More of the Academy

It's exactly 1:48 AM. I can't sleep. Maybe because I live near a bunch of rowdies who have no bedtime and a colorful vocabulary. Or maybe because I got 6.5 consecutive hours of sleep last night (WAHOO!), and my body has decided it doesn't need any more for a while.

For whatever reason. I'm still up. I started planning my sharing time lesson for Sunday and now I'm blogging. At least it will keep me from grabbing a snack.

Last week we went to the California Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco. (Yes, again. Gotta use our passes before they expire in March!) This time we actually went into the indoor rainforest. Very cool.

The girls loved it. Our favorite part -- the butterflies. They were everywhere, and if you stood real still they'd land on you. They even have people that brush your stroller down and check you for hitchhiking butterflies when you leave the exhibit.

It was also really humid and my camera kept fogging up (hence the dream-like haze on the photos). It's a shame that this one didn't have its wings spread apart. It was a gorgeous blue color.


Someone's getting the sleepies.

This guy liked my hat. I like my hat, too. I got it HERE. (Thanks McKell!) It was rainy that day (big surprise) so I rocked some braids, which I rarely do.

The aquarium is always our favorite part.

I'm realizing that I don't have many pictures of myself with the girls since I'm usually the one behind the camera. I'll have to work on that.

Crunch

We got a new car a few weeks ago. Well, new to us. It's a '93 Accord. OK, it's old, but it only has 68K miles on it, and it's immaculate. We bought it from an elderly man who lives around the corner from us. He only drove it once and a while, but kept it washed.

A week or so later. . .

Our other, newer Honda got hit while parked on the street in front of our house by a kid who was playing with his iPod while driving. Oh, and he lives about 5 houses down and had just pulled out of his driveway. Now we're part of the rapidly growing "our car has been vandalized, hit and/or stolen" club of our little neighborhood.

I told Steve it was a good thing we had just bought that other car, but then he reminded me that our white car wouldn't have been parked on the street if we hadn't have gotten the black one. Sigh. I hate car problems.

We just got word from our insurance company this week that they're going to fix it. We thought for sure it would have been totaled. The damage was $3700 and our car is only worth about $3600. Phew.

Interesting side-note: Our first summer here our neighbor had his car parked in that exact spot and a guy on a motorcycle ran into his car. Who was that guy? The brother of the guy that hit our car. That family should enroll themselves in a drivers ed refresher.

Rainy Day Stuff

It's been raining buckets lately. More than it ever has since we've lived here. We've spent a lot of time inside trying not to drive each other crazy.

Sophie and I did mani-pedis during Ivy's nap. She picked out the colors for my toes as well. My multi-colored pedi is beginning to grow on me.

Jenga blocks make a pretty good zoo.

Speaking of the zoo, we went to the zoo one day a couple of weeks ago before the heavens started dumping. I took a picture of the kids buckled in because they looked cute, then I left my camera in the car while we were at the zoo. Pity, because it was the perfect day. The lions actually roared and walked around, and we saw all of the animals up close and active.

For all you SYTYCD fans, doesn't Sophie look like she's dressed for a Wade Robson number?

Another day it stopped raining for about an hour so we went up to the temple to take our babies for walks. Sophie and I were both really happy to have our strollers back. We left them in Idaho during Christmas break and Grandpa sent them to us. Thanks again!

Sometimes the girls get really bored so they sit on the couch and make the same faces.

Oh, by the way . . .

We no longer have a crawling baby in our house.



Since we got back from Christmas break, Ivy started taking off. Every time I got a video of her walking, and wouldn't get a chance to post it for a few days, she'd be walking noticeably better. This one is OK, but she doesn't even hold her arms up that much when she walks. I need to get her walking when she has leggings on. She's so tiny -- it cracks me up whenever I see her walking around because she doesn't look big enough to be able to do it.I can't believe how fast this is all happening.

And I can't believe I didn't take that box out to the recycle bin before I did this. (Thanks for mailing our stroller back to us, Dad. You rock! :))

P.S. There are stickers all over the dishwasher because I decided a while ago that if Sophie doesn't have one surface she's allowed to plaster with stickers (other than her Ivy's bodies) I'd be picking them off of everywhere. Bertha's old anyway. And I think she likes the attention.

New Year's with the Perrys

Working on my backlog of photos . . .

New Years was actually more a "4th Christmas Gift Exchange" with Steve's family in Sacramento. Although we did stay up until midnight playing cards. (Poohead is the best game ever. And Steve ended up being the reigning Poohead of the night.)

Sophie had a blast with the tricycle from Grandma and Grandpa Perry. . .

which was quickly commandeered by her little sister. I'm beginning to see what having twin girls would be like -- having to buy two of everything to keep the peace. Hopefully they'll just learn to share.

After that, Sophie did all the documentation for the couple days we were there. I think her technique is improving.

Kimi without eyes.


Floating head Kimi.


Grandpa with Mom's arm in the foreground.


Dad's leg next to an Ivy torso.


Ivy's ascent to Sophie's knees.


Nice head shot of Dad with Grandma in the back. Such clarity!


Probably her best yet: Portrait of a Little Sister

Lashes a Plenty

I have lots of stuff to post, but I'm posting about Ivy's eyelashes instead.

They're getting ridiculously long.

Family Pics 2009

We got these photos taken in November, but I couldn't post them until after Christmas. We had Jana Beck do them (Jana Laurene Photography). She lives in Utah and goes to BYU, but she's from the Bay Area, so we snagged her on one of her trips home. She's wonderful and worked with the girls really well. :)

Thanks Jana - we love them!

This is the family shot we decided to blow up for the living room:

I also like this one a lot because you could see Ivy's whole outfit, but Sophie's being a frowny-face for some reason.

I liked this one, too.

You have to have at least one candid on, right?

I love this one of Steve and his girls :)

And this one. . .

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one.

Jana did a great photoshop job "fixing" Sophie's impetigo spots on her chin. You can barely tell there was anything there.

Love this one, too.

I wish we'd have gotten more of just the girls together, but they weren't cooperating very well. (Hm. Imagine that.)

I love the ones she got of Ivy, though. They make me turn to mush on the inside.

I couldn't just leave it at that one . . .

(My only complaint would be my hair. I hadn't had a cut in 6 months and waited an extra month or so just so I could have a fresh cut before the pics were taken. Things fell through, and it didn't end up happening, thus my hair looks like straw. I could go on about other things, but I'll spare you my self-criticism. The end.)