Children's Museum

Today I took Sidney to a children's museum. We had so much fun! This particular museum is set up like a small town with various rooms to visit that each represent a different aspect of a town. There was a library, a news room, a grocery store, a fire station, a police station, a farming area and then there was also a reading area and dress-up area complete with a stage to perform little puppet shows, etc. Well...just take a look.

In the fire station







Look at all that fruit!





Mailing a letter



We even found a fountain outside

Reaching New Heights

In Sidney's room hangs a super cute height chart that I have used since Kennidy was about 4. There are several measurements on the chart for each of the kids, with the most recent heights recorded this morning......

No...I did not draw on the wall!! Looks like it, though.

Kennidy hovers somewhere around 5'9'', Linda is at 4 and a 1/2 feet, Steven clocks in at 4'4'', and little Sid sprouts up at 2 and a 1/2 feet.

Our Growing Girl

Lately Sidney has started playing on her own more. Yay! One night in particular, the house was empty except for me and Sid and I happened to come around a corner and notice her playing quietly with her toys. Before she noticed me, I sat down on the floor and watched her play. I don't know what it was that brought tears to my eyes in those few quiet moments, but I realized I was watching my baby grow up a bit right before my eyes. As long as she didn't see me, she continued to play by herself. After a short 5 minutes or so, though, she got up and started walking towards me. I thought she had noticed me, but I guess not because when she came around the corner she was startled to see me there! Here is a playtime pic....



Growing girls get molars, too!! In fact, Saturday night was particularly molar-rific. We put Sidney to bed at 7pm as usual and were awaken by her at 11pm (as usual). I gave her the customary bottle and set her back into her bed only to discover her molars didn't want to go to sleep. Bad molars!! Sidney proceeded to speak on behalf of her newly emerging molars by screaming and protesting sleep of any kind. I gave her the usual new teeth prescription (tylenol) and tried all the tricks in my book to relax her molars for sleep. Well...the molars won on this night. Sidney's molars did not allow her (or me) to sleep again until 4am. And we got a whole 3 hours sleep. How nice.

Here are some pics from the next morning when Sidney (or her molars) decided to pour the remaining contents of a cereal box onto her head...



Maybe it is hard to tell, but she was wearing Cheerios crumbs

Meet Me at the Net

Yet another volleyball tournament is behind us. Two down, till July to go!!!!





Kennidy, Delaney and Sasha...the three giants





Go #21

Valentine's Day

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!!! Hope everyone enjoyed theirs as much as we did. I received a surprise flower delivery 2 days before Valentine's Day. I was walking Remberto out to his car on Friday as he was leaving for work when we both noticed a ProFlowers box by the front door. I looked at him (inquiring as to whether they were from him) and he just shook his head and said, "tell your boyfriend not to send you flowers to your house." Ha ha...funny guy. Off he went to work and off I went to open my flowers!! They were a beautiful bunch of Peruvian Lilies from my step-father, John. How sweet, right?! I immediately text Remberto to let him know who my secret admirer was. It will be a week tomorrow and the lillies are still in full bloom and beautiful. Thanks, John!!


My lilies with Kennidy's flowers from her dad

Not to be undone, Remberto surprised me Saturday night with a dozen red roses in a gorgeous arrangement.



Because Remberto had to work Valentines morning (no breakfast in bed for me), he and I exchanged gifts Saturday night. He got me 2 pj sets that I had hinted at and a very sweet card that he said he actually read and chose for (not just a random grab and buy greeting card). I replaced a watch for him that Folger had chewed to bits a couple weeks ago. Bad dog!
Remberto was home Sunday in time for dinner, so I made a nice dinner for us all and even had sparkling apple cider on hand for the kids. After dinner, Kennidy, Linda and Steven each opened a Valentine card from their grandparents in Illinos....and then promptly requested I take them shopping Monday so they could spend the Valentine money found in their cards. Hooray for holidays!!

Playin' In the Park

Well, our Tuesday library storytime class has been postponed until March so I had to find something to take its place for now. For lack of a more exciting choice, Sidney and I settled on a visit to the local park. Yes....I took my camera along and almost broke it a couple times, but the end result was several fun pictures to share with you!!! Check em out.........











Get this sand off my hand!!!!

Our discoveries:
1. Sidney does not like sand ANYWHERE on her (neither did her big sis at this age)
2. Swings are not our friends (She cried and cried to get out of the swing)
3. Slides were made so ALL children would want to climb UP them

As we were leaving a dad and his 2 girls walked past us. One of the girls was carrying a ball and Sidney went over to her and made it clear she would like to play with the ball. The dad told the girl, "let the little BOY play with the ball, honey." Little BOY!!!! Was it the black sweatshirt??

VoLLeyBaLL

This is Kennidy's second year playing club volleyball for Rancho Valley

Look What I Can Do

Sidney is quite a quick learner. One day, recently, I asked her to go wrap her baby in a blanket (though I had never shown her how to do this). She walked right over to our basket of blankets, chose one and brought it over to the sofa to do what I asked her to do. Watch.....







Well...after all that work it was snack time, of course....



And she figured her baby was hungry, too....





Mom has always told her to love others. So....

Let the Games Begin

As promised...here are some pics from our most recent family game night!

This was taken before the games began...and I had high hopes of winning...

Getting ready to play "Toss Your Cookies"

Playing Uno

Kennidy wins game 1

Remberto wins game 2

AND Remberto wins game 3, too!!

Bo just wants to go to bed

Stay tuned for more pics and individual standings from upcoming family game nights!