Dog day afternoon

How else do you spend an 86 degree day in December?

A picnic in the park, of course.

Followed by a little Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in a box

Santa and the most magical place on earth!

We went to Disneyland last week with the girls and had a blast as usual. We got to see Santa and his reindeer and Mrs. Claus. It was so fun. Carmen was actually not afraid this year. But poor Petra was. Luckily I managed to get a picture of the two of them with Santa. However it's probably a picture that would be a hit on awkwardfamilyphotos.com as apposed to a sweet picture of the girls with Santa. Oh well.

And here are some snaps of us at the park.:

Not to brag or anything, but these girls just can't take a bad photo. They make the moment seem even more magical. I love these little frozen pieces of time. And when I think life is getting hard, I just need to look in their faces and at these pictures and realize, the stupid stuff ain't so bad. These girls make life fanTASTIC!

Bell's of the Ball

So, Halloween was lots of fun. The week leading up to Halloween, Carmen kept asking me if she could go trick-or-treating. Then when we went trick-or-treating, she kept asking if we could go to another house. Then, the next morning, Carmen woke up and said, "I love Halloween." We had a good time.

Shay's mom came into town to celebrate. We went to a pumpkin patch. We carved a pumpkin. We got the girls dressed in their costumes. I tried to take pictures. I got a few.

after a few tries:

Kids do the darndest things

I have to admit that I'm not the world's greatest mom. I don't sit every night with my girls and go over the alphabet and how to write letters or draw landscapes. If I think about it, I'll do it. But, those nights are few and far between at the Mehrdad household. Well, last night, as I was working, Carmen sat next to me with this alphabet book that has a magnet tablet on top of it to help teach your kids writing their letters. I think we've tried to use it a couple times in the past. Anyway, Carmen starts drawing "A" which actually looked more like an "H". Then we tried other letters. And to my amazement, Carmen could pretty much write all of her letters. Some may have been a little coached. But all the letters you see are written by Carmen all by herself. She' so smart.



And...I don't want to leave Petra out of this post...She can now give high fives and is completely proud of herself every time she gives one. That's my girl.

This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

Well, it's halloween time. I've never really been that into Halloween. But, Carmen has been really excited about it this year. Which has gotten me excited about it. So I got some decorations and we decorated the yard and inside too. Carmen keeps asking to dress up and get jack-o-lanterns and to see Jack and Sally at the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. Hopefully Carmen can wait for a few more weeks to experience it all!

365 days of sunshine

I love living in southern california. It's nice to have everyday right around 70 degrees. It's nice to only be 10 minutes away from the coast and to never really have to deal with "weather."

...but sometimes I long for the changing of seasons. I'm finding myself really wanting to see some danged leaves change. Maybe I'll have to take a road trip.

Sisters

As I was going through pictures of baby Petra over the last year, I came across several moments of little miss Carmen being a great big sis. From day one, there was just this sweet connection that we were able to capture and have caught many more of them over the year. It's just such an awesome thing to really see the seeds of sister relationship blossom. I know that's cheesy, but it's so wonderful.

Here are a few gems:

There are many more, but these are a few of my favs.