The End of an Era...

Tonight we bade farewell to our beloved car...we loved our car, but it grew too small for us and 2 kids, and carpooling, swimteam, etc...nevermind when Nana and Grampa come, there's no room for them either.... we got this car before Catie turned 3....oh, so many memories in that car...so many tantrums, spills, goldfish dumps, laughs, roadtrips......but, it was time to say farewell to our lovely Lexus.....

AND HELLLLLOOOOOOOO TO OUR NEW 2007 NISSAN PATHFINDER!

this nice little gem is right up our alley! with a 3rd row seat, for Catie and her friends, and it folds down for extra storage.....

as you can tell from the next few pictures, the girls are VERY excited about the new car!

Catie tries out the side mirrors for blowing kisses......

Meigan has excellent form scaling the folded down 3rd seat to get into the 2nd row....

I think it's safe to say, these new wheels are a BIG hit with the girls!!

now, about that new car payment.......

How To Catch a Leprechaun...1st Grade Style.....

here it is...Catie's leprechaun trap!
what a FUN 1st grade project! I though I'd help her, but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....I got the "Mom, Daddy is an ENGINEER and he KNOWS how to do this...you don't!".....well, smack me in the face...geesh.......

so, on the weekend, Catie and her engineer Daddy got busy with this contraption! trapping the leprechaun with chocolate gold coins, with sticky tape! I say it's a winner!!!!

so much for my idea....I just make lunches, clean up messes, drive to school, art class, play dates, gymnastics and swimteam.....

How to play in the sandbox WITHOUT getting sand in your shoes....

I about fell off the bench today when I saw Meigan doing her new trick!
I told her to take off her shoes and go in the sandbox, and she said "no, I can do it this way, SEE"!

truthfully, I had the camera ready as I expected her to go head first into the sand, but nope, she held it together....she's quite the agile little monkey...she can balance, pull herself up on monkey bars, invert on the rings at gymnastics....she's too much!

Goggle Girl..........

80 degrees outside suddenly..................pool barely 60 degrees.....2 girls skinny dipping.......
2 frozen children.........

pneumonia.....

kidding.....I hope....

Ringing in Chinese New Year

Can anyone match the crocs and the kids?

These are a few fun pics that we took on Saturday night, celebrating the last night of the Chinese New Year celebration... We had Anna, Steven and Norah over for noodles (for the kids) and a fabulous london broil and salad for the grown ups...and that's it.....well, alright...I'll tell the truth...a few pomegranate martinis were consumed along with some really good wine...and the kids stayed up MUCH MUCH MUCH too late...but it was very fun! I bought a lot of poppers in Chinatown for the kids, and they had a blast throwing them on the ground and hearing them "pop" and stepping on them.."More Please"
Norah was having a very good time with the poppers.....
but all that celebrating tuckered out the girls...and they had some down time, watching Charlotte's Web...they all had their little stuffed pigs with them, and some popcorn and they got comfy in our bed....(and I was finding popcorn for days after under the covers).....

and then, things got "lively".....Meigan and Norah got their jammies on and got happy feet....Brian was playing some very old vinyl records and the girls were having a great time dancing around.....

Catie was making all of us menus for her restaurant called "Friends and Family" and taking our orders..writing down everything that we wanted...she's such a smart girl...reading and writing....then she decided that Steven needed some "doctoring"...and made him homemade casts....out of my nice chinese new year napkins and scotch tape...

and at last the party was over and it was time for all little girls to go to bed! shortly after this hug, Meigan went to bed and passed out!

It was quite a fun CNY party at the Van Weele house....next year we'll be hitting the big parade in San Francisco and splurging for the bleacher seats! Catie loves the parade, but this year, it was going to be too much for Meigan and Norah...lots of loud drums and firecrackers..

Happy Year of the Pig!!!

Meig's stylin' new flip flops....pretty cute, huh?

she picked these out at Target (fondly known to my girls are Tarjay).....Catie got lavendar ones... I have to admit, they are very cute...and even cuter on Meig's tiny little size 7 1/2 feet...