December 2011

The Princess-Dooper Hero-Artist
Claira has many interests. But almost every single day you can find her pulling out a sheet of paper or a coloring book and "caw-ring". She is really good! For awhile her people...looked like a perfect drawing of a spider :) What I'm surprised with the most is how fast her 'style' in drawing is changing and improving! Oh yeah, and other times she flying around the house saying "No, I not Crare-ah. I DOOPER HERO!"

At Grandparents house we had a major paint-a-thon. We went to Michael's and bought all the 23 cent ceramics they had. Carissa and I paint stakingly painted 2 Christmas village cottages. This year I'm starting a tradition with them of building a Christmas village, adding pieces each season. Already in it's first year it's a nice piece of property! I'll have to load a photo soon.

This year's Santa photo was not as dramatic as last year. Although this time Claira's screaming was because she had to put on that beautiful fancy dress. But later on in the night she was loving the dress and twirling around. Ellia looked absolutely gorgeous in her soft red sweater dress & her red pants are the same satin ones from last year! Skinny minny.

This year a mom of Ellia's school friend invited us on their family's Christmas tradition of taking an old train (in Santa Clarita Valley) to a tree farm and cutting down your own tree! How quaint I thought. It was beautiful weather & the train ride was lots of fun, Santa strolled through. The tree farm was really organized and had tons to choose from. It was fun picking out our own. I knew we needed a small one. Unfortunately I was so concentrated on height I didn't pay attention to the tree trunk I'd be needing to cut through! After photos and videos and much documentation of this quaint throw-back tradition-we set about actually trying to cut the thing. Ellia and I tried our hardest. I realized I also chose to cut in the worst spot: a knot! Her friend's father helped me cut a lot of the trunk then I got the glory of knocking it down. You can't beat the smell of those freshly cut trees! And now it's sitting on our porch & the scent greets me every day!

Mommy & Me Day
Ellia has been needing some time on her own lately and/or time with just a parent and no sibling to wheel and deal with. It's another facet to this huge age of 5 that is definitely the starting point toward the onwards & upwards ages. She is older now & more importantly, wants to be older (or at least be all that 5 is supposed to be in her head) Before the age of 5, Ellia was just thankful for when Claira was old enough to do things with her. And their age combination always had common ground. It still does today, it's just that age 5 brings with it this sense that "I'm older and you're not." Ellia now wants the feeling of things that she can do but Claira maybe cannot. So the morning her 2nd tooth fell out, she said she wanted to stay home and rest. She knew that a few days prior I had stayed home with Claira, just the two of us, when she was sick. It definitely stuck in her head as something she wanted for herself. I figured, well I don't have to work today & time flies by so fast. I don't want to regret not slowing down to feel her life & experience who she is right on that day.

I take tons of photos and videos of them & one of my biggest regrets as time has flown is not getting in enough of them. A friend of mine has a blog and I notice that she has a good amount of photos of herself, hugging and squeezing and loving on her babies. When I see her photos I know they are going to be great time capsules for not only her but also for her children. I can imagine her daughter will look back and say "Mom! You were a looker!" In this photo Ellia wanted to look off from the camera and stare so I did the same thing. We were going for the "I'm too cool to look at the camera" album cover shot. ;)

This was an impromptu stop at the Cerritos Sculpture Garden when we were on our way to pick up Claira. Ellia loved that we carved out another moment for just the two of us. She, of course, wanted to play "Baby" and to play "Doggie". These are the two activity requests I get from the girls every single day. Here's how you play & listen carefully because it's so very complex: "Baby" = Ellia puts her head in my shirt and pretends that she's not born yet. Claira curls up into an egg and pretends she's a baby bird that's going to hatch. Claira hatches first & I peel the shells off her. She coos and makes her sweet, soft baby face. She starts flapping her wings. Then Claira's little sister is born. Ellia takes her head out and starts cooing and ga-ga-gooing. Then I'm supposed to teach them to crawl. They make it a few feet and then they fall flat on their tummies. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Eventually after I've repositioned them onto all fours they have learned to crawl. Then I have to teach them how to either walk or to fly off the cliff/bed.
"Doggie" = I'm supposed to be a little girl at the park with my Mommy and I see the little puppies. I ask the puppies "No leash? Where's your owner Doggie?" Then I'm supposed to ask my Mommy "Mommy can we have a Doggie? It doesn't have an owner. Can we take it home?" Very much like "Baby" except that they are both Puppies and I lead them on a leash/bathrobe belt.

The Nature GirlMuch like her Mama, Claira is constantly scanning the ground for 'nature things'. Especially leading up to her birthday! But I'll always remember lugging the Christmas tree we cut down (Ok, maybe not lugging. The thing was a shrub at the most.) But I have an image in my head of looking back to make sure Claira was following us & she was still doing what she had been doing the entire time we were getting the tree: Kneeling quietly in the dirt finding/collecting little nature things. Her head bowed down concentrating and her arms craddled to her chest to hold as many tiny pebbles, tiny sticks, tiny flowers, etc as she can.Here she is on a walk in our neighborhood (we were looking for twigs for her party). But whenever Claira sees flowers she absolutely has to pick them. And she always wants to make sure everyone is supplied with one to keep for themselves. So adorable cuz Ellia could care less if she's gonna get her fair share of flowers but Claira has to make sure. She usually exclaims "Loook! Boweeers...*gasp* MOOORE bowers!"
This is the day we stopped off at Frontier Park & during our visit I was blessed with the brilliant idea to have her birthday party there. We had fun in the dandelion patch. Claira literally would have picked every single one, methodically, if I hadn't stopped her.There's a beautiful tree on a little hill and golden leaves spread about. The crisp grey sky. It made for a great portrait of my Nature Girl.

Claira's 3, whoa is me...

Claira's Magical Woodland Fairy Teaparty
Frontier Park . Cerritos . December 10th

As you look at this goofy face of the newly 3 year old, here are her first faces in the world.

My tiny girl is wearing the same tu-tu she wore on her 1st Birthday!

So I went all out this time. I collected (the girls collected leaves, twigs, acorns & pinecones weeks leading up to party), I prepared, I stayed up, I baked, I cooked, I hot-glue gunned, I prepared, then I prepared some more. Without my wonderful friend Jenn I can say without a doubt the party would never have happened. She party rental'ed me out lots of vintage tea party items, ribbons, table ware. Most importantly, the morning of the party, she transformed along with me into a bat-outta-hell! We dashed from my house to the park, back and forth, setting up. The party started 30 minutes late but it started! My wonderful friends Cara and Riva took photos of the party & thank goodness because I don't think I UN-transformed from a bat-outta-hell until 30 minutes before the party ended! Mental note for next time: Enjoy the actual party with my growing-too-fast girl.

Pin The Fairy Wings on Claira

Kids Table. Individual serving plates, their own tongs, chocolate 'tea' bags for milk, medallion necklaces to color.3-Legged Race

Treasure Hunt. The kids would have played this over and over if it were possible. Major success. I knew kids liked treasure hunts but I had to find a way for them to do it on their own without having to read. So I went to the park a few days prior and took photos of items & set them around the park as clues. I printed the photos and taped them to colored paper.
I gave the kids the 1st clue: a Magical Dandelion. I wanted them to think of themselves as an entire group of unified hunters. So I instructed whoever found a clue first to hold it up high & wait for all the other hunters to gather around & look. It worked out great! And what was under the 'X' marking the spot? A pretty box filled with RING POPS. (A.K.A. crack to kids) Thanks to Cara for ruining her manicure helping me dig into the sand to bury the treasure. All of us laughed later after it was over because throughout the day kids had been asking "can I have a ring pop?" "I heard there's ring pops..." There very well could have been kids Tweeting about ring pops that fine day...

Back-log Blog: November 2011

School photos KILL me! Kids look so grown up in school photos, not really how you see them day-to-day. So I guess it's just startling. I love them though. I'm always really excited to see how they turn out. Their smiles/expression sum up exactly who they are.

Auntie Carissa and Uncle Adam built a huge chicken coop behind their place & promptly ordered 4 chickens in different colors. The girls really like finding the eggs. Sometimes they get to do that at their school too.

Goof balls...

Their smiles sum up exactly who they are as sisters.

Big Girl Teeth

In my September post I forgot to post, like, the biggest news ever! On Ellia's actual birthday she was watching Max and Ruby "Ruby looses a tooth." Low and behold Ellia felt her tooth and exclaimed "Mom! My tooth is loose!" I thought she was just acting like it "Oh ok, yup." But then when I went to get her out of the car I felt it and our eyes locked in total shock. She was beside herself with pride and giddiness. For weeks she had been comparing herself to any kid who had lost a tooth as if she was less of a human and a complete baby if she still had all her baby teeth. I think she thought that being 5 meant losing her baby teeth. I definitely was not ready for her to lose her baby teeth at 5! I whimpered "Oh Ellia, do you know that was your very first tooth you ever got? You've had it since you were 4 months old / "just born". That's a really old tooth!"

I told her all about what she needed to do with her tooth. My dad gave me a cool gold coin box (seen in first photo) that has a secret flap you lift to reveal a tiny envelope. I thought it would be the perfect box to leave under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

And after the tooth fairy gave her a stack of huge coins (dollar and half dollars) I told her she needed to write a thank you note to the Tooth Fairy, leave it under her pillow & she would put it in her special tooth box. Ellia made a beautiful painting to cover her tooth box. It has a drawer to pull out and a suede pouch to put the tooth in. The next morning, when she woke up, and her tooth was back in her possession. (in a Squinkies plastic bubble, inside the suede pouch)

And now, a mere two months later she lost her other "first tooth". I guess it's fitting because those two bottom teeth came in in just the same manner! So weird. This tooth losing was a bit more traumatic. The other one was very very ready (the adult tooth was underneath already) to come out and it just fell right out of her mouth that September morning before school. This one came out in the morning before school but it was because she bit onto a grape. It bled a lot and kinda scared her, which I would have been too. There's no sign of the adult tooth so she'll look different for awhile this time!

Back-log Blog: October 2011

Here's the 3rd harvest family photo (missing 2009) Here are the previous ones to compare!

I love cutout photo for some reason. In this photo, I realized later, Claira is making the same face Ellia made in her 1st cutout photo.

Ellia and Claira loved dancing to the music at Oak Glen Farms. Even though the apple season ended really early this year, it was still a fun and beautiful day!

Ellia having a "Gone With The Wind" moment.

On this day the girls and I and Jimmy stopped off at the pumpkin patch in Long Beach that we've been going to for years and years now. I remember the first time we went it felt so exciting because it was the first time Ellia was really experiencing Halloween festivities and it was fun to see her discovering it.


Jimmy and I took Ellia and Claira to their school friend's 5th birthday party. It was lots of fun: Taco truck, Shaved Ice, Margaritas, Horse Shoes (me & jimmy heated match), Badmitten (me & jimmy lighthearted match), Pinatas...and face painting! Ellia looked really cool in the Batman design she chose.
Here's a shot of Ellia's first time getting her face painted!

And Claira chose the exact opposite of her sister: The "Spah-ka-lee" Look. This is her first time having her face painted and she absolutely loved it. She didn't even want to take it off.

Ellia's Batman makeup was almost impossible to remove! Even my eye-makeup remover didn't really make a dent. That's why, a day later in her Halloween photos she kinda looks like she's wearing eye liner. Cuz she is. And here she is practicing for future high school Drama Class:And here is my party girl. Still in her makeup, still in her sparkly fancy shoes... I hope this photo isn't a sign of what's to come in college!!

Happy Halloween 2011!!

We walked the streets with 2 of Ellia's longest running school friends. They don't go to her current school but she's gone to school with them ever since she started daycare at 18 months! Ellia was pretty excited that 'we' were going to make her costume this year. She was very helpful in standing for me to measure her. She'd be coloring with Claira and I'd say "Can you come over one more time Ellia?" and she'd toss her crayon down and tell Claira: "I'll be right back Claira, I have to work on my Halloween costume." I pretty much made it in 2 or 3 separate days. And it was very cheap. The only thing I had to buy were the Dryer Ducting, Silver Spray Paint and the $2 Goodwill GI Joe black jumpsuit to wear underneath. (which, of course, she was more excited about than the robot costume...of course) I used: Milk jug, stickers, coil from calendar, silver windshield reflector, bottle caps, 7UP liter bottle, egg carton, LED tap lights, glow sticks, calculator & nuts and bolts. You name, I saved it.
Thanks go out to Kristine (for drinking the milk), Veronica (for the coil idea), Mom & Dad (silver windshield reflector & laminated Candy-Bot signs), Jimmy (silver windshield reflector engineering into robot body shape)


Claira is now a total pro at Trick or Treating. She had a great time & of course was only walking the streets to earn lollipops of all kinds. Once she scored one she was all set. Leading up to Halloween we were comparing whether to be Minnie Mouse or Snow White. Every time someone asked what she was going to be she'd always say "Mickey Mouse."


This little impromptu invention has proven to be really cool. I wanted Ellia to have something hard to write/draw on when sitting in her car seat. But I didn't want it to be too hard and dangerous & I wanted it to hold everything in one place for her. Enter 3-ring binder filled with different sorts of papers & a zip bag in front for markers, pencils and crayons. She loves her little car seat desk. And I love that I have an efficient means of child labor for creating birthday cards while on the way to kids parties!