Big Kids

Maybe it is just because I am sending her off to school all day long again now, but Matilda is looking really mature to me these days. Here she is headed off in the morning the past two days.

In the Batgirl tee picture especially she was giving me a look that I thought made her look older. Or maybe it is just the pre-pre-teen, "I'm just tolerating you Mom" look.

On the bike today Porter and I walked a huge loop around the neighborhood. He is getting so good on it that I am less hunched over him worrying he's going to crash and we can actually cover some ground fast. Seems like there is hope for regular exercise again!

Bullet Points

• Matilda's wiggly tooth is even wigglier. She is beyond excited. Porter will tell you that his teeth are wiggly too. Sympathetically wiggly. 
• Porter woke up multiple times last night yelling in his sleep about the injustices in his life. The first wake up I went in to find him hollering "Moooommmm.......I want to go sledding!"The complaints that followed are mostly a blur. Matilda never talked in her sleep, but every night Porter yells things. Most often they are food related: "I want a turkey sandwich!" "That is my piece!" "I want it plain!" 
• Matilda is reading like crazy. Everyday I am surprised over again by her reading as she pieces together the world around her. Tonight while I fixed dinner she read books to Porter. Incredible.
• Porter apparently learned a lot from our crab-race-to-crab-for-dinner episode yesterday. At dinner tonight he asked if we were eating pieces of my pet chicken from childhood, Debbie. (His current favorite "story" to be told at bedtime is Tim recounting all of his pets from childhood. Porter can very accurately report pet names with their accompanying cause of death. Quite morose.)
• Matilda took some of the pickled watermelon rind I made her and Tim for Christmas packed in her lunchbox today. The container of course did not get sealed back up completely, leaking sticky sweet pickle juices everywhere. I am not sure her lunch box will ever smell right again, 
• At lunch today Porter was being all goofy asking me gibberish questions. At one point he asked if I am a mama. To play along with the goof I answered back that, "Yes I was a mama and I had one little girl named Matilda and one little boy named Porter." Porter then added that I also had "one Tim with a fuzzy head named Daddy."

Something Fun Everyday: Crabs!

We headed to the farmers market this morning to celebrate our last leisurely day of "vacation" since Matilda heads back to school tomorrow. While there we were all tempted by the crabs and came home with two for dinner. Of course this meant the kids had the whole day to check on them.

 Many times the crabs came out of the fridge to "race" and get held.  At one point poor Matilda was going into the fridge for a snack and a crab moved enough to almost fall out of the open door. M was not pleased by that and nervously called for reinforcements to assist her in the precarious situation.

 The crabs were delicious just as the farmers market guy promised.

It was just what Tim and I needed after watching all those crabs being cooked and sold at the Fisherman's Wharf area in San Fran last week.

More "Sledding"

I am officially in love with sledding on the beach. We invested $10 to get our own saucer sled and headed to Malibu today to school Tim in the ways of sand sledding. 

He seemed to pick it up just fine!  

After not too long, he even got fancy:

 For kids, hauling the sled back up the hill seems to be just as hard as I recall from childhood, regardless of whether it is sand or snow. Porter was always trying to convince one of us to carry it for him. 

 I think I like the beach even better in the winter without the crowds, heat and sunburns. I am hoping for lots more "sledding" outings in our future this winter!

Future NBAer

As I was snapping pictures of Porter at the playground today I got a shot of his concentration face. He looks just like he is ready to shoot a free throw.

I also got a funny one of him yesterday with static head from the slide that seems like it should be shared!

Wiggly!

Matilda officially has a wiggly tooth. She is thrilled by this news, as she's been wishing for a loose tooth for months now. It may be a while yet before the tooth fairy visits though as her tooth is just barely loose. It is finally moving enough that Tim and I could both independently verify a slight bit of tooth movement. Matilda now has a finger permanently on her lower front teeth trying to wiggle and move them. Very exciting!

Porter's Latest Obsessions

While outdoors, this is what Porter can be found doing.

Porter has only had this balance bike put together for two days and he is a speed demon on it. When indoors, you can find Porter in front of his new marble run. It arrived in the mail from Grandma Marge and Grandpa Chris yesterday and Porter has played with it non-stop since opening it. We had to drag him away for dinner last night and this morning I could only manage tooth brushing because we negotiated that he could still HOLD the marbles while at the sink.

Sand Sledding!

Who needs snow? We had an awesome time today riding sleds, building sand castles and splashing in the waves. 

80 degrees in January is alright by me!

Home & Regrouping

It is always hard to come back to dishes and laundry and the daily grind after a trip. Thankfully all the Christmas loot softened the blow today as we took scooters to the park and assembled Porter's new balance bike from Stella & co. It was really nice to have a slow day and we all rested a bit after days of sightseeing and naps on the go. One day, Porter even managed to fall asleep while riding piggyback on the crazy loud, windy, cold walk across the Golden Gate bridge.

Playground Romp

At an awesome playground in Monterey today, Matilda was really pleased to be able to climb all the way onto the top if this train. I love this snapshot of our big girl. Thank goodness I have one more week with her before school starts again!

Cable Car Success

Some fun from our day, not in chronological order. Sea lions and a lollipop!

A few cable car rides.

Creepy old mechanical fun at the Musee Mechanique.

A much needed nap on my chest as we wandered the pier.

Lots of San Fran specialties to fill our bellies: Anchor Steam, Ghirardelli, sourdough, House of Nanking and oysters.

Street Car Ride

We are in San Francisco for a quickie visit and Porter is quite pleased with the great variety of things to ride here. Today we ticked vintage street car off our list. He is lobbying hard for ferry ride tomorrow!

Also of note, this is my first post done on my fancy new hand-me-down iPhone. Please forgive me if I have already pocket dialed you this week!

Scooter Outing

We took Matilda's new scooter for a test drive at the Hollywood reservoir today.

 Porter is quite thrilled to now have full time custody of Matilda's old blue scooter. They were quite the speedy team rolling down the road. I think I need to starting going along with them in some jogging shoes, maybe for a New Years resolution or something!

 As an extra bonus fun thing while we were up there, Matilda found an owl pellet. She was super excited about the discovery and we were so proud of her crazy naturalist skills! After some dissection she found this bone, along with lots of others and some teeth.

Merry Christmas!!!

We had a lovely, slow day at home opening presents, playing with presents, cooking yummy food and making memories. I hope you all had the same.

Merry Christmas wishes from our family to yours!