High tech camping

Playing on iPad while camping with dad

Howdy Partner!

Avery, one of Claire and Laura's sweetest friends, had her birthdya party today. And, although the weather started out questionable (Claire's soccer game and pictures got rained out), it turned out to be a beautiful (and hot!) day. The girls had a blast as you can tell by the pictures. I must say that both of my girls LOVE to ride horses! (yes, that is Laura riding solo below!)

It's that time of year again...

Well, birthdays mean one thing, right? A visit to the Dr! Mark won the lottery and got to take the girls in for their 2 and 4 yr checkups today. I guess it went okay. Claire got 5 shots - ouch! and Laura only got one. Claire was very brave, I hear, and cried some. I think Mark and Magen were more traumatized by the whole thing. Anyway, here are the vitals everyone loves to hear about post-visit. Laura is, as Keely says, a Toddler Super Model. She weighs 23 lbs and is 35.5 in tall. As you can see from my groovy charts, her height remains steady, but her weight has been dropping percentile wise. The Dr doesn't seem fazed by this. Lucky genes, I guess.










Claire is still tall as ever. She weighed in at 34.5 lbs (42%) and 41 (81%) [though I think she really is 42" having measured her recently. In any case, she has remained fairly consistent over the years.









[Can you say I am an Excel nerd?! ;) ]

Claire had a great birthday, complete with a new headlamp from Auntie Nancy (Laura got one too, to go with the sleeping bags and tent Mark and I bought for them). The girls had a blast with Auntie Nancy all afternoon and then with Magen too in the evening. They stayed up far too late, but were having such a good time, I couldn't bear to put them to bed. Plus, we were trying to stay up to see Mark as he had been in DC for the past two days.

I will blog later about Claire's birthday party (some pics here), but need to get to bed. I think maybe we should all take a lesson from 4yr old birthdays and make wishes whenever blowing out candles and have multiple celebrations for at least a week to celebrate our existence on this earth. Until next time...

Tired but happy

Birthdays Galore

From the previous post you know that our little Laura is now 2. When you are with her one on one, she is so sweet and funny. It's hard to believe that she wanted nothing to do with me for the first 6 months of her life (that's 25% as of now). When she is not busy screaming, her vocabulary in both English and Spanish (Claire, what did Laura say?) is amazing. Given her strong personality and affinity for walking around the house in the nude, perhaps I should be worried in 20 years' time.

Last weekend, Grammy and Grampy drove up to spend the long weekend with the girls, as Lynn and I were heading to New York for a conference. The conference was quite productive for both of us as we made some good contacts. I was even asked to consider editing a book on the geography of beer. How cool is that? We did have some fun too, as we managed to see a musical on Broadway. (start watching at 2:08). Anyway, rent the video - it's a great movie.

Grandad also had a birthday this past week. The girls skyped with him and we are excited to see him in July when we will be in Vancouver for a few days. Did I mention that Lynn got a grant from the Government of Canada to do a comparison study of sustainability, looking at 5-6 cities in Canada? She will be spending the weekdays this summer, in various Canadian cities (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City and Halifax) and flying home for the weekends. Tough job. But more importantly, Lynn received official news this week that she will be promoted to associate professor and get tenure in August! Woohoo!

When we returned, we celebrated both the girls' birthdays with Grammy and Grampy. The girls had a blast. This weekend (Saturday) we were going to host Claire's brithday party at the Atlanta Zoo. On Friday evening there were tornadoes in north Georgia and the forecast for Saturday called for rain. So, we decided to move the party to Sunday afternoon. Claire's soccer game on Saturday morning was canceled. Of course, Saturday turned out to have great weather. So the party is slated for tomorrow (I am sure Lynn will provide updates), but unfortunately, I have a flight to Washington, DC at the same time. So I will miss Claire's party.

So, to make up for missing the party, the girls and I had a great play day today. Lynn and I bought them sleeping bags and a tent for their birthdays, so we set up the tent in the living room and pretended we were camping. Claire would ask, what's that noise (Kayla panting)? I said that's a Kay wolf. What's that noise (Rooster meowing)? I said that's a Roo Lion. And then we heard a strange noise, one I couldn't quite place at first. "What's that?", Claire asked. Then it dawned on me. I said, that is the most endangered species of all, it's your mother vacuuming.

Thank you. I'll be here all week.

Anyway, here are some recent photos and a video of the girls playing in the driveway yesterday. Laura spilled some liquid bubbles, so I was cleaning the driveway when Claire and Laura decided they wanted to help.

Our Perfect Valentine

Wow. Laura turned 2 today (and if you ask her how old she is, she will tell you "2" - she also finishes the sentence, "I..." with an emphatic "LOVE YOU! - how sweet is she?!). Anyway, I digress. Watching her blossom over the past few weeks has been an amazing experience. You would think that watching the 2nd child achieve milestones (and minor achievements) wouldn't be nearly as interesting, but it really is. First, the VERY good news. After absolute dedication on Luzma's part, Laura is potty trained! She does #1 and #2 now on the potty. Hooray! We are not out of diapers completely (pull-ups are still very important for a while yet), but this is really terrific. Had it been left up to Mark and me, Laura would still be toddling around in diapers for a long while still. Have we mentioned Luzma rocks! Other Laura developments: she heard Kayla go down the wooden stairs tonight and said, "that's Kayla going downstairs." While that may not seem like rocket science, to her credit I was rocking her in her room with the door shut and lights off. The fact that she can put isolated sounds into context is pretty cool. She is also totally grooving on the pool and bathtub - going under with no fear (Claire has been taking swim lessons and I finally took Laura into the pool last weekend). She and Claire play in the tub, pretending to swim for 20 minutes or so. Speaking of which, the girls are getting along really well. They really do love to play with each other (when Laura is not hitting Claire - we're working on that) which is great. I hope they will be super close sisters for their lifetimes.
Laura is also doing great with her Spanish and English. I tease and say that Laura speaks Spanglish, "I want leche" or "I found azul (crayon)." But, if you ask her the meaning in English or Spanish she will translate words for you. Me: "Laura, how do you say apple in Spanish?" Laura: "manzana", etc. Have I mentioned how great Luzma is? :) Laura also really enjoys singing. I sing to her every night and she often sings along. I've been working on the railroad, ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle are currently in the rotation from her repertoire.
I feel so very blessed that Laura is our daughter. She is a strong, sweet, loving child who brings us sunshine everyday.
We love you, Laura - our best, never to be exceeded, valentine.

PS Pics from Laura's birthday celebration week can be found here.

What else do you do, Daddy?

Lynn is still out of town and I had a hockey game last night (we lost 3-2). So the girls had a sleepover at Luzma's. They were really excited. I sure missed them. Admittedly, I didn't miss being awaken at 6am by Claire asking how to spell "PBSKids.org"; nor did I miss changing Laura's diapers at 7am. I slept in this morning. Ok, Lynn woke me up at 7am via Skype. But by 7:10am I was back asleep. When I awoke, the first thing I saw was that it was light outside. I had no idea what time it was. I did have an 11am meeting at work, so I was sure I was safe time wise. It was 9:30am. A quick shower and I was at work by 10:30am.

Ok, back to the girls. So while I enjoy an evening to myself, I missed the girls. I made sure I got home today by 4:45pm so I could meet the girls as Luzma dropped them off. She said they were great and slept well last night. Now it was my turn to spend time with them. We played soccer in the driveway, they rode their bikes, and we all sat in one rocking chair on the front porch and talked. At 6:15 just before the girls got in their jammies, they played the bumbee dance (they run around naked in Laura's room and practice somersaults). Then into their matching jammies. Next came the Barnyard Dance, which we all did and Laura finished each sentence. At the end she wanted to "do one more promenade". Wow, promenade to me, was an adjective which described a deck on the Love Boat (my favorite scene is at 1:08 into the video).

Claire went down at 7:30pm. We read a Curious George story and then we talked for about 45 minutes about stuff. "Daddy, what else do you do besides make maps?" How long is the flight to Spain? Will I go there when I am older? Is Samantha (Nick and Kristi's daughter) my friend or Laura's? Will I always be 2 years older than Laura? If mommy is in Spain for work, why is Auntie Kim there too? (good question kid). On and on she went, asking many questions that were beyond her age. It reminded me of our friend PJ (we met in Italy, Taylor and Will's dad, weekend in the Blue Mountains, apple picking, etc.) who told me (with a beer in his hand), "I just had a debate with Claire and I think I lost."

Anyway, I had a most enjoyable evening with my angels. Mom comes home in 5 days.