A weekend of parties!

What a crazy crazy weekend! We had so many events and birthday parties smashed into one weekend. I think the whole family was just plain exhausted! On Friday night we hosted a "Princess & the Frog" movie night with some of our closest friends. It was a lot of fun! The kids did great and made it almost through the entire movie.

Saturday we had a Build A Bear event at Valley Fair and Izzy made a Hello Kitty stuffed animal that she named "Kitty". She loves her and brings her everywhere. Saturday afternoon we had birthday party to go to at our friend's house in San Jose (really close to where we live) and had a blast there. Non stop food and cake!

Sunday morning we had a party at Kidspark by Oakridge and it was so much fun! I think Izzy has to be pooped! I know I am.

Oakland Zoo

We took the girls to the zoo for the very first time on Sunday. Thank goodness we have friends who told us about the half off Oakland Zoo membership that was available. I couldn't wait to redeem it and take the girls. Izzy had such a good time looking at all the animals but her favorite part was probably eating an icee...

I couldn't believe but the rides at the zoo were all too big for her! After I purchased the ticket book too! They wouldn't let me refund the tickets... She won't be 36" tall for a really LONG time! Stupid rules.

Zoey was soooo good at the zoo. She really stayed awake and just watched everything around her. She fell asleep towards the end of the trip but she was a trooper.

Disney on Ice

Last Sunday was a blast! Izzy and her friends went to their first Disney on Ice show at HP Pavilion. I think the moms were more excited than the kids were! We started off at 5pm with dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then headed to the show at 6:30pm. We were such amateurs! We thought we would have enough time and we didn't! We were rushing to finish dinner and raced over to the show and literally made it to our seats just in time to catch the opening.

We didn't get a chance to do the whole souvenir shopping so I did it during intermission.... Izzy sitting with her friends... What a night! I think the kids were totally pooped because 10 minutes before the show ended, Izzy pointed at the exit. We booked it! We didn't want to get caught the mass exodus and get stranded in parking. It was such a fun night!

Here is Zoey playing dress up with her chef's hat...

Mademoiselle Isabel in her blue sequin beret... Such a little stylish girl! OMG. Really, do I ever say no? I think I go a little overboard and I already buy her accessories at Forever 21!

Weekend of FUN!

What a weekend! Ever since the parents group was created, our weekends have been jammed packed with events and playdates. I think every weekend in Feb and March through April for our family is completely booked! We are really lucky that this play group is full of wonderful families and we've made friends to last a lifetime!

Izzy and her BFF Rebecca doing shopping training.

Izzy and Andrew at the Valentine's Day party! We had such a crazy weekend of parties!

Zoey making faces while daddy gives her a bath. She's such a chunky baby monkey! She's going to hate me for posting this pic! This is definitely going into her senior yearbook!

Hanging Out

I hadn't posted in awhile so I dug up some pictures that we took a few weeks back. Zoey is really growing up fast. She already turned 7 months this past week. I can't believe it!

Zoey is almost 20lbs right now and probably more if I bring her to get weighed. At first she was right with Isabel in development but now she has beaten her sister in height and weight. They have the same head circumference.

What is wonderful to watch is that both girls get along so well! Zoey knows Isabel and recognizes her better than anyone else. Her face lights up and she gets extremely happy any time Isabel comes into the room. Isabel is also very attentive to her sister. She always watches out for her and they even play together at this age. I am not a very religious person but when I see the two of them, I can feel what it is like to be blessed. My girls are so beautiful!

I'm really glad that the two of them are so close in age and actually I wish they were even closer. They're going to best friends even when they fight or argue. In the end they will be close and very tight knit. Cindy and I are 4 years apart but we're super close and I could only imagine what it would be like if we were only 1 or 2 years apart. Thank goodness for sisters!

Baby's First Solids!

On exactly Zoey's 6 month birthday, we let her have her first taste of rice cereal. She did really, really well! I think she has had so much practice watching everyone else eat over the holidays that it just came naturally to her. We plan on going introducing her to baby food this week. It's so much fun watching her enjoy and learning new skills.

One of Isabel's Christmas presents was an Imaginarium train set with a table. The train set actually makes noise while it's going through different parts of the track and she absolutely loves it. She makes everyone sit down and play with her.

This year is so different than last year where she didn't understand the concept of presents or opening them. This year, Isabel totally understood what presents were and had a blast opening them. She would take her time and then stack all her gifts in a pile. She even threw away the paper trash. In the end she was only interested in the Zhu Zhu pets and the train table so I hid the rest of her new presents in the closet. Isabel helped Zoey open her presents too and it was really cute watching Izzy give her sister toys to play with. Overall, the holidays was wonderful and it's even more special with my two little girls enjoying every minute of it.

Oh What Fun!

My weekends have become super busy these days! Today I (unsuccessfully) took Izzy to her ballet class. I say unsuccessful because she had a total melt down and wouldn't stop throwing a tantrum. So we've gone 5 times without any problems and today she was just not having it. No use in trying to make her stay for a 30 minute class so we went home. I guess she must have been tired because she came home and fell asleep on her bed within 15 minutes.

At noon we got ready and made our way downtown to the Center for Performing Arts for the Nutcracker. It was both our first time watching the Nutcracker although I swear I've seen it before but I can't remember. She really enjoyed it and overall I think she had a good time. This is going to be a tradition for me and the girls until they decide it's too uncool to be seen with their mother at the ballet.

Our attempt at taking some home photos with the girls resulted badly. Let's just say that Zoey was the cooperative one... Thankfully, I had already taken the girls with the help of my mom to Picture People and had their holiday pictures done. Everytime we've gove for pictures there, they've turned out even better than the previous times. Even Ben was impressed with the portraits and that's saying something.

Auntie Cindy's birthday was on the 10th and she came to visit the girls. All the more reason to buy ice cream cake! Here is an example of what NOT to do if you're planning on sharing cake. You can always count on Auntie Cindy to teach wondeful behaviors. Happy birthday Auntie Cindy!