Natalie: “I’ll open the garage and get our bikes out.”
Mama: “No, you need to wait until I’m done doing the dishes.”
Natalie: “Oh, yeah, I thought I was a grownup.”
Balancing work and children is difficult. Over the past few weeks the time that I normally spend exclusively with my children has been dedicated to making sure that our annual kickoff went smoothly. Fortunately, it was fun work, and with a theme like “We Rock!” the end result was a load of “toys” to play with. The team let me take home two guitars, some VIP passes and some sunglasses and I brought them all home to Sofi and Natalie as soon as I could. And that’s just the beginning of the fun.
For Christmas this year, Grammy and Grampy gave the girls a Fisher Price camera designed for children. It’s super easy to use, pink, and very durable. Frankly, it is probably designed for a slightly older age child, but the girls like it and they’re even starting to get the hang of how to take a picture - with the biggest problem being that they sometimes take the camera away from the subject before taking a picture which results in many pictures of the floor. Anyway, I thought it was time to share with all of you some of their perspective and things that make them smile.
Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
It’s not often that dessert is something other than chocolate, and it’s not often that dessert is a participatory event, either. To change that, the other night we decided to try and make some fancy rice-crispy squares (er, circle?) that came with a decorative topping. The girls had a wild time putting the red and orange on top and although there were supposed to be candies on top, too, they were eaten outright before making it to the top. Loads of fun.
Papa
We had a great time this weekend, and Audrey’s birthday party at My Gym was sort of like the icing on the cupcake… if you know what I mean. I took over 500 photos, too many to share here, but there are tons in the gallery. Feel free to check them out. Definitely fun times for everyone. The people were great, the fun was there, and Audrey definitely looked like a little princess.
I’ve learned a lot about women over the last three years - or perhaps I should say girls - and almost all of it has been from my daughters. Sure, my wife has taught me some, but Sofi and Natalie - kids in general perhaps - have a different view on so many differnt things that sometimes I end up simply sitting back and laughing at the whole thing.
Trick or Treat! The doorbell just rang for the 100th time tonight and the costumes keep getting better and better. Of course, I think that my puppy and kitty were the two best costumes out there, and the sheer excitement that Sofi and Natalie showed tonight is nearly unrivaled. Even now at a little after 8:00 they’re still hyped up and raring to go - running to the door every time someone comes up, eager to hand out the treats that we’re giving out. Very fun.
What a great weekend! We’ve had a lot of fun and Oakland Zoo’s “Boo at the Zoo” event was sort of icing on the proverbial cake. Basically, the Oakland Zoo hosts a mini-halloween party for anyone wanting to come in costume - and there were a lot of people that wanted to go to the zoo in costume. It was amazing fun, and although we huffed through to get to Theo’s First Birthday Party, the girls seemed to have a marvelous time. We even completed the scavenger hunt and each girl got a treat bag.
While I realize that this blog is about our children, it is also about everyone that is a part of our life. Looking back I realized that is quite a few people and thought that perhaps I should share some of those photos, too. Show you how you made us smile an how much we enjoyed your company. Hopefully each of you - included in these photos and not - will know that we think of you as a part of our family and hope that you will continue to be a part of our lives and the lives of our daughters for many years to come.
For reference, all photos in this set are from the calendar year 2005.
I went to Fry’s Electronics tonight with my daughters. It’s Gina’s night out and I figured this would be a good bonding experience for us. As always, I needed a couple of things anyway and, I thought, how bad could it be? Ha. What the heck was I thinking?
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