Bella celebrated her birthday a few more times. What a lucky girl! Gung Gung bought a cake and came over with Ashley's family and Tao Po. Tao Po loves to take pictures with her great grand daughters.
The family went out to dinner that evening. Uncle Derek and Auntie Gabby were there.
Mommy and Daddy left work early to celebrate with Bella's class. Bella brought a special snack of yogurt sticks and passed them out to her friends. Excuse the spaced look on her face. She had just woken up from her nap and was still a little groggy.
Her classmates sang Happy Birthday to her. Bella wanted to sit on Teacher H's lap.
After snack, Daddy and Mommy stayed and played with Bella and her friends in the yard. Teacher M sang a Spanish song while the kids danced.
Katelyn, Daddy and Mommy sang Happy Birthday one last time to Bella at home.
Katelyn has been doing well in swimming class. Her favorite is the back swim.
She has been practicing her roll overs each week.
Bella is having so much fun in the water with Daddy. Mommy asked Bella if she could go in the water with Bella. She replied, No, Daddy! No complaints by Mommy!
Bella had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed party party. Daddy set up a jumpy house in the garage and the girls tried it out before the guests came.
Ava was the first to arrive. Mommy wanted a pic of her god daughter. It's always nice to see her. It's not too often since she lives pretty far.
Another one of the activities of the party was a pinata. Take a peek at K's turn with the bat.
The birthday girl got some help from Uncle Dan.
The kids made a mad dash for all the loot.
One of the toys that came out of the pinata was a whistle (sorry parents). Katelyn used her whistle and pretended she was a coach while James, Luke and Tristan raced each other.
Allison was such a helpful friend. She held the bubble wand for Bella every time Bella dipped the wand to blow more bubbles.
Thanks to all the aunties, uncles and friends who came to celebrate Bella's birthday and the thoughtful gifts.
This year has gone by incredibly fast! Mommy and Daddy can hardly believe Bella is 2. Some of her milestones include speaking in 5 word sentences and carrying a full conversation. She can count to 5 and sometimes 10 and can recognize the first 5 letters of the alphabet. According to her teachers, she is a pretty good eater at school. She is the first to sit down at lunch and the last to get up. She remains active and likes to go up and down the stairs without holding on. She loves swimming class. She wants to go into the pool before her class starts. She has quite the personality. When asked to take a picture, she sticks out her tongue.
Daddy, Mommy and Katelyn are constantly laughing at the things Bella does or comes up with. Here's one example, grabbing a dish towel and pretending it's her hat.
She climbs and gets into anything. Her teachers lately says she likes to play hide and seek.
Each day she grows more independent like trying to dress herself by putting on her sister's tank top all by herself.
She loves her big sister. Even though the girls fight over toys, Bella will always ask where jei jei is when jei jei leaves the room. Bella follows and copies everything Katelyn does and looks up to her.
Happy Birthday to our silly girl. You bring so much joy and laughter and always keeps us on our toes! We wish you the happiest of birthdays!
The month of January has already kicked off with many birthday celebrations. Mason celebrated his 4th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese.
It was the first time the girls have ever been there. Bella had fun putting the tokens in the machine.
She played a video game and pretended she was a race car driver.
She really liked hitting the frogs that popped up with a hammer. Khloe watched on the sidelines.
Katelyn's favorite game was catching the balls that dropped into cups. She focused really hard to make sure to catch them.
After the party, the girls had a play date at Ashley's house. Everyone climbed on top of Ethan. He's so patient with these three sassy girls!
The next day the girls celebrated Jacob's second birthday. Here's the little man with his dad. They look so much alike!
Jacob had his party at Noe Valley Rec Center which was a big gym filled with toys.
Bella was so happy to see Josh at the party. When Josh went to the restroom, she asked, "Where's Josh?" She had the biggest smile on her face when he came out. She took him by the hand and said, "C'mon Josh." Mommy wished she got a picture of her dragging him by the hand.
Outside the rec center was a playground. Katelyn climbed on top of the monkey bars and swung across them.
Mommy had a business trip a couple weeks ago to UCSD. Auntie Jill and Millie came to visit Mommy at her hotel. It was great to see them! Millie has grown since the last time Mommy saw her and she's very affectionate.
Even though it was a short business trip, Mommy missed the girls. Fortunately there was Face-Time.
Katelyn's classroom had a book exchange last month. Each student was asked to bring a wrapped book to school. In the afternoon each child got to pick a book out of the box and keep it. Katelyn got a book from her friend, Mia and it turned out Mia got the wrapped book Katelyn brought.
Mommy filled out enrollment papers for Katelyn to start Kindergarten later this year. Mommy can't believe how fast the time went! Katelyn will really miss her classmates and teachers once it's time to transition.
Bella had her visit to the dentist last week. There were lots of toys like this rocking horse in the waiting room.
When Bella met the dentist, he explained to her all the different tools he was going to use like this mirror to look into her mouth.
After a few minutes, she turned her head and gave the dentist the silent treatment.
Instead of laying on the chair, she rested her head on the dentist's lap. The dentist counted her teeth and she got a fluoride treatment. Bella is still missing 4 teeth, two of which are her back molars. We were all expecting big tears to roll down her face and screaming, but Bella remained calm and didn't cry. It helped when Katelyn told her beforehand going to the dentist was not scary and didn't hurt.
Afterwards Bella took a picture with the dentist. The office framed her picture as a memento.
Bella got stickers and picked a toy turtle for doing such a good job! Katelyn also got to pick out stickers for helping out and being such a good big sister.
Last weekend, the girls went to the Academy of Sciences to check out the reindeer exhibit before it was gone.
There were arts and crafts to make reindeer antlers. Katelyn traced and cut out the antlers.
Bella glued on beads.
Here was the final product. Katelyn wore her antlers the whole time at the Academy.
Katelyn celebrated her classmate Chloe's party at a gym. Her favorite activity was jumping on the trampoline.
Happy Birthday, Chloe!
After the party, some of Katelyn's friends wanted to take a walk to see the water.
The girls posed for a nice picture before heading home.
Bella's is pretty talkative these days. Her teachers say she can hold a conversation and speaks in 5 word sentences. One of Mommy's favorite things, Bella says is "I love you!" It melts Mommy's heart every time. Bella will sometimes just come up to Mommy and say, "I love you, Mommy!"
She can be comical at times. She likes to pretend to fake cry when she doesn't get something she wants.
The girls love when it rains. It means they can put on their rain coats, rain boots and walk with their umbrellas. It takes twice as long to get somewhere, but puts a smile on their face.
Katelyn continues to like to read stories to Bella. She can't necessarily read the words, but has the book memorized and retells the story to her little sister.
Bella still plays with her dolls every day. When Mommy was cooking dinner, she found Bella changing the baby using her diapers. Bella gave Mommy this look like she did nothing wrong.
It doesn't seem like Katelyn is tired of her princess costumes. When she gets home, she will change and pretend she is a princess. She even walks up the stairs like she is royalty holding up her dress and making sure to walk carefully.
Zuri moved schools since her dad got a new job. Her dad asked if Katelyn could have a play date. The girls went to the park and had lunch. It seemed as though they picked up where they last left off and have never been apart.
Over Christmas break, Daddy suggested to go on a road trip to Reno for the girls to play in the snow. Mommy was hesitant of the long car ride. Generally Bella does not like the car seat. Surprisingly on the way up, she did well except the last 20 minutes. She cried non stop. On the way home she was feeling sick and extremely cranky. On the way to Reno, we stopped off at Soda Springs which had a snow park for kids. We arrived 20 minutes before closing, so the kids were not able to partake in the activities. However, the girls dressed up in their snow gear and experienced snow for the first time.
Bella made her first snow angel.
Mason, Sam, and Khloe were in Reno too. The first night everyone got together for dinner. Po Po came along since she missed the girls when she was gone for Christmas. Gung Gung was sick and didn't come.
The next day Auntie Ann found a visitors center that had mini slopes which was perfect for the kids. Katelyn loved going sledding. She yelled, "Again!" in this video.
Bella tried sledding too.
Katelyn was such a nice big sister and pulled Bella on the sled. In the video, she asked if Bella was doing ok. Bella replied, "fun!"
Bella loved sitting on the sled with her older sister and being pulled by Po Po.
Khloe looked so cute all bundled up in her snow gear.
McKenna, Rylan and Nathan were in Tahoe and joined the group for dinner. Afterwards the girls headed to Circus Circus with them to play games and watch the circus acts.
Bella even let McKenna hold her.
Later that night, Josh and Christian arrived at the hotel. The girls got to stay up past their bed time to hang out with them.
The next morning the girls were happy to see Christian and Josh again. This time for breakfast.
After breakfast, they went to the indoor play area inside the hotel. They had big slides and jumpy houses. Christian and Josh worked up a sweat trying to keep up with the girls. They were such good babysitters!
