Sum-Sum-Summertime!

This month Madeline has been taking swim lessons and doing gymnastics after school. What a great preview of our lives in a few years, ferrying the girls to activities, doing work at the Y while watching said activities, and spending more time with my kids.

Modeling her leo

Ella watching gymnastics. She was so into watching the big boys on the rings.

Madi waiting for swim lessons in her itsy bitsy bikini

Ella watching swim and waiting patiently to go play at the splash pad.

Matt and I managed to stay alive through our cleanse, though we only did 9 days instead of 10. I am still very proud of us! The first two days, our breakfast smoothies were awful! We finally figured out that the avocado was killing the flavor and decided we would eat the avos alone since we love them and that way we felt like we had another snack. I was surprised at how little I felt the lack of caffeine, but I definitely missed wine! Somehow Matt and I held strong even though we attended a family dinner at the Howes' which had cupcakes and a birthday party that included coffee, beer, bagels, and ice cream cake . . . it was like a weekend of willpower hell. After day 5, we didn't feel like we were continuing to feel any better, so then the whole thing became an exercise in fighting hunger that could not be cured by nuts and carrots. At the end of the whole thing, Matt and I do feel like it was nice to have a reset and we gained some good Paleo style recipes. I'm not sure we'd ever do the full cleanse again, but we could do 5 days as a reset again no problem.

Grandpa Dave braved the detox dinner to come visit us

Ella and Grandpa Dave

Lani and Jameson both had birthdays this month. Lani is now 9 and Jameson is 6. This girls (specifically Madeline) sung Happy Birthday to each dog on their birthday mornings. So cute!!

Mornings at the Howe house

Matt and I attended a Summer Bourbon Party at the end of our cleanse. Grandma T came down to watch the girls, so during the day we attended the Old House Fair in South Park. It was a cute street festival and had five historic homes open. The houses were beautiful (especially one that was a spanish style with huge gardens all around), but it was painful having to wait through docents telling us things that could have more easily been written down and read on our own. The Bourbon party was fun, with super yummy food as usual thanks to the brilliance of Mel and Axel. I am so glad that Matt and I had the non-kid time on Saturday night because as he spent Father's Day golfing with his friends (Happy Father's Day Matt!) I spent the day battling the girls who were in very very no-good-terrible moods. I almost cried in public, I canceled plans to have lunch with Auntie Nee, and somehow I managed to keep the girls alive until Matt got home to save me. It's like every time I begin to think I have this parenting thing down, the girls remind me that I will never really know what I'm doing!

Watermelon salad and italian bread salad

Bison sliders

Bourbon line up

Chef Melanie

Ella losing her mind on Mama

Madi losing her mind on Mama

Water fun

The girls of the Howe house

Naked time

Even Madi still gets into naked time

Happily, I have had a few days of getting my stuff done at home while the girls are at school, immensely helping my parenting skills. I painted the dining room this week, spent a weekend in Irvine working on my elementary teacher science cadre, and have spent time catching up on little things around the house. It is so much easier to do laundry and dishes when I'm not sandwiching them between multiple meetings!

New dining room walls

Ella started in her new classroom at school. She is officially an Owl! Poor baby has struggled a bit with drop-off and she wanted to carry and extra blankie with her everywhere, but that probably has more to do with the fact that Miss Ella had a double ear infection and pink eye! Aghhh! I felt so bad when the doctor told me. The pink eye was expected, but a double ear infection too! Ella hates taking the amoxycillin, fights the eye drops, but overall seems to be feeling much better. I do have to say, Eleanor is so much easier than Madeline when she's sick. She is willing to just sit in front of the tv, play dolls with me, and snuggle. I love my time at home with her!

Ella's All About Me poster for the Owl room

Playing on her day home sick

Self-entertainment 101!

Madeline has been working on sleeping in her bed all night long. Recently she switched to Ella's toddler bed so that her sister isn't "laying on her tummy" all night. It took almost two weeks, but Madi managed to get 7 nights sleeping alone and earned a trip to Legoland. We had a wonderful afternoon together after I attended her parent-teacher conference. Ms Marlena says Madi's strengths are math, spatial building skills (yay engineering for Gramps), reading, pattern recognition, imagination, and drama. She was impressed with Madeline's memory and how she applies things they've done in previous weeks to new learning. Madi needs to work on not being a tattle-tell and dealing with changes in routine or classroom peers.

The new HeartLake area at Legoland

Madi loved the crepes!

Waiting patiently in line for one of them many many rides we rode

Ice cream cone (yes, we went all sweet snacks at Legoland!)

On the last day of June, we went to a night baseball game. The girls had an awesome time eating hot dogs and cotton candy! We sat in the grass and played at the park. The girls really seemed to enjoy themselves. They ran like crazy and did a ton of people watching. Matt even got to watch a few innings of the game! I am so looking forward to more baseball games!

Ella picnicking

Cotton Candy!

Eleanor's cotton candy method is "shove it in as fast as possible!"

Watching the game

It's amost summer

In anticipation of summer, I feel like we have begun doing our summer activities. We have been outside for walks, done gardening while the girls played with the water table and even had a food truck in our neighborhood for dinner! Over Memorial Day, the girls spent the night at Grandma T's house. This allowed Matt and I to go to a ska punk show. I am so glad we had seats and earplugs, but it was tons of fun. We had a yummy, grown up meal downtown and stayed out late! This was especially needed after the girls' school was closed on Friday (we went to Sea World after the girls made it through my hair appointment) so I was already on day three of our weekend by Saturday. The girls loved their overnight at Grandma T's and loved playing with Bella. They also came home with a variety of snacks and new clothes, which they always enjoy :)

Ella watching the Belugas

Ella and Madi watching the Belugas

Turtle watching (we spent 45 minutes with the turtles)

Very healthy lunch . . . hot dog and doritos. Ella would lick the cheese off the dorito and feed the actual chip to me (yuck).

Madi refused to sit and eat

"look at the dolphin!"

Soaked from touching the feeder fish

Sleeping post Sea World!

Matt and Lani enjoying a kid free morning

The girls eating breakfast :)

Ella enjoying the giant tv at Grandma T's

Madeline, Eleanor, Rivers (Rivers is a couple weeks older than Ella. She is huge, he is humongous)

Dinner at Brick

"I don't wanna go home, can't I stay at Grandma's?"

The last weekend in May we took a camping trip to San Elijo beach. The weekend was exactly what we needed! No stress, lots of time with friends, the kids got to eat whatever and be dirty for a couple of days, and we did not have to decide who was the designated driver. We shared two campsites with five other families. 11 parents and 9 kids under five. This year we divided up meals, so we only had to plan for one meal and snacks. Matt and I chose breakfast since I am up early anyways. Jason and I actually both seem to have a 6 am internal alarm that does not understand vacation. We had an awesome spot right next to the bathrooms, the stairs for the beach, and the shower. The kids were able to run up and down to the beach with moms being stationed in both spots. I loved having time to chat with my friends, sit outside, and drink wine. We built a hundred sand castles in three days and Madeline decided she loves playing in the water (even though it was freezing).

Men making breakfast

Morning at camp

Ella loved snacking out of plastic cups all weekend

"Our new tent is humongous!"

Loving our giant tent

I'm pretty sure that's sand all over Ella's mouth

The play tent area

Digging was the best part of the weekend

Naomi and Brennan (this was around the time Madi complained that Brennan called her a moose, hahahaha)

Big kids waiting for dinner

"Don't even think about taking my food!"

Post camping bath. The tub was brown and so full of sand when they got out.

Madeline recently had been all about puzzles. She has begun using the puzzle app on my ipad and she has no problem solving the 36 piece puzzles on her own. She also keeps trying to carry Ella (which makes Matt crazy) and has begun giving her these huge hugs when we do school drop off. Madi has been including lots of writing in her drawings. Her favorite words are Mom, Dad, Madi, Ella, Lani, and Jameson (that last one tends to end up being a mess). Madi still has spacing issues though and tends to put letters in funky places as she writes.

Modeling new outfits from Abu

Wearing a new dress from Grandma Sue and eating her favorite lunch - Sonic!

Wearing Mom's shoes

Madeline even sits like a little lady when she does art

Eleanor is in love with her Daddy. She would rather Matt hold her, Matt get up with her, Matt help her get dressed. Basically I am chopped liver. This carries over to Ella much preferring men to hold her. She'll go to Eric before she'll go to Naomi and to Andy before Gisella. She is a ridiculous kid! Ella has been communicating so much lately. She started with "oh no" which includes a chin/cheek grab! Now it feels like Ella is picking up a new word everyday. She is using apple (for apple or orange), banana, snack (for fruit snack), agua, ojo, waffle, and all sorts of other little words . . . some of which are more clear than others. Ella likes to pick out her own snacks now. She will pull food out of the fridge or the cabinet if you hold her up. If you give her a snack she doesn't want, Ella will share her anger with very very loud shrieks.

"What? I'm just dancing!"

Loving Jameson

This is our living room after a morning at home

Ella loves climbing on and off the chairs

Matt and I went on a double date with Melanie and Axel this weekend. We went to dinner at La Bonne Table and then to a play at The Old Globe, Arms and the Man. Dinner was so yummy and so french. The play was funny and Matt actually seemed into it. The best part of the evening for the girls was Auntie G and Uncle Andy babysitting. Madi could barely contain herself after she got out of bed Saturday asking when Auntie G was going to be there. She was excited to see how big baby EJ was looking in G's belly. Thanks Gisella and Andy for the night out! We'll take EJ whenever you're ready!
With summer coming and the certain knowledge that we have been very unhealthy lately, Matt and I are going to do a detox. Ahh! It's a ten day no gluten, no sugar, no alcohol, no caffeine, basically lots of non-starchy vegetables and water detox. Hopefully this will be a nice reset for us since some days feel like we drink coffee until it's acceptable to switch to beer/wine. I am nervous about going no caffeine during the last week of work, but hopefully I won't hurt any children while resetting my diet!