i heart faces-Let Them Be Little

It's been a while since I did one of these, but the theme was so perfect-I have like the two cutest kids ever.

Ok, well Blogger won't let me add a hyper link to the 'button' (or my IE) so, HERE is the link to iheart faces.

July 2011-2nd Half w Video

So, this post is a little late. Darn movie held me up. Anyways.
Amaia turned 3 on th 19th. We got the kitchen all decorated, I made a cake from a box mix with not-enough-butter-buttercream-frosting (looked gross, didn't taste too bad). Definitely the worst cake so far I've made for her, but since it was just the 4 of us it's not like I had to impress to many people. (except you are all seeing it now..hmmm.....) I made her shirt and turned a 2 pound dry erase board into a chalkboard thing (you can see it on the wall there).
Amaia was super excited for her birthday and cake. I don't know what it is about her and cake. It's not like she eats tons of it.

So we sing happy birthday, and she's like biting right into the side of the cake. It was awesome. Check out the video for some candle lighting fun :)

The weekend after her birthday we drove down to Brighton. It wasn't too far away, but we didn't really plan this trip well. We ended up spending a lot of our time on the Brighton Pier, which has a little amusement park/carnival thing on it (that we hadn't even known about when we left). We went to the aquarium:



And, like I said, spent most of the time at the pier. The top right pic is one I took from our hotel room window a half hour or so after sunset. You see that one ride on the right that's like super tall? Yea, I went on that. Justin and I each went on one ride, while the other watched the girls. That was the ride I picked. I don't know why. We all know I'm afraid of heights. I was a nervous wreck sitting waiting for every one to get loaded up (after about a 45 minute wait in line while justin had the girls, poor thing). After we got going though, it was fun. I would have totally gone again but the line was insane. And it was getting cold.


These bottom right pics are me before (left) and after (right) the ride. Not sure if you can tell the difference between my I'm-going-to-die-holy-crap-I'm-nervous-but-still-laughing-at-justin-taking-pics or my holy-crap-that-was-awesome! faces :)

We had another birthday-Solia! duh.

She turned 1! This was also with just the 4 of us (a stark difference between the huge pool side bonanza we threw for Amaia's first in Houston. The downside of having no friends).

Anyways, I wanted to do a cute moster theme. So my monster dude didn't turn out so bad (nevermind the oreo eyes and chocolate chip nose. The antennaes? Fruit snack strings). The little monster cupcakes were just awful. My poor frosting had huge chunks of butter in it. So I was either pouring liquid frosting on, or it was coming out super uneven because I would really have to squeeze through the chunks of butter. Marshmallows halved with a sliver of chocolate chips for eyes, same antennae as the big dude. Tasted good though :)



At first, Solia was totally freaked by the cake dude. Then she warmed up to it, and eventually had him smashed all over. Oh yea, and my little monster shirt I made her (bottom right). That was the best pic we could get (post cake smashing, btw) of it. Sorry.

So here's the first half of 365 pictures:



And the second. I wish I could have put these in better order. The beachy one down there is from Brighton one day and the caracature is from the second day in Brighton. Then the rest of them are 'replicas' of Dr. Suess's The Foot Book. Justin would like me to tell you to open this image up large (or follow the link in my sidebar to the Facebook album for the 365 Project day 201-365) and really look at the details in these suckers. I took all the pictures, but Justin edited them all the put them all together. We took a final 366th picture on Solia's birthday again just to sort of come full circle with the 1st day when she was born last year.

And now some random pics of the girls we took:

Solia:

*Solia can wave good-bye

*She's started to clap her hands together when she's happy (as opposed to just for pat-a-cake)

*When we say that it's time for prayer, Solia will clasp her little hands together in front of her chest

*If I tell her that her food is hot, she'll 'blow' on her food by buzzing her lips at it.

*Her entire vocabulary consists of 'dada'. We are all dada, unless she's crying, then I'm actually mama.

*She's started pointing to where she wants to go

*If I ask "Solia, what are you eating?" she'll spit whatever it is right out and hand it to me

Amaia:

See her here at Brighton, and with her new "Rapunzel hair" (that she salvaged from a bed skirt after I chopped it off the flat part of the sheet).

*Amaia likes to say 'realize': I didn't realize that (fill in the blank)

*She likes to clear her throat and say 'heh hem' before saying things

*Amaia's become the bad word police. I'm no longer allowed to say stupid, shut up, and freakin'. I mean, she's got a point, I shouldn't say those things, but it's like every time I slip she'll get all up on me "we don't say freakin'!"

*When Solia starts screaming, she'll dramatically clamp her hands over her ears or plug them up.

*She likes to assign our family to movies. For example, Finding Nemo. Justin is Marlin, I am Coral (who gets eaten by a shark, but she doesn't seem to care), she is Dory, and Solia is Nemo. She does this to all sorts of things-movies, pictures, stuff she sees outside.

*She likes to have Justin blare the music in the car

*If I ask Amaia to please stop (whatever), she'll say "I'm sorry, but I have to (hit Solia)". But she says it in the same tone that a parent would say "I'm sorry, but it's time to go home now". Like she doesn't care what I have to say, she's gunna do it anyways

*Justin took Amaia on her first "Daddy Amaia Night". They went to the mall, Amaia had sushi for the first time and loved it (yuck) and they got ice cream.

Here is the link to YouTube for this month's (somewhat longer) movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq1y6nG6A-g

Kids Say the Darndest Things {10}

Amaia: You not a good Mommy
Me: WHAT?!
Amaia: You dropped some lotion on the floor. That means you not a good Mommy

"You need to get out of this chair because I don't know. who. you think. you are!"

"I'm sorry I'm being a mean person today Mommy"

So this is more of a short story. One day, I woke Amaia up from a deep sleep after naptime. She threw a fit because she was not ready to be awake. She was a terror for like the next 2 hours just throwing a fit. I tried everything: juice, chocolate milk, cookies, her new Rapunzel toys (that she just got), everything. We go to eat dinner, she is still freaking out. (Side note-we watch Family Guy. We used to let Amaia watch it with us, you know, because she was too young to understand the inappropriate-ness of it all, etc. We had to cut her off when she started repeating stuff from it, and she kept asking to watch it. We say no, every time). So Justin leans over to her, and says "Amaia, do you want to watch Family Guy after dinner?" And she goes "OKAY!" and immediately is happy, and eats her entire dinner happy and nice.

Justin is getting ready to leave one day for work. Justin asks: Amaia, can I have a kiss goobye?
Amaia: No, you can leave now Daddy.

(Another side note-'crap' is significantly stronger here than it is in the US). So we're at the grocery store, and I"m looking for some PJs for Solia (ok, it's more like a small Wal Mart than a 'grocery store') and I can't find the right size, so I say out loud "whyyyy?" in a very whiny voice. Amaia says "You're not supposed to say 'why' you are supposed to say 'oooooooooh CRAP!'"

"I'm sorry I'm yelling about these buttons. I'm screaming like I"m trying to talk crazy."

"I don't love you, because I'm sad and little girls don't love people"

We were reading about elephants, and it was talking about their tusks.
Amaia: What are tusks for?
Me: They're for....You know? I dont' really know what tusks are for.
Amaia: They so they don't fall over when they walking with their babies.

July 2011-1st Half

Some 365 Pictures:

And more (with another 'reflections week' at the end):

Here are some outtakes of the girls 365 shoots, plus a few extra:

So I 'made' these jerseys for them. I took cheap matching t shirts from Tesco, sliced up an old white t shirt, and sewed the stripes on them. The front has a little logo to match the "Colby Institute for the Vertically Challenged" crest on the Spirit Week sign, with the little girl/arrow and the initials CIVC on the banner under neath. I'm not sure if I got a good picture of the crest in all this or not.

The backs have their names and #s: Amaia's says A. Colby with a 1, and Solia's says S. Colby with a 2. I love how they turned out!

So since we finally got our new camera back (in a way) we decided to head over to Hampton Court Palace. We didn't really take a lot of pictures of the inside of the rooms-pretty much the same as any other 'old' building around here: lots of really really old faded tapestries, huge 4 poster need-a-ladder-just-to-get-in-bed-at-night beds, paintings, and a huge dining hall.

Although, that scene with the King in the beginning of Pirates: On Stranger Tides is all filmed here, so I guess that's cool. We did take a few pictures of the outside:

And of this awesome room. I don't even remember how many different pieces there are on these walls (I swear the guy said in the thousands), but they take it ALL down every 25 years to clean it all. Apparently they would show guests through this room first, to let every one know who was boss. Click to enlarge it, if you can't see-it's tons of guns, swords, javelins, pistols, etc.

And one random shot of some money on the corner of a card table. Oops.

After walking around for a while, we went out to the lawn out back and hung out for a while:

First thing Amaia does when we let her out of the stroller when we get there, is to lay on the ground and pose for us (left top and bottom photos):

Here's some of Amaia in her jersey-you can see the back of hers here:

And kind of the front (on that bottom right one...)

Amaia:

*Justin calls his mom on FaceTime every once in a while. And every time (without fail) (within the first 2 minutes of chatting) Amaia says "I want you to eat beans". We still don't know exactly what kind of beans she wants her to eat, or why she wants her to eat them so bad.

*If we ask Amaia a yes or no question, she usually answers with "probly yes" or "probly no", or "probly I want that", or "probly Solia wants...". You get the picture.

*She's given up on all the sleep rituals we used to do, like letters and kisses and laying with her before she goes to bed

*Amaia's figured out buttons-in fact, she won't let me button up these certain PJs that have buttons up the front-she has to do it herself.

*When Solia cries, Amaia goes "Alright alright, ok, ok".

*Amaia is more like me than she is like Justin (so far): she's got dark hair/eyes/skin; she gets angry really easy; she loves cheese; she thinks every thing is friggin' hilarious and is super ticklish

That's Amaia's marble painting, and the swan family hanging out in our 'river.

Top right, you can see Solia posing at Hampton Court Palace, just like Amaia did.

Here she is in her jersey:

Solia:

*Is more like Justin (so far): super light hair/eyes/skin; hates cheese; can roll her Rs (Amaia can't), thinks nothing is funny (except Amaia) and definately is not ticklish.

*Solia can get to standing without using anything to pull up on

*If I hold out my hands or a container, and ask Solia for what she has, she'll come put it away

*Solia took her first steps at the end of June, and by mid-July, she's walking around more often than crawling (although still with plenty of falls!)
She likes to play in our window :) She loves going outside but I can't take her out all the time and this is the next best thing. The only bummer is when she throws stuff out-there is a little gap in between the grate and the ledge. Oh well, as long as she's entertained!

Justin and Amaia went on their first "Daddy Amaia Night". He asks where she wants to go, and they go. This time they went to the mall. When they came back, Amaia told me all about the sushi that they ate, and Justin had bought her a whole set of Rapunzel figurine toys. She loves them and they had so much fun. Hopefully he'll be able to keep doing that, she couldn't stop talking about how 'she had sushi and it was so yummy!'