More Bikes

Shira loves riding in the Ibert on the front of my bike, but she also really wants to ride her own bike too. She is now big enough to walk on the scoot bike, and wishes that she was big enough to ride the trikes.

The New Garden

The garden is a work in progress, but the big stuff is mostly done. We still want to add an arbor over the entrance, and plant flowers along the walkway, arbor and swingset, but we're mostly maintaining and watching things grow. (Note the witch scarecrow, courtesy of, you guessed it, Bubbie).

The radishes Samuel and Bubbie planted from seed.

The pumpkins, also from seed.

To date, we have gotten one yellow raspberry, four blueberries, the cherry tomato plant is producing, the radishes have gone crazy, I've harvested the basil three times, and the artichokes produce more every couple of weeks. It's amazing what happens when you actually water your plants. The cara cara orange, lemon, and kumquat trees are all sprouting new growth everywhere. I even have some hope that we can revive the tangelo tree, but I'm not holding my breath.

Language Explosion and Space Excitement

Shira has had a language explosion in the last two weeks. About two weeks ago, she went from a decent vocabulary, with a short list of two word phrases, to adding multiple words a day to her repertoire, and now within the last week she has gone from occasional two word phrases, to multiple word sentences.

She can now express just about everything that is going on in her head, not just necessities. There is no question that we have another little person who likes to explain exactly what they are thinking and doing in extreme detail on our hands. Taking a page from her brother's play book, she also likes to detail to me exactly what she wants to eat, which condiments I should include, whether it should be on a plate or in a bowl, which plate or bowl I should use, and whether she wants a fork or spoon. She also lets me know if I should be the one to add something to plate, or if she is the one who is going to do it. If it's me, she will explain to me that she doesn't want "much" on. Oy.

Samuel has suddenly become very interested in space, NASA, space shuttles, the moon, and just about everything else space related. Steve and he took an emergency trip to the library on Sunday to feed the habit. And Samuel is already schooling me on the details. We may have Laszlo to thank for this new hobby.

Three next

When asked how old she is, Shira insists that she is three. Steve has convinced her to say "three next." She definitely comports herself like an almost three year old. Now that we have celebrated her 2nd birthday three times, I guess she is entitled to "three next."

For her actual birthday on the 22nd, we made what I guessed would be a favorite dinner, if Shira could tell us what she wanted - lamb chops and cauliflower. It was most definitely a hit with both the kids.

The meal gave Shira the opportunity to behave like a puppy dog.

And blueberries with whipped cream for dessert. Lucky for Shira, she has a big brother who is happy to demonstrate how to blow out birthday candles. (What's a birthday without blowing out your candles in your birthday suit?)

Two days later we celebrated Shira's birthday with a small get together composed around Teacher Joe's music class.

Looks like Shira's not the only one excited about Teacher Joe coming to our house. I believe Steve's exact words were, "When Samuel sees Teacher Joe at our house, I think his head might explode."

And more blueberries and whipped cream

And one last b-day celebration, this one with the Silberman clan.

And since you can only have so many blueberries and whipped cream, let's stick a candle in watermelon this time...

Father's Day 2011

The advantage to Single A baseball for Father's Day is you get to sit right in front of the plate.

It was brutally hot, I can't believe the mascot didn't get heat stroke.

Pretty sure the highlight for the kids were the peanuts (and possibly for my dad too.)

Pool

We spent 2 and a half hours at the pool today. Samuel and Shira begged to stay even though it was nearly bedtime, and definitely past dinner time.

How do I know that they had a stupendous time? Not only did they want to stay longer, but they didn't even take a snack break while we were there. This may be the longest either of my children has ever gone between meals. A clear sign these Silberman Kafkas were engrossed in their play.

Shira loved floating around, using her arms to balance. Samuel was enjoying the game of throwing Shira's goggles into the shallow end and "diving" to get them.

Shira was so exhausted by the end, that when we got in the car to go home, she requested a nap.

Unfortunately for us, this did not translate to a quicker than usual bedtime. True to form, my beyond exhausted, overstimulated children took longer than usual to go to sleep. I keep expecting that magic everyone else always talks about, where their kid passes out in 30 seconds because they were so exhausted from the day's activities. Nope. My kids are more likely to have an easy bedtime if they sit in the house all day and do nothing.

Lawrence Hall of Science

This weekend we met Joe, Dhea, Joey and Nolan at the place where it all began, the Lawrence Hall of Science. Well, not really. I'd say the place it all began was on a Schwinn Twinn up in the hills of Redwood City in the Emerald Lake neighborhood, but we did get married at the Lawrence Hall of Science, and this is the first time we'd been back since that momentous occasion.

It's a decent schlep, and the kids started out by entertaining each other with silliness. (Don't worry, we didn't get away with an hour long drive without screaming and having to pull the car over at least once for a potty break.)

We were all happy to be out of the car.

Shira was fascinated by the roaring and animated dinosaurs in the special exhibit. Not sure how educational, scientific, or accurate the show was, but it definitely pandered to our age group.

Samuel enjoyed using an exhibit completely improperly, instead of using these plastic pieces to dam the river, he liked to huck them into the river and retrieve them further down.

The still happy couple, picture taken in almost the exact spot we took our vows.

Rock Climbing!

I finally managed to finagle babysitting for a date night and Steve and I went climbing at a nearby climbing gym for the first time since Shira was an itty bitty baby in an infant carseat. We decided to renew our membership on the spot and commit to start climbing again.

Membership in hand, I took Samuel and Shira climbing the very next morning. Samuel was thrilled because he remembered loving it from 2 years ago.

He had such a tremendous time, that he insisted on going the very next day as well, even though we had just gotten back from a fun and exhausting trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley (he didn't even want to stop at home, he just wanted to drive straight to the climbing gym.)

It is so awesome to see the improvement in his climbing just from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, and from one day to the next.

Shira is also getting in on the climbing action. She definitely liked being tied into the rope and harness, but mostly because she thought it was cool to fall off the wall and swing. Even so, she will climb up a foot or two with me spotting her (as long as I don't tie her in). Shira also discovered the wonders of climbing chalk, and would follow Steve around the gym begging for "Chalk! Chalk!"

Samuel explains some detail of his ascent.

Samuel discovered the slack line outside and gave it a whirl.

Also awesome - Samuel was excited to give us a turn to climb, even insisting that Steve needed to get a last turn before we left, because I had had a last turn and Samuel had had a last turn already.

Messy Art

Samuel and Shira got one of the coolest recycled gifts ever for their birthday from a couple of doctor friends of ours, and I finally got around to pulling it out, after much negotiating from Samuel.

The McBeths gave us a bunch of left over from casts Plaster of Paris, as well as a doctors gown, blue hospital sheet and wash basin to do with what we would (all guaranteed unused, but about to be thrown out, for the squeamish ones out there). There was also a very thoughtful list of instructions.

And because Shira prefers to use her body as a canvas...

And because I hadn't had enough of messy art a couple of days later...

And because the water was already flowing to clean off the sliding glass door they had just painted...

And because it was finally hot enough outside...

Bubbie comes to garden, Popsie comes for baseball

As promised, Bubbie came up to help us plant our new garden, but Bubbie doesn't garden without accoutrements. Here the kids help her to rebuild a birdhouse that she brought up to decorate our new yard.

And a few days later Popsie came up to take Samuel to his first ever baseball game at Pacbell Park. And of course he made sure Samuel got thrown a ball from the dugout.

Here Shira is before she realized that she was stuck staying home with Mommy.