A BEAUTIFUL day at the Getty Museum

Resting (or not) on the grass.  Nicole and Mabel are sitting in the middle of the pic and to the right, Jeremy, Simone and Blaise are racing!  Amelia and I are coming back from the "potty"!

Ms. Amelia running near the stream!

It was super windy and clear.  That's the ocean in case you couldn't figure it out.  It was so nice.  

Tuesdays = NO school, NO break for momma which = BE creative!

So....what do we do on Tuesdays?  We're usually out the door by 8 to get to the gym so mommy can have "my time" to take a spin class.  Then we usually hit the park with Louise and kiddos but today they were busy so we had our dear old friend Svetlana over for a playdate.  Svetlana was my nanny for Jeremy and Amelia when I was coaching.  She is now a nanny for Hayden, daughter of Nick Paneno who I went to UCLA with and lived next door to in the dorms.  He played on the men's soccer team so we hung out a lot!  It's pretty cool to see our kids playing together.

After the playdate ended, we played with floam (a mushy thing that resembles rice krispy treats that you can mold but it's NOT sticky), colored, practiced writing and had some cookies with Emily who turned 4 today.  I am short on crafty things to pull out that we can do when mommy is not motivated to go anywhere.  So I put my thinking cap on and remembered that somewhere, I have all the tools to scrapbook.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I used to scrapbook.  I found all my stuff in the attic so I busted it out and we found wooden airplanes left over from J's 2nd bday, puffy paints, stickers, glue, fun scissors and so much more.  We kept busy until dinner time and now all are in bed :)  Thank goodness.  Tuesdays are LONG days!

Jeremy styled Mabel's hair and it stayed.  Classic!

La Brea Tar Pits

We decided to take the kids to the tar pits this morning.  My memories of the tar pits as a child were from field trips and I was ALWAYS hot and sweaty. :)  Shocker.  Anyway, it was much more pleasant than I remember.  One slight problem was that there was a dog and cat adoption fair but we stayed out of the center and explored the park.  

His 1st AYSO picture

We couldn't be prouder!!! :)

Happy Halloween

Well, once the family got over the stomach flu (Ryan, mommy and Jbird), we celebrated Halloween with the best of them.  We had to back out of Jeremy's soccer game, two parties and a carnival on Saturday so Sunday was a nice day outside, last minute decorations and lots of candy.  Well, for everyone but mommy who was still not feeling well :(

 Icing their own rolls.

The morning started with Halloween style cinnamon rolls.  We added black food coloring to the icing and put skulls on top.

Daddy and Jeremy making some last minute decorations.  We invited Jack Pickett down to help paint.

 Super Hero Family!!!!

Emerson Halloween

It was finally Amelia's turn to celebrate Halloween at Emerson school (last year we had to go to Jeremy's school and miss her carnival)!  My little super hero did awesome.  She kept her costume on the whole time, said "trick or treat" in every classroom (we take the little kids to the adult classes), said "please and thank you", sat patiently while 100 pictures were taken of the whole class and played all the games at the carnival.  Her favorite game was the "bobbing for donuts hanging on a string".  It was Mabel's favorite as well!  I was too busy helping Amelia play the game and I didn't realize Mabel had grabbed a donut off the string and was eating it right behind me.  I guess she was hungry.

Preparing for Halloween checklist...

Get crafty and make a foam haunted house with Jbird. Check!

Take the kids to a pumpkin patch 45 minutes from home because we were told it was a great place for kids but none of the rides were open today. Check!

We had fun anyway!

Take family portraits in cheesy wood cut outs.  Check!

Carve super cool pumpkins with the kids. Check!

Did I say with the kids? I meant to say start carving pumpkins with the kids but they lost interest after 20 minutes but would check in to scoop out the seeds every once in awhile.

Note to self for next year; a crawling baby around lots of seeds and pumpkin guts is not a great idea.  Hope she doesn't grow a pumpkin in her belly.

I think we're ready for Halloween!!!

Mommy french braided my hair and I LOVED it!

Mommy loved it too :)

Mabel is 10 months old!!!  She's cruising around like crazy, added "uh oh" to her vocabulary, blinks when you ask her too, pulls herself up to standing and attempts to let go but falls down, hair is really filling in (need to snip the front because it's growing a major widow's peak), dances, can recognize J and A's voices and pictures and is STILL happy.  We love you Mabel Babel!

Amelia's outing to the pumpkin patch!

Hermosa gang in Santa Monica for our girl's weekend!  From left to right...Me, Tiffany, Natalie, Christy and Jess.  We shopped, drank lots of coffee and even more wine, ate at yummy restaurants, talked, went to the pier (Natalie and Tiff wanted to ride the roller coaster because they have never been on it) and just relaxed.  It was a blast.  Thank you hubbies for watching all the kids.

Since my last update, a lot has happened.  

1.  Ryan and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary :) with a yummy sushi dinner 

2.  Ryan and I left the kids with my mom to take Pincushion to the All Baby Child show in Vegas.

3.  Mommy had a girl's weekend in Santa Monica (we had to stay close to home because we had a couple girls coming and going)

4.  It rained all weekend so we had quality time with dad and Jack and Annie

 Amelia helping dad pack up the car for Vegas

 The amazing Pincushion booth designed by Amy

 The kids posing with our family of ghosts (mommy and daddy ghosts are in the back, from left to right in the front...Amelia, Mabel's ghost, Amelia's ghost, Jeremy's ghost, Jbird trying to hold Mabel)

 Rainy day playtime.  Girls in the kitchen....

 boys in the other room building with lincoln logs.

The 3 Amigos

Busy Week

Jeremy pooped in the potty!  Yes, you read that correctly!!!  Holy *&^$, it's about time so he got to go to the toy store and pick out any toy! He picked a red race car.  We also had a "poop on the potty" party with Simone and Blaise since Blaise pooped the same day!  Isn't that crazy!

Ice cream cones with sprinkles for all!

The 1st Saturday of every month, Home Depot holds a kids workshop and this week, they built "fire boats"!  Amelia assisted and when they complete the project, they get a metal pin for their aprons.

Jeremy and Amelia introduced Mabel to cooking and the kitchen cabinet they are allowed to play in!

It was super hot a few days so the girls played in the baby pool.  Good times!