Princess Moo Moo

I am not really sure why this dog puts up with us sometime.

4th of July parade and fireworks

Jessica and Jamison were excited to do the 4th of July parade again this year.  They got decked out in matching 4th of July outfits and helped decorate their bikes for the occasion.

Here is another view of Jessica.

And, here is another view of Jamison.

That evening, Jessica really wanted to stay up late and see fireworks.  We went over to the Baylands to catch the fireworks show.

Unfortunately, Jessica fell asleep slightly after this photo and missed the fireworks completely!  We did have a lovely view.

Jamison's 3rd Birthday Party

Jamison celebrated her 3rd birthday at a local water park with family and friends.

Jamison loved the Ariel cake that her daddy made her.

Blowing out the candles was fun too.

On our way home, Jamison was lights out as soon as the car started moving.  That was a sign that her birthday party was a success.

Jamison's birthday dinner

Everyone gets to choose where they want to go to dinner for their birthday. For Jamison, we took her out the night before her birthday because we knew we would be wiped out from her water park birthday extravaganza.  Of all the places in the world to go to dinner, Jamison chose Chipotle.

Monsters University

The girls got all dressed up in dresses by Mimi to go and see Monsters University.

a trip to the zoo for a Big Cat breakfast and then the beach

Recently, one of the tigers at the zoo had a baby tiger and as part of the celebration they had a Big Cat breakfast.  We got to have breakfast with the big cats and see the baby tiger too.  Jessica and Jamison enjoyed their breakfast and the baby tiger.

Here is the baby tiger.

After spending some time watching the cats, it was time to go and see some other animals.  The hippo was out enjoying his pool.

And, the girls enjoyed playing on the hippo statue together.

Jamison showed how well she can jump.

Eventually, it was off to see more animals.

Then, it was back to see the baby tiger.

And, we also took a quick train ride on the Little Puffer.

We finished up our trip to the zoo with climbing on more animals (grizzlies this time) and picking flowers.

Since the weather was amazingly nice at the zoo, we decided to stop at the beach before heading home.  The girls just loved playing in the water.

a fun pool play date this summer

In late June, Jessica had fun on a pool play date with a friend from school this summer.  Here she is lounging on a raft.

The best part of the pool, however, was the diving board.  Jessica really enjoyed it.

Jamison's new Ariel dress

When Mimi came out to visit, she brought a brand new Ariel dress for Jamison as Ariel is Jamison's favorite princess.  Here is a cute photo of Jamison posing in the Ariel dress.

enjoying the new pool

As summer approached and the girls wanted to swim everyday, we erected a pool in our backyard.  The girls spend quite a lot of time in it during the day and before bed each night.

Happy Father's Day!

Jessica and Jamison love their daddy and were happy to spend the day with him on Father's Day.  This photo was taken as we took Jim out to dinner.  The girls were in their flamingo outfits as Jim loves flamingos.

Maya's 6th birthday party

The morning of Father's Day, Jessica celebrated her classmate Maya's birthday at a local gym. She had fun bouncing on the trampoline track.

She had fun hanging on the bars.

She loved swinging on the rope.

And, jumping into the foam pit was great too. 

Jessica's piano recital

A few weeks ago, Jessica had her piano recital. She was a bit nervous, but did a great job playing her Disney songs.

hosting our host families for a pizza playdate

As a second timer in the Early Learning Center, we are host family to two other families entering the school with daughter's in Jamison's class.  We had them over for a pizza playdate shortly after school ended.  Here are all the girls making their pizzas.

They enjoyed eating them shortly thereafter.

Jessica's first lemonade stand

The weekend after school ended was the Palo Alto city wide garage sale.  Jessica decided that she wanted to have a lemonade stand while we tried to sell our old toys.  Jessica made lemonade and muffins to sell and her friend Arden made chocolate chip cookies.

Arden was quite the businessman and raised prices to generate more cash.  People saw the old price slashed out and a new higher price.  Some commented on that fact, but most people still bought the items. It probably helped that it was a sweltering day.  The kids made a killing.

Of course, after a few hours, they abandoned their stand and went off to buy items at other garage sales on the block.  The neighbors were happy to have them!

Jamison looking cute

Jamison wanted her picture taken outside of school one day. She sure looked cute.

last day of Kindergarten

The last day of Kindergarten was a very short day as it basically consisted of 5th grade graduation. Here is a pictures of  Jessica and Arden right before they headed out to the Kindergarten pool party as soon to be first graders.

Jessica was excited to start the pool party with her friends Olivia and Arden.

Jessica and some of her girl friends enjoyed spending time in the hot tub.

Synchronized jumping was a big activity.  Here are some of the girls lining up to jump in to the pool together.

And, here you can see another jump in action.

Here is a photo of all the soon to be first graders that were at the party.

And, the party was topped off by a yummy picnic.

summer weather is here

Before school ended, summer weather had arrived.  The kids did slip n' slide while the waited for their pool lessons to start.

Jessica's dance recital

At the beginning of June, Jessica's dance studio had a recital.  She was very exited to play a zoo girl in the recital.

Jessica and her friend Isabella posed before the performance.

This is the best photo we could get of the whole gang.

Unfortunately, due to operator error on my part, we did not get a whole video of the performance.  This is what we have from the latter half. 

the day after Yosemite

After a late night home from Yosemite, the girls had a sleepover in the family room.  The sleep over continued well into the next day as the girls recovered from their trip by watching movies.  Mousse enjoyed cuddling with them as he was tired out from his doggy vacation.