Christmas 2009

We spent Christmas Eve an Maria's opening gifts. It sucked a little because we had to wait for Theresa to get off work at 8pm, and Mina was crazy tired at 6:30 and acting psycho. But luckily she chilled out while opening gifts. After all the gift opening, Tim & I took the girls to look at Christmas lights. Mina LOVES them. She freaks out every time she sees some. "LOOK MOMMY! CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! IT'S A REINDEER!!!!!" Hilarious.
We had Christmas morning at home and then piled into the car to go spend the rest of Christmas with my Dad's side of the family in Visalia. My Grandma, Dad, Aunt Diane, Uncle Mike, Uncle Lawrence, Aunt Eileen, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Ed, Sue, cousins Jen & Sam, their honeys Dan & Marc, brother Kyle, sister Kelsey and her roommate Masha were all there. Mina got soooooooooooo many presents. And Caet got so much clothes I don't know why I packed anything for her. She only wore 2 of the 5 outfits that I packed. And none of the jammies but oh well.

Christmas in the Park

We had the most wonderful time ever at Christmas in the Park. My mom came down for the day with my sister Kayleigh, my brother Keegan and Kayleigh's friend Fallon. The went to The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium. Kayleigh and Fallon had to do a report for their GATE class. Then we all met up at Cesar Chavez park of Christmas in the Park. Mina had a blast looking at all the fancy trees and displays with my mom and siblings while Tim, Caet and I waited in line to see Santa. It was a really long line. When we got really close to the front my mom brought Mina back and she got to see Santa! I was a little worried she might be scared but she RAN up to Santa and jumped on his lap and gave him a huge hug. When he asked what she wanted she said...
SOCKS!!!! Omg, what kind of a child am I raising? Santa thought that was hilarious and started laughing. I asked Mina want about A Tinkerbell doll? (We Emailed Santa a while ago and she asked for a doll.) So then Santa asked her if she wanted Tinkerbell socks. She said Nooooo. Like Santa was being silly or something. Then he asked if she'd like Barbie socks. Once again Nooooo. BUTTERFLY SOCKS!!!! What a goose. So hopefully I can find butterfly socks tomorrow.
Caetlin slept through the waiting and woke up when we got to the front of the line. So we decided to get her photo taken with Santa too. She didn't seem to care one way or the other by I thought it was sweet. Santa was really awesome and nice. Some Santas are like "Next!" This guy really took the time to talk to the kid and make them feel special. I was super happy that Mina was so happy and excited.
After visiting Santa we walked by a few trees and headed over to the carnival area. Kayleigh and Fallon rode the ferris wheel, Tim and Mina rode the carousel and my mom ran back and forth taking pictures. Keegan, Mina and I checked out the neat pool ball caster in front of the Tech Museum. After Kayleigh and Fallon got of their ride we decided it was time to head home. It was 8:30pm and my mom had to drive back to Sacramento and Mina was starving. So we exchanged Christmas presents, (Mina got to open one of her gifts, an Elmo's Night Before Christmas book with special Christmas ornaments) and then we said good-bye and headed home.
We had a fabolous time and I can't wait to do it again next year.

Caetlin and Santa

One of Mina's favorite displays She told my mom "I can dance like a ballerina!" and then proceeded to show her.Kayleigh, Keegan and Fallon posing in front of the teddy bear carousel, and Mina running around

The big tree in the center

My favorite tree

My baby brother, Keegan

me and my mommy

Mina on the carousel

Kitchen Fun

We had a super awesome day. Caet woke up with the biggest smile on her face which put me in a sunshine-y mood. I decided to wake Mina up so maybe she would take a nap today. We ate our cinnamon honey bunches of oats and V8 fruit juice, Mina's request. Then we showered and headed out to the playground. Mina has been playing with her Dora baseball and mitt a lot lately, so we played catch and rolled the ball down the slides. Then Mina started sliding down the slides on her belly, like a penguin she said. She tried to get me to slide on my belly too but Caet was sleeping in the Moby. We decided it wouldn't be too fun to have a pancake for a sister. So mommy went on her bottom instead.
We played outside for almost an hour but then we had to go in to make lunch for daddy. We made tuna noodle casserole. Mina was an excellent helper and put all the onion and celery into a bowl for me. And she sampled the cheese for me too. =] After lunch we made some cookies. Caet helped too. We made ginger crinkles, mint chocolate crinkles and chocolate walnut biscotti. After we made the dough Mina asked to watch Toy Story 2. So she watched the movie and Caet napped while I baked the cookies. After the movie, Mina took a nap. Thank goodness cause she's been driving me nuts lately.

long overdue update

Ugh. I've been terrible about updating lately. So okay here's a quick run down of life lately.
Mina is establishing her independence and picking up very bad habits.
Caet is very smiley, a little dare devil and is close to rolling over.
Tim had his last 2 wisdom teeth removed on Friday so I can sore but doing fairly well.
I have been going crazy and cooking.


Yep that's pretty much life. So here are some new pics.

The Children's Discovery Museum

Last Thursday I decided to take Mina to the Children's Discovery Museum. Well I had actually told her we would go see The Princess & the Frog not realizing it didn't come out until 12/11. Opps! We had the best time there! We got there right as they were opening. The first thing we did, after using the potty of course, was check out the Wells Fargo stage coach.
Mina thought it was a blast to play peek-a-boo in. She spent almost 10 minutes climbing around in it and peeking out the windows at me. But eventually she noticed the intersection behind me and wanted to go push the cross walk button. So we headed deeper into the museum and discovered the Secrets of the Circle exhibit. They had a really cool Vietnamese round boat, that Mina had a great time climbing in, and a bucket on a pulley that Mina thought was the neatest thing she'd seen so far. She put some plastic food in the bucket, hoisted it up to the top of the rope then pulled it back down. She probably did it 6 or 7 times before I made her give the kids waiting a turn. She was totally entranced with the human skeleton. I tried to explain that that's what her bones look like inside her. I'm not sure that she got it. But she dutifully repeated femur, skull, fibula, radius, ulna and ribs. Then I tickled her ribs which made her giggle.

I think her favorite part of the museum was the water area. We spent over a half of an hour putting balls into pipes the shot them into a whirlpool, and into another pipe that stacked them up on top of a geyser. The geyser erupting.

After a quick bathroom break and snack. Mina got her face painted. She asked me to do a fish.
She thought it was "Aww. So cute."

This thing was right next to the bathrooms. It a giant sphere of mirrors. Mina was really cute. She said,"Look mommy! It's Mina! Mina again! Anudder Mina. Lots a Minas!"

We checked out the firetruck and Mina got to dress up like a fire fighter.

And "use" a hose.

Then since there were lots of bigger kids we headed up stairs to the 4 & under area. Mina climbed though a tunnel, rode a dragon, played house, dressed up as a snunk and hid in a giant tree, played with sand, made some stamp art, painted, found another mirror thing, watched the little carousel and just ran around like a crazy little girl.

Sneaky skunk Mina

After a quick lunch. Mina wanted to go back to the water area and then we went down to the bubble place.

The simulated rain

Watching it rain

On our way out Mina checked out the ambulance and played in the stage coach one more time
Caetlin had a good time too. She hung out in the Moby and slept most of the time. Mina did not want to leave even though she was super tired and rubbing her eyes. So I promised her we could stop in the gift shop on our way out. And of course she wanted everything in there.

Not wanting to leave the CDM

On the way home

After a much needed nap Mina excitedly told Daddy all about the fun stuff she did and asked if Daddy would come with us next time. Aww. So we are planning another trip after Christmas so Daddy can go too.

Playground and cookie fun

This morning we all got up really early. Like at 6:30am early. Normally we don't get out of bed until 8am. But Caetlin woke up to eat and I still needed to pump afterward and the pump woke her up again. Then Mina got up and decided it was playtime and she wanted a movie on. Blah.
We made the best of it though. We did some yoga stretches and had breakfast. Maria bought a ton of strawberries yesterday and shared with us. So we had fresh strawberries, hot tea and cereal for me and peanut butter bread for Mina. Then we picked up the living room and Mina watched Little Einsteins Race for Space while I went through some clothes our neighbor gave us for Caetlin. Then we took a shower and headed out to the playground. Caetlin decided it was a much better idea to nap in the stroller than play tag with Mina and me.Mina was really funny. We played hide and seek. So I'd count and then look for her. I'd say,"Is Mina under the slide?" And she yell back,"No!" It was hilarious. I'm not sure she understands how to play. So we ran around and swung for a while but it was pretty cold we had to go back for sweatshirts, hats and gloves. Even all bundled up it was chilly.So we came back inside to have a snack and some hot tea. Then Mina started watching The Little Mermaid. And I figured it was a good time to make some cookies. I've had this craving for rocky road cookies for a few days now. Of course Mina had to come and see what I was doing and she declared she wanted ginger cookies. So we made ginger cookies instead of rocky road. But next time I'm getting my way. Mina was a wonderful helper. She helped measure the brown sugar, counted the scoops of flour, added the cinnamon, ginger and cloves all by herself. And then she helped mix it all up. And the best part was watching her little face light up. She was so proud of herself. And the cookies turned out really yummy. I had to eat some because they wouldn't all fit in the container. Darn.

Both the girls took a good nap. Of course Caetlin has been asleep all day. I swear she's going to be an inch taller tomorrow. We are waiting for Tim to get home now. He should be here any minute and then we have to figure out if we are heading to Gilroy or staying home tonight.Isn't she so cute in her little hat and gloves? She should be in a catalog. I'd buy anything she was wearing.

She likes to swing higher than the trees
The slide was wet at the bottom so she was walking over the wet spot
Mina loves to climb the "monkey ladder"