The weekend in pictures....LOTS of pictures

Always trying to get that shot of me and the girls. Never quite turns out the way I think it should. But I think I am learning to love this type of family photo.

Painting

After a bottle of paint emptied out by stella, numerous paint containers tops pulled off and paint all over stella and I , it turned out to be a beautiful morning for painting and some great art to show for it.

Playing at the park

A trip to Dennis the Menice Park in Monterey. The train was Sydney's favortie. While playing on the train with Nate, syd said , "Dad thanks for taking me here. This is the greatest thing ever!"

Happy Wednesday

Oh no!

beryy picking- Sauvie Island Oregon

We loved to go berry picking on Sauvies Island when we lived in Portland so we went despite the rumors of not very many berries left to pick. And as you can tell by Sydney's empty baskets, there were not too many left. They were either not ripe yet or already picked. We did manage to eat lots of handfulls fight off the bush, but we didn't make is home with our crate full like we had hoped. But we all still had fun and had our purple finger tips to prove it.

Oaks Park- Portland Oregon

Don't mess with me or my sister. I got you in my sight!

Sydney loving the 'belly dropper'.

It was really fun going to Oaks park with the girls. What a difference a year makes. Last year stella was big enough to do much of anything. This year she went on a lot by her self and Sydney. They loved it. They went on the rides over and over again. What a fun place to go. We miss Oaks Park and the unlimited rides for $6 compared to the Santa Cruz boardwalk where it cost $6 for both girls to ride 1 ride.

Me- I just love your little legs! They are soo cute!
Stella- Jesus made them.
Me- He did?
Stella- Yeeea! Toes too!

Sydney wrote this for Stella all by herself. No help sounding words out, no copying of words. Just Sydney writing to her sister.

new favorite place

Just a short hike from our house is our new favorite spot. The river. Some call it a creek. It was such a fun little adventure. I think as is gets hotter this is going to be a good way to spend our mornings!

Art Projects

I have decided that I am going to start doing some more directed art projects with Sydney each week during Stella's nap. I say directed because there is always art going on in our house. Sydney is always cutting, glueing, coloring, etc. And stella is always drawing on herself with markers. Here is one of Sydney's latest projects with staples, cutting and construction paper. It is her with pig tails, boogers in her nose and she can sing in her microphone.

That project was not directed. But I found this great web site that has some art projects for the different age groups. We have tried a couple and Sydney has really loved it. You should check it out. http://www.deepspacesparkle.blogspot.com/

Here is some of Sydney's projects:

Sydney loves to create. She will create new ways to play games, new songs, books, art projects and recipes. She was in her create something to bake mode and wanted to cut a bunch of basil out of the garden and mix it with all sorts of weird stuff. I really didn't want to use our basil for something that was not going to be edible, so I told her that if she wanted to make something we needed to follow a recipe so we wouldn't waste any ingredients. So of course in Sydney fashion, she gets paper and a pen and says, "How do you spell recipe?". She made her own recipe which didn't even have basil in it.

talkin'

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Stella loves to talk. She has been stringing so many more words together. She copies almost anything Sydney gets her to say.
She has been using some phrases lately that have been really cute and ones I want to remember. Nate calls it her caveman talk.
If she wants to do something she says, "Me do dat"
If she wonders where you are she says, " Daddy goin?"
If she wonders what you are doing, she says, " What doin'?" or "what dyney doin'?"
She has commentary on everything and it makes every day so much more fun to hear it through her eyes.

milestones

Sydney worked so hard and final learned to skip!