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.