Baby's first ski lesson

You would never believe this girl was up most of the night worrying about ski lessons. Would Daddy and Mommy be there? Would there be wheels? I can't even remember what else. I told her we only signed her up because we thought she would like it but no one has to ski. And then I added that afterwards there would be hot chocolate. She was quiet for a minute and then asked if you had to ski to get hot chocolate. Nope. Eventually she went to sleep and when we woke her up early for her lesson she was very excited to go. She was even happy while trying on ski boots, wearing layers and layers of bright pink puffy clothes.

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We went to Diamond Peak in Tahoe and she took a semi-private lesson with Kyle, Cami, and Ava. She LOVED it, as you can tell from the pictures. First they walked down the slope, then they went on one ski, then on two. They got to ride up a "magic carpet" to get to the top of the hill. No sidestepping up the hill for these kids. Jungle Julie tried to teach her to snowplow "pizza stop" but Casey didn't want to do anything that would slow her down. On the card they gave us at the end, all of the boxes for different skills were checked off and the comment said "loves to go fast." Yep. Then we went to the bunny hill (Schoolhouse, I think) and she skied down with Eric, Kyle, and Cami, while Veronica and I ran along side and picked them up and dusted them off after they fell. Somehow we shuttled them back and forth so that Eric was able to take the girls up the chair lift. Luckily, Kyle was able to go up by himself.

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We also went sledding by the house, but her favorite thing was making "sandcastles" in the snow. She could have done that all day.

Park date

Over the break we met two of Casey's preschool friends at the park across from her old daycare. The kids had a blast while the parents froze. Finally after three hours we had to take them home so we could warm up and eat!

Post-Christmas bike ride

We've been eating so much candy and bread that we figured we should go for a bike ride. It was a beautiful day after a long string of rainy days so we hit the trail. Casey talked and sang the WHOLE way, that is, until we had about 3 minutes left and it got veeery quiet. I think she almost fell asleep at the end!

Santa made it

The night before Christmas we gave Casey two new books, Polar Express and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. A couple pages into each she announced, "I have this at preschool!" While we were reading Polar Express we realized why she wanted one of the three things she asked for for Christmas. She asked for M&Ms (or any candy), Toy Story 3, and a bell. Seriously, that's it. The first one was much higher on the list than the other two. I couldn't understand why she wanted a bell, but whenever we're in Trader Joe's and they ring the bell for another cashier, she immediately yells, "Clean up time!" so I figured maybe she wanted to enforce clean up time. When she had mentioned it several times, we realized we better go get her one. In Polar Express, the little boy gets the first gift from Santa that year, and he asks for one of the sleigh bells. It must have made an impression on her! The bells were the second to last thing she opened, and when she opened that box she smiled and said, "This is just what I've always wanted." She later said that the same santa from preschool must have came to our house. She asked him for a bell but didn't tell us. We were so glad Eric ran out to get them at the last minute! Of course she hasn't played with them or even looked at them since, but it was still worth it. She's been very focused on her little green container of M&Ms, however, and we already watched Toy Story 3.

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Eric's favorite gift was the throw-the-beanbag through the holes thing (second picture). Well, the whole family likes it but Eric threw them so hard he's already had to sew them back up. She also got a dot to dot book that has letters instead of numbers, so there has been a LOT of singing of the ABC song. It's great though because she knows her letters much better than her numbers.

Riding to the park

Casey's getting faster on her bike and we have to run to keep up with her. She still loves the monkey bars and you can see in the fourth picture she has figured out a way to get to the monkey bars without help from grownups. It's pretty crazy. Casey had a great time with Nana Micki. Thank goodness Santa was coming soon after or I think she'd be inconsolable.

Supergirl!

SF MOMA

Today we met Susan, Steve, Ava, and Ava's grandparents at the SF Museum of Modern Art. There's a room where kids can sit and cut and glue and make collages so we peeked in there first before going on a tour of the museum. Usually Casey doesn't like to cut and glue, but there is nothing like walking around an art museum to make a kid beg to cut and glue. Heheheh. The girls loved walking in the spotlight in the lobby that follows you around. You can tell by the pictures that the girls had a great time. Then aftewards we went to Ava's grandparents' house for a huge lunch. We all passed out in the car (well, luckily Eric stayed awake) in the pouring rain on the way home. It was a great thing to do on a rainy day.

Busy girls

There is a lot of cutting going on in this house. Grandma's making snowflakes and Casey's "chomping" the paper with her scissors to make special soup. We're trying to get her more excited about drawing, cutting, and art in general.

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Today we went to the second Kung Fu class and got her all geared up with giant shoes that are 2 sizes too big. (We ordered some smaller ones.) She was able to follow along a little better this time and was definitely trying hard. The instructor said that by the third or fourth class the kids start to catch on. Too bad she has to wait until January for that. She's looking forward to trying some more. She especially liked when Master Jack let her kick his hands. There was one part when the kids had to yell and Casey was definitely the loudest. "HA!" We were cracking up.

Holiday recital

Here's our little holiday song singer. She alternated between singing so loud we could hear her above the other 99 kids, and then not singing at all and just staring straight ahead. Last year she was the only girl wearing jeans. I'd been proud of myself for saving a red and white striped shirt just for the occasion, and all of the girls were wearing fancy dresses. So this year, I was ready with a gorgeous dress, that luckily is green, her favorite color of the month. I put a little white cardigan on her before sending her into her classroom, and when we saw her walking to the stage with her class, she was wearing the cardigan, which clearly she had buttoned herself. Ah well, I tried.

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Casey's favorite song? All of them.

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Nana Micki is in town and she couldn't believe how long we had to wait in line to get seats in the second row. When we got to preschool, I got right in line, she took Casey to her classroom, and Eric went on a Starbucks run. Luckily there were other room 4 parents in line with us so we had a lot of time to talk to them.

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Afterwards we went to her classroom for cookies and then to see Santa. She picked out a little toy stuffed gingerbread man, who turned out to be DogDog's son.

Children's Fairyland

On Sunday we met Heather, Aaron, and Hayley at Children's Fairyland in Oakland. It was a cute place, but I wouldn't travel for it unless we were looking for a halfway point between here and Davis, which we were. In the second picture, Casey is singing one of her favorite Halloween songs, "I'm a mean old witch with a hat." In the fourth picture, Daddy and DogDog are checking out the steep slide to make sure it's ok for the kids. And Daddy is washing off the very dirty slide with his jeans. So nice of him.

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The best part for the girls was the jail. They put the dads right in jail and threw away the key. The dads were asking for lawyers and trying to negotiate for community service, and eventually got out.

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Then we stopped at Zachary's Pizza and brought back a couple of half-baked pizzas for us and some more for friends. Good stuff. Fun day.

Busy Saturday

Saturday we started out with kung fu. Casey is always interested any time we see anything martial arts related, so we figured we'd check out the kung fu studio that our neighbor Arjan goes to. At first she was reluctant and wanted to watch, but when she saw they got to do some jumping, she joined in. There were one or two kids in the class that were a little younger than she is, but mostly older. I think we may sign up for three months and see how it goes. I wish all of the beginners would start on the same day and that they'd do a better job of explaining what the kids need to do. I think it may be distracting for her to have two groups doing different things in the same room at the same time and to have the music in the background, but it looked pretty fun. The main instructor was helping her out on the side with a couple of other kids, and she was definitely clowning and trying to make him laugh, which might not go over well there, but she wants to give it a try.

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Then we went to my favorite cafe (Borrone's) and bookstore (Kepler's) to eat and buy stocking stuffers, although Casey has made it clear that the only thing she wants is candy. I guess that's understandable because her room is exploding with books and toys, while candy is hard to come by.

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Casey's favorite part of the day was the birthday party in the afternoon. A boy in her preschool class invited everyone to go to the Jungle, where they have all kinds of crazy nets and tubes to climb in. I don't know how to describe it (a germophobe's nightmare), but when your kid crawls in one entrance, you never know where she'll come out! Casey didn't care at all though, and just went in with her friends and occasionally came by to say hello to us. I was glad to see that she played so well with all of the kids.

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Then we went straight to Brynn's house to play and eat dinner. You never know what she'll be wearing when she comes out of Brynn's room. She started out with Luzz Biteyear (that's what she calls him, don't blame Eric or me), then came out in a football jersey and then of course came the pink scubs with the doctor kit. The girls had a great time and then we went home, brushed her teeth, gave her a quick shower, and put her right to bed. I went right to bed too. Busy day!