Almond Blossom Run

My mom and I ran a 5K last Saturday.  It was nice to get some quality time with my momma.  Grandpa Jim watched the girls at my apartment.  They were excited to see Grandpa, in fact Jessica did a little happy dance and neither of them cried when I left (Allison fussed a little, but it was nothing, I know what she is capable of.)  Grandpa reported that they had a huge pillow fight that morning, my little girls love high intensity play, good for you Grandpa!    Here's a couple pictures of the girls playing while eating smoothie pops they helped me make.

Here are a few pictures from the Almond Blossom Run.

The blossoms weren't quite out yet this year.

We still managed to find some though.

Jessica is tickling Allison with her right hand, Allison is tolerating it because Jessica is laughing while she does it.

Allison has claimed Grandad and Jessica has claimed Meema, despite Meema's best efforts to make everything equal and be both the girls' favorite.

I played poker at my sister's house on Sunday to celebrate my little brother's 25th birthday.

Meema and Grandad took the girls to Fairytale Town and Funderland in Sacramento while I played poker.  Jessica got a sweet fire-breathing dragon painted on her face.

All the excitement wore Alli out.

Here's a video of Grandpa Jim teaching Allison to juggle.

I tried to get a video of Allison greedily snatching a fry from Grandpa but she wasn't quite as greedy in this video.  Jessica is whining because she is tired.

Here's a video of the girls Skyping with Lady and Paw Paw on Sunday evening.  They are becoming best friends and its really sweet when they snuggle out of the blue.

I just took the girls to the doctor today for well baby checkups.  Allison was 32.5" tall (95%) and weighed 27lbs 9oz (98%).  Jessica was 37.75"(75%) tall and weighed 35lbs 8oz(90%). Jessica was horrified after her and Allison got "stung" on the finger for an anemia test.  She begged me not to let them sting her or Allison again.  When I told her Allison had to get a couple more stings in the leg (shots) she grabbed Allison and hugged her with everything she had and panicked yelling, "NO! Don't STING ALLISON!"  That scared Allison and they both held onto each other sobbing, in my lap, for a few minutes.  After they calmed down a bit Allison started patting big sister gently to comfort her.  I felt like such a villain  I wish someone could have seen how sweet it was though.  I had to hold Jessica away from the lady giving the shot to Allison because she made it clear, in no certain terms, that she intended to save sissy by any means necessary.  I'm so glad my little girls have each other. 

President's Day Weekend

We had a fun President's Day Weekend in California.  Saturday I went Snowboarding with my best friend, Steph, and my little brother while Grandpa Jim watched the girls (for 14 hours!).  Sunday, was a day of rest.  On Monday Meema and Grandad took us all to the Sacramento Zoo.  I will start with the zoo because I know that people look at this blog for pictures of Jessica and Allison and that's the day I got the most pictures of them.

We actually stopped by Funderland, which is right across from the zoo, because Jessica went crazy when she saw it and, well, that was that.  Grandad stood in line for zoo tickets while Meema and I took the girls on a few rides at Funderland to get it out of their systems.

Allison loves the carousel, she threw a fit when the ride was over (arching her back and whining).  It's funny because she just sits there in a trance as it goes around and around, smiling occasionally, but mostly very serious about the whole business.

Jessica rode the mean dragon roller coaster with me this time.  It was fun and pretty intense.  I thought she wouldn't want to do it again after the first ride but she demanded to get right back on, she was the youngest kid on the ride.

Here's a video of the dragon coaster.

At the zoo, we had to stop and see the flamingos first.  Jessica has a weird obsession with flamingos.

I thought she would demand to take one of these plastic flamingos home because she use to demand "flamingos in my garden!" when we would drive by a certain flower shop in Pensacola that had them out front.

We used the green wagon at the zoo, the girls didn't stay in it very much.

I LOVE this picture of the girls as kangaroos, they both have the best expressions on their little kanga-faces.

On Sunday, day of rest, I had to go to the doctor for a sinus infection.  I feel much better now.  Jessica fell asleep so Grandad held her, doesn't he look miserable? (sarcasm)

Here's a picture of me and Steph on the top of the mountain.

The grade was steep going up the lift, as you may be able to see in this picture.

My little brother and me.

Here are a couple videos of me, Steph and Eric snowboarding.

This video is in this blog just because there is a funny story that goes with it.  My little brother heard Jessica throwing a little two year old tantrum and he said she sounded like a gremlin.  I laughed because she had just sprayed herself in the face with the hose not fifteen minutes before the tantrum broke out.  (Gremlins are cute cuddly little animals until you get them wet and then they turn into mischievous little green monsters or toddlers.)

New Buckets

The cool new toy this week is a sand bucket with lots of little tools that came in it, thirteen to be exact.  Meema and Grandad found the buckets at Costco.  The girls did a really good job sharing their sand toys with other kids at the Humpty Dumpty sandbox.  Allison played with Aunt Lindsay most of the time.  Jessica would annouce, "that girl has my shovel/cup/bucket", to me just so everyone knew that they were hers.  She never got mad or tried to take them back, she just wanted everyone to know who those toys belonged to.

 We had fun with the buckets digging in the pea gravel behind our apartment.

Allison was so please that she had her own bucket to carry, just like sissy.

 I went for a jog in the park this week and Allison slept through the whole thing but Jessica kept me on my toes talking about the world around us.

 After the jog I let the girls take their shoes and socks off and dip their feet in the local creek (I am not talented enough to get a picture of that).  I was able to get some pictures of them playing in the cool green grass though.

 Another fun toy that the girls acquired this week was a Wack a Mole game.  I quickly realized that it was a blood sport and a good way to get out her two year old frustrations.  (She is holding a green club in one hand and a red club in the other.)

Daddy's surprise Valentines day gift was the sweetest thing ever: M&M's with pictures of him and the girls on them.  I don't want to let the girls eat them!

I thought I was going to catch Allison taunting Jessica with food but she surprised me and shared with her sister in this video.  Alli usually waves it in her face and runs away.

Jessica caught a bug and decided that she was the bug's mommy.  She carried this bug around for at least ten minutes before it was able to get away.  I hope bugs don't have feelings.

Funderland

Grandpa Jim tried to ease the pain of Joe leaving by taking us girls to Funderland last Sunday.  Allison got to ride a few rides with Grandpa (old cars, carousel, and train) and Jessica managed to have a good time in spite of the fact that she was tired, upset about daddy leaving and two years old.

 Grandpa is feeding them some multicolored goldfish on his couch.

 Jessica likes all the dizzy rides.

My dad tried to get a video while he watched Allison on the sidelines, it's hilarious, you can hear him trying to get her to spit something out (probably a rock).  Thanks for the video dad, it adds an element of reality to this blog that pictures and words just can't.

A Visit From Daddy

Joe flew in to see his girls over the weekend.  I think we were able to show him a good time and give him some priceless memories to take with him on his deployment.  We took the girls on a mini adventure to the nature center in Oroville.  They had a blast and we managed to sneak out of there with out breaking anything, double score.

I tried to get as many pictures of Joe with the girls as I could so I could pin them up on our daddy wall at "The Yellow House" (that's what Jessica calls our apartment because it's almost a yellow color on the outside).  The Daddy Wall has a world map and a clock set to Joe's time zone and I am in the process of putting pictures of him and the girls up there too.

Both the girls love to climb, Allison gets frustrated that she can't climb as high as Jessica yet.

I LOVE this picture.

Allison has a Paw Paw expression on her face in this picture.

Jessica called this native american model the "mean Lady", she didn't look very nice to me either (I hope she doesn't give my little girls nightmares!).

After the nature center we went to two other parks in Oroville to play.  I like this rock climbing area at the Riverbend park and Joe seemed to enjoy it too.  That's him climbing across the ropes while Jessica looks on.

hee hee

We ate our share of Krispy Kreme doughnuts while daddy was in town.  I am done with Krisy Kreme for at least a month.

Here are some videos, this first one is on the observation tower at the Nature Center.

Jessica pretending to be Humpty Dumpty, she cracks her shell and makes me put her back together all the time.

Like father like daughter.

Joe's first few minutes of playtime with Allison while Jessica was napping.  Allison kept saying daddy over and over again so I was trying to get it on video but she wasn't cooperating when the paparazzi showed up.

Dancing Divas

Every once in a while I just have the urge to dance and I think my little girls feel the same urge.  I put on some super fly 90's dance music and we bust it out.  Problem is, it's really hard to get a video of Allison tearing up the dance floor because she is a little camera shy... this is what I was able to finally get... 

Meema has been working really hard teaching Jessica to eat like a big girl and it has paid off, just watch her with this bowl of cheerios.  I didn't end up cleaning it off the floor, yay!

Here's a shout out for daddy from the bathtub (this was daddy's main job every night and I think he was more fun at bath time than I am).

A Gymnastic Birthday Party

We went to cousin Addison's Birthday party at the Gymnastics Academy on Saturday.  It was princess themed. 

 

Addison is a very sweet little girl.

I dressed the girls in matching jean skirts and they looked cute until Jessica asked Meema to take hers off.  She had asked me to take it off and I asked her to keep it on for the party.  She already knows to go ask Meema if mommy says no.

Jessica sat at the table and ate her cupcake like a big girl.

Allison decided that Meema's cupcake looked more appetizing than the one I was feeding her.  (I was taking the frosting off.)

We had a lot of fun playing on all the gymnastics equipment.

Allison was impressive on the parallel bars.

The gymnastic coaches directed a fun game where you run, skip, bear crawl, etc. while the music played and then the kids were suppose to melt like snowmen when it stopped.  Meema helped Jessica remember to melt.

The trampoline was fun.

Here's a video of Allison's first tumbling lesson.

It was a fun afternoon.  Luckily, Allison had her nanny dog snuggle buddy to cuddle up with that evening.