Christmas Prep...

The buildup...

Finale to come!

"Oh the places you will...vacuum."

What's the last thing you swept? What's the last thing you vacuumed? 

One day long ago, I stopped in my tracks. This is a seriously odd stage in life. 

I was sweeping the carpet. 

Then I vacuumed the table.

How about vacuuming a baby doll. 

How about the fact that Ry was taking to a co-worker the other day and referred to his sore glutes as his "bummy" without even missing a beat... yet I digress.

I'll admit. I even vacuumed out the oven once. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Yes, it's odd, but beautiful. I do what I can to get the job done.

(Kaila putting baby powder on her baby-doll. She's such a good little mommy!)

Good Idea Bad Idea

Ryan and I couldn't decide. Is a top-heavy camo-camper, complete with map-print curtains and shutter-glass windows, built on a truck bed a good idea, or a bad idea?

  We spent a considerable amout of time freeway-stalking this beauty, trying to just absorb it's glory from every angle.   Where were we? You probably guessed it. Driving through Sacramento.

thanksgiving... A little late!

It's just been one fun thing after another around here! I can't complain of being too busy, it's just that I have to let things go by the wayside to keep from feeling too busy! Thus the lack of blog posts lately.

Here are some Thanksgiving hilights...

Spending time with the family and playing in the creek...

Chatting with our beautiful family, near and far (via skype)

Running a T-day 5 K with Ryan, who paced me and I got a great time!

Spending time with these amazing people...and good food of course (not pictured...pictures mysterously missing!)

Camping

I love that my man is a dreamer. He decided that he wanted to bike from San Luis to Santa Barbara, and then camp the night at El Capitan...and then he made it happen.

 It's only a short hour and a half away from us, and I totally want to go again and again now! Ry and a few of his friends did the ride together and they loved it. We had some great Mexican food and then camped with our friends for one night at El Cap. It turned out to be great weather and totally worth it.

Then, we headed back to SLO for coffee early the Sunday morning, had coffee in the Mission Plaza and lunch down at Shell Beach.

Tie it all up with dinner at a friend's house that night and it made for one particularly great weekend.  Now we're not going any where for a few weeks and it's time to rest in our hoome ; )

San Fran

A big "Thank You" to Andrea and Joey who watched our kids to make this weekend possible. 

First, we went to the Oregon vs Stanford football game with Mom and Dad Hayes and Lyndal. It was fun to be with them but Oregon lost so Ryan was depressed afterwards.

Next, we headed into the city for a weekend out. We went on a run at the Marina and saw some of these hilights...

 Japan Town

Chocolate Factory

Weird puppet-coin machines at a museum...

Toured a boat  that survived WWII, D-day.

We spent time sitting and talking, making spur of the moment decisions, cruising funky bookstores and coffee shops and eating exotic foods.  The only automobile we were in the whole weekend was the bus we took home after gorging ourselves on fine Italian seafood dishes and wine, late into the night. We slept in, finished our sentences and were out of the house at 2 pm (naptime).  It was awesome.

Thank you again Andrea and Joey. : )

Girls Camping Trip

We spent the weekend after the birthday party down in south county camping at the beach.

Actually, I camped and Ry just brought the kids all day Saturday, since we had overbooked our lives in general, at that point (we had another trip four days later, to be continued...)

The whole point of the trip was to spend some quality time with these three girls (my friends from high school/college roommates).  Thank's Ry for giving me the time and thanks girls for making it happen! Love you guys! xoxoxo

Cheated or Clever?

What do you think? 

Are my kids being cheated out of being special if I combine their birthday's for as long as I possibly can?   

Actually, we used their party it as an opportunity to hang out with friends and family, so maybe it was more of a more of a "Family Celebration" because Ryan and I also had a great time.

The kids did have a say in who we invited. I asked J. who he wanted invite to his birthday and he said:

"Santa, because he will bring presents and Jesus, because he will bring the cross."

You got it little man. I actually added them to the evite using fake "santa...." and "jesus..." emails. 

In retrospect, I'm glad that nobody claiming to be Santa or Jesus actually showed up. That would have really put a damper on things.

Either way, the kids played, had an awesome cake, and then candy, raisins and granola bars fell from the sky(piñata).   They got so many new toys they didn't know what to do with themselves (It was "nooooo....it's mine!" for days). What more could a kid ask for?  We will probably just continue this "Family Celebration" until the kids realize that things could be different.....Sssssssshhhhhh!

Kaila's 2nd Birthday

Little Miss Sweet Thing was very loved on her birthday. We started the day with free special balloons at the grocery store and then Mommy actually gave them money to sit in the little car outside. Usually they just sit there and rock their bodies around to pretend it's moving.

Not today though, I shelled out the big bucks and spent the 50 cents to give them each a ride.

 Then, per Kaila's request, we went for a hike. It was getting close to naptime so here's a rundown of how it went.

Scene 1: Running out of the car onto the trail.

Scene 2: About 50 feet into the trail Josiah needs to pee and Kaila decides she needs to pee too. Hers was a false alarm. I think she just gets pee-envy sometimes and wants to try. Somebody is hungry (they just ate) Somebody won't share a log that they are walking on. Somebodies legs are tired and they want to be picked up (apparently, today 50 feet is a long way). Somebody else agrees and wants to be held at the same time.

The whining indicates that it is well into naptime and we need to stop our hike here and go home.

Stage 3: The 50 feet back to the car takes us about three times longer than it took us when we were heading out.   It was a solid 40 minute hike. Nice.

Can't forget our little girl's pancakes, strawberries pomegranate seeds, and whipped cream for breakfast. I just love my kid's birthday's! It's so fun to focus on loving them and treating them uniquely special all day. We love you Kaila. Happy Birthday!

My dream.

I was so excited about this beautiful flower stand.

Some day, I would love to have a yard full of cutting flowers. For now, almost everything in our yard is dead. Everytime I walk past our dead front yard I try to remind myself of the two little lives that I get to put my time and effort into, instead of spending lots of time figuring out why my flowers won't grow (They insist on dying. It's depressing. It's a perpetual flower suicide scene in our front yard.). Also, I'm just discouraged I don't know what to do next.

So, if you see our dead front yard, know that I am wishing for a yard that produces flowers like these. For now I'm most likely inside snuggling with my babies.

Resorvoire Canyon

This was a long hike but the view, and the time spent with my sweet friend, was well worth it. 

Happy Birthday Josiah! 3

Happy Birthday Josiah! We love you so much and enjoyed celebrating your entry into the world today three years ago, Oct 9th. Actually our celebration didn't just last one day...

Birthday morning pancakes and whipped cream on the "You are Special" plate! The zoo and hommemade mac and cheese graced this special day as well. 

As I walked out of Albertsons and loaded my two white children with their "birthday hot chocolates" from Starbucks, into our Pruis,  I couldn't help but feel like I growing little yuppies. Oh well. I can either fight it or embrace it. Yes, I drive a Prius and love Starbucks. Enough said.

The next day Uncle G and Aunty T made us dinner and provided yummy ice cream sundaes for dessert.

Finally, on Saturday, Ryan had the idea to take his Little Man on a train ride, just him and daddy. Josiah was so sweet, he was concerned because "he had told Kaila that she was going to go with him on the train and she had to stay home and take a nap."  

Country Time! - Night time visitor

             

                               We were in the process of moving the chicken one night and one chicken decided to come and check out the high life. She perched up there, took a look around, hung out for a few minutes and then returned to her coop. 

Oh, and we took the screen off of the kitchen window so we could throw the compost scraps right out to the chickens when we are cooking. 

Yes, we are just that redneck now-a-days. 

It's great.

Stay-cation

Friday to Sunday, we were jam-packed with fun vacation activities...from home.

Friday night we went to the Templeton High School Football game...mostly to see the marching band. Yea, I have been talking about seeing the marching band all day, actually, all week. 

ok, so maybe that was Josiah... either way Ryan and I had it running through our heads all week.

 Saturday we went to Conservation Celebration at the zoo for crafts, time with our dear friends Jaime and Joe, Noah and Heidi.

Then it was home for naps and off to the beach for our church picnic, dinner, and bonfire.

The kiddos were elated to stuff their faces full of smores. With the extra-large marshmellows the church provided, relative to the size of their bodies, it was like you or I eating a smore the size of small dinner plate.

My favorite quote of the night? As we were driving home at 8:00 at night, glow sticks in hand from the beach fun-fest, Josiah asks

"Mommy, Daddy, are we going to a football game right now?"

"No buddy...it's late, and we went last night" (Thinking, are you kidding me!? Is the kid really asking that!)

"Awwwwww....but I wanted to go to a football game right now.!!!" -insert whiney voice here

Ryan and I look at eachother and start laughing at our son's insatiable desire for fun...then scold him appropriately for whining ; )

 Sunday morning in our house is the most peaceful of all mornings. We typically spend that day drinking coffee and hanging out in the sunroom, enjoying the morning light, reading, talking and snuggling.

Then, later Sunday night we made cookies...front row seats. 

Finish off the weekend with a warm cookies and milk, and looking back, it was a really peacefull stay-cation.