Rocket Stomper - Video

For her Birthday Holly got a Rocket Stomper, she has so much playing with it.  It is simple to put together and it doesn't fly too high so she can still play with it in the house.

Rocket Stomper  http://youtu.be/GGuzS2OOO2c
Double Take  http://youtu.be/gavNvgNC-aA

Dress-up and Playtime at Chloe's

Here is Holly and Chloe playing, Baby Dylan in tow.  Holly has a ton of fun playing Dress-Up, First Cinderella riding fast in her trike, and then in a fancy Snow White Dress.  They are so cute!

Little Jumping Beans - Video

Double Jumper with Tyler  http://youtu.be/2_wuv6hZjUI
Jumping Beans   http://youtu.be/GjkEXJ5ZQLE
Giant Leaps   http://youtu.be/Spr2L1EVoSc

Holly is hanging out with Tyler and Caitlin and having a blast, on our typical Monday Afternoon

Caitlin is so cute and starting to follow around and copy everything Holly does.

These Video's are of Tyler and Holly Jumping around on this new toy that spins

It is super tricky and they have a blast learning and falling.  It is so cute.

Telling Stories, Singing Songs - Video

Ariel Story
http://youtu.be/SdMRYve3Rhc
Holly cosy in her Box tells an Ariel Story

Ariel wants to be a Human
http://youtu.be/Lsag05nLkys
First Ariel turns into a human, then back to a Mermaid.  Then all of her Princess friends want to be Mermaids too.

Holly sings Part of your world
http://youtu.be/t8kbxYG_2qw
"Ariel" sings Part of your world, and then Holly tells us more of the Mermaid Story

Singing and Dancing Mermaid
http://youtu.be/lrnm12-9bJM
This time Holly decides she wants to preform Part of Your World while Dancing

I Wanna Be a Mermaid Song
http://youtu.be/islrW7oPbnY
Holly has re-written "Part of your World" and decided to change the lyrics to her wanting to be a Mermaid

Gizmos and Gadgets Galore
http://youtu.be/zALPZ-6zUZ8
One final Serenade  Holly is obsessed.  These video's are from when she first started learning the song.  Now she has the whole thing Memorized, Joel is learning it on Piano and we have all heard it about 10,000 times.

Happy Birthday Mommy

Thank you to everyone for all of the wonderful Birthday Wishes!  I had a lovely Birthday Weekend!

On Saturday when Holly was at her sleep over I had a Delish Dinner at Corso my favorite Northern Italian Resturant over in the Gormet Ghetto in Berkeley.  The Butter roasted Chicken and basic pasta was Devine!  Afterwards we headed to Berkeley Rep and saw the play Dear Elizabeth 

It was an awesome show about the poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop based on there correspondence (letters) between 1947-1975 they had this ongoing almost love affair.  There relationship was really interesting and though there lives were rather depressing, bouts of mental illness, unstable lovers, alcoholism, writers block, it was very beautiful how there story was told by two actors on stage using only the words for letters they wrote each other over the years.

We came home to an uncannily quiet house and though I missed holly a little it was such a peaceful night and morning.  On Saturday Joel and Holly also set aside time for me to open and set up my new Surger Sewing Machine.  I love it.  I got it got myself several weeks back and it sat sadly in the corner on the floor as I walked by the box intimidated week after week, and then Saturday I concurred my fear and I love it so much.  I made three dresses that one could swear was store bought had they not watched me assemble the peices!

Then on Sunday my lovely Holly and Joel made for me this delicious Chocolate cake!  Holly did the whole thing by herself save Joel telling her each step and placing the cakes in and out of the oven. The cake was super tasty, but only the love of your five year old could do such a bang up job with the decorating, frosting all on her own, what creativity she used to keep it all together!

For my Birthday Joel and Holly got me an electric drum.  It ended up being a contentious gift as in her tired and cranky mood Holly wanted the drum all to herself.  I think the anticipation if waiting three days for me to open it was too much and in her excitement she HAD to have it to herself.  What was super cool about this drum besides the over 100 types of drumming sounds it makes is this magic clip.  Attach it to anything, a bottle, your shoe, a toddler picture book and that item becomes a second drum!  Which you can choose a unique and separate sound for so I eventually gave in and holly had my drum in her SLP controlling her dial, but I got to drum on a steely sounding drum using "a whales tale" book and was quite happy with that.  Daddy had out his and Holly's ukeleles and we had a super fun family jam session

Today, Monday, for my actual Birthday we headed out to San Francisco to spend the day with old friends and we had a lovely time catching up, talking, playing, and eating!  But more on that another day.

Sleepover Success - Sorta Mostly!

So Holly spent the night at Mira's yesterday and in all broad strokes it was a great success!  She didn't miss me, only asked about me once, and had an awesome time.  Leelou came over to join the girls for dinner and dress up

Holly had two slices of Pizza and yummy Chocolate ice cream!  When she was ready for bath time she kindly to Leelou it was time to go home.  Only minor bath drama with water temperature and a show later they were all teeth brushed and tucked in.

But two doses of Melatonin in Chocolate milk layer, one at 8:30 and another at 10 and Holly was still awake.  Mira passed out around 10 but Holly said she couldn't sleep and was up till about 11:15 (thank you again tita Mai)

Luckily there was no more night time wake-ups from Holly at least but safely even with the late night stay ups the girls were up and ready to play at 7:00AM. 

Thank you Uncle Ron for getting up, I hear Holly ate all her breakfast, scrambled eggs and toast and there was a fun game of Hide and Seek too.

We didn't even need to come and pick her up till 10:45 they had an awesome morning playing (tooth fairy) when I arrived and she was in a great mood...

For another two hours or do when after making me cake (more on that in my next post) the only 7+ hours of sleep caught up to her and she was a cranky whiney mess for the rest of the day.  We had to force her to stay awake till 7:00PM at which time she was knocked out before her head hit the pillow.

All in all it was a Success but I have learned some ideas for next time!

Holly's first sleepover

So here we are over packed and getting ready to go to Mira's house for Holly's first sleepover.  She is so excited.  This morning she woke up at 6am and started packing... She then proceeded to ask if it was time to go to Mira's house every 30 minutes for the next 10 hours!  She is a happy girl!  Fingers crossed that all goes well.  I think tita Mai has it covered and she will do great.

Ps the purple hat she is wearing, she made all by herself on Mommy's new Sewing Machine today

Skate Club

The newest member to join Holly's Friday Night Skate Club - Mira!  She did so well her first day and having her friend with her she was so much more confident that she skated with no buckets the whole time.

Blogging from my iPhone App

SaoSo I downloaded the blogger app to see how blogging from here would be.  While its not great what I like about it is that I could use it in leu of some single picture Facebook posts and have them stay as part of my blog but then also auto publish to Facebook.  There are major features lacking but for quick fast instant notes it seems to work.  Lets see if I can post more then one photo.

So I'm trying to write under the pictures but in the app seems like I can't also last night I saved this as draft but I'm posting it now at 1:20pm and I don't see where I can change the time.  But it's not bad.

Holly's Class

This was the last day that two of Holly's International student teacher interns would be in class.

Teacher Gladys had them coming in 1-2 times a week.  A bunch if the kids gather around to take a goodbye picture 

Lego's with Daddy

Daddy loves Lego's.  Holly enjoys them, but she could take them or leave them... That is of course unless they are princess Lego's, this Ariel set is her new favorite!  Holly and Daddy had so much fun building them. She even brought them to Tanta's house

Look Mommy - Me and Caitlin made a big mess

While Holly loves Tyler and considers him one of her best friends, she also likes Caitlin quite a bit.  I think Caitlin is one of the main reason's she wants a baby sister.  Caitlin also likes Holly quite a bit.  It is interesting seeing typical development, she is hmmm maybe 20 months now and talking up a storm, but what I noticed that Holly didn't do until much later was Caitlin was following Holly around and copying everything she did.  Sadly that meant Holly was being a "bad" influence, but it was so adorable watching Caitlin try and do everything Holly did.

Ice Skating

Been a while since I posted Ice Skating Pictures.  Our Friend Eric from Swim and Gym is the newest Member, so I had to take some pictures.  Holly is starting to get better with the Hockey skates and more confident when a coach encourages her.

Day 11: Last Day - Video

We woke up on our last day and Holly found this note from Opa!  It was the sweetest thing ever!  He had been leaving her little notes all week long, she loved getting them.

Here is Holly and Oma looking through some of the pictures, Oma is making a copy of her pictures for me to take home.

So I have some last video's from our trip but couldn't find the pictures to go with them so I will just post them here with the pictures of us heading to the airport

Where's Cookie Monster:  When I was little, this Cookie Monster Magic Trick was one of my favorites, I remember one year when I was in about second grade when my Dad performed it for me at my Backyard Birthday Party.  This was the first time Holly saw it and she loved it, she was so entertained, and she laughed and laughed   It was so fun to see, thirty years later.  http://youtu.be/GgYk3h_ZR7A

Hockey Buddys - While we were visiting in Florida Holly was super intrigued with Opa's Hockey game.  She had never played it before, but over the week we were visiting, Opa said that she actually learned so well that she was becoming competition.  He was not being easy on her, but she eventually was able to score on him and even win a few games.  She was so proud of herself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX-i4FOm-uU&feature=youtu.be

Opa decided to stay home from the airport so that Oma could come back and wait with us at the gate

Here is a Sad Holly and a Sad Oma, both not wanting to say goodbye, but after 11 Days, Holly is ready to go home

Bye Bye, Oma!  We love you so so so much!

And then we are off to the airplane

Holly is all tucked into her seat and ready to play with her toys

She was so cute wanting to ready the emergency manual

She took it very seriously.  The flight was uneventful, she is an amazing flier.  I don;t remember if she slept, she must have at some point.  We arrived home at around 11PM and she was happy to see Daddy and excited about the cool weather.  We had an amazing time in Florida, but boy did Daddy miss us!