coldplay!!!!!!

for my birthday last month ted got me box seat tickets to see coldplay. he arranged for april to come over and watch our girls from about 1 pm till we got home. so we went down early, had lunch in san rafael (sol food...yummm!), shopped a little in san francisco and then the shoreline ampitheatre. our tickets included admittance into the vip lounge where we scored a free dinner and enjoyed a margarita.

the band came on around 9pm (yeah it was a late night!).

they put on a really good show. coldplay is one of my favorite bands-ok, maybe my fav.

during the song "yellow" they released a bunch of huge yellow balloons filled with confetti. they floated around the ampitheater and people would punch them around.

compassion

as part of our usual bedtime routine ted tucks ella into bed each night with a book. for the past few nights he's been reading a book called "rebecca, margaret, and nasty annie". it was mine when i was little. sidenote: as an adult i picked up on the title- my mom's name is rebecca and she has many sisters, two of them are named margaret and anna hmmm.... anyway, it's a story of 3 pigs. one, nasty annie is land"pig" to margaret and rebecca. m and r are quite good to each other and together they collect lots of junk which consequently ticks off annie who makes them get rid of it all. hence the "nasty" part. in the end you find that annie is just lonely and needs a friend. there's a part of the book where rebecca and margaret see annie sitting at her table crying. tonight ella pointed to the picture and said, "she's crying, i pray for her". of course, after ella was nicely tucked into bed (only to get out again, climb on her bed and fall down...that's another issue) proud daddy came into our room to share this story with me. how sweet is the heart of a little two year old. i love how they simplify things.

pooltime fun

the girls and i finally found a little pool for them to play in. although, it wasn't hot i decided to let the girls play in it the other day.

at first ella was a little afraid to get in (you should have seen the fight to get her bathing suit on!). but, just as i thought, once she saw corinne in the pool splashing and having fun, she would want to get in, too.

i love how they both have the same expression on their faces here. corinne eventually starting shivering so i wrapped her up in a towel on my lap. ella played until her lips were purple and i had practically dragged her inside.

i think it's funny how she totally got herself soaked while trying to soak her sister.

shake it!

as part of one of ella's morning devotionals we made a shaker out of a ribbon spool and barley. she really enjoyed painting the outside and decorating it with stickers. surprisingly it makes a pretty decent sound, too! her favorite part of painting, though, seems to be dipping the brush in the paint and then into the water. i usually have to remind her to put paint onto whatever she's "working" on. it's all a learning experience, right?!

fireworks!

this year we went to analy high school to watch the fireworks display with "auntie" april and "uncle" scott.

we had a great time!

corinne had fun snuggling with daddy. it was much colder out there than i was expecting and i was really thankful that we brought blankets!

ella had fun hanging out with riley. of course she was totally into playing with her pink phone!!!

i was so surprised that corinne was really happy out there for so long. she even watched the fireworks display! she was so cuddly under all the blankets.

the fireworks display was really pretty! i especially liked how they fired them along a soundtrack of classical music.

here is an actual picture of the four of us. (despite the fact that corinne is knocked out in the stroller!)