MidWinterBreak

 

This last week, the kids were out of school, so we packed the week full of stuff to keep ourselves entertained. It worked because this week flew by! On Monday, we drove up to San Francisco zoo which was a little cold with the wind and no sun, but we still had a blast. I always love going to the zoo for some reason.

 

I love how this little girl chooses her clothes! I used to fight my kids about everything they would wear, but now I think it's awesome and I love what they put together. 

 

 

One of their favorite parts of the zoo was playing in front of the insect exhibit on the play spider web... can't wait until all of the playgrounds at the zoo are done with the construction. 

 

They also love the old time carousel and we rode it twice :)

 

This little guy is always so great to tag along, but the only thing lacking is muscle in my back... 20 lbs is something to carry.

 

 We also went to Disney on Ice with some friends with just the girls. I am more excited to do this stuff now that they are starting to remember things... it's crazy that they don't remember the first time we went. Oh well...

They all wore their princess outfits- except Maddie who didn't want to (I guess she is growing up?)... 

 We went to a new play gym called Super Safari which was a hit, and an old favorite Shoup Park which we always love...

And saw a little owl in one of the trees! So cool. I LOVE owls. 

Love this girl- hate myself in this photo, but I don't have any of us together. It was a great week and I am exhausted!!!

 

Little Sebi

 

This little guy's hair is at the fuzzy chick phase, and we have been experimenting with it...

 

So far, I think I like it when we put palm aid in it and slick it down....

 

But it's cute like this too of course :)

 He has had quite a bit of big mile stones lately including his first tooth on the bottom! Maddie and Emi didn't seem to care too much about their teeth (or maybe I forgot), but Sebastian has not liked it at all- and wakes up at night crying which is no fun for any of us. Luckily, I think he has been through the worst of it.

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He also has been eating almost everything, and we tried mashed potatoes the other day and he loved them! He also is a big fan of yogurt (no brainer) and I think beans... but I need to try a little better with mashing the beans up so they don't have big pieces of the skin left...

 

 

He has also really loved getting in this awesome hiking backpack and sat in it for nearly 4 hours. This set up is pretty sweet. 

A new and what seems to be taking too long project

 

Ever since we moved into our house, we never really finished our laundry room, and have always been thinking about adding another room in the attic. 4 years later, we are finally doing it :) A couple of weeks ago, we put in cabinets in the laundry room, and had the stairs made up to the attic! Whoo hoo. That was a huge step, but it seems like the project has just been sitting there for weeks. Since Steve is doing it himself, I don't push because there is no way that I would find the energy to work after work, or every spare second I had on the weekend... but a girl can dream.

This will be their new bedroom which will be a darling and cozy space with skylights etc... 

 And, just to make the project more complicated, we added another bathroom!

Valentines Day

This year, it felt like Valentines Day was a little crazy running from party to party to party, but my favorite part was sitting with the girls making Valentines for their classes. Maddie took a really long time to figure out what she wanted, but we settled with a really cute idea we found on the web. Emilie decided that she wanted straight forward Valentines from the box, which was great!

 Valentines Headquarters.

 Maddie's cute Valentines that she wrote 30 times over and over again.

 For Valentines weekend, we hosted a party for the "younger couples" in church... this

 was our house before the party...

and during... it was one of the best parties we've had in a while- lots of people had tons of fun and it was a great turnout....

Another kind of bucket list- don't try at home.

 

Since going to Cabo, I've been eating gluten , and lots of it. It is almost shameful and almost perverse, but if you haven't had gluten in almost 6 years, you will turn into an addict. And, that's what has happened. I almost cried when I ate a piece of bread, a flour tortilla, an oreo, a croissant, a pancake, pasta, gone to a restaurant and ordered whatever I wanted, noodles, pizza, pizza, pizza, lasagne, did I say pizza?, wheat thins, crackers, really, the list has been lengthy, but amazing, and I am just dreading the day that this all stops. 

I'm not sure you can really understand how awful it is when you really want something and you can't eat it, unless you have a similar food alergy. It get's easier, of course, but I have felt like a freed prisoner running on fresh cut grass for the first time. It has been glorious, and I could eat a baguette in one sitting, or 2 for that matter! 

My most guilty pleasure was a trip to the mall with Emilie where we ordered 1 croissant, 1 chocolate croissant, 1 ham and cheese croissant, a baguette, an apple crisp.... and I ate it all. ALL. Disgusting, right? Maybe, but amazing.

Do I feel bad? Mmm. The verdict is shady. 99% of the time no, but I have been feeling more tired, and I know my intestines haven't been happy... and I know a doctor will tell me that I need to stop so that I don't cause any long term damage blah blah blah. Yes- it will end, once I retest and finally reassure myself that I am indeed gluten intolerant, I'll stop, and start to buy the gluten replacement food that tries so very hard to replicate the real stuff, but just doesn't hit the mark. Until then, I will be gaining weight trying to eat as many crackers, bread, pasta, pizza, that I can stuff in my mouth until I feel sick.

Emilie is 4, can this be?

Well, life does it. It goes by too fast. And, birthdays just remind you of this over and over again. Our little Emilie turned 4 last week, and she wanted to celebrate it with some puppy style :) You think having a puppy party would be an easy thing, but it wasn't that easy...there aren't that many pre made puppy things out there, so we had to use some creativity- but that's better, right?

We decided to do a Puppy Camp starting out with making dog collars (necklaces), decorating our own doggie bowls, obedience school, pinata, cupcakes and presents. Thank goodness Steve's mom was visiting because there was a lot of prep... but it was all worth it.

 She came up with the invite list and she was very happy to have all of her little friends!

This was learning to play dead in obedience school! Very cute idea I got from the web...

 Next was grab as many dog bones as you can from the walls in the house (took forever to cut these out), and put them on your clothes. The most wins!

 

Cute little E...

 

 Next up- pinata with mostly little girls who tried their very best!

 

A happy girl with her cupcake!

 

 I looked for puppy cupcakes, and I just don't think I could do those amazing puppy faces with icing, so we settled with making dogbones... which I think turned out pretty cute and very tasty. (except for the broken one!).

 "Emilie, what was your favorite part?" "Mmmm. The cupcakes and presents." Smart.

Of course her day had to include her best friend Maggie. These two are the most similar little girls you'll meet... it's pretty darn cute.

We love love love love love love love you Emi. Just don't grow any older please.

Grandma Sue's visit

Steve's mom came to visit for us last week and we had so much fun. We didn't go anywhere spectacular, but we made lots of memories just spending time with each other. The kids ate her up, especially Emilie who followed her everywhere and sat next to her playing with her new ipad, her paints, her sewing tricks... she was in heaven.

 Cute girls.

 We hit this jumpy place in the Milpitas mall for the first time, and the kids loved it.

We also had a "Christmas morning" for the second time- where I think they got just as many presents as the actual Christmas day (very spoiled!), but all from Grandma and Grandpa.

 Sebi trying out his new walker and toys...

 The weather has been dreamy- some days it felt like 75 degrees, so we had to get outside and try our luck at some kites. We had a picnic, and walked/biked and flew our little kite. It was super fun- I can still feel the sun on my back on our walk... so nice.

 Super cuties all around...

 Was a great kite flyer for her first time!

 Horsing around... that's what dads are great at, right!?

Not going to be able to do this for long...

Thanks for coming Grandma! Can't wait for you to come back!