goodness me...

It's been six months since the last posting. A lot has happened. In October Lynn (TX) and I (MN & CA) traveled quite a bit. (Un)fortunately they were on separate trips. So we had some tag team parenting to do, with the help of our beloved Luzma, or "bela" as the girls call her, which is short for abuela. On my trip out to California, we found out that Luzma was resigning as our nanny, because she wanted to look after younger kids, babies. We were distraught, and still are to a lesser degree. She is family to us. More on this in a bit.

So when I got home, grammy and grampy were there visiting us on their annual migration southward to Florida. The girls sure enjoyed spending time with them. Their visit coincided with Claire being the star student of the week. This meant we had to provide healthy snacks for her entire class for the week. I think we got duped.

This Halloween marked the 3rd straight month that Claire got all green dots for behavior at school. And off we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. To the right is a photo of Laura and her lady bug costume. The girls went to 20 houses or so and then we went on a hay ride. When we got home, Lynn quickly hid their candy. We still have about 75% of it.

Laura also started gymnastic class. I took her one week and participated in the class activities and my knee hasn't been the same since. She has really blossomed. She listens to the teacher and tries to do everything the teacher tells her. Why doesn't she listen to us?

And finally for the big new for November, Laura has started school. Yes, with Luzma leaving at the end of the year, we decided to put Laura in school - the same one as Claire's. We hired a new nanny who will shadow Luzma for a couple of days to learn the ropes. And she will have the girls in the afternoons. We were a little worried about how Laura would do in school and whether she would get any green dots. Well at the risk of putting the cart before the horse, she's been at school for 3 days now and has 3 green dots!!! To the left is a picture of Laura on her first day of school. On the first day, Claire's teacher took Claire and let her peek in on Laura's class to make sure Laura was doing OK. The teachers say she is fitting in just fine.

Finally, last Saturday Santa came to our neighborhood to visit the kids and we all went. Here are some photos of the girls and Mr and Mrs. Claus. The girls want this for Christmas.