Little DaVinci

I've been wanting to post this for awhile now but keep forgetting.  R&R are signed up for an acrylics painting class at Little DaVinci Studios in Chandler.  The art stuff is right up Reese's alley but they are both signed up and loving it so far.  They are painting a beach scene with a fence and sea grass.  It looks like a Cape Cod beach to me.  I've been sneaking a peek at the end of class to see their progress and they are so excited to show off their work.  It's fun to see them paint the exact same scene and put their own twist on it.  The finished product will be posted soon, but here are each of there pictures in progress:

Ryan's painting.  I love the crazy clouds and her green/white sea grass.

 Reese's painting.  Love the graduated sand dune and blended ocean colors.

Soccer practice

The girls had their first soccer practice today and they were pretty stinkin' adorable in their uniforms.  The league was short on coaches so Cory stepped up and is coaching the team.  They were all really excited about practice tonight.  I took a few photos on my camera that I still need to download, but here they are after a sweaty hour of fun in the 110 degree heat.

Cory did some really fun drills with the kids and I could tell they were all having a blast.  Ryder and I went to watch for a bit but he was all about interrupting the practice.  Cory gave me the big ol' stinkeye and I knew I needed to get Ryder out of there fast. We packed up quickly and headed to Mimi's house to take a ride on the golf cart and have some fun.

I can't wait for their first game in September!

Pretend that....

It's a phrase we hear about 100 times a day right now.  Their imaginations are running wild and the girls are SO good at pretend play.  They do it all day long and some of the things that come out of their mouths are hilarious.  Here are just a few scenarios I've heard in the past 48 hours:

• Pretend that the sandbox is Noah's Ark and the rain is about to start coming down.  Reese has the hose for rain effect and Ryan is yelling at her to get on the ark because the flood is coming.
• Pretend that you're Dr. Matsumoto and these are my sick babies.
• Pretend that my babies threw up all day and have a fever of one hundred thirty. 
• Pretend that you're sick and you have swimmer's ear and can't swim for a week. (Not swimming for a week is a full blown tragedy at our house)
• Pretend that these markers (brown, blue, orange) are the boy markers and these are the girl markers (pink, purple, yellow) and they are about to get married and have babies.
• Pretend that this box is my minivan and we're going to London for a fancy party.
• Pretend that you're my husband and you sell houses.  My job is to clean pools.  (Ree had a conversation with the pool guy last week and told me promptly after their conversation ended that she was going to be a pool cleaner when she grew up, in addition to being a vet, pediatrician, Realtor, firefighter, and a mommy :)

It never stops and it's the cutest interaction I've ever seen.  I could write a million more and I'm sure I'll have some new ones next week.  I love that they have a built in best friend who they can play with 24/7. 

Our schedule

I get teased by a few people because I don't write things down and just keep stuff in my somewhat photographic memory.  It's pretty sharp most of the time but the occasional mommy brain slips in.  We are crazy busy right now with activities and so I've started writing it all down and I am laughing at all the craziness.  Here's what our week looks like:

Monday:
Bogusia here, 8:30a-3:30p
Girls school, 12:30p-3:30p
Cory soccer, 8:00p

Tuesday:
Free morning at home (ballet class and babies in motion class for Ryder starts 9/13 at Community Center)
Girls school, 12:30-3:30p
Dinner @ home

Wednesday:
Mimi arrives at 8:30a to watch Ryder while girls and I head out to swim lessons
Swim lessons for girls, 9:00a (next week is our last week)
Ania arrives at 9:30a, stays til 3:45p
Girls school, 12:30-3:30p
Ballet class for girls, 4:30-5:30p
Dinner at home

Thursday:
Free morning at home
Girls to school at 11:45 for Strech N Grow class before preschool
School, 12:30-3:30p
Cory soccer night, time varies from 6:15-10:30 
Usually leftovers for dinner

Friday:
No school, gymnastics at Aspire from 10a-11a.
Acrylics Painting class at Little Da Vinci from 4:30-5:30


Seriously, the girls are doing a lot right now but they love it all.  Swim is over next week, and we are going to finish our current session at Aspire and then take a break so we can have Friday mornings wide open to do whatever we want.  The ballet class on Wednesdays was offered to us for free so how could we turn that down?  Their favorites right now are the painting class and gymnastics. Aspire will be hard to give up but they'll still have the Stretch N Grow at school and I'm really looking forward to having our Friday mornings open for awhile. 

Lovin' it

The girls are having so much fun in PreK this year.  It's a big difference going to school four days a week instead of two, but they are doing great.  They love both their teachers and bring home some really cute artwork each day.  Each week they have a letter that they concentrate on and they have homework to do where they cut out pictures related to that letter.  This week was 'W' and we had fun going through the magazine trying to find wood, waffles, water, etc.  I love the set up of their classroom and they have a science center, a pretend play area (right now it's set up as an eye doctor's office). The girls are in hog heaven.  I'm so happy knowing they are at such a great school where they get the Christian foundation we want while learning so much at the same time.

We'll try again later

The girls have been doing gymnastics for almost 2 years now and they really enjoy it.  Since Ryder was born I've been taking him to watch the girls every Friday morning.  He's been a trouper about being carted along to all their activities, but the last few months have been challenging because he wants to be doing stuff.  When the girls are in class I end up chasing him all over the gymnastics building and trying to keep him out of the tumbling area.  Now that he's 19 months I decided I would do the Mommy & Me class with him at the same time.  Today was our first day and he hated it.  What a hot mess!  He screamed and cried and wouldn't let me put him down.  The class is supposed to be 18mos.-3 years old, which is a huge gap at that age and he's on the young side of the gap.  We lasted about 10 minutes in class before I went up to the desk and promptly told them we wouldn't be returning until he's about 2 1/2.  We left the class and he told me he was hungry so we hopped in the car and drove through Starbucks to get me a coffee and him a slice of pumpkin bread.  He ate 2 bites of his bread and fell asleep in his car seat.  Poor little guy was tired from all that screaming :)

After the girls finished their class we met up with Mimi & Aunt Jess at McDonald's for a little playdate.  The one down the street from us has a cute little toddler area, not the big nasty play structure with E. coli balls.  The kids were having lots of fun playing together and they really liked the Smurfs that came in their Happy Meals (that they barely ate).  Cory told Reese a long time ago that McD's is bad for you and will make you fat.  So not cool, but I think he was trying to drive home the point that we really don't eat that kind of food.  Well today Reese was standing there in the thick of things talking about how McDonald's is so bad for you and will make you fat.  We really need to watch what we say because they sure know how to repeat every single word they hear.

They wanted to paint...

and this is what happened:

It was everywhere.  It started with Haley painting her hand to do handprints on the paper and then it spiraled out of control.  Thank goodness Cory was right there to help me clean up and get the kids cleaned up.  They had too much fun getting dirty.

Rosa's new amigos

Since the girls love Rosa Release so much we decided to order a few of our own.  We purchased a stuffed Bud and a stuffed Maddie in honor of our puppies that passed away this past year.  They are SO cute and the girls love playing with them.  Sometimes I do a double take because stuffed Maddie looks so similar to our little Maddie that we lost.  The girls wanted Mimi to take Bud & Maddie to San Diego so they could 'play' with Rosa.  We got some fun picture updates of all three dogs hangin' together on the balcony and eating breakfast with Papa.  What a riot!

The route we had to take

He's such a little climber and we couldn't take any more chances.  We had to go out and buy this:

At first he put up a fight, but now he's sleeping like a champ.  He goes down with only a few whimpers and sleeps through the night.  I'm sleeping great too since he's not in bed kicking us or climbing out of his crib and haunting the halls.

19 months

He's turning into such a big boy.  His speech has exploded this month and he's impressing all of us with his communication skills.  It's so much fun because he's telling us what he wants and is answering all our questions by answering yes and no.  Today I asked him who watched him and he said, "Ania" and then he said, "Hi, Ania."  He loves playing with his sisters and reading bedtime stories with them.  He is so adventurous by nature and he's getting crazier by the day, which is hard to imagine.  We are on a constant mission to keep him safe.  It's definitely a daily challenge.  He seems to be in a growth spurt right now because he's got a good little appetite and he's always asking to eat.  What a fun little dude!  We love you so much, Ryder!  It just keeps getting better each day.

Hoarders? I think not

I'm a sucker for garage sales and finding good deals on things.  We live in a decent area and people in the surrounding neighborhoods sell nice stuff for CHEAP.  Cory hates it and makes fun of me by calling me a hoarder.  He really knows what buttons to push because I truly hate crap lying around the house and if something doesn't have a place then it's sent to Goodwill right away.  My aunt and uncle sold their house and had a garage sale today with my 2 cousins.  They were selling some pretty good stuff.  I scored a JEEP single jogging stroller and all this stuff for $36:

• Silk daffodil plant
• 2 baby dolls and one carrier.  One is a boy Cabbage Patch Kid and that's going over big in our house right now.  We don't have any boy baby dolls.
• Big Elmo Board book
• DVDs unopened--The Holiday (one of my faves) & Shallow Hal
• 2 amazing kids books--Adventures of Frog & Toad (hardback) and Sideways Stories at Wayside School--one of the best kids books ever written.  Can't wait to read it to the girls at bedtime, one chapter a night.
•  2 Nike golf shirts for Cory
• Hannah Montana night light and rock star wall decals for Campbell
• Mega Bloks school bus
• Ceramic pears & apple for decor (I'm kind of a fan of fake fruit)

I really hope my husband will stop teasing me because I think I got some pretty good stuff today for around 30 bucks.

Oldest and youngest

On Cory's side of the family Romelo is the oldest cousin and Ryder is the youngest.  There's a 10 year age gap but they are close little buddies.  Rome is so good with Ryder and he will watch over him and carry him around the house.  It's so nice having him around to entertain Ryder boy and help out.