Hi Daddy

Young has been gone all week and is coming home tomorrow...so Timo was getting prepared to talk to Daddy on his way home. My memory card was full so the video stopped just before the best part..."Daddy I miss you."

I Am A Princess

The kids are just starting the pretend stage. One minute they are a pirate, then a lion, then a frog...and so on. This particular day they got into Cameron's hair accessory drawer and had a field day dressing up their hair. I guess Timo hears us calling Cameron a princess all the time...he wanted a piece of the action...

Being a Tourist

The kids are always seeing the cable cars go by and asking to ride them, so we took advantage of Young being off an extra day last week to go play tourist. We headed downtown to catch the cable car and ride to Fishermans Warf and cruise all the sweatshirt souvenir shops in town!

It was so foggy and cold in SF that day, after being sunny and warm the day before, we had the kids bundled up for the ride. Of course the cable car was packed, being tourist season and all, but they had pity on us because it was so chilly and squeezed us on. The kids loved it!

At the Warf, there is the fabulous "museum" there called Musee Mecanique which is a huge collection of all coin operated music and video games. All vintage and all for just $.25. We changed a few dollars for quarters and had a field day. They had these amazing old musical machines that had moving/dancing figures while music played...Cameron like these the most...

Well, she like the music ones the most until she found the horsey!
So much like his Daddy, Timo was completely into the video games...
We played tourist a little more looking at all the crabs and seafood on the Warf and stopped off for some hot chocolate (it was so cold outside).

Getting back downtown (and to our car) was much harder than we thought. We waited at the cable car stop for over 45mins, in the freezing cold and wind, while 3 cable cars went by too full for us to get on. Then we walked a few blocks down to the beginning of the cable car line and there was a huge line of people waiting. I was tired of being a tourist at that point and just wanted to go to my nice warm home. We were dangerously close to having two overtired toddlers and it wouldn't have been pretty....so we ended up taking a cab back to our car, which was cheaper than riding the cable car, and got back home in 10 mins. Timo and Cameron now ask to ride in a Taxi every time we see one...

Baking Cookies

The kids show a great interest in cooking while I'm in the kitchen...which makes me very happy. I try to give them simple little tasks to make them feel like they are "helping" but they just never really feel satisfied with "hold the spoon for mommy". So I decided to bake some cookies with them, letting them do most of the work...and surprisingly, it turned out to be so much fun!

I just gave them the right size measuring cup and measuring spoon and let them count out how many scoops when in. It turned out to be a great exercise in practicing numbers. But then Timo got a little carried away with the baking soda...

Timo testing the chocolate chips before they go in...

The best part was eating the cookie dough!

After baking came time to eat our final product. For some very odd reason, Timo wasn't interested in the baked cookies at all...who's son is he anyway?? But my sweet tooth little girl tried to eat as many as she could get away with!

Painting

It took the kids a couple of days (more like a week or so) to get back on Pacific time. They were up super early every morning which can make the day VERY long. One day I decided to take the kids over to the Discovery Museum for an unlimited amount of fun. We're members of the museum and have been several times but this time we had tons of extra time so we hit the painting area!

This is the only way I like the kids to paint...at this age...in someone else's place with someone else to clean up! Each painting station "window" had a water spray bottle, squeegee, and three colors of paint. Timo discovered the spray bottle and that's all he needed for the next hour. He would paint, spray, wipe it down and start all over...very mechanical.
Whereas my little creative Cameron enjoyed painting and painting and painting...

Working together to create their masterpiece! Ta-Dah!!
They have a great hand stamping station as you leave...a self-stamping station...

July 4th Weekend

I fell so behind on all that's been going on since we got back so I'm gonna do July 4th as a whole weekend. We had a few plans that fell through last minute but we scrambled and managed to have a jam packed weekend!

We were having really nice weather so decided to have a cook out in the back yard with some of the kids friends...baseball was the theme of the afternoon...

The boys all worked really well together...but we need to find Cameron some little girlfriends to play with.
And what's a summer cook out without watermelon!


On the 4th we took the kids to the Marin County Fair. I looked at the website before we left to make sure they had kiddie rides that the kids could go on...but when we got there, there was a small height requirement even if adults rode with them. Kids have to be 36" tall...Timo was 34" and Cameron was 32"...just under. And what's more frustrating was there were younger kids getting on the rides but were tall! Oh well, the twins seemed satisfied enough to ride the merry-go-round over and over.



So we passed our time in the barnyard feeding and petting all the animals...

...and making room in the stands to watch the pig races!

We got tatoos...

And ate, and ate and ate...

We did everything in the fair that we could do and still had about 30min before the fireworks started so we bought the kids this ridiculous over priced glow swords to pass the time. It worked and in no time the fireworks started!



Timo loved the fireworks...Cameron did not. Daddy and Timo got to enjoy the show while I took Cameron some place away from the noise (even though she kept peeking around my sholder to see the pretty lights). What a great July 4th!

Round Up and Coming Home

This is the last of our North Carolina post...I know, so sad. I wanted to post just a few random pics and videos of our summer fun....

Bubble blowing was an almost daily activity. Granny and Grandpa kept the kids supplies with lots of wands, pipes and bubble juice for hours of fun. Cameron became quite the pro...practice make perfect...



We spent lots of time at playgrounds too. Parks seemed to be the perfect place to meet up with old friends of mine...so the kids could play and adults could visit. We ended up visiting with my friend Leigh Anne and her daughter Emilie so long, it was supper time and of course, McDonalds was the only place with an indoor playspace that we could find.


The kids just adored my brother...Uncle Kevin. He as a BBQ catering business on the side so we visited him at one of his jobs. The kids were well versed in the art of southern cusine by the time we left...BBQ, sweet tea and fried chicken!


Eventually it was time for us to pack up and head home...
Our flight back wasn't a smooth as going but we made it. We got a nap out of Cameron but Timo again, was way too wired to sleep. I bought these little laptops last Christmas as some door buster and had them put away just for our next flight. I didn't have to used them on the way going but busted them out for our return.


We had a great trip and can't wait to go back next summer. A big thank you to my parents...Granny and Grandpa! Thank you so much for giving us such a wonderful summer!