Good times in Colorado

We went to Colorado back to back in September and October for weddings.  It was great to see so many old friends and family.  

Penelope is so deeply in love with Wendy & Mike's dog Darla that she's been asking to Skype with her for weeks.  Today we finally did.  Only we mostly Skyped with Wendy and Maddoc.  Darla was busy taking a nap while soaking in some sun rays.

Savor the moment

Sometimes we all tell each other what the best part(s) of our day was when we put the girls to bed.  Today was an easy one for me.  The best part of my day was walking Penelope to school this afternoon.  She and I were holding hands and Amelia was riding in her push car singing songs (Twinkle Twinkle, and other lullabies).  Penelope was giddy with excitement at the prospect of rain this afternoon at school (she was fully outfitted with her rain boots, rain coat and umbrella).  She looked up at me at smiled a big smile every minute or so and a couple of times told me how much she liked Amelia's singing (which is rare as they are usually sharing or competing for the stage).  I told her I liked it too.  It was a perfect mommy moment.  I wish I could capture a moment like this and put in in a jar and save it for later.  When I need to remember a beautiful memory to lift me up or in many many years from now when my memory has faded.

Penelope got her rain.  It started raining during pre-school and hasn't stopped since.  She had great puddles to splash in as we walked home from school.  It's good to be a kid.  

Photo Shoot

One day in August the girls and I met our friends for a play date in Union Square in SF.  It wasn't the most successful playdate...okay, I'll be honest and say that it was an absolutely exhausting undertaking.  We started out the morning with people watching & coffee drinking while the girls danced and played (after spilling hot chocolate all down their new dresses that I had finished the night before).  Then we popped into a 3 story Williams-Sonoma and then went onto the Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  Normally, my girls do really well at restaurants.  But not today.  Lunch seemed to be unusually slow & went into Amelia's nap time.  Penelope was tired and emotional over some silly conflict between her and her friend.  Amelia spilled some water and broke a plate.  Within minutes of getting out of that booth at Cheesecake Factory into the fresh air, Penelope and her friend worked things out.  We listed to the last song of the band playing in Union Square & then then left.  The girls both fell asleep at some point on the way home.  I had hoped that I could just park the car in the driveway and they would stay asleep for a while.  But they're too smart for that.  They woke up about 5 minutes later cranky as can be.  I knew neither of them would go back to sleep and so I decided to grab the dog and head up to Frenchman's Lake (an old dried up lake in the beautiful Stanford neighborhood) where I've been wanting to do a photo shoot.  They didn't really want to be photographed until I promised them chocolate if they cooperated.  I pretty pleased with the pictures as I had two cranky and dirty girls.