Feb 11
Family Updates,OtherComments (0) Amazingly enough, it’s been a whole year since the last time we posted! So many things have happened since then, it’ll be hard to remember them all, but here we go…
The girls’ 3rd birthday came and went – this was the first year where they seemed to understand it was their birthday and as you can see from some of their pictures, they also knew how old they were! 🙂
They were also the beautiful flower girls in our neighbors’ wedding (once again, there are plenty of pictures!). We had to coax them to come down the aisle as their shyness got a grip on them during the stroll. But, they made it and everything turned out beautifully – in a couple months they’ll be flower girls in Uncle Shaun’s wedding!
A little bit after the wedding we had a near catastrophic event take place in the Silva household when our computer’s hard drive became corrupted and we nearly lost all of our beloved pictures and the captured memories of the girls’ lives so far. Luckily, a recovery program got us 99% of everything back and we’ve been backing up ever since (which reminds me :))…
More exciting news that happened around their 3rd birthday was the revelation of how to know when to go to the bathroom and potty training was complete. This literally saved us over $100 a month that we were spending on diapers so we are very thankful for the girls for this (not to mention the greater prevalence of fresh air!).
The girls also started the “Home Schooling with Nana” program this year and have since learned to write all their letters and count to 100 (they can also count backwards from 10). They can also write their own names and have an ever growing vocabulary which includes words like accordion and fuschia (spelling??) – they also seem to knock us over with new words almost every day. They’re very up on their colors and can, without hesitation, distinguish between lilac purple, regular purple, and fuschia – which daddy definitely can’t do.
As the housing market was beginning to take its downturn, this year saw us contemplating our housing situation, but eventually deciding to stay here and plant some thick (read: expensive) roots in the form of completely re-done kitchen lighting, a room makeover that turned our spare room into a craft room/play room/mommy’s workshop for her wreath business, and last but, CERTAINLY not least a resort-quality pool/water feature and patio upgrade (pictures of all this will be up in the galleries shortly). Along with the addition of the pool came, of course, swimming lessons for the girls. After a couple months of lessons and the last few weeks of swimming at home once our pool got finished, they’re not quite water-safe yet, but they’re getting close! 🙂
Along with Nana’s home schooling, the girls also started ballet class once a week at the community center and were just given the compliment by their teacher of being the best students in class and really learning what she’s trying to teach. We’ve had a couple recitals at home and they are looking more and more graceful with each one.
For Halloween this year, the girls were Chino Poblanos (mariachi dancers, for those not hip to that term). They entered a contest at our local park one afternoon and were given an award for best pair in their age group (they didn’t do places for this contest, but we think they were 1st place – but maybe we’re biased ;)). We quickly surrendered the reward (cold stone creamery gift cards) to Nana since she spent countless hours sewing sequins and beads on these amazing authentic outfits.
The girls have also become quite handy with a mouse and monitor and can find their way around the disney website to play games and watch videos, etc. They also enjoy stand-alone preshcool games on the PC and have a blast with viva pinata on the xbox and all things mario on the nintendo wii and ds (these “accomplishments” make daddy happy to no end – finally he has gaming buddies to play games with – only now, getting a turn happens much less frequently!). They’ve also been known to drum along in rock band in practice (easy) mode with ~40% score on some of the easier songs – it’s pretty amazing to think that a 3 yr old can keep some semblance of a beat using a drum pad!
For Christmas this year, the girls’ star presents were princess bikes with training wheels. Unlike the ATV’s of last year, they both quickly took to them and love riding them up and down the block. They also have enjoyed their growing/talking puppies that know their names. This was also the first year where they seemed to understand that Santa was coming, because unlike every other night of the year, they went to sleep within minutes of going to bed – they knew that Santa was watching and knew when they were sleeping and when they were awake!
And, back full circle again, the girls’ 4th birthday and birthday party have just gone by. Highlights of the party included find (and keep) the lost twin bears, pin the tail on the donkey, break the pinata (which ended up having to be broken by its maker – Nana – if you ever need an unbreakable pinata, give her a call!), and of course lots of cake and ice cream!
Hopefully, we can start to keep this up to date a little more often, but in case we don’t, see you next year! 😉