Mary Lou & Nadia (Colette & Josie's Tumbling Class) 4-10-09

So I signed the girls up for a Parent/Tot tumbling class on Fridays. Problem: I've got 2 girls and only 1 of me. Solution: Ask Aunt Bern! She generously agreed to be a surrogate parent to one of my gymnasts.

Were they excited? You bet. Should be easy and fun, right? Nope. Josie is the ultimate shy child and despite wanting to do this class, REFUSED to participate in the warm-up activities. Instead, she whinned and whinned and clung to me like gum to a shoe. Colette is NOT shy, but modeled her big sister's behavior and also did not want to participate. What to do?

Luckily, we moved from warm-ups to sommersalts and suddenly my little Mary Lou and Nadia came to life! We moved from the tumbing to the various apparati around the gym and they both acted like they were on the 2nd rotation of the summer olympics. They mastered the "ta da" (arms up) at the completion of every apparatus in the first 1/2 hour.

Here we come, Chicago 2016.

Colette & Aunt Bern warm up

Josie having a hissy fit

Here we go! Josie making the rounds on the obstacle course and Colette following close behind.

Colette showing us her best jumping skills

Josie on the uneven bars wowing the crowd


Josie master of the beam

Colette getting some coaching from Aunt Bern before starting her beam routine.

The reward: jumping from the beam into the foam pit!

Naydenov Gymnastics


You would think after such a great first class, the 2nd class would have started without a hitch? Not so. We went through the same Josie shy behavior, but luckily, the 2nd class, she warmed up during the warm ups!

Coloring the Easter Eggs 4-9-09

An annual tradition: coloring the Easter eggs. In our household of 4 kids, it takes less than 20 minutes to color 24 eggs. If you blink, you'll miss it and someone will color your egg. The kids LOVE it, especially Jack, who asks me incessantly for weeks leading up to Easter, if it is time to color the eggs.

Finally, we got to color the eggs. Don't blink, or you'll miss it.

Before

And off they go!

Colette stayed surprisingly clean despite her "dive bomb" method of putting the eggs in the dye.


Josie, well, she just loves this kind of stuff

Vanessa--on her 9th year of egg coloring still can't get enough.

Colette and Jack clearly cannot hold their excitment back.

Did you blink?

Voila! Behold the eggs almost too pretty to eat.

A little time for my little girls

What with Vanessa's school and soccer schedule and Jack's treatment and baseball schedule, my two little girls' have not known life without me chucking them in the minivan and carting them all over the Portland/Vancouver metro area. We spend many hours in the minivan waiting at practices or during rainy games--so much so that I carry a potty in the van so Josie can feel free to go potty anytime, anywhere. No need to take her to a nasty porta potty when Mommy's got her covered in the van.

So another beautiful spring week day and this time, I carted just them to a fun destination--the Oregon Zoo. We played hookie from home and had a wonderful time just taking in the sun and animals...just us girls.

Waiting for the sea lions

Whoa! It's 10 times bigger than them!

Josie LOVES wearing sun glasses

My little Colette

LaCamas Lake April 4, 2009

I know, I know. It's about time... Although most of you are my friends on FB, so you have seen these pictures. Nevertheless, I feel the need to do another blog marathon of the last month or so. Here goes!

LaCamas Lake is a quaint little Clark County Parks and Rec park in East Vancouver/Camas, WA. It's literally only a 5 minute drive from our house. On the first nice weather day of the spring, we packed up the kids and went on our first hike of the season. It is our goal this summer to try to enjoy more of our local natural areas and to discover the beauty right in our back yard.

What's nice is that it also has a kids play area/structure right when you start your hike, so the kids love it too! Really, what more could you ask for?

We'll definitely do more hiking here this season! :) Come join us!