Parker and Penelope's first day of Kindergarten

The day Parker and Penelope looked forward to all summer finally arrived: the first day of Kindergarten.  They were so excited!  They were thrilled with their new clothes and shoes and backpacks.  Here is Parker waiting in front of his class:

And here are Parker and Penelope together.  They, unfortunately, are not in the same class.  I did request them to be but the principal feels very strongly that twins should be split up.  I'm not terribly worried about them being apart, I just think it would be easier (for me) to have them in the same class and they do love each other.  We'll have to see how it goes.

 Here I am with my oh-so-big kindergarteners:

 With dad:

 And here is Penelope in front of her classroom:

 So excited to see what is going on inside:

 Penelope got a little nervous when we went into her room but we quickly got her situated and said goodbye.  This is where I teared up and had put my sunglasses on.  I didn't want to scare her or give her reason to not be excited for the day.

 Then we  walked down to Parker's classroom and got him settled in

 Saying goodbye to dad:

 My last look at him before leaving:

 Just over five hours later, I was picking them up.  Unfortunately, the camera was on video so I didn't get a shot of Penelope coming out of her classroom but here is Parker with his teacher:

 They both said they had a good day and told me lots about it.  And they were both excited about going back the next day so that is a good sign.  Here's to hoping the rest of the school stays this positive!

Oliver started preschool!

The day finally arrived.  Oliver got to go to preschool instead of just helping drop off and pick up Parker and Penelope.  He has been looking forward to this day for a long time!  I'm so proud of him, he asked if I could come in 'just for a minute' like he does every Sunday when I take him primary but I told moms don't go to preschool but that I would be back and pick him up, he walked right in and sat down.  My friend Heather was the mom helper and told me that for the first little bit he wouldn't look at anyone or answer questions but he finally settled in and got involved.  He told me his favorite part was listening to the song "Going on a bear hunt"  He also said he colored a bus (on a paper), ate a snack of yogurt and graham crackers, played with trucks and rode a bike outside while wearing a red helmet.  All in all I think he had a great day.  I wanted to get a picture of him and his teacher but the school is working hard to streamline pick-up and drop-off so I didn't get a chance.  Maybe on Thursday.  In any case, here are the pics we took before and at the beginning of Oliver's first day of preschool:

They each wanted a turn holding Lily in the picture so we did it.

   I was really nervous letting Oliver hold her though.  But no one dropped her, success!

 

 Love how Lily's tongue is out in this one:

 

 Saying goodbye to dad:

 Parker and Penelope start kindergarten tomorrow so they came with us for drop-off, here they are watching Oliver through the window:

Here's to a good start to a hopefully great year of preschool for Oliver!

Parker

Parker is a delightful 5-year old.  He is such a good boy and has a strong desire to do what is right.  He is, as we say, without guile.  He is in swim lessons and LOVES them.  He loves being in the water and is working so hard so he can swim in our community pool without a life jacket.  What a change from a couple years ago when he first took swim lessons and cried through most of the lessons.  Parker loves legos and spends a lot of time building things and playing with his men.  He was quite obsessed with superheroes at the beginning of the year but it has been overtaken by a love of Star Wars.  He sees things in black and white and always asks at the beginning of a book/story/movie if there is a bad guy and who it is and who gets the bad guy.  He reminds me every morning to read from our Book of Mormon Stories and his favorites are always the ones with clear cut good guys and bad guys.  He loves doing things with his friends and when we go somewhere he always asks what friends will be there. His good friends are Mikey Oleksy and Carson Young.  He is so excited for kindergarten and is ready to make new friends.  He doesn't love sitting down and working on writing and reading but once he gets going he tries so hard and is getting really good with writing his letters and numbers.  He has memorized Articles of Faith 1-8 and he says really thoughtful prayers.  He often tries to take on the role of parent and reprimand his siblings, I'll say to him "Parker, you are not the mommy, I am the mommy."  He's my early riser and is up between 6am and 6:30am.  He's very modest and gets dressed right away.  He doesn't like to be sticky or dirty and washes his hands a lot.  He is a good eater and loves string cheese, pepperoni, mac and cheese, fruit, pizza and water.  He loves water and chooses it over juice or soda.  He is not shy, yesterday at the grocery store he told the cashier "My name is Parker and I'm five."  He has a naturally loud voice, I'm often telling him to use his inside voice.  He learned to ride a bike without training wheels this summer and he's a natural!  He loves riding his bike and goes so fast. He loves, loves, loves his daddy and always asks when he'll be home and what days he gets to stay home.  We love having Parker in our family!

Let's go to the movies

Our kids have never been to the movie theater so I decided this summer we would take them!  Monsters University seemed like the perfect movie: rated G, they had seen Monsters Inc., and it was coming out this summer.  So we bought some movie treats, got dad to come home and work while Lily slept and we were off!

All in all the kids did well.  Parker asked a lot of questions (with his not-so-quiet voice) and I kept having to shhhh him and tell him to just watch.  And of course he couldn't make it through the movie without going to the bathroom once, he truly is his father's son.  Penelope wanted to eat all the candy I brought before the movie even started and about 3/4 of the way through Oliver kept asking if we could go home!  But, they still talk about the movie and act out their favorite parts.  I think the outing was a success!

We have a six month old

I can't believe we are already here (plus a couple weeks).  Lily is halfway to one, crazy!  To mark the occasion Lily decided to pop out her first tooth (lower right) and she started sitting up unassisted (mostly).

 At her six-month visit to the doctor she was just shy of 18 lbs which I thought was big but then we met a 6-month-old boy at church who weighs 24 lbs!  Stranger anxiety has already set in, she knows when mom doesn't have her and gets very concerned pretty quickly.  Luckily she still goes to dad!

She still LOVES being around her siblings and really loves when they interact with her or sing to her, its pretty cute.  Here she is on the floor in the playroom, she loves being in there because that is where Parker, Penelope and Oliver generally are (plus there are fun toys to suck on!):

 

We have started solids but from these pics it doesn't look like we have taken the conventional route.  Here she is gnawing on a carrot:

And here she is taking a little sip of mom's shave ice:

We have also started things like oatmeal cereal and peas but those just aren't as exciting so I don't have pics of them!

 In honor of her turning six months, we got some professional shots of her done--ok, not really, my friend (who took pics at the twins' birthday party) has a little studio in her front yard and her family is raising money to go to Disneyland next year by offering photos shoots of kids for pretty cheap so we decided to take advantage.  Here are a couple (of many) that I love:

 

We sure love our little Lilyana Kai!

Water baby

Even though we live in Hawaii, I haven't really let Lily get in the water yet.  I've been trying to protect her skin and what not but it was time to introduce her to the world of water (outside of the bath).  Well she took right to it.  We went to our pool last week and she loved just floating around in her toy watching the action.  Then on Memorial day we went to the beach and she had a great time in the ocean with dad and mom.  I think we may be raising a water baby!

5 years old

It seems like just yesterday that I gave birth to a sweet baby boy named Parker and a darling little girl named Penelope but really it was five years (and 4 days) ago.  I now have two 5-year olds.  Where does time go?  That first year, well, Tory and I joke that we don't like to talk about it.  It was rough but we survived.  And now, now I just love being a mother of twins, my twins.

To celebrate their big day we decided to throw a big superhero bash.  We invited way too many kids, I stressed about what to do and how to organize the party but we did have a few flashes of inspiration.  One was to have Tory's seminary students come help run the party and another was to have my friend Foeata (a fantastic photographer) take photos of the party. So without further ado here are some photos from the party:

 The party was chaos but the kids seemed to have a good time and its taken Tory and I about a week to recover from it so I think it was a success!

Then on the Monday after the party I was the parent helper in their preschool class so Tory brought cupcakes at the end to celebrate their birthday.

Parker with his Star Wars cupcakes:

And Penelope with her Hello Kitty cupcakes:

And then on Wednesday, their ACTUAL birthday, they had their last day of preschool after which we took them on a little picnic:

 Parker got a Lego Star Wars encyclopedia which he immediately began to pour over.

And Penelope got a princess carriage that makes bubbles.

I got to take Parker and Penelope clothes shopping which was so fun but I didn't take any photos.  Then we headed home to go to the pool.  Sadly, the pool was closed when we got there so we told the kids we would go home and open presents and here they are playing with them.

 After dinner we had cake and then FINALLY the birthday festivities were over.  They were certainly fun while they lasted but its nice to get back to normal.  I'm so in awe that we have two 5-year olds in our house and so so thankful they are ours!