Bedtime conversation

he kids were so cute playing before bed tonight.



Bedtime chat:
Cate: I love you Lily
Lily: I love you and I am glad to go to my friends' house
Cate: I'm thankful for Daddy
Lily: I love Daddy too....and Benjamin........and Aurora and Tinkerbell.....
ooooooohhhhh........AURORA AND TINKERBELL
Cate: I'm thankful that I'm your Mama
Lily: But I'm not a mom
Cate: No, I am.
Lily: You're a mom?
Cate: I'm thankful that I get to be your mom
Lily: Oh.

Tinkerbell-take 2

Lily and Tink



Blowing kisses

Tinkerbell!!!!

We took Lily to see the new Tinkerbell movie at the El Capitan theater. We invited friends and people from school. We ended up with 34 people and got a great deal! There were many winged little girls floating around. Of course, Tink showed up for a little River Dance on the stage beforehand.

Lily and her friend Sadie ready to go in



Tinkerbell doing her Jig



Matt, Cate and Lil



There are many characters outside the Kodak theater, literally.
Tinkerbell was out that day and Lily was comparing wings. Tink asked Lily her name and she said, Tinkerbell, in a -like, duh, can't you tell- kind of a tone.


More to come.....

Daddy's Helper

We got a kitchen set for the kids. Lily seriously helped Matt put it together. That is, until the stove section was put on, then she was done helping and had to start cooking.

This week

We've been going to the local Farmer's Market every Wed. lately. After I get home from class and Matt goes to work, we load up and go peruse the selection of produce and munch on the samples. Ben eats about 10 strawberries every time. Lily always picks out flowers and I always give in. She just goes gaga and tells me how BEAUTIFUL they are.
Took Ben to a gym-type class and he was so excited to be around big kids and just tore it up.

Lily flying at the farmer's market



Ben taking his time to warm up.



He's so cute!!

Fun days

Lily and Ben and I walked onto campus so that Daddy could take a nap. I had to print out a paper anyway and it turned out there was a yoga festival going on. The kids ate all kinds of soy fruit bar samples and played in the kids area for a very long time. There was a magic show put on by Cinderella, so you can imagine how Lily sat for a half hour and how Ben wanted to run the other way. He explored lizards, pinwheels, other kids' scooters and trashed a few art projects all while Lily sat entranced by Cinderella.
She got a butterfly balloon too. :)


Ben and I ran some errands while Lily was at school on Tuesday.
I'll do anything to keep him in the cart as long as I can!

Helper

Ben decided to "help" us by sweeping. This involved getting the broom out and knocking 10 things over to get it. He then tried to drag the broom through the house, sweeping and riding it. You can imagine the chaos that followed.






Notice the dirt on the cleaning man's face. :)

Sad Day

This is a sad day in our house. Erin and Fabian (Lily's Sabbie) moved to Texas today. While we are happy for them and wish them nothing but joy, we are very very sad. They are our only family here and have just been such a big part of our lives. Erin put Lily to bed last night and the first thing she asked this morning was, "where's Erin and Sabbie?" We've tried to explain it to her, but all she knows is that she wants to go to Tex-Chas and Mommy's crying a lot.

At the Park

We went to the BIG park one day last week. Ben had so much fun being a big kid. He tried to follow Lily everywhere but either couldn't keep up or got distracted. Lily made a few friends and was off on her own. Ben Loves the slide and the shaky bridge (just like his sister). He also enjoys walking close to the big drops and freaking me out.

So life-like :)

Lily was drawing in the garage and told us it was a drawing of Papa Mustache and that he has really long legs.
She's pointing to the "fire in his pocket".


"He has a sailboat under his chin."

playmates

We are actually seeing the kids start to play together and it's GREAT! I'm so over the referee stage. I felt like I should be wearing a striped shirt and carrying a whistle for a while there. One morning last week, they played together for more than and hour and let me do homework. It was so amazing. I just kept peeking into the living room to be sure I wasn't dreaming. It's just nice now that it's getting easier and the turf wars are dying down.
Here's some proof:

Ballet

Lily just LOVES ballet class. She is such a good listener in class and just has a blast. I don't know how I ended up in this vortex of girlyness,but I love it.

Tap shoes are so fun.



But she's sooooo good at ballet.

Curious

A little caterpillar came to visit. We checked him out and fed him a leaf from a strawberry. We moved him to one of our plants and Lily decided to call it Lillian caterpillar.


This morning, Lily asked us, "Where did I go when I was asleep?" Wouldn't we love to know!!?!?
While I was getting ready to go to class, she's asking me questions: where are you going Mama?? School?? You dress up at your school? Then you have clean up time? THen you clean up the toys outside?? I told her, no Lil, we don't have toys outside at my school. She made the stinkiest face. Like, what kind of a school doesn't have toys outside?!

More of today

Some shots of my adventure with Ben:

I think Santa has taken note of Ben and Lily's love of kitchen sets. :)

First Week of School

Lily's first day of school was Tuesday. She woke up in the morning and screamed, SCHOOL!!!!!!! SCHOOL TODAY!!!!! She asked if I was staying with her, but I wasn't working mom that day. She seemed fine with it and off we went. She got to school and put her stuff in her cubby. Shoes were off within the first 2 minutes. Ben got right in there. He'd stay all day if he could. Oh, the snuggles for Cassidy and Izzy were soooooo cute. I'll have to get pictures of them up here. Also, there's a shot of her when we picked her up. She's always in different clothes, hair all over the place and usually covered in something. (If it was a good day!) When they're on the bus, they're usually driving to Disneyland or the beach. Isabella (Izzy) is the one with her hand way up. She is so sweet and Lily will talk about her all day.
Today, while Lily was at school, Ben and I went to a free Eco class to check out lizards, turtles and snakes. He was more reserved than I thought he'd be. Didn't grab at the turtle and would only touch it after I had. We went into Pottery Barn Kids and he played with the kitchen set and had a blast. He's trying to talk, but mostly sounds like Frankenstein. He points a lot and grunts or just yells in open places. Usually in big halls where people are trying to read or relax. Gotta run. Can't believe they let me type this long already!! Thank you doll house!

Here We Go

Alrighty, here we go. Just posting here to try to keep everyone up to date on our crazy life. This way, we can share little Lily and Ben anecdotes that happen.......pretty much constantly. So here's a picture and a little story. Bringing out an oldie that I came across recently. My wonderful friends had a baby celebration for me when I was pregnant with Ben. It's a very L.A. thing to do and they really had to talk me into it. I told them we only have first baby showers in Chicago. So, alas, it happened and was so fun. We made baby onesies for Ben and they turned out to be so cute and such a big help. So Lily was there and naked after 3 minutes. She is totally allowed to trash Laurie's house and do whatever she wants there. (That house is now Laurie's old house, but my kids trash her new house just the same). So, a pic of Lil being Lil and one of my favorites.