Back to School

The girls started a new school year.  Matilda is in Kindergarten and is doing great this year!  It's amazing how much her Spanish skills are coming along.

Mabel started a two day program. I honestly can't believe how well her transition has gone.  She loves school and asks about it everyday! 

Look how cute their school pictures came out!

Easter & Art Car Parade

Easter celebrations were tons of fun this year!  As always, we had an Easter egg hunt with our neighborhood...

And then one at church...

Don't you love the girl's matching outfits this year?  My mom picked up the shirts at a fair and then sewed matching skirts.  Actual Easter day was pretty low key... we went swimming at Jared's apartment.

We were so happy to be able to make it to the Art Car Parade this year.  The past few years we haven't been able to attend because it fell on the same day as the girl's birthday parties.  We were also excited because it moved back to it's original location (not downtown) which allowed better viewing spots.

 No joke, but Jason took over 200 pictures of the cars.  I'm sorry I'm only posting a few.

Half way through the parade, we had a huge storm cloud pass over.  We were troopers and stuck it out.

Despite getting drenched, we had a great time!!

Matilda is Five!

How am I possibly the mom to a 5-year old?  But alas, it is true.  

Honestly, Matilda is still a lot like she was when I posted last year. She still constantly pushes boundaries.  However, she is still very sweet and thoughtful at times.  

At her 5-year checkup, she was 39.3 inches tall (4%) and 31.3 pounds (3%).  She's still a slow eater.  She's still pretty picky too, but we are somewhat successful getting her to eat things she doesn't terribly like by telling her she won't get fruit at bedtime if she doesn't eat a good dinner.

She had a really hard time transitioning from her 3 day a week Mother's Day Out program to full-time dual language preschool.  There were many mornings with tears.   But, I'm happy to say, she is finally enjoying it.  She's picked up a ton of Spanish words and has a good group of close friends. Her friends' opinions mean a lot to her.

She is back to taking formal ballet lessons (along with tap) this semester.  She'll have a recital in a few weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it.  

She still loves dressing fancy and now has a ton of jewelry to accessorize with.

She's quite creative and paints and colors on a daily basis.  She also has a few art kits like stencils, sticker books, beads, etc. which she enjoys as well.

She still stays up late "reading" her books.  

She's recently started to like building elaborate castles out of her blocks and playing with her dolls and figurines in the castle.  She's going through a princess and unicorn phase.

We got her a fairy garden for her birthday (along with a fairy/ mermaid Barbie), and she has been singing the sweetest songs to the seeds to help them grow.  She actually makes up some pretty sweet and funny songs when she's playing by herself.

She loves her sister, reportedly more than she loves either Jason or I. (She recently started stack ranking her love.)

We love Matilda sooooo much.   Enjoy a few pictures from this past year...

Mabel's Two Years Old!

My sweet, silly Mabel is two!

Stats: She weighs 23 pounds (8%) and is 32.5 inches tall (24%).  She wears 2T clothes.  No new teeth, but her canines have been giving her heck for awhile.

Sleep: The only big thing to report here is that we converted her crib into a toddler bed in mid-February.  The first week she did great!  It was like nothing had changed.

But then she figured out she could get up.  We've battled with her staying in bed at bedtime or getting up too earlier, but overall she's still doing good.  We may try to move her into a twin bed in Matilda's room this summer.

Eat: She doesn't eat vegetables.  One time we cut cauliflower really small and mixed it in with Hamburger Helper and she ate it.  We felt like successful parents.

Sometimes she'll eat meat and fruit.  But she eats tons of sausage, eggs, and good ole iron fortified Cheerios, so her iron levels are good.

She has a decent amount of diary (yogurt, cheese, and some milk) and she loves carbs.  She probably has a lot more sugar than Matilda did at this age.  Oops.

Play/ Milestones: She's pretty good with her gross motor skills.  She can jump off the ground, run, summersault, and loves hanging off bars like a monkey. She also mimics me working out and does some pretty legitimate looking squats and weight lifting with 3 pound dumbbells.  

She loves playing outside.  I can't wait until this summer when she's back in the pool again.  I have a feeling she's going to be even wilder than she was last year in the water.

New words in the past few months include bless you, baa-baa, up please/ help please (both sound like "upies"), meow-meow (for cat), light, eyes, poo-poo, swimsuit, baby, two, me, mine, yea (also pronounced yeo sometimes), and water (pronounced "la-lo").  Oh and she says ball-ball for balls, bubbles, and soap.  She's probably still a bit behind for her age, but she gets her point across.

Her favorite things are still dancing, dogs, baths, and shoes, although watching Daniel Tiger, reading books, painting, and hanging on things are quickly becoming favorites as well.  Pretty much any of those will elicit an enthusiastic "yay!"

 She seems ready to potty train (does all of the normal cues), but doesn't seem to actual like going to the bathroom on the potty.  We'll get there.

She and Matilda are the bestest of friends.  While they pick on each other and are jealous of my time (and lap), they love each other fiercely. They ask for each other and get sad when apart.  They've been doing a great job playing with each other if they wake up earlier than us.