The Bernal Festival, Year IV

This year Bernal's annual street festival fell on my birthday. Lucky me! So that was my pick for our Sunday adventure. It was perfect. We walked down between morning and afternoon naps, took in some farm animals and carnival food, then headed back home to crash.

The morning actually turned out to be such a success (which you'll see in a second!) that we went for round 2 after naps. This explains Em's mysterious wardrobe change in the pics below :)

... Ok, so I was going to let the pictures do the talking, but I'm too excited so I'll spill the beans now: Emily - rode - a - pony. Yep, a real, live pony. And she stayed on for the ENTIRE ride. She didn't beg to be taken off once the little guy started moving, like last year and the year before. We were shocked. And thrilled. So, our return to the festival that afternoon was prompted by Emily asking to ride the ponies AGAIN. Not wanting to squash her newfound equine enthusiasm, we were happy to have a second go around!

Meanwhile, our little warrior Charlotte got on (and stayed on) her *first ever* pony ride that day too. I actually wasn't surprised at all by her confidence and ease on the pony. If anything she seemed a bit... unimpressed. Like she was expecting/hoping for a camel or an elephant to ride instead. She had the same ho-hum reaction to the animals at the petting zoo too. She's a tough nut to crack, but once you get her smiles coming, oh man, they don't stop ;)

Ok, enough chit-chat. Here're some pics from the day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the festival was a hit! The girls especially loved the garlic fries and balloon flowers, which at this point are annual traditions. But the ponies were definitely the highlight of the day, for everyone. That evening, while we watched them pack everything up and board the ponies onto their trailer, Emily was very sad to wave good-bye. She's a sensitive soul, that one.

After this excitement, I'm determined to find us another festival with ponies before next fall!

Birthday Wishes

I turned 35 yesterday. Which seems a little... monumental. Some days I can't believe this life I'm leading.

Do I have to keep my past birthday wishes a secret? If they came true? No... right? Probably not. So I'll let you in on one of them: when I turned 30 I blew out my candles and wished for a family. I already had Matt (thank goodness!) now it finally felt like time to grow. And for some reason that silent wish made over some fancy dessert felt a little scary.

That wish was a leap of faith, because I didn't quite know what life as a Mama would look like. And boy does it look different. In 5 short years my life got flipped upside down. But in the best way possible. I gained not 1 but 2 (!) daughters who are c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y vying for my attention. While exhausting, yes, I still pinch myself as I fall asleep at night that this is MY life. Having two little girls take turns climbing into my lap the moment the other one gets distracted and rolls out. How lucky am I?!

I often complain that we don't have any sweetly posed pics of all 3 of us. But I'm beginning to see these candids as the real gems.

The moments captured are blurry, but that's an accurate reflection of our lives these days. Days that are exhausting, yet completely satisfying. In many ways the past 5 years have been a blur, it all happened so fast. Yet so perfectly.

Guess birthday wishes do come true. So I'll keep mine from this year a secret... for now ;)

The Oakland Zoo!

Emily's been asking about elephants recently, and since we're still members at the Oakland Zoo, Emily - Daddy - Grammy & Grampa took a trip over to the East Bay last weekend to see some.

I wasn't there, so the pics have to speak for themselves. (Emily's not always the most reliable source of info these days.) Itthey had a 's obvious they had a great time! Especially during lunch where, I heard, there was lots of silliness going on.

 

 

 

 

Nope, that elephant is not doing tricks. Totally looks like he's balancing the
ball on his trunk, but it's an optical illusion. (I know, I fell for it too.) 

 

Isn't this family of prairie dogs (?) the cutest?! Reminds me of my own :)

 

 

LOTS of lunch time giggles.

 

 

 

 

Glad I missed the Charlotte sized bats. Ick. 

 Homeward bound!

Guests!

We have some visitors here this week! Grammy and Grampa came to help out with the Columbus Day, aka a childcare holiday.

Charlotte got to spend a couple days with them all on her own, lucky girl. She was treated to books and PB&J!!

Since those are basically the keys to this this little girl's heart, they won her over pretty quickly.

Nicknames

 

We've been known to use a lot of nicknames around here: Daddy-o, Mommy-o, Ems, chief chirpa, honey bunny, scoocher... And a bunch of other nonsensical words and phrases, too silly to even mention.

 

Charlotte definitely has the most unique nicknames. Right off the bat we started calling her Charlie, which somehow evolved into Charlotta. (It sounded funny at first, bu​t now it totally fits.) Then Matt started calling her Ciabatta :: as in the bread. And that's turned into Charlotta-Ciabatta-Chimichatta... (I know, we're nuts.)

 

Of all the things we call her, Em's nickname for Charlotte is the one that might actually stick. Forever. And we can't quite figure out where it even came from.

 

Em calls Charlotte lil' weedy. As in (referring to the pics above):

 

            "Look - lil' weedy's camouflaged."

                     "Hey - lil' weedy’s trying to chomp the book!"

                              "Uh oh, I think lil' weedy wants my water."

                                            "Lil' weedy, we don't wear sunglasses during dinner!"

 

Emily's the only one who uses this nickname, and it's been around for a l-o-n-g time. (Sidenote, one day Emily randomly called Charlottes "captain" and I REALLY tried to make that one stick, but alas, it didn't take.)

So, dear Charlotte, if in 15 or 20 years Emily still calls you "lil' weedy," know that she says it fondly. I'm sure you'll have gotten her back in countless ways by then!

 

{I have this tiny fear that one day when Em's away from home, someone will ask about her sister's name. I'm worried because there's a distinct possibility she would give one of Charlotte's nicknames instead of her real name. Like she would say her sister's name's "Ciabatta" - which would mean we named our second born after a light & airy bread. Or she might say it's "lil' weedy" - meaning we named her after some undesirable groundcover. Guess that's what we get for using so many nicknames.}

Pool Day

Our weather's been really nice these past few weeks, but for some reason the pool we gave Charlotte for her birthday hasn't gotten much use. Until today.

 (The glasses were all Charlotte's idea, btw.)

 

 

 

 

 Might find these two out there again tomorrow!