Gymnastic season is over...

We were grateful that the state level meet was close to home, since we had to be there at 7:30 this morning! Frances is the only 9-year-old on her team, so she had her coach, Lindsay, all to herself. Frances did well, achieving her highest all-around score yet. She did not earn a medal, but she knew going in that she wouldn't. Our perspective this season is that we want her to get a higher score with each meet. She didn't start training for Level 4 until July (girls usually begin in January) so we pretty much knew she wouldn't be on the podium. Frances was satisfied with her scores today, and she loved the "goodie bag" that the team moms put together. All of us contributed a few fun items, and one mom organized it all into goodie bags for the girls and the coach.
Thus ends the 2010 gymnastic season... although they may do a few meets in the spring!

Veteran's Day, 2010

On Thursday, we went to Disneyland! Our darling neighbor, Janice, signed us in, and even stayed a few hours to take Abigail on the carousel, horse-drawn trolley, Alice in Wonderland, etc., so that I could take Frances on Space Mountain, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Indiana Jones. We had a great day!



We were in the park from 8 a.m. to 3:30, and then left to get to gymnastics by 4:30. Abigail slept through her class. Oops! Then we grabbed a quick dinner, and headed back to the park. We were back inside just before 8 p.m., and stayed until about 9:30. Abigail is tall enough for most of the rides, but I knew that there were some which would be too scary for her. Frances was a good sport, and rode the merry-go-round, and then we took Abigail on the Matterhorn bobsleds! I knew ahead of time that she would not like it, but.... we did it anyway! No crying, but Abby told me that it had been scary. I was one tired Mama the next day at work!

Halloween!

Okay, there are tons of pictures in this blog entry! But they were all so cute that I couldn't decide which ones to leave out, and believe me, there are plenty more on the flash drive that I did not choose to post!
This year, Abigail scored with costume selection. She has several Princess dresses, from birthday presents and hand-me-downs, and Frances realized that Abigail has a doll to match nearly every costume!

Abigail has the Tiana dress which matches the Cinderella rag doll, the Jasmine costume to match the rag doll, and she even has a red silk outfit (maybe from China, but more likely from a thrift store) that happened to match her Mulan barbie doll!

Aunt Linda invited us to go to the Family Musical Morning, Halloween edition, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The Pacific Symphony Orchestra played selections from scary movies, as each of the "movie monsters" checked in to the fictional "Hollywood Monster Mansion Hotel." We had a hard time finding a costume for Frances this year. There was nothing interesting at the thrift stores, so we re-used a knight costume from last year to go to the Performing Arts Center. For this event, Abigail wore her Sleeping Beauty dress, and brought along the matching doll!

We bought pumpkins several weeks before Halloween, but waited until the last minute to carve them, because of the heat. Yes, moldy pumpkins are definitely scary, but that wasn't really the look we were going for! Frances sketched some faces that she thought would be appropriate, and it was my job to do the corresponding carving! This year, Frances was a big help in separating all of the seeds, and then I cooked them in olive oil and garlic salt for Franny's favorite autumn snack.

About a week before Halloween, our neighbor brought over a Winnie the Pooh costume. Abigail loved it, but it was really too warm for Halloween in California. She did try it on, and carried it around the house with her for a few days.

We also picked up a few hats and things at the 99-cent store, including a hairband with attached braids, so we can see what Abigail might look like someday with more hair!

For the Halloween costume piano recital and trick-or-treating, Frances finally decided to be a cowgirl. She has some really nice boots that Aunt Judy & Uncle Mike gave her last Christmas, as well as a hat from some Western-themed birthday party. An orange and black plaid shirt completed the outfit. Abigail decided to dress up as Snow White (with, of course, the matching rag doll!). We had a good time trick-or-treating, but Abigail was frightened at a few houses. She wanted to go up to people's porches by herself (like a big girl) but finally consented to tightly gripping Fran's hand for moral support! One house in particular was just too scary, and I had to carry her back to "home base" (Lori & Phoebe's house in Old Towne Orange). Frances noticed that people were only giving single pieces of candy this year, instead of two or three at a time as in previous years. The economy is even affecting trick-or-treating. But it was still a fun night!

Love the faces

Nothing really riveting here, but I hadn't posted in a while. I will post some Halloween pictures soon, but tonight, I am too tired to hook the camera up to the computer and transfer photos! These two snapshots were taken at Jaime and David's wedding in early September. They aren't the most flattering pictures of my girls, but it shows their bright smiles.

A is for Abby

Abigail is starting to recognize the letter A. She doesn't know that it's "A", but every time she sees it anywhere, she tells me, "That's my name!" She's been recognizing, naming, and pointing out the letter W for about a year (not sure why she chose that particular letter) but now I know that literacy is beginning! I am grateful that she has started preschool. She attends three days a week, from 8:30-12:00, in the classroom next to mine! She is there as a "typical peer," a term that Santa Ana uses for including non-disabled children in our special ed preschool classes. Abigail is in a class for children with hearing impairments, but they all speak (the oral deaf class), so basically, it is a regular preschool class. She loves it! And I love the things that she is learning, including how to listen and sit still for a few moments! I think that preschool is helping Abigail at her piano lessons as well. She no longer chatters incesssantly during piano, but is beginning to pay attention, wait, and listen better. Whew! What a relief! My little girl definitely lives out loud, and there have been times when her boisterous spirit is a bit overwhelming. She is still bossy, sassy, grateful and incredibly loving, but now she is able to curb her behavior a bit in certain settings.

My little gymnast

Kathleen and Kariana came out to watch Frances' gymnastic meet in San Bernardino on September 26th. Kariana has a great camera, and she took lots of pictures of my Frances ,as well as some great shots of the other girls on Fran's team. I am going to try and share them with the other moms. Thanks, Yaya!





I am so proud of my goofy, beautiful daughter!

Apple picking at Oak Glen

We went to Oak Glen today to pick apples with some friends. I hadn't been there since Frances was about 3 years old! I learned that there are two parts to Riley's Farms: there is a "colonial" part, with beautiful white-washed buildings, a restaurant, nice bathrooms, a small pond, and demonstrations of archery and tomahawk-throwing. Then, you can take a free "hayride" to the other part (that I was more familiar with), which has a blacksmith, an outdoor barbecue restaurant, portable toilets, a petting corral, cider press, and the "you-pick" orchards and fields.

It has been insanely hot and humid this week, but this morning started out cloudy. When we arrived at Riley's farms, the sun came out. Oh well. The kids started exploring, and found a little pond with a dock. This fascinated all five of the "big kids" (two 9-year-olds, a 6-year-old, and two 3-year-olds) for quite a while. Karley wanted to know if there were alligators in the pond, Clayton wanted to catch fish, Frances and Colby thought that the dock and bridges were cool, and Abigail wanted to poke a stick into the water. After a while, they moved on to explore other parts of the property, and had a great time just running and playing in shady groves of trees. Abigail got to see a cow up close, and was fascinated! Finally, we parents called them back so we could take the hayride up to the orchards.

That was the hottest part of the day, and the area with the orchards, berry vines, pumpkin vines and cornfields was HOT. We had to walk quite a way to reach the orchards, but no one whined or asked to be carried. We found trees with all kinds of apples - fuji, red delicious, winesap, etc. - and I had the girls pick the smallest apples, because you can fit more into your $7 bag that way! There were also pear trees, but we didn't buy a bag for those. While we were wandering in the orchards, we noticed gray clouds rolling in, and heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder. Everyone was excited at the prospect of some rain! The sky looked really cool as we made our way back to the main part of the farm. It had cooled off considerably, so we all enjoyed the walk much more than on the way in to the orchards, despite the fact that we were now carrying bags of fruit!

As the first drops fell, we realized that we had not visited the petting corral yet. The three older kids had run off to where samples of fruit were available, and because it was late in the day and a storm was coming, the woman at the booth gave our kids all kinds of fruit as samples: watermelon, pears, a variety of apples. The little girls were excited about petting the goats and sheep, so I took them into the corral. Clayton joined us for a few minutes, until the raindrops got bigger and it was time to take the hayride back to the lower parking lot. On the way home, it poured rain, to the point that local streets in Yucaipa were flooded up over the curbs! Very exciting here in southern California. We stopped in Redlands to have dinner together, and came home (and the girls ate a second dinner). Fun day!