12.30.15: Sisters

Sisters are the best!  Fiona, Daphne, Stella

12.29.15: Aquarium

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is truly an amazing place.  The jellyfish room is like no other in the world.  I love that the girls are going to grow up completely spoiled by this magical aquarium.  Today was calm enough we were able to capture some great pictures of the adventure.

Stella attracting a puffin while Daphne and Fiona look on.

12.26.15: Banana Slug!

The UCSC mascot is the banana slug - and we have heard about these banana slugs for months now, but apparently they are seasonal.  Today, while out for a walk, Stella found our very first banana slug - turns out they really are as yellow as people say.

We woke up this morning with a very serious ant problem in our bathroom - needless to say, it was a good thing we left the house.

12.25.15: Christmas

The ONLY thing Fiona wanted for Christmas was a folding hula hoop.  She is an expert hula hooper and was determined up her game with a folding/traveling hula hoop.  Thankfully santa pulled through and our little girl was out hula hooping by 8:30am Christmas morning!

The girls (Daphne, Fiona, Stella) also got these neat kits where they could pretend to be archaeologists and dig for jewels/stones - future archaeologists? maybe.

12.24.15: Christmas Eve

Christmas is always a special time of the year, but the girls are especially lucky because they get to celebrate two days.  For Christmas Eve, we celebrate/open presents with my side and Christmas we celebrate/open presents with Brant's side.  This gives us two solid days of festivities!

Stella was most excited about this drawing projector that displayed her artwork on the ceiling (good thing we have such low ceilings) 

Daphne was really excited about snap circuits - taking different pieces of electronics to create something that moved or lit up was a big treat.  I caught Brant getting into it a bit too.

Fiona loves her perler beads.  She got a kit that helps to leave spaces between the melted plastic - making it easier to create necklaces or flowers with stems.

Then after an entire day of playing and opening presents, we had to leave out cookies for santa and carrots for the reindeer in preparation for his late night visit.  We weren't sure how his visit would turn out since we didn't have a chimney - but Brant and I reassured that girls that many people around the world somehow gets visits from santa even though there is not a chimney in their home.

12.23.15: Climbing Trees + Christmas Lights

We started off our day at the nearby park - except this time we decided we each needed to climb our own tree.  Stella, Daphne and Fiona have apparently outgrown the play structure and find comfort climbing up in the trees.

Daphne, Fiona and Stella smiling in the backseat while we drove through Vasona Park.  We have never been to this giant park in Los Gatos, but learned it had a huge light show and knew we needed to see it.  There was even a coordinated radio station when we heard our very favorite new song - Dominic the Donkey.  This will forever be our family Christmas song.

This dragon was a big favorite.

12.19.15: Gingerbread playdate

Sophia's very brave mom invited all of us over for a gingerbread house making play date.  The girls had a total blast eating sugar, spilling anything they could and maybe, just maybe, constructing a gingerbread house.  Daphne, Fiona, and Stella had a great time and the houses even survived our drive back home to our apartment. Then we ran into the real problem - where on earth are we going to keep three gingerbread houses in our very small apartment?

12.17.15: Pinecone vs. Stella

Picture this - Brant and I are both walking the girls to school today in order to meet with a speech specialist. We walk through the back gate like we have for months.  There is a very slight wind as we walk under the 100' pine trees. We both see something out of our peripheral vision bounce back up in the air.  Then we hear a scream.  Then I scream.  Then Brant races over to Stella, picks her up and starts running with her in his arms across the school grassy fields towards the office.  I rush Daphne and Fiona towards the office past all of the shocked parents and kids.  I recognize the social norm is to ask what happened, but the likelihood that I am going stop and talk to parents/kids when my child is injured is none.  We arrive at the nurses station - so much blood - turns out heads bleed a lot.  A giant pinecone (maybe or maybe not this one - but we told her it was) fell from the 100' tall pine tree and landed directly on her forehead.  Stella had two giant gouges out of her forehead.  We decided not to take her to get stitches and applied several bandaids.  She is one tough cookie - me not so much.  This experience coupled with the head injury from a door jam when she was three (which did culminate in stitches) are leading us to seriously consider a helmet for our youngest.

12.14.15: Milk Mustaches

With the appearance of our new front teeth, Daphne, Fiona and Stella are enjoying a renewed interest in milk mustache contests

12.12.15: Slides for all

Ever since the girls were born, we've had to color coordinate certain aspects of their life to keep things straight.  Stella has always been pink/red, fiona blue/black/white, and daphne green/purple/orange.  So when we found a new park with three separate slides side by side in their favorite color - we just couldn't resist.

12.11.15: Informance

The music teacher decided it was time for a Informance - lots of singing and wiggling (Stella, Fiona, Daphne)

11.29.15: We found Olaf

There we were, walking through the mall when Stella, Fiona and Daphne ran in to Olaf....or at least wanted their picture taken with this Olaf-like creation.

11.27.15: Hiking + Boardwalk

 We took Nana to Henry Cowell - we all agreed it was time to explore the redwood forest.

 Stella climbing

 Daphne climbing

 Fiona climbing

We tried to take Nana to the boardwalk and learned something new about her - she is not a big fan of rides.  After the pirate ship, I wasn't sure we would be able to get her on any other rides, we did, but I'm not sure the boardwalk will be her favorite part of Santa Cruz.  This picture was a 'before' picture of Fiona, Stella, Nana.

11.26.15: Taking a walk

When you live in Santa Cruz, the middle of a busy street can prove an enjoyable secret hike - especially with Nana with several bridges...who would have thought?  We also showed Nana our 'pets' that live at the end of the hike.  We visit them monthly.

 Thanksgiving dinner - just the essentials (+ two pies)

11.24.15: Nana's Birthday

Tiny apartment + six people + most of your belongings in storage = Birthday Brownies for Nana (Stella, Daphne, Fiona)

11.23.15: Family ice cream sandwiches

Showing Nana downtown meant stopping for ice cream cookie sandwiches - for the whole family (Brant, Fiona, Stella, Nana, Daphne)

11.22.15: Biking in the parking lot

One advantage of a large apartment complex, giant parking lot to ride our bikes!  (Fiona, Daphne, Stella)

11.21.15: Shopping for Nana

Today we decided to check out the local 'mall' to go birthday shopping for Nana.  The girls were getting a little bit restless while Brant and I looked around so we decided to let them pick out an outfit they thought Nana would like.....and the model it.

 Fiona

 Stella

Daphne

Turns out Nana has some good outfits for clubbing in her future.

11.14.15: Ninja Stella

When you live in very close quarters with your family and two bunk beds are crammed into a single bedroom, you look for creative ways to entertain yourself.  Stella discovered she can climb up the two bunk beds without using a later....American Ninja Warrior Stella!

11.13.15: Field Trip | Natural History Museum

When the class goes on a field trip to the Natural History Museum, everyone has to climb on the gray whale out in front, then slide down, then climb back up (repeat)

 When you live in Santa Cruz, this is where you have snacks....

 Stella

 Fiona

Daphne

11.11.15: Henry Cowell State Park

 Today we adventured up to Henry Cowell State Park.  This is an amazing park about 15 minutes from our home on some very curvy roads.  Upon arrival the trees are taller than you can even imagine and the surroundings are so peaceful.  We love this park as it is a great place for hiking and exploration.

 Just one of the many gigantic redwood trees.

This tree can hold 50 people inside and according to the ranger, people actually used to live inside the tree.  The girls were shocked with how deep they could go inside the tree.  I was a little less enthusiastic about this.

10.31.15: So much trick or treating

We started our afternoon downtown, where the main street was shutdown just for trick or treating at the local shops.  Turns out A LOT of adults like to trick or treat downtown too, so the candy was a little light, but still it was a wild experience.

After a quick rest after downtown, we headed to Scotts Valley to go trick or treating in a friend's neighborhood.  The neighborhood had some seriously fancy houses which seemed to correlate with some seriously large candy yields.

Overall a very successful first trick or treating experience in Santa Cruz.

10.30.15: Halloween Parade

Fiona, Daphne and Stella ready for the Halloween parade at school.  All of the kids get together on the upper field and hold a parade showing each other their costumes.  The girls had a great time, except it was really hot and Daphne and Stella were in pretty thick costumes.  Fiona was very proud to be the only Easter Egg at her school, Daphne loved being able to make animal noises all day, and Stella found a teacher dressed up as a panda too.