Surprise Baby Shower - March 2012

In March, some friends threw a surprise baby shower for Melissa.  We told her it was a girl's night out and we were meeting at my house.  I think we really surprised her.  

A cute drink made to look like a bath!

The food display.

My one and only craft project, and that is because it involves chocolate. 

I loved this gift.  It says, "These fools put my CAPE on BACKWARDS".

Erica's Dance Recital - March 2012

When I was pregnant with Erica, a friend of mine talked about how I would love to watch her in dance recitals. At the time, I was certain that no kid of mine would ever do ballet. Boy, was I wrong! Not only does she love dance, but I love to watch her too. She did 2 different dances. The first one was to a french song. The other dance was to "Jeremiah was a bullfrog".

I put her in a higher level class this time. On the first day they learned a lot and were moving fast. I had my doubts about whether I put her in the right class. She even expressed her doubts to me as well. We decided to have her stick it out and I'm so proud of her. She practiced a lot and learned the steps. She did a great job!

Erica and Chalyn

Erica and Alyssa

Erica with sisters, Lindsey and Lillian

Her French costume.  I love it!

I think the headbands are so cute in this one.

She was a little tired by the end of the night.

Sadie turns 2

Right after we returned from all our travels, it was time to celebrate Sadie's second birthday.  This girl has been a joy to have in our family.  She is sweet, sensitive, calm and very easy going.  She has made the transition into 2 kids very easy.  She idolizes her older sister and loves to copy her.  Erica is very tolerant and plays well with Sadie.  

She's a tiny thing!  Her stats: Head - %, Weight -  %, Height -  %, uh, how is this for a second child - I lost the paper that told me all this info.  I guess I will have to update this post when I find it.  I think she averaged the 15% for height and weight.

Gum is one of her favorite things to eat.  She also likes milk, anything sweet (like her mother) and milk.  She is quite the picky eater, but if that is the worst we have to deal with, it is okay.

She's very independent and loves to play on her own.  I love that too, most of the time.  We are getting into the stage where she wants to try everything herself, even if she can't do it.  Thank goodness she is usually willing to let me help after she has tried.

One of her birthday presents was a new water table.  It, unfortunately, has not been as well-use as I had hoped.

Here is a video of Sadie "opening" this present.

Her other present was a bag of legos.  She has absolutely loved these and plays with them daily.  Maybe she will be an engineer like her daddy.

Sadie is much more physically coordinated at this age than Erica was.  However, Sadie's speech has been slower to develop.  It's really started coming along the last few months and I think it will be alright.  I think she just hasn't cared to learn yet, but makes the effort when the need arises.

We celebrated with cupcakes.  Now, whenever we have cupcakes, she wants to put candles in and blow them out.  We, of course, comply with these requests.

If you want to watch videos of the cupcake eating, look here and here.

A cute panda outfit from Aunt Jane (her middle namesake).  And yes, we have cut her bangs since this picture.

California Disney Days - Feb 2012

We spent a few days with all of Troy's family at Disneyland and California Adventure.  It was a fun trip and we were glad it worked out.  We had a few mishaps - Erica pushing Sadie off the bunk bed and Sadie not feeling great.  Overall, it went much better than our last trip to Disney when Erica was potty training.  There was a large group and it took some coordinating, but I was surprised by how much we actually got to see each other.

Day 1 - Ready to go in princess attire.

We stuck with more of the kiddie rides.  Erica was a little scared to try the faster rides.  We did convince her to try Splash Mountain.  After the first little drop, she started to cry and wanted to get off.  I knew the big drop was going to be a disaster.  I held on to her as tight as I could.  I don't think she will be going on that one for a few more years.  She didn't seem to mind going up high on the rides, she just didn't like to go fast.

It just so happened that the cousins had matching dresses.

We did A LOT of character/princess photos.

We met fairies - Silvermist and Vidia.

One day we all wore shirts to promote Troy's app business.  The shirts had QR codes and said, "Don't Worry. Be Appy."  We may have sold one or two extra apps that day.

Waiting to see Crush.  We had to explain for days afterward why Crush did not let Erica talk.

Sadie's favorite ride was the Merry-go-round.  She rode it a bunch and cried when she had to get off.

California Beach Days - Feb 2012

After my girls weekend, we met up with my family again.  We gave the girls gifts from our Taiwan trip.  We said our goodbyes to my family and met up with Troy's family the next day at the beach.  It was time for the Tegeder Disneyland/Beach trip to begin.  We did beach, Disney, California Adventure, beach and more Disney.  Did I mention I had very little sleep in the month of February??

Gloves and a fan from Taiwan.

My girls loved the beach.  It makes me want to move closer.

Erica and cousin Lovi.

I love this picture.  Just gotta photo shop the people out of the background and it is frame worthy.

I was freezing, but the weather didn't phase the girls.

Troy and his brother were able to surf together.

If you want to see Sadie running around at the beach or Troy surfing, check out our videos on our YouTube station.