Happy Anniversary Love!

Chris and I celebrated our 5th anniversary this week. I am so grateful for Chris. He is the perfect compliment to me and I to him. He's funny and strong and the best priesthood holder I could hope for in my home. He'll tell you he's lazy, but he is a very hard worker and takes his responsibilities (at home, school and church) very seriously. He is an amazing dad! His kids idolize him. He is the best I.T. guy a family could ask for. Our technical situation at home is envious. He supports all nine thousand pots I've got my hands in and helps me with everything! He still makes me crazy on a regular basis, but I wouldn't trade him for anything! We decided at the Cheesecake Factory on Friday that we're much better now than we were 5 years ago. Learning how to live with someone is definitely a good thing. We also have learned how to fight with each other. We had some knock down drag outs in the first few years - now when we disagree, we just don't talk much for a few hours until it blows over. Something I definitely prefer! :-)

Chris made my day SUPER special. Since sending me to the spa for the afternoon could never happen on our budget, he brought the spa to me! He totally researched how to do all this and then ordered everything on the internet. It was fun to see all these little packages arriving all week long and speculating what was in them. So in the middle of the day Friday, I got a spa afternoon! I got a full body massage (candlelit w/ Beethoven playing) with hot rocks (AWESOME!) then a coconut milk, candlelit bath and then a delicious mango lotion massage to end. I felt glorious afterward. He got his first new set of scriptures since seminary. Then sweet Erica and Tom watched the kids so we could go on a date. It was a wonderful day.

I love you Chris. Here's to the next 5!!
(these are the WAY too expensive (Christopher!) but totally gorgeous roses that he sent me.)

Blessed Morning

If only every morning were like this. By 9:30 this morning I had already:

-walked for an hour
-had personal prayers and scripture study
-eaten a healthy breakfast (ok- not super healthy, but low-cal!)
-fed Clare twice
-had a shower and gotten dressed
-done both hair and make-up (a rarity these days)
-and put the laundry in!!

Ah! Blessed morning. They are never like this!! I am almost always still in jammies at 10am (ok, lets be honest, I'm almost always still in jammies at noon!) Today, I can thank Clare for waking me up at 6am (remember next time Jenna, it's a blessing not a curse!!) and Shea and Chris for sleeping until 9! Glorious!

My budding photographer

Shea loves to take pictures. He asks about every other week if it's almost Christmas yet because he plans on asking Santa for his very own camera. I taught him how to use ours (supervised, of course) and he takes pictures all the time. Here's some recent portraits he took.
Daddy:
(summers rule! we get to read for pleasure!)

Mommy:
Shea:
Ok, his self portraits definitely need work - but otherwise, not too shabby, although we definitely need to learn about lighting. :-)

Just chillin' in my Bumbo

I apologize in advance for putting all these up. I just can't stand it!!!! She is so stinking cute! I spend most of my days trying not to suffocate her with kisses, she is sooo kissable, soft and sweet.

Chris has been telling me for a while that her ears are a little sticky outy, and I haven't seen it. I do see it a bit here, but oh my heck. I could just smoosh her, she's so adorable!!!

Look at these HUGE baby blues.


I LOVE this one. What is she thinking? :-)

Smile for the camera pretty girl!

Pretending to be shy.
Oh my gosh, I love you Clarabelle!

Bugs Bunny on Broadway

For those locals who have never been to the Hollywood Bowl. OH MY GOSH! So much fun. I know you've all seen photos on TV, it's the ginormous outdoor ampitheatre in the Hollywood Hills, just below the Hollywood sign.
(see the Hollywood sign, there in the background?)

My boys LOVE Looney Toons! Love! So I secretly got us all tickets to Bugs Bunny on Broadway, which is the LA Philharmonic playing all the music from a bunch of classic Loony Toons cartoons.
We headed over there about 6pm yesterday. We took our picnic lunch of baguettes, fruit and cheese and had a super nice picnic at the picnic grounds of the Bowl. Then stashed our stuff and headed up to our seats. We were pretty far back - but there is not a single bad seat in the place. It is so open and huge and awesome. We people watched for a half hour or so and then the show began. Shea loved seeing the musicians with their "musical instruments" and when they started the cartoons on the huge screens, he was in absolute heaven. We laughed and laughed and enjoyed ourselves immensely out there under the stars. My favorite moment of the night was when, in one of the cartoons, an opera singer walks out on the stage of the Hollywood bowl, Shea yelled out, super loud, "that's where we are!!!" Everyone around was laughing and thought it was so cute that he figured that out. It was SUCH A FABULOUS EVENING!! We didn't get home until after midnight, but I can't wait to go back. Chris is taking me for the music of Les Mis at the Bowl in August. Can't wait!!!!! Anyone who hasn't been must go!

Owies

Warning: You might need a "magnifinding" glass to see these.Shea has had a sad week of owies. He got a bunch of scrapes within a couple days of each other and had road rash all over his little legs this week. I love how a band aid (or six) and a kiss from mom make his owies feel better. I loved his super sad, feel sorry for me face here. (He even stuck the lip out. He IS watching his sister.)

Happy 4th of July

This year we had a super fun BBQ with a bunch of friends who live on our side of the Village. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or their parents!!! The kids ran around with squirt guns, played on the playground, rode various bikes and trikes and played trains! WOW. And the adults? We ate (and ate and ate) and chatted to our hearts content. Couldn't ask for a better day than that. Food, friends and fun in the sun.
After the BBQ, us and the Moore's went up to the front lawn of the Temple, where we got to see 6 or 7 fireworks shows simultaneously. Only the Colliseum and Marina del Rey shows were really big and close enough to see well, but there were a bunch of others further out. It was perfect! What a great day. Hope your 4ths were as happy as ours!!

Teaching the girls the fine arts of squirt guns-

Apparently hot dogs are MUCH better when every bite is dipped in your root beer.
(I know, SICK! And, no, he did NOT learn this at home!) -


Friends -

To be one of the cool daddies at this shin dig - you had to be sporting a sweet baby girl.-
Just chillin' with my daddy. -

For the best view of the fireworks...

Snacks at the show.

Shea's peeps

I had to take a picture of Shea and I's peeps before everyone has moved. We have had the funnest year with this amazing group of people, who, unfortunately, are mostly all leaving UCLA this year. Boo hoo! We will miss all our friends!! We've especially had fun this summer with our Friday Field Trips. All the moms get together with the kids once a week to see or do one of the gazillion awesome things there are to do in LA. (Even though I've missed the last couple :-( (Can't thank you enough Jean!) This last Friday was a picnic at the playground - here we are with our peeps. We love you guys!!

My favorite girl

Last spring during one of the preschool days that I wasn't teaching, Shea was apparently missing me a lot and feeling sad. The teacher, my sweet friend Jean had their oldest daughter, who was on spring break, with her that day. Jean assigned Eva (7) to be Shea's special friend and to play with him so he wouldn't be sad. Well!! He LOVED all that extra attention and he LOVED Eva. It started my son's first official crush. Since that day, every time he sees her and sometimes out of the blue, he'll talk about "Eva, my favorite girl." I couldn't be happier, she's a beautiful, sweet little thing with a gorgeous voice so, you go son!! :-)
(Here's the picture he asked her to take with him at our last Friday Field Trip.)

Summer Beach Days

I love that we live close enough to go to the beach whenever we want because Shea loves going. He's not a huge fan of the water, but will play in the sand for hours. I however, don't love it so much. I'm always stressed about sunburns and I hate how your skin and hair feel after a day at the beach. And most of all, I hate that sand gets in everything! Yuck, yuck, yuck! I prefer nice long Sunday walks on the beach. Chris can't believe that I feel this way. Apparently it's sacrilege to live in Southern Cali and not like the beach, so sorry for all those I've offended. :-)

Here are some pics of our most recent beach trip. Clare's first! Yes, she slept almost the entire time, just waking long enough for me to dip her toes in the water. She didn't hate it at all - so maybe I have another beach baby on my hands.

Libraries Rock!

I am so glad that my baby seems to have inherited his parents' love of reading. Our local library is one of his favorite places. They only let you have 10 books out at once, so to get around that silly rule, both Shea and I each have a card so we can get 20 books. Here's our haul from today. How awesome is it, that we can go, pick out 20 fun, different, cool looking books and bring them home to enjoy, only to return in a week or so for a whole new batch?!!! It's THE BEST! I know I'm preaching to the choir and that you all already understand the joys of library membership - it just hit me again today how lucky we are, as we spread out our new finds to show daddy.

Outings

Chris' sister Courntey came from Provo to take care of the kids while we were working a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to do some fun things with her while she was here so Tue after training we went to Disneyland. (Note to locals: NEVER leave at 4:30pm and take the 10!) It took us 2 hrs to get there, but we had a blast! Shea is a big fan of having daddy with us and of the fireworks. (Isn't Tinkerbell cool - flying around up there?) To bad that now that we all 3 have our passes we can't go again until mid August. But I am happy to leave the heat and the crowds to the vacationers. I much prefer Disneyland when it's cool and quiet!

Chris and I got to go to Stake Temple night since we had a babysitter. I love the LA Temple. We rarely get to go together as our ward has no babysitters so this was a treat.

We also got to go to a Dodgers game on Fri. Talk about hot!!! It was 100 degrees in the shade. Yuck!! But we sat in the all-you-can-eat pavilion. Awesome! As many Dodger Dogs as you could eat. Yum!

I was hungry mom!

About 5 minutes before our combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting ended on Sunday one of the Nursery leaders brought Shea in to Chris and I. I was holding a sleeping Clare, so Chris took him out to figure out what he needed. When the meeting ended a few minutes later I went out to find Chris, Shea and assorted adults standing around snickering. Apparently my dear son put some crayons in his mouth during nursery and gagged himself so bad he threw up. (Those poor nursery leaders!!) I could NOT believe it!! My Shea??? (In case you're wondering, yes, his history of near perfect behavior has just about ended in the commencement of his third year. Boo hoo!) Anyway -so I said, "Shea!! You put a crayon in your mouth??" And he looks at me with those big blue eyes and goes, "No, three." That detail was very important to him. I'm trying not to laugh while everyone around is giggling and I said, "Why, Shea? We don't eat crayons!" His response? "Mommy, I was hungry."