Jill counts

I knew she could say, "one, two, three," but when Jill and Adam were playing hide 'n seek the other day I was shocked to hear her count to 14 all on her own. What? How did she learn that? It's amazing what children learn from the siblings. Elmo probably deserves some credit, too, as she loves playing Elmo games on the computer. What was even more impressive is that I got it on video! Jill is not one to perform when asked, and I had to be patient as the first 20 seconds are nearly silent....she's actually whispering...but when I told her, "louder," I was so happy that she started over and counted to 13 loud and clear. I will treasure those 20 seconds of video as I'm sure she won't have this toddler voice for long...

Skirball Museum and Cultural Center

In case you live or will be in the area, we visited the Skirball Museum and Cultural Center last week and had a great time. Best of all - it's free on Thursdays! But you have to make your reservations in advance as the free time slots fill up fast. Ok, enough advertising, let's see some pictures and video! The exhibit is very hands-on. It starts with a storm, which you have to experience to understand so here's a video. Turn your volume down as some child (not mine) is whining in the background...

Once you begin the storm, you load the animals on the ark. The kids load the animals on a conveyor belt two by two.Or you can just ride the animals two by two :)Some animals need help moving. Here Jason moves thus moving the tall giraffe. Then it's time to get on the ark! Jill went right on climbing up and up and then...she got scared!So I got to climb up and rescue her. I was very relieved that I fit through some of those tight corners. And Grandma made it all better.Then it's time to feed and care for the animals.That includes cleaning up after them.One of my favorite moments was when I handed Adam this rubber animal dropping and he just stared at it and then handed it back saying, "No, thank you," as he walked away. He cracks me up.Taking care of all these animals may even include alligator wrestling!But in the end the dove brings back the olive branch, woo hoo!Time to celebrate. Jason was put in charge of gathering everyone, walking through the exhibit and inviting everyone to a musical celebration.Everyone got to play an instrument along with the leader drums. They played different rhythms as they echoed the lead drum. I was impressed with our little group.

The Grandmas participated playing the drums.The exhibit ends with a craft. It was a great collection of fabric scraps, double sided tape stickers and squares of burlap. Let the creativity begin (actually they had so much fun that most of them went home with a bag of scraps to continue their work!)Of course, the last part of the exhibit is a mist wall of rainbows. We went home with some very wet children!

Big Fun in Big Bear

Missing snow, we took the opportunity to spend a weekend in Big Bear on the lake. We stayed at Midoriland, the retreat house I've been going to since I was in Jr. High. It's so fun to go back and visit and see that nothing's changed except the amount of snow each year.Unfortunately, there wasn't much snow this year but we managed to find enough for a few snowball fights. And we drove around and found a few small sledding hills.Jill loved sledding with Daddy.Adam, too.And when waiting for your turn takes to long, just slide down on your pants. When snow has been sitting around a few weeks in warmer weather, it gets nice and slick.We found a small patch of ice that was perfect for slip-sliding around. Even Daddy got to enjoy some rides on the ice.Some snow was eaten...And lots of snow was thrown! Jill thought this was great fun and was often found carrying around a snowball waiting for the right moment to throw it!We met up with our friends, the Harris family, and they took us to their much bigger sledding hill. It was a great conclusion to a great weekend.

Check out Andrew and his amazing sledding skills...

So as the sun sets on another great trip to the snow...

and Beth gets to experience what it's like to be pink, we say good night...until next winter.

She has hair!

We were getting excited when last fall we realized Jill had enough hair for one little pony on the top of her head...And now look, she has enough hair for TWO pigtails! It's very exciting. She is very proud and often asks me to do her hair.

Unfortunately, she usually just takes them right back out until this week...she left her pigtails in for a few hours and then took them out. This left her with quite the 'do...

Flock of Seagulls or Whoville resident? You decide...

Battle of the Coconut Tree

During Jason's piano lessons, we usually take a walk through the teacher's neighborhood. Last week Beth and Adam prepared for the walk before we left our house, bringing friends of the stuffed kind and weapons of plastic. We turned the corner and they were off...What could possibly make them plan, prepare, and conquer, you ask...Coconut Trees (ok, they're really not coconut trees but that's what they call them and I'm playing along.) After we passed through the battlefield, I asked Beth why they were fighting coconut trees. She proceeds to tell me that they drop coconuts on your head and that really hurts. Ok, fair enough.
I then ask her, "Have they ever dropped a coconut on your head?" I wasn't sure how far this imagination game had gone between her and Adam.
She answered, "No because we usually run through (I am aware that most weeks they run yelling on this part of the walk) but this week we decided to fight!"
I can't say I totally understand their world but I love it, love that I get a glimpse of it daily, and love that next week they want to bring Jason to see the coconut trees.

Tall good, tall bad...

Turns out that Jason, at 55 inches, is too tall to play. This is bad. I confess, I still let him play. Actually, I told Jason that he was not allowed to play but he could supervise his baby sister in the tubes as a favor to me :)However, being 55 inches at Legoland is a very, very good thing. He was able to ride everything and could even ride by himself (very helpful to this mommy that had other children that could not ride by themselves).I'm happy to realize that although children grow fast, chances are they're growing into another fun stage, and I'm going to enjoy every one. Can you hear me trying to accept that I now have an 8 year old that is going to be as tall as me anyday?

Our Ornaments

Looking at our Christmas tree and preparing to pack it up after another wonderful Christmas season, I decided to take a minute and photograph some of my favorite ornaments. We have ornaments we've bought on vacation, ornaments that were gifts, and then the annual ornaments I buy the children.
These are ornaments I've bought for Andrew. Top is the Eagle Scout S'more and below is the Construction S'more bought the year he built the boy's bunkbed.This is my oldest ornament. It's dated '77 on the back. It may be broken but I love this ornament, and it makes me smile every year.Most of Jason's ornaments are trees. We call this one his penguin tree. We were on the hunt for a tree ornament when he found this one and liked it. I decided it qualified as a tree because it's a penguin being a tree.Beth has adopted many of my Disney ornaments as her own. She's always loved the princesses and why not, she is a princess.This is Adam's favorite ornament. Such a favorite that it's been broken...multiple times! You can see the bent ski pole, and if you look closely you'll notice the other pole is missing. There's also an ear missing but he still loves it and talked about finding it as soon as we brought the Christmas boxes out.

I didn't get a great picture of this one but it's our honeymoon bulb, hand painted in Maui.

This ornament was bought for our first Christmas in Georgia, which was also our first Christmas with Jill.

This is our newest ornament won at a Christmas party this year. It looks beautiful on our tree.Every tree needs a little protection from my man Han Solo :)And this is not on our tree but may be my favorite ornament ever!

And yes, there's not really an ornament for Jill. There just isn't one that screams her, yet. I'm sure it will come soon enough...