Color Me Mine

Leah and I had a very fun Mommy/Daughter day today!  We went and painted some very special things at Color Me Mine with Lindsay and Zoe!  Lindsay and I didn't really know what to expect with the girls but they LOVED it and had the best time!  They were both on their very best behavior and sat in their chairs and painted their creations like big girls!

This place is so neat!  You pick out what you want to paint from hundreds of different pieces (plates, bowls, cookie jars, coffee mugs, the list goes on and on).  Then you choose your paint colors, whether or not you want to use sponges or stencils and then you get creative!  So much fun!

Mommy & Leah all ready for our fun afternoon!



Apron is on so it's time to gather up all our supplies!

Working hard on our platter!  We put her hand prints in the center, and then I let her go wild with the paintbrush around the edges.  She had a blast!  When she was all finished painting we wrote "Baked With Love By Mommy & Leah" around the edges.  We'll use this to serve all of the yummy goodies we bake!

Leah and Zoe very hard at work!  Zoe could have sat all day and just painted the sponges!

 We had so much fun with Lindsay and Zoe!

Now we just have to wait patiently until Saturday when we can pick up our masterpieces!  Can't wait to see how they turn out!

Leah Says the Darndest Things

Leah is always keeping us entertained with the things she says these days!  Here's a few I want to remember.....

• We always pray before dinner.  Last night Luke asked Leah if she wanted to say the prayer and she said that she wanted to "say it to Cinderella".  With her hands folded and her eyes squinted shut, her prayer went like this "Dear Cinderella, thank you for this food, Aaaaaaaamen."
• Every single morning when Leah wakes up we ask her if she had sweet dreams, and her answer is always "Yes I did have sweet dreams."  We then ask her what she dreamed about and it is always "I dreamed about Cinderella."  It might be safe to say that she is fascinated with Cinderella!
• When we try and take things away from her (things she shouldn't have at the moment, most of the time it's our phone that we're trying to get back from her) she'll say "Don't take things from somebody Mommy (or Daddy), don't take things from them."  I was telling this to Ms. Trish and asked her if she said this to the kids and with a laugh she said "only a hundred times a day."  Ha!
• Several times a day I'll hear "no talking Mommy, don't talk."
• One night while Luke was in Vegas he and I were talking on the phone and Leah comes in carrying her cozy blankie and tells me "I have a baby in my tummy."  I am so glad Luke was on the phone with me at the time because I don't think he would've believed that she said this otherwise!  We had just spent the day with Lindsay and Zoe and Lindsay really does have a baby in her tummy so this is where she got her silly idea!
• Just tonight Leah was laying in her bed refusing to go to sleep, so she was talking up a storm.  At one point she started calling out "Daaaaaaadddddddy, Daaaaaaaadddddddy."  I went into her dark room to tell her to go night night and as soon as I turned on the light to settle her down she informed me "I was saying Daddy, Mommy, I was saying Daddy" in the most serious voice as if she wasn't happy that I was the one who entered her room!
• One of Leah's favorite games to play on Luke or I's iphone is Tiny Tim.  I don't know if this is really the name of the game or not, but this is what she calls it.  It has lots of matching, patterning and shape "games" for her to complete.  Every single time she completes a level she will yell at the top of her lungs "I DID IT!  I DID IT!"  It's really embarrassing when she does this in the middle of a rather quiet restaurant!
• When we ask her what's Mommy's name or what's Daddy's name she'll say "Mommy Brooke Hendricks" or "Daddy Brooke Hendricks".

Playdate with Zoe

Luke left early this morning for his Vegas market so it's just us girls here at home until Friday night.  Since Zoe's Daddy is in Vegas for market too, we found this to be the perfect excuse for a playdate!  Leah and I headed up to Folsom where Lindsay and I let the girls play, play, play and then we were off to the park to soak up the California sunshine!  I can't get over this weather we've been having!  We didn't even need jackets on today!  Crazy!  Leah found Zoe's dress up clothes right away and had to partake so we had our own little Minnie Mouse and Belle!

After the park we ate dinner together and then Leah and I headed home!  We miss Daddy very much but had a very fun day with just the girls!

Family Fun Day at the Zoo

We declared today another family fun day!

We started our day at Panera for bagels.....chocolate chip for Leah, Cinnamon Crunch with Hazelnut cream cheese for Mommy and an Everything Bagel with plain cream cheese for Daddy!  Although it took her awhile, Leah DEVOURED hers.  She is one slow eater just like her Mama!  She even liked her bagel with a little "cream" as she called it!

After breakfast it was time for the zoo!  This was our first trip to the Sacramento Zoo ever!  It's a bit on the small size, as far as zoos go, but is perfect for fun afternoons like today! 

One of the perks of having family fun day on a Thursday is that we had the entire place to ourselves!  It was great! 

One of the downsides of having family fun day on a Thursday is that the Carousel (or Merry-Go-Round as we called it) wasn't running the entire time.  They ran the train for awhile and then the guy would come and operate the carousel.  This caused one minor melt down because someone really wanted to ride the carousel and wanted nothing to do with the train.  What a perfect opportunity to teach patience!  Leah chose to ride the zebra since she had "zebra" on her shirt!  Thank goodness the zebra was available!  We had already had a lesson on patience and didn't need one on sharing too!  To say she LOVED the carousel ride would be an understatement!  She LOVED it!

Today we saw flamingos,

kangaroos,

crocodiles,

monkeys,

zebras,

and an anteater (funniest looking creature ever)!

We also saw lions, tigers and giraffes that we didn't get pictures with!  Leah said that her favorite animal that she saw today was the zebra!  To be honest, though, her favorite thing wasn't any animal at all!  It was a toss up between these two things.....

the set of bleachers in front of the giraffes

and

the make a wish coin drop spinny thing!

She emptied her Daddy's pockets on this one!

We ended our day playing dress up!  Daddy's such a good sport!

And The Award Goes To.....

Leah!

We are VERY EXCITED about her little award!  You see, Leah has been having a VEEEEERY DIFFICULT time during drop off at daycare (and with babysitters) lately.  She screams and cries and grabs on to Mommy and Daddy for dear life.  She'll hold our face between her hands, look us straight in the eyes and through huge tears cry "I want you Mommy (or Daddy), I want you."  Talk about a heart breaker!  From what we're told, she throws about a five minute fit and then she's totally good to go!  She started doing this just before Christmas vacation, and of course it didn't get any better after being gone for two weeks and having Mommy and Daddy by her side 24-hours a day.  She used to run into Ms. Trish's house without even looking back!  She LOVES going to Ms. Trish's house and she LOVES her babysitters (Nora, Courtney and Alicia) so it's not that she doesn't enjoy her time away from us.  In fact, when we go to pick her up it's like pulling teeth getting her to leave sometimes.

It's no secret that Leah is the most strong-willed two-year-old little girl known to man!  I think it's more about control for her rather than it being about not wanting to go to school or to the babysitter's house.  She does love her Mommy and Daddy but also does very well away from us.  We're hoping the drop offs become easier rather than harder very very soon!

Back to the award.....Leah had an EXCELLENT day yesterday and came home with her little award!  From the sounds of it, she still cried but got very happy much quicker than usual.  We made a huge deal out of it and let her hang it up wherever she wanted.  We showed her the award this morning and reminded her of why she got it!  Needless to say, crocodile tears were flowing once again when it came time for her to part ways with her Daddy at Ms. Trish's house this morning.

So, we'll take it one day at a time and hope for a tear free drop off very soon!  Luke and I have vowed for at least once-a-month date nights.  We're doing this for two reasons:  1.  for the obvious, to spend time with each other as Luke and Stephanie rather than Daddy and Mommy but also 2.  to make Leah more comfortable away from Mommy and Daddy.  I think it's a win-win situation although there may be lots of tears flowing (for 5 minutes anyways)!

Railroad Museum

We declared today family fun day and decided to take advantage of this.....

and went here.....

We became members of the California State Railroad Museum back in September in order to secure our Polar Express tickets!  It sold out in less than four days to the general public so the secret is to become a member of the museum so that you get to buy your tickets in advance!  With our membership, we get free admission to the museum all year long for Leah and either Mommy or Daddy (it's $9 for the other adult).  Today was our first day to take advantage of our little membership so we didn't know what we were in for, but it was a real treat!  The PERFECT activity for a rainy day (although it wasn't raining today, just foggy and gloomy)!  They even have real train rides that you can go on, too, although we didn't do that today!  The museum did have one train that we walked through that felt like it was moving!  Very neat!

We had so much fun!  We saw and walked through lots and lots of, you guessed it, TRAINS!  We saw.....

Big Trains

& Small Trains

Black Trains

& Yellow Trains

Trains to Eat On

& Trains to Sort Mail On

We read a little history.....

 Did a little conducting.....

And even a little driving (or maybe the conductor is the driver, I don't know)!

Don't tell anybody, but we also broke the rules and went behind the ropes!

But our (Leah's) favorite part of the museum was found upstairs on the 2nd floor!  Here they had lots and lots and lots of Thomas train tables to play with!  What a fun, fun place!  Leah loved it so I can only imagine how much fun a little boy would have here!  Wowsers!

I wanted to take one last picture, but somebody was being silly!



After our fun at the museum, we went out on a family lunch date!  Leah thought this was a great idea because Mommy and Daddy went on a date to Centro on Saturday night and she wasn't invited!  She kept telling us today that she wanted to "go on a date with Mommy and Daddy" and that she didn't "want to go to Courtney and Alicia's house today" (her babysitters Saturday night)!  Ha!  We chose Riverside Clubhouse for our lunch date because they have the world's best French dip sandwich and fries!  I've tried ALOT of French dips and nowhere else comes remotely close (besides 33rd Street Bistro and Bistro 33 who are all owned by the same people as Riverside Clubhouse.....you get the idea)!

Leah was so good at the museum and at lunch that we threw in one more treat.....a cookies & cream milkshake from Chick-fil-A!  She was such a sweetie pie and kept passing her milkshake around the car saying "It's your turn Mommy" and "Now it's your turn Daddy"!  What a sweetheart!

We had so much today that we might just have to declare Thursday family fun day as well!