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greyson had a bowling birthday bash today.  sienna and i were both planning to go, but it turned out that silvia was celebrating her birthday today as well. if it was anyone else, sienna would have skipped the party, and bowled with the boys.  but silvia is sienna’s BFF. so we split up.

mommy took sienna to silvia’s party at studio grow. that’s the place where cousin zoey had her 2nd birthday party.  but that was when sienna was still in mommy’s tummy, so today was her first time really getting to play there.  all the kids at the party were from school, so sienna knew everyone there.  but for some reason she acted shy and wanted to cling to mommy all morning.  at least she had fun riding the mini roller coaster with her BFF, birthday girl silvia.

one of the items in the goody bag that silvia gave to all her friends was a bag of bird seed.  so after the party, sienna stopped at the pond right outside studio grow to feed the ducks.  there were only two ducks in the pond, so mommy insisted that sienna only give them a little bit of food.  she didn’t want them to eat too much and get tummy aches.  sienna understood.

but when all the other kids saw sienna, they wanted to join in on the duck-feeding.  and sienna didn’t want to be left over, so she continued to feed the ducks.  i’m pretty sure that those two ducks ate waaay more than they should have today.  i hope their tummies are okay.

meanwhile, i was bowling with the boys at greyson’s slugterra wipeout party.  bowling, i get.  i love bowling!  that part was really fun.  i didn’t really get the slugterra wipeout theme, though.  apparently, those are greyson’s favorite TV shows.  slugterra is a TV show targeted toward older kids, so i never heard of it.  i guess it’s about slugs.

the goody bags that greyson gave us contained, among other things, glasses and headbands that would turn us into slugs.  we are supposed to take a photo of our slug-selves and send them to greyson’s mommy.  in a week or so, greyson is going to pick a winner.  what do you think — do i look like a scary slug?  i hope daddy remembers to send mine to auntie char so i can win a prize!

happy birthday to silvia and greyson!

sienna and i love movie night.  our dojo hosts a movie night about once every 3 months, and mommy and daddy often take advantage of the opportunity to go out for a date night.  i have always brought sienna with me (because what’s the point of getting me out of the house for the night if mommy and daddy still have to stay home with sienna?) but this was the first time sienna attended as an actual student.

as always, the night consisted of fun group games, pizza dinner, snacks, and a surprise movie.  and as always, mommy packed healthy snacks for us and asked us to eat those first, and to eat just one or two of the chips and gummy candies that would be given to us.  we promised.

well, mommy and daddy went off and enjoyed a nice dinner in walnut creek.  when they came back to pick us up, the movie was still playing.  it was “peter pan”.   mommy laid down next to us and watched the ending of the movie with us.

after the movie ended, mommy helped clean up the mess we made.  she gathered up my unopened bag of doritos and unopened bag of gummy candy, but sienna’s were conspicuously missing.  when mommy asked her about it, sienna said that she gave them back to miss kailee (one of the instructors).  as mommy pressed her about it, sienna’s story kept changing.  mommy suspected that something fishy was going on, but to give sienna the benefit of the doubt, mommy asked the instructor about it.  miss kailee revealed that sienna ate ate the entire bag of chips and the entire package of gummy candy.  BUSTED!  not only did sienna break her promise to mommy, but she also lied about it.  that might have been the last movie night that sienna will ever get to go to.

sienna is 3 1/2.  she took advantage of this special occasion to have a photo shoot in her favorite dress (and also got a free sundae from red robin out of it).

here’s what she’s been up to.

daily schedule:

• 7:30am: daddy wakes her up.  she gets herself dressed in some crazy outfit with accessories that often do not match.
• 8:00am: breakfast.
• 8:30am: daddy takes her to school on his way to BART
• 12:00pm: lunch at school
• 1:30pm: nap.  the rest of her classmates fall asleep between 12:45 and 1:00pm, but sienna is always the last to fall asleep.
• 4:45pm: we pick sienna up for our evening activities
• 6:45pm: dinner.
• 8:15pm: get ready for bed.
• 9:00pm: mommy and daddy usually take turns putting sienna and me to bed.
• 9:15pm: lights out.

things she’s good at:

• drawing and writing.  she’s always had really good fine motor control.  she’s no leonardo da vinci, but her drawings are much more detailed and realistic than mine were at her age.  she is getting good at writing her letters and can almost write her name.  she usually writes the S rotated at a 90 degree angle and she usually writes the E with ~7 horizontal bars instead of just 3, but that’s not bad for a 3 year old!maybe it’s a girl thing.
• counting.  she finally stopped skipping the number 16 when she counts to 20!
• running.  sienna and i agree that she is good at running.  mommy doesn’t understand (or agree with) this assessment, but this is my blog, so i’m going with it.

things she’s working on:

• karate.  she just started taking classes at my dojo.  she’s still in the trial period and i’m not sure if she’s going to continue.  she doesn’t always stay focused during standing attention or sitting attention.
• asking permission.  sienna often takes/grabs things without asking.  it’s not nice.  it’s also very dangerous because she sometimes sneaks junk food, and she doesn’t know how to read labels to see if they have peanuts (which she is very allergic to) in them.
• flossing her teeth.  she still needs help flossing.  her silver tooth is evidence of that.

favorite indoor activities:

• jumping on trampolines
• making special drawings for mommy
• doing puzzles

favorite outdoor activities:

• running around
• finding bugs to look at
• drawing with sidewalk chalk

favorite book:  little red riding hood

favorite TV show:  paw patrol

favorite song:  shake it off, best day of my life

favorite mobile app:  leo’s pad.  it’s a series of interactive learning stories.

favorite foods:  pizza

favorite character:  little mermaid

favorite animal:  doggies and cats

favorite school subject:  sharing (on fridays, we bring a toy to school to show and share with our friends)

favorite color:  pink and purple

what i want to be when i grow up:  princess

today is MLK day — martin luther king jr.’s birthday.  he’s a man who changed the rules.  he died when he was 38 years old.  mommy says that he died at age 39 (according to wikipedia), but i keep insisting that he died at 38.  sienna said that he taught people to be nice to each other and not push each other.  i’m not sure if she made that up or if she actually learned about his dedication to non-violence.

thanks to martin luther king jr., everyone can live where they want to.  also because of him, i didn’t have school today and daddy didn’t have to work.  sienna’s school was open and mommy had to work, so daddy and i planned a day of fun.

first, we headed to rockin jump.  but that was obviously not an original idea because when we arrived, it was sold out.   SOLD OUT!  can you believe it?  so we ended up at partipalooza (the place where i had my 5th birthday party) instead.  i loved playing air hockey and foosball with daddy.  i also had a lot of fun bowling — so much fun that i didn’t even get on the rock wall.

we worked up an appetite at partipalooza, so went out in search of mexican food.  (we never get to go out for mexican food because mommy is not a fan.  chipotle doesn’t count.)  daddy and i found a nearby taqueria.  i ordered steak tacos, but they were a little too spicy, so i ended up eating most of daddy’s burrito.

after lunch, daddy and i went on a hike at the bishop ranch regional open space preserve.  navigating was fun.  however, the trail was too long (2.24 miles), too bumpy (hilly), and there was cow poo in the middle of the path.  i’ve decided that i am not a fan of hiking.

all in all, we had a really fun day out.  when mommy asked me what my favorite part of the day was, i told her that it was coming home to see her.  awww…  i think she bought it. 😉

we’ve been hearing about the awesome new park by our house called rancho san ramon.  ever since it opened (about 3 months ago), everyone has been talking about it — cousin zoey, baby emma, all the people in our neighborhood — but we never bothered to check it out.  a park is a park, right?

we met up with isaac this morning to see for ourselves how awesome this park was.  we had really high expectations and we thought there was no way it would live up to the hype.  well, lemme tell you… best. park. ever.

the park has 3 separate play areas.  there are lots of interesting climbing and play structures, a curvy bouldering wall, and lots more.  the ground even makes music when you dance on it!  our favorites were the long bumpy slide and the zip line.  that’s right, the park has a zip line!  how cool is that?

here are a few videos that show you some of the super cool features of rancho san ramon park.

just above the park is an open field with a dirt track.  because there wasn’t enough to do in the playground areas (kidding), i ran around the track a few times while daddy timed me. that was fun, too. good times.

we hope that we get to go to this park all the time!  the only bummer is that we cannot ride our bikes there.  it is only 2 miles away, but there is a steep(ish) hill and a busy street between our house and the park.  oh well.

mason has his birthday party at the all new pump in up in santa clara.  that place is awesome.  we had so much fun!

sienna and i have been to pump it up a bunch of times, and they’re all kind of the same.  but not this one!  at this pump it up there were lots of inflatable activities that we’d never seen before.

sienna liked playing dodge ball inside the obstacle course, and of course, she loved the giant slides.  my favorite was the bazooka war — logan and i totally took edison and greyson!  i also liked the batting cages.  the balls were easy to hit because they were just floating in the air. 🙂

when it was time for cake, daddy said sienna could have one bite of his cupcake.  with that one bite, she ate almost the entire cupcake (along with daddy’s finger)!

daddy said it wasn’t funny, but everyone else was laughing, so i guess they disagreed.

happy birthday mason!  thanks for the fun party.  i’m totally having my next birthday party at the new pump it up!

this is what sienna looked like when we picked her up from school today.  she managed to make DIY blue eye shadow out of sidewalk chalk.  i think she’s been hanging out with cousin caitlyn too much!

daddy’s work was supposed to have their holiday party last month — before christmas — when companies usually have their holiday parties.  but on the day the party was scheduled for, it was forecasted to rain.  a lot of rain.  so much rain that classes were cancelled at some schools.  i know, it sounds ridiculous, especially to people who live in other parts of the country where they have hailstorms and snowstorms and weather that is much more severe.  but us californians are weather wimps.  and yup, daddy’s work cancelled their holiday party.

so anyway the party was rescheduled for tonight.  uncle henry came over to hang out with us, and mommy went to SF to meet up with daddy at the supper club.  (that’s where the party was.)  you’d think that a place called the supper club would be a restaurant that serves supper, but it turned out to be an open two-story space where the perimeter was lined with beds.  weird, right?  the decorators must have gotten confused and thought it was called the sleeping club.

the place was pretty packed, but daddy didn’t see many people that he knew.  not a single person from his team was there.  mommy was bummed because she was hoping meet all the people that daddy has been talking about for the past few months.  but i guess geeky engineering types (like daddy) don’t like to go to parties.

mommy and daddy hung out for a couple of hours anyway.  there was music, entertainment, food, open bar, and of course, a photo booth with christmas-themed props.  looks like they had a good time!

remember sienna’s cavity?  she went back to the dentist today to get it filled.  she went off with a dental assistant while mommy waited in the exam room.  mommy was worried that sienna would be a little freaked out, but she was totally fine.

after about 20 minutes, auntie margaret came out to talk to mommy.  it turned out that sienna’s cavity went all the way down to the root, so what was supposed to be a simple filling ended up turning into a baby root canal.  yikes!

mommy wasn’t worried, though.  she knew that sienna was in good hands with auntie margaret.  after about an hour, auntie margaret came out to get mommy and brought her back to see sienna.  everyone marveled at how brave sienna was and couldn’t stop talking about how great she did, especially for a 3yo.  i can’t believe that she actually sat still for that long!

after the procedure, sienna’s teeth were still “sleeping” so auntie margaret gave her a “tooth pillow”.  sienna was really good about using the tooth pillow and even napped with it this afternoon.

so now, sienna has a silver tooth.  she loves it.  of course she does — it’s shiny.  she shows it off to everyone that she sees.  and now, unfortunately, the thought of getting another cavity does not bother sienna at all.  it doesn’t motivate her to brush/floss better nor does it deter her from wanting to eat sugary foods.  “what’s the worst that could happen?  another silver tooth?  yes, please.”  ugh.  next time (if there is a next time), we should tell auntie margaret to make the experience a little less pleasant. 😛