The McPherson Chronicles

Grumpy Olivia then Grumpy Olivia now

It's been miserable here. Not quite earthquakes and hurricanes, but plenty of heat and humidity to drive us crazy. I think our air conditioner ran non stop from Thursday to Saturday without getting the house below 86 (it was 106 outside). Yuck. We decided Sunday morning we needed to escape for a bit and headed down to Newport Beach.  We spent a few hours splashing in the waves, building sand castles and enjoying our lunch in the cool 80 degree beach weather. It was glorious.

It's official. I have 2 Daddy's girls. They have always been crazy about their Daddy but lately he's shot straight to the top. We're so lucky that he has the time right now to be able to spend so much time with his girls. They adore him and he adores them.

Look who had their first trip to the dentist? My Aunt happens to be a dental hygienist and cleans most of the family's teeth. She just won herself 2 new patients! They are already comfortable around her from all the time at Grandma's house so they weren't shy at all when it came time for them to get checked out. Kevin went first to demonstrate how it all worked. The girls got to see the air gun, squirt gun and little vacuum cleaner in action in his mouth. They waited patiently until his cleaning and polishing were finished. Lucy went first and climbed right up into the chair. My Aunt let her go for rides up and down before settling her in with her bib. They counted her teeth (18 so far, with the last 2 just about to pop through), checked around a bit and then polished them. Lucy was such a good girl opening her mouth really wide and going along with everything that had to be done. She wasn't scared one bit.  Olivia was just as brave! She was actually excited w...

I've noticed little by little that the girls have started to choose things, sides, people and things that belong to one of the other of them. We have always encouraged sharing and rarely do we go out of our way to purchase 2 identical items for them just to attempt to avoid the inevitable meltdown. Most of the time the girls are really good about sharing. They will ask each other to trade if they want whatever sister has or they will repeat endlessly "when sister's all done" (which is the mantra we've ingrained in them to discourage all out war). This usually works and as soon as one is not begging, crying or chasing for an object, it no longer becomes the coveted object and they both move on to something new. Crisis averted, usually. Some things they have decided belong to one or the other of them: - Cups- they have a mutually agreed upon cup from each of the sets we have (straw cups- by color, princess cups- one the design is mostly faded off= Olivia's, t...

We read books together every night before bed. The girls know after baths we get our pajamas on, brush hair and read 3 books. Sometimes they pick the books and sometimes we pick the books just to get some variety. More and more lately they have wanted to "read" the books alone, to each other or to us. Olivia's "reading" consists of her opening the book in her lap and repeating "gah, gah, gah, gah, gah", turning the page and say "gah, gah, gah, gah, gah". She does this for every page after thoroughly studying the pictures. Lucy's "reading" is a bit more like naming the pictures or what she can remember of what we have read to her. Last night she was flipping through a Sesame Street book and I overheard "Oscar trash. Elmo Zoe paint. Ernie bath with bubbles." She was accurately describing what was happening on each page. Pretty soon they won't want us to read them books anymore they'll be reading to us instead! ...

The girls come up with some crazy shenanigans all on their own. We love seeing them explore and discover new, slightly crazy, things.

We took the girls to the Angels minor league game earlier this week. We had a great time with Sarah & Tim, Brian & Marjorie and Nana. The girls loved dancing to the music, watching the catcher/pitcher warm up right in front of us and the mascot, Bernie. They even got to see him up close and personal though he ignored them for the bigger kids. We got them ice cream and let them stay up way past their bedtime but it was such a fun night.

As much as I hate to admit it, the girls are picky eaters. Really, it's not so much that they are picky about what they will eat, once they try and like something I could give it to them at every meal and they'd eat it. It's more that they don't like to try new things. They examine everything on their plate and if it looks new or different they immediately say, "No. I don't want that. I don't like it" and push it away. We always give them a few options and try to include something new and different as often as possible. We give them some healthy veggies that they like, a small side that they like (yogurt, applesauce etc) plus their main dish. We figure even if they say they don't like it, hopefully they can be convinced, tricked or bribed into at least trying it. We basically follow the what we put on your plate is what you get method. There are no alternates, 2nd meals, snacks or substitutions, for the most part. We've honestly just been hopin...