Ok, maybe I'm biased...

a little, but we have to the two cutest, sweetest kids. Here they are at the children's museum of Atlanta at Taylor Docka's birthday party. You will recall the Dockas are our friends we met while we were in Italy. The girls had a blast at the museum, getting to try a bunch of things like milking a "cow", fishing, watching a play, eating pizza and cupcakes. It's amazing to sit back and watch their young minds at work.

I've already accepted that unless there is no another adult present, Laura wants nothing to do with me. I am sure this will change. When it's just the two of us she wants me to color with her, or read books to her. Unlike her sister, she has not taken to watching movies on mom's iPad. Her favorite app on her iPod is Tom the talking cat. Maybe it is because they both love milk.

Lynn commented at dinner tonight that Laura is truly bilingual as she uses both English and Spanish words when speaking, without realizing it. For example, "I want leche". But she knows that both milk and leche are the same thing. Maybe that's why Laura is so tall for her age, because of all the milk she drinks. Too bad she barely weighs 20 lbs. She will still be in a car seat when she is 13.

And there is no doubt that she is right handed as evident in one of these videos.





Claire continues on her own, without any pressure or prompting from us, to prepare for the first grade. She loves to write and spell. "How do you spell 'croutons'?". She's recently started to distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Tonight she wrote out the grocery list for us.

Claire's soccer season ended last Saturday. I am going to start working with her so that she gets in the midddle of things instead of watching from a distance. She says she wants to play again next season, so hopefully her cleats will still fit.

Halloween has come and gone and so has the candy. Grammy and Grampy minded the candy dish at home (there were a lot of candy wrappers lying around our front porch), while Lynn, Magen and I took the girls out. Fortunately, they have forgotten about the candy. Grammy and Grampy visited for a week on their annual mirgration southward to Florida. Knowing the value of having time with grandkids, Lynn and I made sure they had plenty of that. I think they were more tired when they were leaving, than when they arrived. Lynn and the kids are going to visit them in December before the Christmas break.

Well, I can't think of anything else that's happened, but I am sure Lynn will add to this posting or create her own after she reads this one. Hasta la proxima vez!

HALLOWEEN!

More details to come, but here are some more pictures for now.

Fun with Magen

My children are so lucky. They have amazing people in their lives who love them so much. Magen, one of our amazing ones, came by tonight to watch the girls. They were having so much fun with her. We know Claire already loves Magen (they are best friends, you know) and now Laura just adores her, too. They read lots of books and made funny faces with each other. Anyway, I was able to capture some special moments of Laura with Magen tonight. Of course, Claire wanted in on the action, too so you will see some sweet silly time between Claire and Laura. Sisters. So sweet.

Magen also shot some adorable video of Claire talking about her boyfriend, Christopher. Christopher is the son of good friends of ours in Canada. Claire was quite taken with him this summer during our trip to Kamloops. She remembers him quite well. See the video as she tells Magen all about it. Even though we know Christopher and his family well, I don't think Mark is going to relax his "no dating before 30" rule.

Juicy and Delicious

That was our day yesterday spent with the Dockas (Beth, PJ, Taylor, Will and Chandler). We had a great time picking apples, playing and having dinner. Of course, the Brunello makes everything that much sweeter! Enjoy more pictures from the day.

Reading

The girls continue to get along swimmingly. Tonight, Claire took time out of her busy schedule to read to Laura. Laura even helped out when Claire got stuck. Check it out.



Laura even sang a song for us.



This weekend we are going apple picking with our friends, the Dockas, whom we met in Italy 2 years ago. You can also see them in the January 2011 posting when we spent the weekend in the mountains with them.

Here are some photos from today as well.

Futbol

Today was Claire's first soccer game. The kids started out with a 30 minute practice where they learned to dribble and shoot. After the practice, chaos ensued. Each team fielded 5 players and almost everyone ran after the ball, except Claire, who ran around a lot, but largely avoided everyone. She really wanted nothing to do with the scrum. But the coach kept her in for the whole game as there were 3-4 of Claire's teammates who simply cried on the sideline for the whole game.

Lynn and Laura were great cheerleaders, encouraging Claire. Laura even got into the spirit by running around on the sidelines. She was a hoot. Claire got knocked over a couple of times and cried, but after I told her to suck it up and get back out there (plus a few words of positive reinforcement from mom), she did. She even kicked the ball once! I expect her to become much more involved in the game as the season progresses. Overall, she enjoyed herself and both Laura and Claire are looking forward to next weekend's game. You can see some video of the game below (she's #3 on the blue team) (click here to see the wide screen version), plus some photos here. Both our angels slept well in the afternoon.

New Videos

I have posted some new photos of the girls here . They are a couple of characters. Laura had her first all out major temper tantrum this afternoon. She was lying on the floor kicking and screaming and crying. It was all I could to keep from laughing. Unfortunately, Lynn wouldn't let me record a video of it. But I do have these videos to share with you. Enjoy.