Anna hasn't napped for a two years now.  She just started to take showers on her own (instead of baths with her sister).  She still can't tie her own shoelaces, but that is my fault for not teaching her yet.  She rides her bike like a daredevil.  She hosts a restaurant called "Anna's place" on our side yard and it includes a tip jar for fake tips.  She told me last night that she wants "to be an artist just like Picasso" and that she was "copying one of his painting in school yesterday".  Can you tell I'm feeling really nostalgic that my baby girl is growing up?

But when I told her that some people get to watch over animals FOR A LIVING, she absolutely grinned.  There's nothing she wants more than to overrun our house with animals.  Hamsters, cats, birds, fish, dogs, bunnies, chinchillas, horses, squirrels, toads, and kangaroos have all been requests at one time or another.  Finally, at long last, our cats have let her into their personal space.  Chief lets her carry him around like a doll.  And she loves him for it.

Shhh, the blog's been alseep for a good long while.  I gratefully took a lot of time during the off season to cleanup my office, computer, papers, and several other nooks and crannies.  Especially great was spending some extra time with my family.  I'm sitting on some cool sessions that need to be blogged soon...but first we will ease back into blogging with a video of Holly. 

All Holly asked for at Christmas was a mini-video camera (like my flip).  There was no way we were going to get her an expensive camera, so Jason scanned the black friday ads in search of a cheap alternative.  We scored a deal with a $25 video camera that operates on a single AA battery with an internal small hard drive.  PERFECT.

I'm pretty sure Holly was inspired to ask for this gift based on the show iCarly.  If you don't know iCarly it is because you don't have kids between the ages of 4 and 12 and you've been watching cool shows like Dexter and Weeds.  (Lucky!)  Anyways, the show is about a girl named Carly who makes a web-tv show about all things kid.  Without any delay...here's Holly's version. 

By the way, Holly made this all by herself in secret.  We heard her talking to herself in the corner of the living room while we were all busy doing other things.  When asked, she shared her video with us and said I could "webcast" it for her here.  YEAH!  (and she's talking about "passing out lollipops at school" in case you can't understand that part of the video)

The girls have been seeing all the commercials for the movie Where The Wild Things Are.  So Anna asked to read the book before bed the other night.  I searched high and low...only to discover we no longer own the book.  Wow, how did that happen?  Must have been during one of our aggressive anti-clutter cleanups that we do about 4-6 times a year.  Kids collect "stuff" incredibly fast, and if we weren't careful about it, I'm pretty sure we could end up on Hoarders show before too long.  Anyways...I really enjoyed these drawings that Anna and Holly did of the creatures after they saw the movie.  I especially like that Holly put eyelashes on the horns of her creature. 

Holly learned how to ride a bike on Thursday night.  My neighbors were on my case to take some photos of the event, but it was so dark and I was lazy.  The best part was that she learned to bike in high heels and a pink skirt...so very Holly.

Now it is all she and Anna want to do.  This morning, I woke up to Holly standing my bedside with her helmet already on asking to go outside and bike.  It was 7:10 am.  OH BOY!  I did the good mom thing and went outside with both of them before it really heated up this afternoon.

Here's some quick snaps of Holly on her (slightly undersized) pink bike.  And Anna on her new blue cruiser (for $10! yeah garage sale!).

Summer flew by in a whirl.  The girls went to the water park so much that they actually asked NOT to go by the end of August.  (didn't even know that was possible)  I wish we'd have installed little computers on the girls bikes, because I'm sure that they covered over 1,000 miles just on our little street alone.  They slept in each other's rooms most nights.  Played dolls, made me tons of drawings for my walls, and learned how to get along with each other.

I have termed this the "summer of love" because of how well they got along.  I will remember it fondly because I've learned that kids are rarely the same from one month to the next.

We topped the summer off with a redesign of the girls' rooms just before school started.  They got to choose new bed spreads, curtains, wall color, and some decorations.  I think their favorite parts were the stripes on the walls, the Chinese paper lanterns, and the bean bags.  They were so incredibly happy with the new rooms that they stayed in them for about 2 days straight.  I called them "catalog kids"...you know the ones in the Pottery Barn catalog that are sitting all nicely on their neatly made beds just reading some innocent book and smiling neatly?  Probably some nice small dog curled up in the corner too?  Yeah, we had those kids for 2 days.  It was wonderful.

Both girls started school this year.  Holly is in kindergarten and Anna in 2nd grade.  I did really well on Holly's first day of school and wasn't crying at all...until I saw Anna's teacher from last year walk by.  Senora Michel was so special for us...I just couldn't help but cry.  Such a sap, huh?

Holly has already learned a lot of spanish in just 2 weeks...she knows all her colors, how to count to 17, and several basic commands.  Let's just hope she loses that gringa accent soon though.  She sounds pretty funny in spanish.

Anna is super excited about hanging out with her peer group.  We had new neighbors move in behind our house about a month ago.  Last night the little girl climbed to the top of the fence and popped her head over to talk to Anna.  They both spent about an hour talking while perched on top of the fence.  It really took me back to my happy kid memories.  I love times like that.