July in Photos

4th of July, Bec's baby shower, Cali visiting, trip to the beach, church BBQ, VBS, Swim lessons and a boozy beautiful bridal shower for B!   July was busy and Loving Husband and I celebrated nine years of marriage too!    Can't wait to see what August holds for us!

The Magical World of Disney

Have I mentioned that I love Disneyland?   :)  I do and I love even more sharing the experience with my children and seeing it through their eyes.  It's so exciting to get to see my boy giggling with delight on a ride, or Mae in awe as a "Printhess" walks by her.   It's adorable to hear Mae say "Hiiiii" and "Byeee"  to everyone that goes by on the parade route.    Ace so excited that he meets the height requirement that allows him to soar over California ;-)  or ride on Star Tours for the very first time!    The energy that they produce is infectious and their joy is so catching.  :)   I love that Mae all through Pirates sang "Yo Ho Pirates" (and still does) -  I love that Ace does pretty darn well shooting things on the Buzz Light Year ride (another ride where Mae said 'Hi' and 'Bye' to every alien as we moved along the ride.)     I love sharing it with them!  I also love photographing it!  Enjoy!

Thankfulness

There are so many many people and things that I am thankful for - I am blessed with the ability and means to travel to visit my family and see people that I haven't seen in years at my college reunion.   Love getting together with everyone whenever I can - often it is far too long between visits - but I am always so thankful for when I can gather with them.

2011 in Pictures

Becky's Baby Shower

My best friend is having a baby! I am so excited for her and that's why I was so excited to make her presents, decorate and help host her shower in California. Yes, that meant two plane tickets, traveling by myself with two kids on a cross country flight, and a host of other complications - but not for one second was it not worth it! I wouldn't have missed it.... I might have Skyped in because tickets at one point were over a $1000, but thankfully they dropped in price and we were able to make it to California to celebrate Baby Ben and his upcoming arrival!

The shower was great, she got a lot of nice things!


Games were played!

Presents were opened!


Friends were seen!

Lots of fun was had!

My kids were well behaved and loved by many!



I can't wait for Baby Ben (we hope he's a Ben!) to arrive!! August 12th can't come soon enough! Prayers for mommy and family as the time nears and they welcome this little baby into the world! Lots of love to them all!!

Friends, Family, and Fun!

I always love when I get to go home. It isn't often that I get to go, but when I do it is fill with so much fun and so many people to visit and it is always exciting to show off my newest addition to the family: Mae! Ace is ever changing too so it's always new and exciting for people to see him too. :) I love my family and friends in California and love that I am blessed with them and the ability to go and visit them all.

We ventured to LAX from NOLA on Sunday, July 10th after a very successful airplane ride, wahoo! Shelley picked us up from the airport and we headed home to enjoy some Bakers! WOOHOO! (Why can't that food make it out of So Cal???) Ace was SO excited to get to Grammie's house to play. He had his own itinerary of "1. Play, 2. Go to Grammies, 3. Eat" and he stuck to that schedule. :) He had a blast. Becky came over and I got to rub her baby belly and talk to my soon to be nephew! It was nice to spend time with friends and family. After a while at home we ventured over to my other parent's house and showed off the kids there while Shelley and I played with camera settings. :)

We headed home after that and met up with Derek, Jennifer, and Ace's cousin, Kaylee! Where they gave him his birthday present in person, a pirate hat and an eye patch! He was in love.

 Ace and Kaylee played together a little bit, at first Kaylee wasn't too interested in sharing, which was amusingly caught on film...

But later she came around and wanted to read to Ace. Ace is a year and 2 weeks older than Kaylee, but they are just about the same height. It's adorable to see the two of them together. Playing and reading together. Ace after 20 hours of being awake with the exception of a 20 minute nap finally went to bed.

I was really glad it worked out to see my brother. Originally with his work schedule being shifted around it was iffy if I would see him at all. Thankfully, they made it work - even if my brother was a bit more sleep deprived because of it.
Monday was pretty low key. Ace received his birthday present from Grammie and he enjoyed playing with that: bug hunting gear! We spent some time just relaxing, running errands, actually having 'nap time' for Ace and just not doing much. :) It worked out nicely. Ace was so excited all day that 'Aunt Shelley' was coming back, he kept saying that he missed Aunt Shelley - even got super excited when he saw the back of the neighbor saying "Aunt Shelley's here!!" (sadly she was still a few hours away from her visit.) It was so cute how excited he was to see Aunt Shelley.


Tuesday and Wednesday were Disneyland Days! Oh boy! Lots of fun was had on those days. :) Look for separate posts upcoming for those.

Thursday was another low key day after the craziness of Disneyland the two prior. Derek and Jen brought Kaylee back over, along with some toys to entertain Mae and all the cousins played together for a while. It was cute to see them interacting together. Derek had to head to work and so was only able to stay for a short while, but he and his niece got some good bonding time. :)




Friday was another low key day and then in the evening we went over to Becky and Dave's place with Shelley and Kelley. It was nice to all be together and hang out. Ace of course was super excited to spend time with Abby and Isaiah. He's really starting to enjoy playing with other kids and he LOVES Abby. :)


Saturday was the much anticipated baby shower (a separate post to come!) followed by a birthday party for my brother whose birthday happened to fall on the week that I was in town. It was nice to all be together to celebrate. Ace had yet another late night of going to bed after playing with his cousin and playing 'the leader' as they ran around the front yard playing with glow in the dark chalk that Derek had bought and put together. Shelley and Kelley stopped by and hung out for a bit and we obtained the grandma shot with all three of the kids. :) Derek and Jen finally left around 11:30pm and I finished packing up the suitcase and my mom and I went to bed.


Sunday morning once again we were off early during the underwhelming 'Carmageddon' and heading to the airport to say goodbye to a great visit to California. Until next time!

Mae's First Flight!

When Ace was days away from turning 5 months old, we hopped on a plane and jetted off to California to introduce him to a whole host of folks that were just waiting to see him in person. Ace did great on the plane and in fact, continues to be a wonderful traveler both in a plane and by car. Last Sunday we boarded a plane, just me and the two kids! YIKES! To say I wasn't a tad trepidatious would be an understatement, but I had faith that we would survive. Honestly all I was praying for was no poop. I'm not kidding. Barf, wailing, tantrums... I'd take all of that over poop on a plane.

As it turned out - my prayers were answered! No poop! In fact, I had two amazingly well behaved kids. Ace enjoyed his dvd player and Mae enjoyed a few cat naps throughout the flight. Ace did well to drink his water during take off and landing to help pop his ears and Mae nursed and neither had any major issues with their ears. It was a great flight to California!

California Cousins

I'm not sure how I managed to skip this post when I was blogging about our California Adventures, but somehow I did *GASP* and that was the noteworthy event of Ace getting to FINALLY meet his cousin Kaylee. They are almost exactly one year apart. Kaylee was born last September 8th, so when we visited she had just celebrated her first birthday. She's adorable! She looks like her daddy so much.

Ace and her did great playing together. It was funny, Ace who typically is an excessive sharer... to the point of being taken advantage of even - exhibited his first sign of attachment and selfishness with his cousin Kaylee when it came to his tiger. It was adorable. He wasn't mean or forceful, but he looked at me like WHAT?! when she had him. He also when playing with the little 'house' that my mom had kept saying he needed the keys and when he finally found a set of keys (because that house has none) he locked the door! hahaha we found this extremely amusing. Even though he 'locked her out' he really wasn't being mean about it - just expressing his opinion which he ultimately relented to when she came crawling through the 'locked' door anyway. :) It was pretty adorable.

I wish that we lived closer - I'd love to live closer to my brother in general, but to be able to allow the cousins to play together semi-regularly would be so awesome. The time they did have together they had fun and we still say prayers for them on a regular basis, so they left a lasting impression on Ace. :) Can't wait to see them again, I hope it's sooner than later!

Mae's So Cal Shower

Last Saturday in So Cal my friends and family hosted a baby shower for Baby Mae. Shelley, Becky, Dawn and my mom all collaborated to put on a beautiful shower at Dawn's home and it was great to see everyone and celebrate the soon to be arrival of Mae. :)

Ace was excited from the moment he woke up that he was going to get to open presents! Who knew HOW excited he be to do it until we got started and then he was a quick tornado of present wrapping flying everywhere. Thankfully between my mom and others he was entertained and distracted by chalk outside, allowing for a more standard pace of unwrapping.

Mae got a lot of wonderful things. Dawn of course made Baby Mae more beautiful quilts that were used as decoration around the house. A chocolate fountain was served with lots of delicious things and I ate my weight in deviled eggs. Seriously I probably ate 6 whole eggs - Mae REALLY likes them. :) It was great to see people on this trip that I probably otherwise wouldn't have seen.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate with everyone - and I managed to get it all home! Ace even helped me pack! Thank you to Shelley, Becky, Dawn and my mom for a wonderful shower - Ace and I had a great time!