We love you Grandmommy!! We miss you already!

Major Transitions, trials, birthday party, Grandmommy is here and Amelia is 4!!!!!!

Be warned, this is going to be a long update because way too much is going on and I've waited too long to update because I've been too busy! :)

Where do I start?

Fun stuff first....as I've been prepping for Jeremy and Amelia's birthday, I had to keep the kids busy while I was busy constructing the Western town.  So, I gave them some cardboard and A LOT of paint and before I knew it, they were naked (surprise surprise) and painting with their "bottoms"! They had a blast!!!!!

Grandmommy arrived Tuesday, May 22 and the kids are in heaven.  They've gone on walks, played, gone to parks, Bristol Farms and we've just hung out.  She has played Memory with Jbird almost every night and he has won by a landslide every time.  We will miss her when she leaves on Thursday :(  I'll try to get a better picture of her with the kids.

Some sad news....Mabel lost her "dee tee".  Seriously, her life has changed.  She cried for 2 hours the first night and she is sad when she goes to bed every night and we're on day #6.  When is this going to end?  I'm sad, I feel guilty, it's my fault because she might have snuck it on her walk with grandmommy.  She is back to climbing out of her bed because she has nothing comforting in there and we had to return the tent due to a recall.  She is no longer napping.  I'm sorry baby girl.  And as if bedtime wasn't frustrating enough, we moved Amelia into a big girl bed and she LOVES it during the day but asks for her crib when we tell her it's bedtime.  She doesn't get out of it but bedtime is more emotional.  NOT what I need. Here we are taking out her crib!

Loved it the first night and loves to hang out during the day but delays bedtime.  So, I'm one stressed out momma at night.  Thank you Oma, Opa and Grandmommy for my new bedding and lamp!

Jeremy and Amelia's Western Birthday Party

It was a BLAST!  Trackless train, cardboard western town, hobby horse party favors, foam guns, cowboy/girl hats and because I planned a block party for the same day, the entire block was closed.  It was AWESOME.  The kids rode their bikes up and down the street ALL day and we had a bounce house from 10am to 7pm.  The birthday party went from 2-4:30 and we carried on into the night.  We had some yummy tacos cooked up in the street, sparklers, baseball in the street,  a keg, good friends and I think they will remember this forever.  Well, Jbird will.  Here are pictures in no particular order because I'm too tired to edit.

 

Once the party was over, the local fire station stopped by and the kids got to go in and climb all around.  My birthday buddies!

The morning after!  

Happy 4th Birthday Amelia!

So Amelia's birthday was Monday and it wasn't as I'd planned since she woke up with a belly ache (so did Daddy but for a different reason since he was in the front until 2 am), Jbird slept in the guest house with Grandmommy and the girls slept until 8:45!  No "first thing in the morning" pic, no sweet letter, tons of presents, a mellow afternoon at home playing with some new water toys and Grandmommy time!

She chose Tower pizza for dinner and Jbird won both girls new animals!  

Some ice cream cake once we got home, baths and bed!!!!  She wants to go to the Santa Monica Pier to ride the carousel so we will try to do that this weekend.  Happy Birthday to my sweet, smart, emotional :), determined, daddy's girl, big sis, little sis and 1st daughter.  I love you so much and I can't wait to see how you grow and mature.  Love you little stinker!

Loving the summer weather!

Amelia's friend Adia belongs (well, her parents do) to the California Yacht Club and they invited the girls to swim yesterday.  And swim they did.  For 3 hours!  The toddler pool was the best because it was deep enough for them to feel like big kids but not too deep for us to worry.  Mommy on the lounge chair + girls swimming = fun times!

Today was 1/2 day for J so we packed up and headed to the beach. We got there at 2 and stayed until almost 5:30pm.  

Picture missing J and M!  As you can tell, I picked up 3 more kids. Jbird's baseball buddy Scotty is on the left and our neighbors Madeline and Eleanor were hanging on our front lawn when we were packing up so I asked them to come with.  

The summer should be fun!

Busy, busy, busy

Time is going by fast and sometimes I think it's going a little too fast.  Jeremy is almost done with his 2nd year of little league and loves it.  He's become the player you can count on to get a hit and he's loving it.  He wants to play games all the time and he wants people to watch.  He was so excited when Oma came last week.  He asked all day if "Oma was really coming?"  

Here are a couple shots one of the other moms took of J at bat!

The kids have a lot of toys so Oma and Opa took J to see Cirque de Soleil instead of getting him yet another toy.  They said he liked it and enjoyed himself and he's been telling me all about it today so I think it was a success.  Thank you Oma and Opa!

ps...we have confirmed that Olivia, our summer nanny from Berlin is coming July 6 until August 27.  We spent ALL day moving Ryan's desk into the garage and making the guest house an official guest room.  Now, we just need a nice reading chair.  Pics to come.

Summer planning

In case you don't know me, I start to think about summer plans, camps, trips, etc about March :)  Luckily I'm not alone.  A few gal pals/mommy friends and I got together last night over dinner and wine (much needed wine because between the 4 of us, we have 11 kids) and planned out what looks to be an amazing summer.  We were supposed to come to the table with places we've always wanted to go and things to do so we could book it in our calendars.  And yes, we came to the table with real paper calendars.  How "old school" of us.  We will forward on to a larger group but we thought it would be impossible to coordinate a lot of schedules so if others can come, great.  If not, oh well.

Here's some of what we came up with.  Fridays are beach days.  Same time, same place.  EVERY Friday.  We each chose a day to host a play date.  Cherie might do arts and craft craziness, I am going to do popsicles and water fun, Louise has a swing set and Sophie thought about a lemonade stand.  Here are some places we will be going; botanical gardens, Bucaneer water park, a beach house, hollywood bowl music week, YMCA camp, art class, a couple of museums and of course, some local parks.  Best part of last night, we put in another dinner at the end of the summer to see how tired we look :)  Let the countdown begin...

Bollywood Night - GOETHE fundraiser

Jeremy's school had a fundraiser a while back and we just got the professional pictures today.  Not a great one but since we never get pictures anymore, I thought I would post one so the kids can look back and say, "wow mom and dad, you look so young" :)

A real "bubble bath"

Since the kids can eat popsicles in the bath, I thought why can't they have bubbles!  So they did. I stood on the counter top and blew them onto the girls and they had a blast!

She's intense!

Attack of the bubbles

They even loved blowing them all over themselves.