Star of the Week

Miss Maia is SOOOOO excited to be the Star of the Week. :-) She gets to help her teacher, bring snacks, lead the line to recess, and answer the following questions about herself to her classmates:

Name:    Maia Johnson
Family Members:    Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma, JD
Favorite Food:    Mac 'n Cheese
Age:    3
Favorite Color:    Purple
Favorite Place:    Disneyland

Years Go By

 

 

 

9 summers and counting I've been enjoying summer evening concerts at the SJC Mission....as a newlywed, a new Californian, an overworked audit manager, a new-mama, a new-single-divorced-mama....but always blessed with dear dear friends by my side.

 

Now sharing these beautiful summer nights with JD & Maia, my heart is a little achy with nostalgia and with the creeping realization that my little twinners are growing up and there are no more babies and - this is what is really hitting me - no more toddlers! They are so big. Talking, thinking, pretending, imagining, learning, dressing themselves, getting ever-more opinionated, and needing me a little less each day that goes by. Where does the time go?

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

baby book

Random photo that I love since this blog is the closest I will probably ever come to baby books.
Dear Maia and JD, when you are teenagers and cry that your life is hard I will blow this picture up and hang it up in your room. Boom. Eating ice cream cones on the pier and getting it all over your face = your life is awesome. :-) Love our summer evenings together and PS summer where we live lasts for 10 months out of the year.

Auntie Kay-Kay

The kids and I love Auntie Kay-Kay and she came for a visit our first weekend after Debbi left. We had a great time especially spending all day Saturday at Aliso Creek beach in Laguna. Did not get nearly enough pictures....especially when three police cars and two fire trucks came for a BOMB THREAT in the kids' playground area and JD thought he had died and gone to heaven. The amazing firemen of Laguna Beach talked to him and showed him their truck. I have never seen his eyes so big!

 

Can you even see the facial expressions in these Iphone pictures? Because JD & Maia would wait for the water to come around the rock from the waves with more joy on their little faces than you can imagine. Did this for quite a while...

 

 

PS And we (and by we I mean I) found a place in Long Beach to watch the planes come and go. And I let them watch for 40 minutes. Cool mom award please

 

on our own

 

For the first time in my entire life I live alone....well with two toddlers of course but void of adult company. I had roommates until I got married and have had a live-in nanny since I got unmarried.

12 days flying solo and we are off the ground. Missing Debbi a ton but we are doing it....made it out the door Thursday without a single meltdown incident (me or the kids haha).

This week JD prayed before bed "Heavenly Father please bless Debbi to come home because I love her so much." May or may not have made me cry! I work too much and Debbi has spent more time with these two in the past couple of years than I have. Kids are doing well though. And so am I.

blame game

Question: When do kids develop awareness that they can shift consequences to someone else?

So not exactly logical but cracks me up (even though I don't let her see me laugh preferably because it's lying, right?) that Maia has realized she can blame things on others. The crazy thing is she hasn't blamed anything on JD yet, she blames it on people that aren't there.

Glitter all over (and I mean ALL OVER) my room - floor, bed, bathroom, everything? It was baby Hazel our cousin. Yes, she came over in the middle of the night.

Someone pulled one of the seatbelt-type straps off the stroller - like ripped it right off? I didn't even care, didn't even ask, but she held it up and told me Baby Norah broke her stroller (a friend's daughter).

Apparently non-present babies create a lot of havoc at our house. Watch out.

Swimming Lessons

I like to just do everything at once....so never mind that we are transitioning from live-in nanny to full-day preschool, I am still getting in the swing of things at my new job (not to mention in the middle of my first quarter close), and we're still kind of potty training.....let's do swim lessons too. :-) The past two weeks of swim have been SO fun but we are also VERY excited to have slow, hang-out-at-home afternoons/evenings all next week....

JD and Maia have gotten a lot better at sitting still and waiting their turn - still have a little trouble with it but better this week than last - thanks to their lovely teacher Miss Allegra. Twins moms have to decide whether to put their kids in the same class or separate them (at lessons, daycare, school, church etc) and I have chosen to keep them together at this point. When their teacher had to yell at JD "JD, we don't hold our sister's head under water!!!!" I thought Hmmmmm.....maybe separating them might be a good idea.....

They have learned how to go under water blowing bubbles, do superman floats with kicks, do assisted back floats, and "crab walk" along the side of the pool where they can't touch. Sitting on the side watching them so happy and loving it is the happiest half hour of my day. :-)