we moved on from the the exciting dinosaur exhibit.  They liked excavating for dinosaur bones and shading over fossils, but the large life like dinosaurs were terrifying!  We might have pushed things a little bit too far with Sophie, but she was so cute and handled it all quite well despite her parents.

Some highlights from the rest of the afternoon included bottle rockets, Lego towers that were built to withstand earthquakes (Jon totally rocked this one; of course he did!), sailboats that floated down stream, stations that showed the earth's gravitational pull and centrifugal force (Lydia didn't want to leave the former and Jon had a hard time moving on from the latter), a sandbox, a water station (don't the girls look awesome in their smocks?!) and this contraption the demonstrated airflow.  I loved watching the girls try to catch the floating ball!  Another great day that ended with a pizza party.

Sunday we joined Jess and Derek at church and I was completely caught off guard when this cute Filipino called out my name!  One of the Sister missionaries from my mission married one of my District Leaders and they live in Beaverton and are in the Stott's Ward.  Who knew?!  Church was wonderful.  Lydia had a great time in nursery playing with three little pigs.  They were bigger than the ones she has misplaced at home, and I think they were just what she needed.  Sophie slept the whole time, and we just really enjoyed being with family.  Derek's mom invited us to join them for dinner. We didn't know that the Sister missionaries had been invited as well!  The food was excellent and so was the company.  It was so fun to spend time with the Stotts!  Our girls fell in love with little Gretchen (their itty bitty dog) and Raja, the kitten (that was at least four times bigger than Gretchen).  Sophie was so giddy happy when she was anywhere near that kitty and Lydia would have been happy to pet him all vacation long, though it became clear that Raja had other plans.

Monday morning we headed to Multnomah Falls.  Being Labor Day, and knowing that Jess had an interview later that day, we left earlier than we might have otherwise.  We were so glad we did because after we'd hiked up, enjoyed the Falls and returned to where we started, the place was packed.  On a side note, driving out there after Jess and Derek had told us the name of the Falls, Jon and I could not for the life of us remember what they'd said, and wondered if we had even heard it correctly in the first place.  Melanoma Falls?  That didn't seem right.  Mulch had stood out to me.  Mulch-noma?  I don't think so.  So we decided to document the memory by taking our picture next to the sign.
 

 The hike was wonderful.  The Falls were beautiful.  I'm quite certain all of our expectations were met.  Lydia started requesting we go hiking months ago.  She'd gotten it into her head that she needed to go hike on a trail, and even though we reminded her several times on our hike up that we were on a trail, I think she knew that, and was entirely happy about it.  Perhaps she just wanted to make sure.  She walked most of the way up, except when Jon, and then Uncle Derek carried her in the hiking backpack, and a significant part of the way down.  I think her favorite moments were when she got to be propelled between two of us as we lifted her up and swung her forward.  Sophie, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the hike, but she simply put up with the hiking backpack.  She clearly didn't want to be in it, but besides her grumpy face we'd never have known it otherwise.  She didn't complain and eventually  fell asleep for the bumpy descent.  That might have been her real issue because once she woke up she was much cheerier.  And at the bottom we enjoyed some delicious fudge.  Or fludge, according to Lyds.

We spent the afternoon walking around Tualatin Park with Derek and Jess.  It was beautiful!  So green and dense.  If we lived in Portland I'd love to go running there.  Lydia found some leaves to add to the acorn and leaf collection she started on her walk with Jon and Sophie Sunday morning.  Then we headed to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  Our girls inhaled their pasta; one of the best meals, according to them, of our whole trip.  Derek's family invited us to their family home evening.  It was so fun to see them interacting!  And they made us feel so welcome while we were there.

Tuesday morning we  drove to Cannon Beach and one could argue that it was the Best Day Ever!  It's possible that had we gone there our first day, we might not have gone anywhere else.  The skies were clear, the temperature was pleasant and the sand was irresistible.  Lydia didn't seem able to walk more than a yard before she felt the need to plunge her fingers in the sand.  Sophie has developed this fantastic shuffle.  We call it the Sophie shuffle.  I can't get enough!  And that poker face I mentioned earlier?  She totally gets this smirky smile that kills me when she finally cracks!  I don't know if she just wants us to die wondering what she's thinking or if she's working on developing a killer poker face, but either way, it's entirely entertaining.  I imagine she works pretty hard to keep her face so expressionless. And her sand beard!  Amazing!  The seagulls, however, brought out the most giddy giggles in Soph.  She loved finding them and loved pointing them out to all of us.  I think she could have gone home happy after seeing those seagulls.  Lydia worried that the ocean would grab her and was not fond of how noisy the waves were, but before she distanced herself from the water and us, she found great enjoyment in destroying all of Jon's creations.  She just loved to knock over anything he packed together!  In fact that was how I lured her back to where the rest of us were.  She seemed determined to upturn every bit of moist sand (it began raining while we went for lunch and met up with Derek and Jess) she came in contact with on her way to the hill leading off the beach.  She actually made it quite far before I caught up to her.  And her tracks in the sand were amazing.  All. Over. The. Map.  I'm so glad she loved the sand.  Our destroying daughters.  I gave all the credit to Lydia for knocking things over, but Sophie clearly enjoyed collapsing sand piles just as much.

Before the sun came out again

Lydia tracks, escaping the noisy water

 Oh!  And the creps!  Just before we headed back to our hotel we stopped to enjoy them. They were delicious.  That is all.

And that was our trip!  It was perfect.  We could easily have spent much longer there, and it was horrible saying goodbye to Jess and Derek, but we sure have some great memories!