After dinner fun

The Wong Family joined us and the Eldredge Family for our weekly dinner. It was interesting squeezing six adults and four children into our breakfast room, but it sure was fun. After a dinner of pot roast, salad, garlic bread, and strawberries, we burned off some calories playing "Ring around the rosie."

Lydia talks to Sophie

Lydia's definition of "talking to Sophie" is getting Sophie to repeat words back to her and it's awfully cute.

Eyes, nose, and...

Sophie has been talking quite a bit lately with favorite new words "be be" (blanket), "dank do" (thank you), "up", and "cheese". Lydia helps so much because she shouts out the names of all the animals, shapes, colors, etc. on the Baby Einstein DVD; and Sophie repeats them.


Sophie insists that that the nose and ears are as one.

E I E I Ooooooo

I am so loving that the kids play well together.


Lydia and Sophie's rendition of Old MacDonald


Check out Sophie's perfect "O"; my church choir director would have been proud.

Fiesta!

Nick had an extra set of tickets for Dell's Friends and Family Day at Fiesta Texas San Antonio, so we decided to take the girls. Last year's Seaworld Dell Day did not go so well, but we figured that the kids would have more fun now that they are older. Lydia just made the cut height-wise for the bigger rides and Sophie got to ride a couple kiddies rides, though she was still a bit scared. We arrived at the park around the same time as Nick and Wendy, so the kids went on a couple kiddie rides together, and then we met up with Jason and his clan; Trung and I were then able to go on the bigger rides. I rode on the Superman ride and was instantly reminded how I didn't like the "going down" feeling, though I minimized the effect with lots and lots of screaming. We had a great time with friends and family! :)

A big breakfast at Pablito's in preparation for our big day. Lydia picked out the watermelon.

Sophie and her crumbly smile

Clean up, clean up...notice how blurry the image gets at the end


Freaky Trung and Sophie



PBS's new show...


Trung and his little gals


Lydia's favorite airplane ride


Kaitlin taking Lydia and Sophie on a ride in her ice cream truck


Deja vu from the zoo. Lydia loved her bunny!


Silly Trung


Girls turn!


Jason's aunt graciously watched Sophie while we went on a water ride. The poor thing cried for fifteen minutes then fell asleep from exhaustion.


After Six Flags, we met up my cousin and her family at P.F. Chang's at La Cantera for dinner. Then we happened across two abandoned cars, so we took the girls for a spin (to Gymboree). :) We got home around 10:30 with both girls passed out in the back, but we had a wonderful day!

Girls just want to have fun

This morning, the girls and I met Wendy and her kids at The Domain. The weather was nice and we walked around for a little while before heading to Ho Ho for lunch.

Lydia climbed the armadillo all by herself!

Lydia watching getting a close-up view of Wendy giving Ethan a diaper change.

Kaitlin and Sophie watching from a distance

After the kids were put to bed, the mommies headed out to Roaring Fork for a girls' night out. The six of us had drinks, desserts, and lots of laughs. We should do this every month for sure!

Me, Sarah, and Susanna getting ready to head out

Google's Unexplained Crop Circles

Sorry in advanced. This is a break for Grace's typical family blog posts.

It's around 2am. I'm not usually up this late, but I couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd just get up to do some research on an idea I just came up with for a small programming project. That's what I do, I'm a software developer. Anyway, I fire up my browser and notice that the Google logo of the day is a UFO hovering over some crop circles. Normally, I don't have a lot of time on my hands and don't end up clicking through on the various Google logos, but in this case, I noticed that it didn't have the typical hover-over text that explains what the logo is about. This piqued my interest, and I clicked through. I briefly read some of the related news articles which explained that this was a new logo that apparently is making its way around the world right now, starting at around midnight in each country. Apparently, there was another similar logo deemed the "unexplained phenomenon" that appeared a few weeks back (Sept 4th/5th). This guy does a better job explaining it than me. The two logos are obviously related somehow, but no one (outside of Google) really knows the meaning of the two logos as of yet. Some have speculated that the "unexplained phenomenon" is characteristically unexplained by Google, a self-fulfilling phenomenon, but then that wouldn't explain today's UFO + crop circles logo. Some think it's just a hallmark Google marketing ploy. Others speculate that "Google knows something that we don't" or that "our government is about to reveal something". Umm, doubt it. I'm guessing there'll be a much more innocuous explanation... but it better be explained, or else it'll drive me batty!

Curiosity Day

Book People hosted a celebration in honor of Curious George's author's birthday today. I thought that the kids would enjoy it because they watch Curious George every morning, but when we got there, it was super crowded and they didn't have the activities or cupcakes that were advertised. Oh well, at least we got to see George himself though Lydia was too scared to pose with him.

Amy was brave enough to even look at George

Sorry for the blurriness, this is the only picture I have of Sophie wearing her adorable cap.

After the so-called celebration, we went to Whole Foods for lunch. It was still raining when we finished, so the girls played "with" the rain while we waited for Adam to get the minivan (he was the only one wearing appropriate shoes). The girls have soooo much fun together!

Three little princesses

Life of a child

It honestly must be so much fun being a kid, with not a care in the world. Fortunately for me, Lydia and Sophie are happy campers most of the time, so they always have a good time anywhere they go or with anyone.

The girls just doing their own thing with our birthday gift to Lydia. Lydia really could spend the entire day looking at pictures.


Nick, Wendy, and the family dropped by Wednesday; Lydia loved touching the baby...is she trying to give us a hint?


Tonight we had dinner at Sarah's house though the kids didn't eat too well because they wanted to play. Lydia and Amy had a ball jumping on the bed.


Limbs up!

Wipe Out

Since my parents were in town and could watch the kids, we decided to hit the lake again. The boat rental place has a buy 3 get 4 hours deal if you leave the dock by 8:30 AM on the weekends, so we took advantage. Jennifer, Betty and Christian tubed for the first time and Trung was finally able to get up water skiing for a few seconds. It stormed the night before and the weather forecast predicted scattered thunderstorms for the day, but it barely sprinkled. Even better, there was no sun to burn us up and the water was nice and warm. We had a blast!

Me, Jennifer, and Trung

Trung getting ready to tube...he wiped out soon after

I dared Trung to wipe me out...ask and ye shall receive.


After everyone got a chance to tube, we found a nice little swimming cove where we hung out for awhile.


Me sporting the one piece over a two piece look; I was taking no chances of anything getting yanked off


Whoo-hoo, ride 'em cowboy

Trung finally got to the "standing" position after many attempts from previous occasions.


Albert, Tiff, and Christian


Heading back to shore after a morning of fun

Lydia's Rockin' Third Birthday

My sweet little girl turns three today! It seems just like yesterday that I was bringing Lydia home from the hospital; where has the time gone? Happy birthday, my Ya-ya!

The birthday girl

Mommy, Daddy, and the big girl!

Lydia only has eyes for the cake

When asked if she wants Ah-ma (my mom) or cake, she answers "cake" without hesitation.

My little girl

Lydia's new tutu ballet dress

Adam feeding Sophie cantaloupes...open wide!

Lydia posing with her balloon; she chose the biggest one at the store

Lydia rocking it out and managing quite well with her personal guitar