Happy 4th Birthday Alina!

Our adorable little four-year-old birthday girl, Alina!

Happy 4th Birthday to our littlest baby girl, Alina! It seems like such a short time ago when she was placed in our arms for the very first time. I could tell from the start that she had a special little spirit. She was the easiest baby and almost never made a fuss over anything. She was a very active and inquisitive toddler, but one thing always remained central; her thoughtful personality. Four years later and she still really is the sweetest girl with the biggest heart! She never went through terrible twos or the tantrum stage, which has been amazing for mom and dad. Her favorite saying is, "momma, no matter how big I get I will always be your baby". It gets me every time. We had a fun Sleeping Beauty theme birthday party for her last weekend with her close friends and family. She had the BEST day!

Raising her and watching her grow these past four years has brought so much joy to our lives. She loves swimming, riding her scooter and bike, playing with her princess dolls, drawing, gymnastics and finding other fun outlets to get her energy out. She is excellent at coloring and very meticulous about staying within the lines and using the brightest colors possible. She now recognizes all the letters in the alphabet and has started sounded out words and associating them to each letter. I feel like reading is on the horizon for her soon! She loves to learn, but also has such a playful spirit and thoroughly enjoys immersing herself in imaginary play. She is a great caretaker to all her dolls and toys and makes sure they never get lonely. While we celebrate four, at the same time I find myself wanting to bottle up her sweetness and adorable little high pitched girl voice. I find that we dote on the words and phrases she says because she truly has the most optimistic and positive view on the world and how things work. She is growing up so quick, but I have a feeling that her sweet nature and thoughtful spirit will always remain a central part of who she is. We love you Alina, Happy 4th Birthday!

We love you, sweet birthday princess!

Elise's Kindergarten Graduation - June 2015

Elise is going to miss her wonderful K teacher and class!

Special gifts for her teacher

What a whirlwind Kindergarten year it has been! I recall the first day of school like it was last week. Elise had such an incredible Kindergarten teacher, class and overall experience that I feel like any future year will be quite difficult to live up to. She has learned so much and grown by leaps and bounds both academically and socially. Her reading is far beyond anything I had expected at this age. She was already reading short books by the start of Kindergarten, but her learning really took off and she breezed through all her sight words, and moved on to spelling them all by year end. She rarely even needs help with big words anymore. We are so impressed with her determination and drive and thankful that she had such a supportive teacher who challenged her to continue her growth and learning. It was an emotional day, but she is looking forward to summer camp and seeing many of her friends at summer parties and play dates. Here's looking forward to first grade 2015.

Little classmates/friends at Kindergarten graduation

Visiting with her schoolmate and old neighborhood pal

Her amazing art and school work portfolio; proud mama here

LA Trip Part III: La Brea Tar Pits & George C. Page Museum

The entrance to George C. Page Museum

The Lake Pit at La Brea Tar Pits

The outdoor sights at La Brea Tar Pits

Giant Columbian Mammoth

The girls were impressed by the massive fossil finds

A wall of Dire Wolf skulls on display

On our final day in Los Angeles, we were very excited to get the opportunity to visit The La Brea Tar Pits and George C. Page Museum. This has been on mom's list of places to visit for a while now. We weren't sure what to expect with the girls and whether they would really be able to appreciate the museum at their young ages, but they loved the experience! They marveled at the size of the massive Ice Age fossils, especially the giant Columbian Mammoth. 

We didn't have too much time to explore all the excavation sites and pits, but the museum itself was more than enough entertainment for the girls. They enjoyed the brief movie on the history of the La Brea Tar Pits and learning about how all the animals ended up stuck in the tar and eventually became fossils on display in the museum. There is also a spot in the museum where they were able to try and pull metal bars up from the tar, just to show how tough it really was to escape once stuck. Elise was proud to put her reading skills to the test and educate us on what animal was on fossil display and the history behind them. After a fun morning at La Brea Tar Pits, we headed over to the LA Museum of Natural History. More photos to come...

Adolescent mammoth fossils

Fun exploring the Page Museum exhibits

Elise educating us on the fossilized bison

Fossil puzzle piecing in the Fossil Lab observation room

The bubbling Lake Tar Pit

A fun end to our La Brea Tar Pit adventure

Happy 5th Birthday Elise!

Elise at Five Years Old!

Happy 5th birthday to our lovely little Elise! We are so proud of our smart and feisty yet loving little girl. She has more will and determination than we could have ever imagined. She is driven to succeed and do well in life and we are so thankful for her determined little spirit. She's had her own opinion since before she could talk and her dream at five-years-old is to grow up and become an artist. She loves preschool and all of her school friends. Her best preschool friend is Halynne and she tells us many stories of all the adventures that they have at recess. Ms. Maria, her teacher, is her favorite person in the world right now and she gives her a nice long hug every single day after school. She loves to read, draw, swim, and ride her bike. She just learned how to swim underwater and it was one of her proudest moments. She is a very adventurous eater. She will try anything you put on her plate and she especially loves her cauliflower, broccoli, avocado, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggs, bananas and watermelon. Her favorite thing to do on weekends, aside from bike rides, is to go on day trips, and travel to new places. She has so much energy and thrives on those full busy days where we just go, go, go. She's usually the last to tire out on a busy day, and yes, she still fights sleep, but it has gotten much better. She's become a big helper around the house too. She loves to help dust, sweep and put away her laundry. She also loves to help mom out in the kitchen cooking up new recipes. She is such a joy to have around and we are so proud of all the milestones that she has accomplished in the last year. Happy birthday sweet Elise!

Celebrating her birthday at John's Incredible Pizza

Elise is Almost Five!

Little beauty Elise at almost five-years-old

Having fun on the swing

Sisters bonding...and smiles

Sister hugs are the absolute best

Elise will be turning five-years-old in just a few days! I still can't believe how much she's learned and matured in these five short years. I took some photos this past weekend and stopped in my tracks when looking back through them on the computer. I no longer see a little girl and instead a sweet young lady, who is yearning to grow up and dress her prettiest at all times. I have to admit, that I got teary eyed seeing how beautiful she looked in these photos. She is still very much a child and has those adorable childlike qualities, but we are also slowly seeing aspects of her maturity and growth. Aside from being very tall for her age, she now has what I like to call the "grown-up voice", she talks in complex sentences and now tells stories dispersing the occasional colloquialisms throughout (for some reason this makes me feel as if she is five going on fifteen). She also makes very intelligent inferences from the things we say, and spelling things out won't always get past her anymore.

Our girl can read all by herself now and she only needs help with big words. I hope Kindergarten will be challenging enough, because she has aced every single one of those simple 1-4 letter site words. She is so inquisitive about the world and how things work; she's a definite thinker. She is still a little ball of emotion though! I will say that she has come a very long way from the tantrum laden days of past, but she is still quite emotionally driven and strives for perfection and order (according to her interpretation). All this said, I see a very sweet and very determined young lady at the core of it all. I am so proud of her for all the things she has accomplished in these last five years. She is setting a great example for little Alina to follow, and she is even helping teach her how to read small words. I am so grateful for both of our sweet girls, and for the very special bond that they share.

Sharing secrets

Serious look, but I love it as I see a glimpse of her baby face

All smiles, she brings so much joy to our lives