Either my life has gotten busier, or I've gotten lazier...I choose "A"

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted. Our 2010 Blog Book is going to be sadly short compared to 2009. Sigh. BUT, here is a big long update of the past two months of our lives... TESSA & NATALIE TURNED 3!!!!!!! I can't believe that my little 5 lb babies are giant 3-year-olds now. They sing their ABC's and are recognzing some of the letters and know a lot of the sounds (thank you Letter Factory). I love spending time with them because one if them is always bound to make me laugh. Natalie is our little mother. She's always trying to "take care" of Tessa or her baby dolls. She's our little artist and loves to draw and at only 3, she pretty much stays inside the lines in a coloring book. I don't think I've ever seen a 3-year-old who doesn't just scribble all over the pages. She loves to talk about going to Disneyland and always wants to see "Dongal Duck" and she loves her new "Tinatchtiks" (gymnastics) class. She loves to watch Giada at Home with me and will point at my olive oil and say "that's like Giada's, mommy". She loves that show so much that when she goes to the playground she will reach down and grab a pinch of sand and sprinkle it like it's salt and then say "look, I'm like Giada!" My little artist/chef in the making.... Tessa is just as sassy as can be! She is my little comedian and makes some of the funniest faces! She never walks anywhere! She will run, hop, or gallop but rarely does she slow down to walk. She and Natalie have their differences but if something happens and Natalie starts to cry, Tessa is right there asking "Are you ok, Nan?" She will even hold her hand to make her feel better. Tessa is my diva. She can almost always be found in her "pretty dress" ( a purple crushed velvet dress-up dress) with high heels and as much jewelry as she can find put on. She also likes to stare at herself in the mirror and "put on makeup" with her magnadoodle magnets. We're definitely in trouble with this one! I cannot imagine my life without these two. When I come home from work and they run and scream "Mommy!" it makes me feel so blessed to have two incredibly wonderful children to call my own. I'm looking forward to watching them grow (but not too fast) and can't wait to see what adventures lie ahead for them. Ok, moving on, here are the girls at one of their many birthday celebrations this year. I'm pretty sure they didn't have a birthday but a birthmonth. They were so excited about opening presents that I could hardly get them to slow down enough to find out who the presents were from! Christmas should be super fun this year... They definitely scored in the dress-up clothes department. Here's Natalie modeling her new Sleeping Beauty dress and her new umbrella (my girls are obsessed with umbrellas). We decided to take the girls to California Adventure for dinner with the princesses at Ariel's Grotto. The day we were supposed to go, Jeremy got VERY sick and so I ended up taking the girls with Lynne (Grandma Biehn). Here they are with Ariel! They had so much fun and they got to see Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Cinderella and Princess Minnie, too! They were so excited! The food was decent but $$$$.

As a family, when Jeremy was feeling better, we went to BJ's for dinner and the girls wore their crazy birthday hats and got to have a whole order of macaroni and cheese to themselves. Then they got free pazookies! They ate all of their macaroni and cheese and hardly touched the pazookies. Don't worry, we helped :)

Natalie looks like a professional model here posing for her picture!

One of our new favorite family traditions is Cupcake Sunday. Every Sunday we make a new type of cupcake. We've done chocolate with a vanilla bean buttercream frosting, lemon with lemon frosting (and candied lemon peel on the top, yum), yellow cake with nutella filling and a nutella buttercream frosting (I entered this at a work baking contest and won!), and our latest was a pretzel salad cupcake which is FABULOUS!

The girls like to lick the beaters and enjoy eating the cupcakes also! No frosting for them though. Weirdos.

We signed the girls up for a city Gymnastics class which is held at the KIPS gymnastics club. They LOVE it. They are in the parent/tot class and the teacher just told me that they can move on to the "Little Kippers" class in the fall since they listen so well and do the exercises well. Well, at least they listen at gymnastics.....

Here is Natalie after just having completed a roundoff back handspring. Yeah, right!

They both handle the balance beam really well. Here's Tessa concentrating on keeping her feet on the beam.

They both love getting to go upside down over the bar.

Here's Natalie stretching on the floor...

We also went camping last month. To sum up a series of unfortunate events, Norm got a flat tire, our air conditioning went out, Natalie had a urinary tract infection and we had to drive down the mountain to take her to the doctor's and get antibiotics, we had to drop our car off at the mechanic and use a rental which did not fit everything that we brought up with us and Jeremy's birthday cake got ruined when water leaked into the container. Whew.....we had fun but we hardly have any pictures. Here are a few...

The girls with their cousin, Bradin, eating dinner.

On the way home, they weren't feeling good and so we gave them cups just in case they had to throw up. I love this picture. Oh, and they never did throw up.

My sister-in-law, Kris, told us about a drive-in movie theater that is about 10 minutes away from where we live! We decided to check it out with them and caught a double feature of "Despicable Me" (loved it and will be buying it when it comes out) followed by "Eclipse" (followed the book well but still drove me crazy as they all do). We put the back row of the minivan down and loaded it up with blankets and pillows and watched it from the back. The girls fell asleep after the first movie and we were free to enjoy the second one in peace. For $14 for the four of us, this double feature was a great deal!

Ok, that catches us up for now. Next week, we are off to Pennsylvania to visit Jeff and Carolee and we are SO excited! A trip to Hershey is already scheduled. I just hope I can drag Jeremy out of the Hershey chocolate store....