California Coastal Clean Up Day - Sept. 19

Two Saturdays ago was the statewide California Clean Up Day. People from all over the state go to their local beach or creek to clean the area of debris and other things that are harmful to our water. For we know that all water leads back to the ocean. I made it one of our Ward Community Activities. I took the girls out to our local creek by Andrew's Park with work gloves on. It was hard work for sure. I was so proud of Carissa & Maia. They never complained or took a rest. They really enjoyed cleaning up the environment. They expressed to me how they couldn't believe that people just throw their trash on the ground. I got some great photos. I'm too lazy to upload pictures 2x, so please check out my photography blog to see some of the photos: http://christinelarsenphotography.blogspot.com/

1st Homework Assignment! 9/8/09

I watched Hailey for an hour last night so I thought it would be fun for all 3 girls to get their PJ's on and work on their very first homework assignment from Kindergarten. They were each given a a blank face with no materials. They had to go home and make their face (creatively, of course). Here are the finished results. By the way, if you are wondering why Maia's face has darker skin, the teacher let them pick from 3 different colors and that's what she chose.

Flat Tire? No Sweat! 9/8/09

Yesterday I was leaving the gym parking lot and realized I had a flat. So I pulled over and realized I didn't have my cell phone. Luckily a friend from the gym stopped and had one. I called State Farm and asked for a tow truck to come out an fix it. My friend then told me that she thought I could just do it. I looked at her and said, "You think so? Have you ever changed a tire before?" She said, "No, but it can't be that hard to figure out." With no instructions to follow, it was changed in 15 minutes. It was incredibly easy. Getting off my plastic hub cab was the hardest thing to figure out. So I called the tow company and told them I didn't need them anymore. It was a great independent moment for me! Now that I've done it, I have the confidence to do it again in the future. The only mistake I made (I later found out from my Dad), is that you have to put the lug nuts back on in a diagonal pattern for better alignment.

CA State Fair: 9/7/08 (Labor Day)

The sculpture you see in this photo above is made of 100,003 toothpicks. Scott Weaver, the man in the photo made it. It took him 35 years and over 3,000 hours to make it. It is 9-foot-high and 7-foot-wide. It's called, "Rolling Through the Bay". It includes the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Transamerica building, China Town, Lombard St., and every other tourist spot you can think of when you think of San Francisco. He made it so that you can place 5 ping pong balls up at the top at 5 different locations. The balls then roll through the intricate maze, all ending up on the bottom. We went to the CA State Fair for the 1st time (well, Scott and I went with our friends, Susan & Jeff, to a concert on Aug 20 to see The Fab Four, Beatle Tribute Band, but we didn't have time to walk around. We had fun, but I must say that we won't be going next year or any years after that unless the Fab Four are there or some other band we want to see.

Christine's Fair Ratings (CA State Fair, Solano County Fair, Dixon May Fair). We went to all 3 this year. 10 stars is the best and 1 star is the worst:

1. CA State Fair: 6 stars
2. Solano County Fair: 4 stars (it would be a 3 but because of all the entries we had and ribbons we won, it made it to 4)
3. Dixon May Fair: 8 stars
4. If you want to go to a fair that I would rate as a 10, drive to Pasadena (Southern CA) and go the LA County Fair.

Lemonade Stand: 9/4/09

Sign says, "All proceeds go to our college trust fund." -- Daddy's idea.We had another successful garage sale. We made $324. Carissa and Maia had a successful lemonade stand. All week they couldn't stop talking about their lemonade stand. Their hard work in preparing for it paid off. They made $24 selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup. If you do the math, that would be 48 cups sold, however, they didn't make that many. Some people gave them a $1 for one cup and told them to keep the change! It helps to be cute!

Maia & Carissa in the Newspaper - AGAIN!

The Daily Republic (Fairfield newspaper), was also present on the first day of school and took this photo of them. They did a poster pull out of school fashions (click on photo to enlarge). The "...retro dress out of Mom's closet..." on the article is in reference to the 30 year old dresses they had on. This came out on Sunday, August 30th.

Maia on Front Page of the Newspaper!

To my surprise when I looked at the paper on Friday, Maia was on the front page along with a nice sentimental story of Scott and I on their first day of school. You can click on the photo to enlarge.

1st Day of Kindergarten!

I had Carissa & Maia wear the same dress I wore on my first day of school (see photo below). I had the other one wear a similar dress of mine that I owned when I was 5. I had to do a quick change in the bathroom at the school so that they could both take a picture in the same dress. A newspaper reporter took their picture and also took a picture of my old picture below. I hope it's in the newspaper tomorrow! A different newspaper reporter interviewed both Scott and I on our feelings. Hopefully, we'll see this in the paper too!

Scott packed them a snack to bring to school and wrote a sweet message on them.

Christine - 5 years old - 1st day of Kindergarten

Their best friend, Hailey is in the same class! How fun for them!

Maia's cubby hole for her backpack.

Carissa's cubby hole for her backpack.

Waving good-bye to us! Scott and I cried when we got back to the car.

I sneeked a peek into the classroom and took this photo. There are 28 kids in their class. You can see Carissa & Maia sitting together with Hailey. Carissa has a big smile on her face.

Kindergarten Orientation - Aug 19

Carissa & Maia got to meet their teachers in their classroom: Ms. Feins (left pink) & Ms. Harris (right black). Ms. Feins is their teacher Mon-Thur and Ms. Harris takes Friday. Both are very sweet and nice. Carissa and Maia liked the little potties in the bathroom that's connected to their classroom. They asked me, "What if I have to go the the bathroom during class?". I told them to raise their hand. They then asked, what if the teacher says no?" Also, Carissa was very concerened when I told her that she probably won't be sitting next to Maia. She almost cried and said she promised if she could sit next to Maia that she won't copy Maia's school work. Cute, huh?