February

February was an eventful month. We went to Palm Desert and Palm Springs. We stayed with Granny and Blair and the doggies and saw Grandpa and Bube Sue a few times too. We had a delicious dinner at the Spaghetteria with them. Unfortunately it was too cold to go in the pool and it rained some of the time. We were able to visit the Living Desert though.



In school, Ella's class read a story called "The Rag Coat". They all decorated a square of fabric for a quilt.

There was also a big celebration to commemorate the First 100 Days of School. The kids made a crown with 100 stickers, a necklace with 100 Fruit Loops and a poster with 100 things (of whatever they wanted). Ella made one with candy hearts. Felix wanted to try on the crown too ("Mama, take my picture!").


Finally, my beautiful, fluffy, wonderful kitty Fluff Puff died peacefully in his sleep at a too-young age of 13, a few weeks after being diagnosed with a heart condition. Here are a couple of pictures of his last days. We will always miss him, especially when I sing lullabyes at bedtime, when he would purr and march on me, and at night when he slept with us, and out in the yard, where he loved to peer at the birds and squirrels, and warm his fur in the sun.

January

Playing catch-up...

January 18
We discovered for the first time the Sepulveda Dam Wildlife Reserve which we had drive by many times but never stopped at. There are hawks, herons, swans, songbirds, rabbits, etc. to see in this sanctuary in the middle of our busy, built-up Valley. Left the stroller the car and we all, even Felix & Ella, took a wonderful hike around. A well-deserved rest and snack-break of crackers and apple slices

January 19
The following day, we visited the Long Beach Aquarium and used our birthday-present tickets from the Weber-Fergusons. There was a friendly seal who actually posed to have her picture taken. She would come right up to the window to say hello and darted and danced around and around. It looks like she is smiling.
For EMILE - click here-> a movie of the seals


There is a section that like a tunnel that you walk through with a wall of fish on either side. The blur to the left of Ella is Felix jumping.

Felix counts

There is a longer post coming but in the meantime, enjoy this little rhyme from FDVD.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G.....

Felix loves to sing. His repertoire already includes Jingle Bells, the Wheels on the Bus, and a couple of Wiggles' songs. He also knows this one:



And Ella, not to be outdone, can read!



The book is "Go, Dog, Go." She's been making good progress since she joined kindergarten. In fact, she's good at reading, but she's even better at math. Who would have thought? The other day, she was doing an exercise from one of her school workbooks where she had to count the items in a picture and write the number next to it. She then added up the numbers from all four of the pictures and gave me the right answer. I was impressed.

Christmas

Ella is off school for three weeks and on the first day of her vacation, Jim (who is off this week too) took her to the library and they got a whole bunch of Level 1 Reading books. She has been reading one book a day and doing a few pages of her workbook, so she will keep up with (and is actually improving) her reading. She has been writing sentences too, mostly without asking how you spell the words. Here is one that she wrote yesterday on her favorite toy, her white board (click on all pictures to enlarge):



On the second day of her vacation, Jim took her to the Getty (at her own request).



On Christmas Eve, we went down to Candy Cane Lane and Candle Light Lane in Woodland Hills. Couldn't get any pictures as it was raining but we also take walks and bike rides around the neighborhood. This one is in our own front yard:
and this one is a neighbor's -

FINALLY! Christmas Day. Here is Felix with his new "bakketball" hoop which he LOVES

and here is Ella with the thing she has been asking and asking and asking for, and even had called Santa up on her princess mobile phone to ask him for it... a scooter!

and here are the two monkeys in their new bathrobes.

The three of us having some cuddle time -


Finally, at the end of the day, Thing 1 and Thing 2 got into their new PJ's and jumped all over Dada

Fall Fun

FINALLY! I hear you say. Well our camera is broken so while we have been unsuccessfully trying to get it fixed and deciding on getting a new one, here are some lesser-quality shots from a disposable camera. First, Halloween. Ella and Felix were pirates this year except Felix didn't want to wear his costume (unusual for him, since he loves to wear Ella's, mine and Dada's clothes normally). Ella wore her pirate costume at school and then she wore her yellow princess dress later on when we went trick or treating.

Next we have Ella modeling a Halloween Cat Hat she made and Felix with his pirate hat



It was a SUPER hot November. We often go for a bike ride on Sunday mornings to the farmer's market where the kids love to go on the bouncy castle


And the kids playing in the sandbox on another sunny morning

More Birthday Stuff

Ella & Felix had their 5-year and 2-year well-child visits with Dr Liddy today. They are both in the 40%ile for height in their age groups (3 ft 6 1/4 inches/107cm and 34 1/2"/87.7cm). Ella is 20th %ile for weight (35 lbs 14 oz/about 16 kg), Felix 30th (26 lbs 10 oz/about 12 kg) , but he has had croup this week, and weighed 6 oz more at the doctor's visit a couple of days ago. Luckily he is feeling a bit better today, his breathing is much clearer and no more fever.

Making Felix's birthday cupcakes:



A happy 2-yr-old



Dessert at CPK for the birthday dinner...




Playing along with the video song "Put Your Toes To Your Nose"

Here's a little video of Felix's birthday cupcake ceremony at home - of course 2 seconds after I stopped filming he did actually blow out his own candle. Oh well...
[UPLOAD PENDING - NOT HAVING MUCH SUCCESS RIGHT NOW]
And lastly, our annual visit to the pumpkin patch (Felix was a bit scared)

Ella took these two pictures