I'm thankful...

for this one:

The most supportive, considerate, wonderful, loving, helpful husband around. I am the luckiest, luckiest girl!

for this one:
So funny, original, smart, handsome and loving. I miss him so when he's in school and have LOVED having him home all week!

for this one:
I had no idea how much I would love having a daughter. She's sassy and sweet and beautiful and smart and this girl and her mamma are tight!

for this one:
I'm so grateful to be pregnant one last time. Don't get me wrong, I'll complain to anyone who'll listen (sorry Chris, Lauren, Jaimee and Mom!) about the heartburn and the tree trunk ankles, but I really feel so so blessed to be doing this again!

and...
tonight I'm grateful for the cute new purse Clare picked out for me for my birthday! :-)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

New favorite dinner

Personal chicken pot pies!

So easy...
-Saute some onions in olive oil. (Remove onions)
-Add small diced potatoes and carrots, cook until fork tender. (Remove veggies)
-Add diced chicken breasts or roaster chicken, cook until done. (Remove chicken.)
-Use pan to make a quick chicken gravy, or toss in a can of chicken gravy, add a little water so it's loose.
- Toss back in all the veggies and chicken.
- Cut some circles from ready made pie crusts, and lay them in your muffin tin. (I rolled out my pie crusts, so they wouldn't be so thick, since the pot pies were small.)
- Fill with filling and place pie crust rounds on top. From pie crust scraps cut your families initials and place on top.
- Bake at 425 for 20 minutes -ish.
- Delish, healthy and easy. The kiddos loved that their letters were on top and they gobbled them up!!
Thanks Alicia for the idea!!!

(Don't you love my awesome styling for the photo? The pink and green plastic plates the kids ate them on. I know, I know, classy!!) :-)

My 36th.

I actually like having birthdays. Even now that we're up to these impossibly high numbers. It's all thanks to Chris and my parents - they are sooooo good at birthdays! I had a wonderfully relaxing, happy, low key day. It was exactly what I wanted and we capped it off with a family dinner at PF. My all time favorite food.
Then there's the fact that Jaime and I share a bday and Lauren's is a few days later - which always makes for some fun birthday celebrations. This year was Jaime's 30th and she decided to have a Barbie party. I wasn't all that excited about dressing up as a Barbie, they don't exactly come giant and pregnant :-) but Bedtime Barbie and the party turned out to be so much fun! Anyone having a girls only party soon should do this. It was a blast!! Everyone looked so cute and it was actually fun getting dressed up and it's always fun hanging out with the girls!!
We ended up with:
Dressy Barbie, Holiday Barbie, Toy Story Barbie, Bedtime Barbie, Sweetheart Barbie, Bridesmaid Barbie, Asian Barbie and Doctor Barbie. (Not pictured, Lingerie Barbie and Ballet Barbie.)

Success!

Clare is potty trained! Yippee. :-)
I've been holding off putting up this post, I didn't want to jinx us, but I think it's official now. She hasn't had an accident in a week and has now been dry 4 nights in a row too. I have to say my potty training method is pretty painless. Do it for a few days until I get sick of the accidents and then go back to pull ups for a month, then do it for a few days until I get sick of the accidents and then go back to pull ups for a month or so and so on and so on... I'm not sure exactly what try we're currently on, but this time it took right away. Only two accidents and voila!! Success! :-) Now I have 8 weeks diaper/pull up free until baby arrives. I guess that's better than no time at all.

Girly girl

Much to daddy's dismay (he hates all that princess/barbie stuff!) we definitely have a girly girl on our hands. She loves wearing dresses and skirts every day (thanks grandpa for keeping her stocked up!) loves having her hair done pretty and is now all into the princesses (she will only wear the Cinderella pull-ups) barbies and polly pockets. I love it!! :-)

She earned a toy a few weeks ago and chose her first pollys. We spent hours putting the shoes on, taking the shoes off, putting them on, taking them off and on and on and on.

Annual Farm Trip

The annual co-op field trip to the farm really makes it feel like fall around here.

Clarey riding Rosebud again! This is the pony our family gets every year!
Picking the perfect pumpkin.
Clare's co-op class.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Vikings of "How to Train your Dragon."

Astrid and Hiccup
The whole Viking fam (don't you love Stoic?!)

We had SO much fun. I love love love sewing family costumes every year, it's so much work, but it's sooo much fun. Although, with 5 next year, Chris and I might have to start bowing out. We'll see. The first thing Shea said to me when he got his on when it was finished was, "Mom, I'm totally going to win the costume contest!" He wouldn't take his off for days and that's all the thanks I need!

Oh - we did win 1st place at the costume contest, Shea was very excited!

I love my life!

I love my family and lots and lots of family time - but today, I'm loving some quiet ME time!
It's a gorgeous "cold", rainy LA day and my house is clean and cool. Chris and Shea are at school Clarey is sleeping and it's just me and my computer, my DVR and my diet cherry Pepsi. Life is GOOD!!!

When it's HOT! HOT! HOT!

This past Monday, "the National Weather Service's thermometer for downtown Los Angeles headed into uncharted territory at 12:15 p.m., reaching 113 degrees for the first time since records began being kept in 1877."

It was slightly cooler at our house, but just slightly. So what do you do when it's that flipping hot at the end of September????

We head over to Lauren's with all our friends, where we crank up the AC, wrap up in our favorite blankies, eat treats (oh sooooo many treats!) and watch the new Tinkerbell movie.

That's the only way to play when it's this hot!!! Thanks Lo! we had so much fun!!

Happy 35th Dad!

Happy Birthday Chris!
We love you so much and hope you had a happy 35th!!

Clare's first Haircut!!

She was really excited and I can't count how many times that day she said that either she or her hair were beautiful. :-)
I couldn't agree more!!!!!
Thanks again Kelli!

Clare's first day of Co-op Preschool

Clarey got to start school the day after Shea. She was most excited about the pink backpack and pink lunchbox. We're in the co-op with our best friends from the playground and nursery, so I'm not sure how different it will be for her. Hopefully it will be a great experience to do her own thing, get out of the house, sit and listen to a lesson and do some fun crafts.

Watch out for the photo overload here, she looked so darling that first morning in her new school outfit and with her excited smiles, I couldn't resist posting all of these!


Bye guys, I'm off!
Oh my gosh! She's so adorable!!!!

Shea's first day of Kindergarten!

He was so excited. He smiled everywhere he went the morning of his first day of school and kept saying over and over how excited he was. How cute is my big guy?

Walking to school.

Standing outside Room 3!
Saying good-bye to Clarey. I love this photo, they are such good friends!

Putting his lunch in the basket and his backpack in the closet.


Sitting on the mat with his friend Harsh. They're so excited to get started!

His first words when we picked him up on that first day were, "That was so much fun!!" Shea is so happy! We are so happy and excited for him. He's got a few friends from last year's pre-k class in his class again this year and he's already made a few new friends too. When he's tired in the morning and not wanting to get out of bed, I just have to mention that it's a school day and he bolts out of bed, so excited to get there. I was worried he'd be tired after a full day of school, but he's wired when he gets home, he's had so much fun all day. I was also worried about Clare missing him a ton, but she seems to be loving all the one-on-one time. I'm so happy to be able to spend lots of time with her, Shea got 3 years before she came and so I want to enjoy every day of the next few months of her alone time. So far this year is off to a great start! (Except for the part about getting up and ready to go every day at 6:30 or 7. UGH!!)

Last day of Kindergarten Countdown

On our last day of Kindergarten Countdown we saw Walking with Dinosaurs at the Staples Center. This was a big investment for our family (tickets are PRICEY!) but we've been wanting to see it since we saw the first History Channel expose on it. We are SO glad we went!!! If this show comes anywhere near where you live, YOU MUST GO!

From their website:

After 65 million years they’re back!

After years of planning, the award-winning BBC TV series, Walking with Dinosaurs comes to life in a stunning theatrical event.

Internationally renowned designers have worked with scientists to create 17 life-size dinosaurs, including the terror of the ancient terrain, Tyrannosaurus-rex! Be amazed and thrilled as the greatest creatures ever to walk the earth return before your eyes.

It’s a dazzling 10 million pound arena spectacle of unprecedented size and quality set to captivate young and old alike. Marvel at the story of their 200 million year domination of life on earth. Watch them walk. Hear the roar. Be there as they fight for survival and supremacy. From the ripple of their skin to the glint in their eye, you will know the dinosaurs really have returned! So make sure you have your seat to see the return of the dinosaurs!

Check out the Dinos we saw:

This one's my favorite!

These dinos were amazing. It was hard to get clear photos with no flash, so here's just a few of the awesome, gigantic creatures we saw. The only time the kids got scared was when the mama T-Rex came over to our side and roared. It was pretty intense!

To give you an idea of the size of these dinosaurs, that baby T-Rex (above) is a person in an 8 or 9 foot tall costume! If you look closely, you can see his / her leg running from the body to the foot.


The brachiosaurus and her baby were AMAZING. When it stood up straight it's head was touching the lights in the arena. It was so huge!!

Countdown to Kindergarten Day 5

We relaxed a bit on Day 5 - this was turning out to be a tiring week! We hung out at the mall, got the correct sizes on our brand new school shoes and had big pretzels for lunch. I love this pic of the kids sharing a pomegranate lemonade.

Countdown to Kindergarten Day 4

Disneyland!
We had so much fun and our friend Sarah came with us, which made it even more fun. (Don't you love Clare's fruit snack hanging out of her mouth?)


Sarah took us to the Imaginarium, is that what it's called? It was so fun! Who knew there was a free arcade and games at Disneyland?! Shea's favorite was playing the drums.

The carousel!

And Shea got picked to be a Jedi at the Jedi Training. I was so glad Sarah was there - Clare absolutely HATES the Jedi training. Darth Maul got in her face once and she can not take it now. So she went on a few rides with Sarah while Shea got to battle Darth Vader!! He was so happy!!!

Happy Day 4!