Rasa Bea

Last night Rasa was standing in the kitchen peeling a little clementine while balancing on her tippy toes. She told me today at lunch the teachers were franticly peeling all of the hot lunch kids oranges because "they were hard to peel and the teachers kept saying if the kids peel them they'll spend their whole lunch peeling the orange and not have time to eat and then they'll be hungry".

I said, "It sounds to me like those teachers care an awful lot about you kids"

Rasa smiled and said, "yeah, they're teaching us to be grown ups"

This made my heart sad because it's actually true despite my efforts to keep them kids the world is kind of against you by always pushing forward too far into the future you can't hold on to today for even a second.

I looked at her standing there looking so grown up. I could picture her at 14 looking just exactly as she was standing there only bigger.

I said, "But don't grow up too fast, okay? It's REALLY special being a kid"

Rasa, "I already know that………plus, I want the moon to stay special"

spring break!

Spring break started off beautiful in the 40's and 50's and we spent lots of time outside on bikes and walks. We've made it a habit to walk to Seward Co-op to pick up a treat and burn the calories on the hilly walk home.
We had Abbi over for the day and hiked up to Cupcake for a treat and after playing at Pratt. The girls got to play at Remy's and see a fairy house and a bald eagles nest. Later in the week they had their friend Nova come to play, went to Soren's to play and brunch at Nana's with a couple cousins. Today we are holed up in the house as it's chilly out again (20's) and we got about 8 inches of snow last night into the morning!

adventure's in preschool

I wanted to have a place to put (phone) pictures of the girls and their preschool friends. They've made some pretty special friendships this year!

Baker day at school!

I got to parent help in the classroom on the day that a baker came to school to tell the children all about his life as a baker. He is now retired and goes to schools to tell stories to children. The kids thought he was wonderful and actually I found him to be very sweet and quite entertaining!
Here is Adia and her best friend Abbi taking a peek into the bakers bowl :)

first lost tooth!

Just over a week ago we discovered a permanent tooth had popped through in Rasa's mouth. A day later her baby tooth in front of it was loose. It took a lot of wiggling but she told me to "get it out!" last night so she could bring her tooth to show and tell at school.

Here's her new smile (for now!).

this winter….

This has been a fun and busy winter for us! The girls are doing amazing in school and it's so surprising to me what they are able to learn going only three days a week for three hours!

I LOVE age 5! It seems like overnight they went from being very dependent on me to help with their needs and all of the sudden they are they cool, fun, silly and independent little kids who I happen to love hanging out with! They are so capable and I believe preschool has given them an immense amount of confidence to do new things and try to take care of themselves first without asking for help (which they are usually able to do!).

The biggest change over this year is the girls love for playdates. Playdates where someone else picks them up from school and they spend the afternoon's at friend's houses. They love hosting playdates here and I love that when I bring kids home with us from school that the kids have the ability to play together without guidance or help from me. What a difference from 4 to 5! All of the sudden Rasa and Adia have a social life of their own and it's given them so much more than I would have ever thought possible. They have their own identity, their own unique friends and they share a few too. For twins I believe this is a big deal in them developing into their own person, that of which is not a pair. We've had a lot of help in doing this from the families in our school that just "get it" and invite the girls both together and separately. Does it sounds like I'm beaming? I am!

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely saddened by the thought of them going off to school next year all day, every day. I worry about school killing their imagination and thirst to create and play. I hope to be able to nourish those things in them evenings and weekends!

We moved! Yes, you read that correctly. We moved, again! We are back in the city we LOVE and treasure and SO unbelievably happy to be Minneapolis residents again! We are up on a hill in Prospect Park and I could gush about it all day long but you get the point. The biggest gift in moving here is we already had a community of friends and families that we love and now we're closer to them and taking advantage of it. Royce is less than 2 miles away from his work and we like seeing him for lunch everyday! We are also one block from Pratt Community School which is likely where the girls will go to Kindergarten next year.

Rasa has been in dance with her friend from last years summer preschool, Amelia. She started in September and has really loved being on stage the most. It's funny for us to see her SO comfortable and happy in front of a crowd when typically she shy's away from attention. She LOVES dance. Her best friend in school is Nova who is widely outgoing and fun. She has the eyes of Soren on her, a boy in class the teacher's tell me and his Mom is "in love with Rasa" :)


Adia is hesitant to start activities but has agreed to play t-ball with her friend, Remy, from school this summer so we signed her up! I'm excited to watch because just playing around in the back yard last summer she's definitely capable! Adia loves her best friend, Abbi but REALLY enjoyes her playdates with the boys in school because they like to wrestle and so does she!


I'm really enjoying the time I have with my two little buddies. They're little helpers and great kids and I realize that more and more everyday how lucky I am to have been blessed with two wonderful and beautiful little girls.

So COME ON OVER! Bring your kids!

This is 5

Five seems SO huge! I don't know why. They're only in preschool, they still spend more of their time with me than with anyone but something about five is just big. Maybe it's the anticipation for this year and all of the HUGE changes in store for them.

The girls birthday was on Thursday and my parents decided to take them out as their birthday present. They picked them up and brought them to Mall of America. The girls got to pick out an outfit from the disney store, go on rides at Nick Universe and have lunch at Rainforest Cafe! LUCKY GIRLS!!

We had a birthday party for the girls with their friends at Rainbow in Bloomington. It's a huge indoor playground where the kids just get to run and play. Their friends that were there were: Amelia, Abbi, Devan, Soren, Gabby and Isaac, Olivia and Owen, Adam and Andrew and Nova. They had a great time! Sadly, I decided to just enjoy the party and not take pictures and Royce's point and shoot camera malfunctioned so we didn't get one single picture that turned out! We did get a short video clip at least…lesson learned!
Royce's vocals to Happy Birthday overshadow everyone else's ;) Click HERE for video.