Big Boy!

I packed the kids up this morning to take them into the doctor's for Niko's 3 year (ish) appointment.

He weighed in at a whopping 28lbs 4oz, which puts him in the 5th percentile in the charts.


Next up - blood pressure.


And then the comical eye charts. He did well with the letters but was a little confused about covering one eye.


His height measured at 37.25 inches - between the 25th & 50th percentile.

Olive had fun sitting on the bench with Niko waiting for Dr. Ray.



Overall the appointment went well and we wrapped it up with a lovely meltdown from both kids. Teamwork!
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Playing Favorites and Animal Control

You know I don't need any excuses for a photo shoot! The other night when the D'Angelo's were over Katie got Baby Jack's pajamas out and I squealed with delight because 1) Olive had the same ones and 2) I am a dork.

Fun facts. Olive is one year and a week older than Baby Jack, she is five pounds heavier and is wearing a 9 month size of the pjs while he is wearing a 6month size. Hee hee!

All goes well until a gorilla busted onto the scene and scared the kids into holding hands (love the look on their faces!)

Don't worry, as soon as we were done shooting Olive picked up the phone to call the zoo about the escaped gorilla.

In her description to the dispatcher I heard her mentioning an identifying mark of a small hairless patch on his right forearm - possibly due to a rogue 4th of July popper??

Summer Fridays - BADM

Mel and I are trying to take advantage of the summer Fridays that we both have off (every other Friday.) On our last joint Friday we headed back to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito.

Here's a new room that we didn't get to explore last time - it had sea life costumes and a green screen. The kids enjoyed putting on a show for us.

Behind the scenes.


We stopped all the fun to make the kids pose with the bridge in the background.

Olive applauds while Nikos digs for treasure in the buried shipyard.

Construction crew.

Olive loooved the TotSpot with the water feature.


Maile and Nikos pretend to be astronauts.

The gang ends the day with a little impromptu jam.

Queen Bee

Found these little gems on my phone. This is from the day we went to the zoo and Nikos accidentally toppled into the water by the lilypads.

Olive, slightly appalled that Nikos is ruining her diva cred by showing up without a shirt on in her web.

After scaring him off she revels in the spotlight.

WHO is this interloper that dares to try and steal my thunder??

Hangin with Our Friends

On the 4th of July we joined the D'Angelos at their house for some great viewing of both legal and illegal fireworks. Once again, the illegal fireworks completely trumped the legal ones.

We had a great time and a yummy dinner and after we put the two little ones down for bed we went outside to watch the action. I bought the kids those little poppers since Nikos had so much fun with them when we were camping.

Nikos trys to jump on one of the poppers that he threw (that didn't ignite.)

Jack tries to explode a popper on Niko's head - I am sure this is surprising to no one.

Don't worry, I actually hit Jack with one later and it burst on his arm. Hysterical. I thought all of his arm hair was going to go up in flames. (This is when Taki reminded me that there is no actual flame - whatever. Ruiner-of-fun.)

Ha, I think this is right after I hit him in the arm.

And some way-past-bedtime-and-eating-chocolate kids.

The following day we met up with Marco and Jeff at the zoo. The best part of the day was when Niko and Marco were hopping on the lilypads and Nikos collided with another kid and ended up right in the water, soaking wet. Ha! Poor kid. Luckily it was warm out. He spent the next hour looking like some poor little white trash kid walking around the zoo without a shirt on. Nice parents.

Grooming the goats (Marco in background)
And since Olive hasn't shown up at all in this post...

Quandary

Alright, I didn't receive any help from fellow Tweeters so I am bringing this problem to my loyal blog readers.

I am currently 200 pages into "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb and can't decide if I want to commit. Normally I read the complete book after I start it (even if I don't really like/love it) out of some sort of weird loyalty or desire to see it through. However, the other day I was talking to a friend who was saying that life is too short to waste our precious free time on a book that doesn't grab us. SO? Anyone out there that's read it (Sara, Brenda, Katie...) that can talk me in or out of this book? PS - did I mention it's 900 pages?


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Smelling the Roses

Sometimes life is a little rough. Maybe your job sucks because it's quarter-end and you barely have time to pee, let alone take a lunch break. Maybe two of your best friends are making you go to a fitness bootcamp that starts at the crack of dawn. Maybe your summer is eerily devoid of vacations compared to last summer. I mean, obviously these are all just fictional examples...what I'm trying to say here is, sometimes it's the little things that pull you through.

Please enjoy two of my little things. Two little mini-Fridays if you will.



Photo courtesy of: Meredith Cecchin



Photo courtesy of: Elizabeth Sun

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Hey Batter Batter

Nikos started a month long tball class at the Y (on Saturday mornings.) The class is made up of all three and four year olds of different skill levels and Nikos can pretty much hold his own. I'll have to pull some pics off of Taki's phone of the first class - but here is a video of him from the second week (this past Saturday.) The instruction to each kid was to hit the ball off the tee and then run to first base (and the kid on first would run to second and so on.) Nikos was the second batter in the rotation.

As you may (or may not) be able to tell from the video, Niko had quite the fan base. Grammy, Pop-Pop, Grandma, Papouli, Aunt Annette and Uncle Mike all came out for the game.

We saw the same scenario every time he had an at bat. It was pretty hysterical.

Sweet Sixteen

Hmm, I was on the roll for awhile there and then the energy got sucked out of me again. Here's to trying to get back on the blog wagon.

Olive's 16th month (gasp!) photo shoot did not go as planned. We changed location (from the couch to the floor) and she sat there for about one second. These were the only shots I was able to take before she decided she was DONE.

She is still quite the little charmer along with the diva that can throw a tantrum with the best of them. Current words (perhaps only understood by Mom, Dad and Nikos) include: Momma, Dadda, ball, cheese (as in "smile, say cheese"), bye bye, dog dog, kitty cat, thank you. I think that's it. She mostly has all of us (especially Nikos) wrapped around her little finger.

You Scream, I Scream...

During the day on my birthday the kids and I headed out to meet Mel+kids and my mom at the Contra Loma swim lagoon. After an afternoon of swimming my mom bought the kids some popsicles to enjoy.

Please enjoy the latest Kienzle Cousin outtakes.