Muffins

My sister tells the best jokes! Her favorite is the Muffin Joke:

Two muffins are baking in an oven. One turns to the other and says, "Is it just me or it is hot in here?" The other muffins says, "Aah! Talking muffin!"

I laugh so hard every time I tell that joke. I shared it with my friend Renning, who it turns out has my kind of sense of humor. So what did she do to show how much she loves the joke? She made me talking muffins!Aren't they adorable? Thank you, Renning, for putting a great visual with my sister's joke.

Dinosaurs

I've told you about the fun our kids have at the Natural History Museum. It seems that last time we were there, we didn't quite get the full experience. The museum has a man-sized puppet of a T-Rex, which they use in an "integument presentation" (showing what dinosaur skin looks like). Our good friends, the Floods, took us to see this amazing show. A1 stepped on several people to get away from the T-Rex and into my arms. A2, who was already in my arms, simply hid. And I was awed by how life-like it all felt.Thank you to the Floods for great company to a great museum and a great show. We love going on field trips with you.

For the Future

This blog has multiple purposes. The main purpose is to share with others the happenings of our small family. Another is to remember those adorably embarrassing things my children do so that I can hold it over their heads/show future significant others. This is one of those posts!

A2 decided that his shoes didn't fit him correctly. He needed bigger shoes. Which shoes did he choose to make himself a big boy? My cute peep-toe wedges! I'll admit, they do make me feel taller and better looking. Maybe he's on to something.

A1 sleeps in some very strange positions. Mostly she sprawls sideways on her bed or hides under pillows. Recently she has taken to wedging herself between a couple of pillows or between a pillow and the wall. Perhaps she feels that there is too much space in her room?

Fun For a Girl and a Boy

Did you ever have a Slinky when you were little? I remember hours and hours of enjoyment from watching the crazy thing walk down the stairs at my parents' house. Unfortunately, we don't have stairs in our apartment, so my kids found a different way to play with the Slinky.

They played this game for nearly two hours that night. I have never seen kids having so much fun with something so small.

Erin and Ryan's Summer Vacation

My wonderful sister and her awesome husband came to California for a few days to visit us. Naturally we spent lots of time at the beach. A1 and A2 asked to build a sand castle. Now when I usually build a sand castle with the kids, it's just a hill with some shells stuck in it for decoration. But Erin and Ryan were serious about building a real castle: they instructed A1 and A2 on digging a moat and laying a foundation and placing buildings correctly and finding the right amount of decoration. The kids had a blast. Thank you, Erin and Ryan for teaching my kids the fundamentals - I knew there was a reason I let them hang out with you!

digging the moat

the final product

New Adventures at Disneyland

Disneyland reconstructed what used to be Tom Sawyer's Island into Pirate's Lair. The renovations are now complete and the Lair is open for fun. You can enjoy pirate booty...
...and get trapped in a cage made from bones......and generally run amok on the island.I highly recommend spending time there. But prepared to set aside a couple of hours to do so - there is just so much to see and do that your kids will want to stay there indefinitely.

Missionaries

The kids and I were reading about Ammon and his brothers in the Book of Mormon. I tried to explain what missionaries were and why we need missionaries, but they didn't quite seem to understand. So the sister missionaries in our ward were kind enough to visit and explain a little bit better about being a missionary. They even made name tags for my little missionaries. What a great learning experience for A1 and A2! Thank you, sisters!

Natural History Museum

We love visiting the Natural History Museum at USC. The kids go wild for all the birds and fish and mammals and dinosaurs that they get to see. What a great field trip for my kids: educational and fun!

big dinosaurs at the entrance
checking out the fishlistening for the ocean

digging for dinosaur bones

Hair Style #18

I did this hairstyle for a pool party. I just wanted to jazz up the normal braids a bit, so I criss-crossed them as I braided. This is another hairstyle that took quite a bit of time to do, but it seemed to hold up well to swimming, so it might be worth it to do again.

criss across the top

cross across the bottom

Hair Style #17

This hairstyle is inspired by my amazing sister-in-law, who is so much better at this than I am. Someday I hope to be like you, Tracie.

This is a simple, yet elegant, hairstyle, perfect for Church. I did slanting twists across A1's head, then let the back fall into ringlets. Easy peasy.

"cornrow" twists

perfect for Church

Hair Style #16

This is another variation on the Valentine's Day hairstyle with hearts. By placing four hearts with their tails all together, it turns into a four-leaf clover. You can also do this with three hearts for a three-leaf clover.

Hair Style #15

One morning, the kids didn't really want to go outside, and I wasn't feeling up to fighting with them. They had been really good all morning and all they wanted to do was watch a movie. So as a special treat, we watched The Black Cauldron. And I had fun with twists for A1's hair. I started with a twist on each side of her hair across to the back in what I had first envisioned as a half-pony. But then the top didn't look like I wanted it, so I twisted the top (one twist on each side) down to the bottom of her hair. Then I flipped it all up and added a butterfly. This hairdo took the entire movie to do, and A1 will never hold still like that again, so I only have these pictures to remember that hairdo.

twists along the topside twists to a half-pony and top twists to the bottom
flip it up with a butterfly

Hair Style #14

I love accent braids. They make a simple hairstyle even better. In this hairstyle, I did a flippy, which a then split into two braids. I pulled the rest of her hair into a messy bun, and wrapped the braids around the bun.

braid accents

messy bun

beautiful, happy girl

Hair Style #13

This is the perfect hairstyle for Valentine's Day. I've included an easy heart and a more difficult heart 'do.


The easy heart is just an upside-down flippy into two braids joined at the bottom with a rubber band. Simple and cute:The more difficult heart 'do is the same concept, just stepped up a few notches. I did three hearts (upside-down flippies to braids joined at the bottom of each heart) on each side of her head. I tucked the bottom of the heart into the top of the heart right below it, then curled the hair that poked out to finish the look.And one happy girl for Valentine's Day.

Summer Primary Activity

A1 is a sunbeam this year in Primary. She absolutely loves Church (she cheers every Sunday in anticipation of going to Church) and her favorite part is Primary. She has some wonderful teachers (we love you, Brother and Sister Rasmussen) who are very dedicated to the kids and to teaching them to Choose the Right.

This summer the Primary Presidency threw a wonderful Primary Activity involving water "sports." The kids became "fishers of men" as they fished for Swedish Fish (the candy, not the actual fish) and learned about teamwork as they filled buckets with water by passing sponges down the line of kids. Then they played water kickball. I had never heard of this sport before, but I now think it is the greatest thing ever. First, second, and third bases were actually kiddy pools, then the path to home plate was a slip 'n' slide. So each kid would kick the ball then run and jump into "first base," then run and jump into "second base" when the next child kicked the ball, etc. The funniest part was the slide to home. There aren't any hills to put the slip 'n' slide on and none of the kids could get up enough speed to actually propel themselves toward home plate, so most ended up crawling. A1 and A2, however, decided to army crawl to fully enjoy sliding home. I have never laughed so hard!
A big thank you to our wonderful Primary Presidency who worked so hard to pull this activity together. I really appreciate all you do for our little ones. And so does A1:

A1 Graduates Preschool

A1 finished her first year of preschool this past spring. We were part of the UCLA Ward Co-op Preschool, established many, many years ago and continued from mom to mom through our local congregation. The moms of our preschoolers taught the classes, which I loved; it's amazing how much these little minds grasp. A1 loved being part of a class that learned, played, and sang together:
We started everyday with playdough and some songs:A2 loved the days when I taught because he was part of the class too. He wants to be just like his big sister:

What a great time this preschool was! So congrats to my big girl for graduating from preschool:P.S. A1 has been accepted into the Clover Ave. Preschool. I'm excited for her to learn from a teacher and be in a real classroom setting.