New "hobbies"

Here's the latest with what the Solano girls are up to...

Ashlyn is loving Preschool. She is a Peer Model in a reverse mainstream classroom and loves all her new friends. It was an adjustment having something fixed on our schedule 4 days a week. Our oldest is attending a school...I can't believe we are entering that phase of our life just when Brock is getting out of it finally :) I love how her backpack is bigger than she is.

Ashlyn has also been getting into knot tying. Here is Tweety birds torture. His beak is being tied to his eyebrows and below that is a tangled mess where several toys have been knotted together and threaded through a ruler.

Below you will see what she calls "traps". She builds a barricade of stuff either stacked on something or blocking off a room. Brock was the victim of this ingenious trap and oddly enough he didn't wake up for about an hour (I have video proof of him lightly snoring throughout the process). This was a joint effort between Ashlyn and Claire and neither of them whined during the entire process...they were both very dedicated and involved. I hope pulling a trick on dad doesn't have a similar allure later on during the teen-age years.

A similar stacking technique is used to make "Rocket ships" and box beds. This particular box is now on Ashlyn's bed and is a bed or house or whatever she wants to pretend it is and it is where she all her "special" toys stay that she doesn't want anyone to take.


Claire is a wonderful partner in crime for Ashlyn. She firmly believes that she should be attending preschool as well and I try not to take is too personally that she wants to leave me so early.


She does have a little play group she goes to once a week with some other cute 2-3 year olds. She loves having her own friends to play with.She likes having her alone time and usually will shut the door and pretend play or color on her own for a little while each afternoon. She does not like coloring at the table ( a little too confining) and with a crayon eater named Lara on the loose the bathroom became a place of retreat one day. I don't know how I feel about that yet.I hope someday Claire will embrace the use of utensils. She prefers hand feeding herself still, but she is a good eater.Lara is almost one now. She is developing quite the personality and is pretty determined and feisty.She loved playing with this little water spout at Universal Studios. The top middle picture is her "Stay Back" face/gesture usually given to Claire many times a day. She did not want to leave this spout.We are definitely busy little girls. I loved this shot featuring Ashlyn's "pose" that she strikes for the camera from time to time. Here they are with Brock enjoying the wonders of cotton candy...what is that stuff? It's magic. I used to love that stuff as a kid. Now all I can think of is, "That stuff has to be ruining their teeth" and "I hope they are still able to sleep during the car ride despite the sugar rush." We are no fun as adults. Of course I had to have a few bites for old times sake.

"Let's face it, most of us were scoffers, but moments before zero hour it did not pay to take chances."

Name that movie...one of my favorite lines of all times.

Adventures in Paradise (CA)

I took the girls a couple weeks ago to spend some time with Grandma Solano up in Paradise. Luckily we all survived the drive and had a great time with lots of adventures...(I sound like Dora the Explorer). unfortunately I only had the video camera, so the still photos leave something to be desired (focus).

#1 adventures in tadpole hunting
They had these huge bullfrog tadpoles that had already sprouted their hind legs. Its been a while since I went knee deep into murky pond water to catch tadpoles and crawdads, but it was an adventure. Needless to say it took a few prayers and a long hunt. The girls had fun holding it and we had checked out a book on frogs that morning from the library, so they got to see the stages, and "Helen" was safely returned to her murky pond and swam away very relieved.

#2 Adventures poolside

Luckily we had lots of relief from the heat. Claire finally had her ah ha moment in the pool. She had a life jacket on and a floaty ring and as usual she screamed when I let her go, but all of the sudden it hit her that she was not sinking to her death. She smiled and started kicking around and had a great time "Swimmin by herself" the last day there. I have that saga on video, but no still photos. Here is a blurry one of her warming up on the cement. I loved doing this as a kid. Lara had a great time as usual in the water and eating dinner poolside every night she got to destroy one of Grandma's napkin, and eat some of it. YUM.

The girls really loved this hula girl garden flag and asked me to take a picture of them next to it.

#3 Adventures with friends and family

We timed the trip just right to get to see the Jagodas and Aunt Gayle. The visits were too short, but so fun. The Jagodas oldest, Savannah, was born in Provo a couple months before Ashlyn. They lived across the driveway from us in a basement apartment just like ours. We always knew that Ashlyn and Savannah would hit it off. Too bad they live on the other side of the country from us. Dan and Britany are planning to take a vacation together next summer to Vegas without their kids. Brock and I are planning on crash their vacation and "just happen" to be there at the same time. Anyone else want to go on vacation with the Jagodas?

Brock's Aunt Gayle came and swam with us that afternoon and it made us miss our days in Utah when we got to see her more often.



#4 Adventures in Bakersfield

Luckily we had pit stops in bakersfield to and from Paradise and got to see Ernie and Ryker. It was Rykers birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE RYKER!!!!


Well, you know its time to stop blogging when your two year old comes in smelling like your deodorant. I'm sure I'll find the empty canister some day hidden somewhere with the empty tubes of glue stick she likes to randomly smear on her fisher price toys. Oh Claire--how qyickly she gets in to things. Time to go to the pool.

I have some catching up to do from our fun summer. In July we finally had all the Plumbs together for a few days. My older brother Willy came from NY and my younger brother Jesse came from NV with their families. It was sooo nostalgic to say the least. :) I mentioned in my previous post the fun beach day we had and the 14 kids under 9 that we had running around. It was awesome. We had a photo shoot the last day we were together to immortalize the occasion. Here is everyone together almost sliding down the bank. The day the Plumbs from NY left we got a shot with Great Grandmother and 12 out of 25 of her great grandchildren. We can all hope and pray that we look that great when we're 88.

Let's stack all the kids on a ladder!!! Very cute. I would have to use photoshop to get everyone looking. They were a little squirrely perched on their individual rungs, and we had to disband when Claire discovered that the two little kids heads below her were level with her foot. My little button pusher. She is always thinking, "What will happen if I ....."

My mom and dad loved being with all the grand kids. It was hard to get everyone looking the same direction in this picture too. To many aunts and uncles trying to make the kids look and smile.

can you identify the Plumb siblings...

I love being with family, and I'm glad two of my siblings live close. The girls love having some of their cousins nearby. We miss all of our other cousins!

Coming soon....our trip to Paradise.

This last week was full of fun with Plumb cousins galore. My two brothers that live out of state came to San Diego with all their kids, and Ashlyn and Claire were in heaven. We imposed greatly on my sister-in-law Kim's hospitality and took advantage of the time we had to visit and play. My favorite was our beach day. We had 14 cousins in all, oldest 9 years, and youngest 9 months. It was awesome, the weather was perfect, the waves were big and the sand was sandy...

Uncle Jesse kept the kids busy with hunting for sand crabs and loading them into buckets. I never did hear the final count...

Lara got her few mouthfuls of sand and was a happy camper. Claire only has boy cousins her same age, but she had a great time digging and wrestling.

You figure that when a kid is buried in sand they can't get into too much trouble, so Uncle Will (Brock keeps telling me I have to accept the fact that no one calls my brother Willy anymore, and that I should live in the now, so as painful as it was to call him Will there you go) got to bury several of the younger ones. Ashlyn and Sarah have soo much fun and always want to plan more play dates.

I'll post more pics of the Plumb reunion soon. Here are a few other random July pics that I wanted to comment on...

Ashlyn is my little dress-up lady, but my favorite accessory is her purple striped wrist bands given to me for my birthday by my cute niece. Ashlyn has claimed them as her own since I don't go to the gym, so don't have many opportunities to wear sweat bands. Also, notice the way she is kneeling with her toes pointed out. My little brother kneels this way and it is extremely uncomfortable for most people, but I don't know if its genetic and due to unusual knee joints. Give it a try...Claire loves her stuffed dogs. I love it when kids rediscover a long-lost toy. The white dog had been buried in the toy box for a few weeks and she dug it out and was thrilled.

**Side note. I put the girls down tonight at 8:30 after we had cleaned their room, and 10 minutes ago I hear, "Mom can I have my blanket?" I find Ashlyn's blanket and go in to find the lights on and toys everywhere. They had been quietly playing in there for a whole hour and a half. Brock and I were listening to a talk on the computer and we didn't hear a sound...Sneaky sneaky....why can't they do that when I need to make phone calls during the day?

Lara's my little water baby. Ashlyn and Claire are pretty wimpy when it comes to water, but Lara can't get enough. She loves her bath time.

Can't believe it's already AUGUST!!!!

Hope you all had a fabulous 4th. I finally downloaded my pictures. The Girls were excited about their patriotic garb this year. We got to hang out at Spencer and Kim's and swim, BBQ, watch fireworks and eat an amazing patriotic cake thanks to Kim.

There's no wrong way to eat a hot dog...

Before the 4th we had my sister-in-law Kim and her kids over to play at the spray park and then hit the last hour of Legoland. We were excited that we actually got Ashlyn on one of the rollercoasters...there's nothing like a little peer pressure. It's fun to see these kids grow up together. Ashlyn and Claire love their cousins. I love the picture with Sarah, Melanie, and Daniel...What could be better than playing with cousins and having two real babies to put into baby strollers and wagons. Baby Melanie's expression is : "business as usual, thanks for craming me into this tiny stroller I'll just try to hold on for dear life."

We visited Dino Mountain recently at the Wild animal park. Ashlyn and Claire were truely frightened/excited. The Dinos moved, made noises, and one of them even spit water at you. It was a lot of fun to walk around...except for Claire who insisted on being carried. What truly frightened me was a lady who decided to lecture me on how to make a boy baby, Brock managed to slip away before it got too graphic...more on that later ...no I'll spare you the details.

Ashlyn felt that these dinos were small enough to pose by, but they growled at her unexpectedly and she jumped right after this was taken. I wish I had a video. It was great.