Happy 3!

Audrey is 3!  Happy Birthday, sweet angel!

You have brightened our life, that's for sure!  Your giggle is contagious, your smile infectious, your hugs healing and your compassion overflowing.  No one who has ever had the pleasure of meeting you isn't in love with bouncy, beautiful you!

We had a little ladybug picnic birthday party at the park yesterday morning to celebrate.

I'll post more party pics later but these were some cute ones!

 A few of Audrey's favorite phrases these days:

"I cannot know." (I don't know)

"I have to tell you thumthing." (this is usually a stall tactic at bedtime and it's ALWAYS more than one something she has to share.)

"I can do it mythelf."

"I wanna be naked now."

"I wanna be fancy today, Mommy!" (this means any number of things including but not limited to wearing patent leather Mary Janes with shorts and a t-shirt, wearing a princess crown, wearing a tutu over her jeans, accessorizing with Mardi Gras beads...you get the idea)

"This is sure a nice neybohood!" (so much house hunting with this little one that she now comments on the curb appeal of streets we frequent.)

"We're moving to a new open house!"

"I have to do my homework!" (and she proceeds to sit at the kitchen table with a small notepad and a pencil and draw...this kid can't wait for school and homework like her big sister)

And she chooses the wrong pronoun EVERY time and we will be broken hearted when she corrects this.  It's the cutest and we all start talking this way by the end of a day with Audrey.  Examples include:

I asked both girls to be very well behaved when we had to take Scarlet to the vet.  To which Audrey replied, "don't wowwy, Mommy.  Us will be good."

When she meets a person she likes, she always comments, "Her such a nice lady!" or "Her has a pretty dress, Mom!"

And she's also getting quite independent.  I drop her off every other Friday for a lunchtime playdate with her friend, Kira, so I can volunteer in Natalie's classroom.  This past Friday, as I set her down on the curb outside Kira's house, handed her her lunch box and turned to get a few more things out of the car, she started walking up the driveway by herself, turned back to me and waved and said, "Bye Mommy.  I love you.  See you later."  She proceeded to walk to the front door assuming I would just leave her to knock and enter on her own?  Oh, mercy.  We're not there yet, kiddo!!

And this kid likes to talk.  Almost as much as her mother.  She kind of assumes anything that resembles the shape of an iPhone and has buttons and a screen IS and iPhone. She walked around the house with my calculator the other day and said into it, "Call Nana!"  When the calculator didn't respond she said, "I said CALL NANA and I mean wight now, phone!"

Love this little ladybug beyond words...looking forward to the exciting year she has ahead of her!

Our Girl Scout Journey

Natalie has been a Girl Scout Daisy all year and has had a great time with it.  I offered to help the troop leader and take over the last 4 meetings of the year, leading the girls through a Girl Scout "Journey" where they could earn a special patch for their cute little blue vests.  On this journey, they learned all about the Girl Scout Law and did lessons to remind them what each petal they earned throughout the year stood for.  These meetings were after school (which is also Audrey's nap time) so I held them at my house.  The fellow Daisy parents were AWESOME about getting their girls over here and picking them up.  It was not the most convenient for them but hosting the girls at our house enabled us to do a lot of fun projects (like planting their own flower gardens!) that would have been tricky to do at school.  And, most importantly, it allowed nap time to stay intact! :0)

So, every other week, ten very talkative Daisies would descend on my house, eat their snack and start planting, painting, tracing, folding, cutting, gluing and drawing their way through their Flower Garden Journey.   It was a ton of fun.  But I have a new appreciation for teachers (and I had a lot of appreciation for them BEFORE) because after an hour and a half I was READY for this crew to go home.  They are great girls and did a phenomenal job on their Journey projects but 10 busy kindergartners is a lot for any one house (and momma) to accommodate!

We made "I AM" posters (Natalie accidentally mixed up her "a" and "m" in the word "am"...so cute... I couldn't ask her to correct it.) and then did flower craft projects that represented the different flower characters/petal colors that stand for different aspects of the Girl Scout Law. 

 Sunny the Sunflower is friendly and helpful.  Tula the tulip is courageous and strong.  Lupe the Lupine is honest and fair.  Gloria the Morning Glory respects herself and others and Mari the marigold is responsible for what she says and does.  The idea was they could hang these posters in their bedrooms over the summer and think, "I AM... all these wonderful things!" 

The bumblebee was just for fun and was my favorite project.

 They also planted their own mini gardens as a service project.  The seeds didn't get quite far enough along in the growing process before our sessions ended so now it's up to each girl to take care of her seeds until they blossom and then make the world a better place with them, either by giving them to someone else or planting them in her own yard for her family to enjoy.

 Natalie is very proud of all the patches and petals she earned this year!  The petals she earned sporadically throughout the year, the leaves she earned by selling so many cookie boxes and the patch down at the bottom she earned for our Flower Garden Journey!

 She also earned patches for participating in a parade, going to a cookie rally, taking part in her first ever cookie sale and celebrating the Juliette Gordon Low's
(the founder of Girl Scouts) birthday last fall.

 These were some of the gardens the girls grew. 

 And this is a blurry picture of the Girl Scout Law they all memorized and recited at each meeting.

And the Girl Scout Promise they also memorized and recited.

 

So much fun. 

Natalie will be a Daisy for one more year and then she moves on to Brownies.  Such a great organization and I was happy to be a part of it for a little while.

We're moving...AGAIN

But this time it's into a house we bought so our plan is to unpack, relax and stay put for a while.  Hopefully, a looooooong while.  We. Are. Tired. Of. Moving. Period.

We closed escrow today and move in next week.  We'll be painting, cleaning and unpacking for a quite a while but are really excited to be homeowners again!  We're sad to leave our great neighbors at our rental house and Natalie will be switching elementary schools in the fall so, once again, no change is easy.  But at least we'll only be 2 miles from these wonderful neighbors and friends so we'll still see each other regularly.

I just realized the MLS picture is the only one I have!  I'll post better ones soon.  And I'll post interior pics once we're in.  It's a great house...larger than we imagined ourselves buying here and in a fantastic neighborhood.  We'll have access to the canal trails in all directions and will be able to bike and walk to lots of places!  Very fun.  We really can't wait to be settled.

The Oakland Zoo

We took the girls to the Oakland Zoo last weekend and had a great time.  It was almost Phoenix hot outside, but the zoo has a lot more trees so it was pretty easy to stay in the shade most of the time.

The girls, as usual, loved the petting zoo section the best.  Which is always my very least favorite part of any zoo.  But they loved brushing those goats and the goats seem to love it, too.

Corey and Natalie took a trip on the sky ride which is a gondola that goes over the zoo as well as sanctuary space beyond so that was a nice treat.  Audrey was despondent when she realized she was staying grounded with Mommy instead of going on the sky ride and I think everyone in the vicinity heard her screaming about it.  At one point she tried to run onto the ride and nearly made it through the line of people and through the fence before I caught her.  It cost me a blue plastic alligator necklace filled with bubbles to calm her down.  Small price to pay, I suppose, for my sanity until Corey and Natalie landed!

Such a fun day and a place we'll have to visit again, for sure