Just My Family and Me...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The bag lady

Our little Anna is quite the bag lady - literally! She carries around as many purses, bags, buckets and baskets as her little hands can manage. The bags are sometimes empty and sometimes hold an assortment of treasures such as hair clips, bracelets, magnets, crayons, Squinkies (why oh why did I ever start buying those!?) and various snacks. It's really quite adorable. Just don't try to take any of them away from her!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Girl's outing

Here is one last post from our trip to California.

Emma was so excited to get her first pedicure! Sofia, Siena, Emma and I went to a nail salon and then out to lunch (the girls picked sushi!). It was a lovely time for just the ladies. Emma picked a sparkly blue (blue being her favorite color at the moment) nail polish for her toes and got little pink flower stickers on her big toes. She was so proud of her feet and now she keeps asking me when she can have her next pedicure. I think we've created a little diva!

Emma looks pretty happy, don't you think?

Two more happy girls!

Siena choosing her lunch from the conveyor belt

I think Emma is searching for the edamame - she just loves it!

Emma and Moster Sofia. Check out Sofia's green nails - she was a green super hero for Halloween

Siena and Moster Terese

Saturday, December 3, 2011

California Trip, October, 2011

It wasn't all about Halloween during our recent trip to visit Sofia and her family in California. We managed to sneek in some other fun things over the weekend. We took a day trip to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and drove through Pebble Beach and Carmel on our way to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the ocean and the bridge at Big Sur. Such beautifaul scenery! As usual, my camera didn't come out nearly enough on our trip but I did manage to take a few pictures this day.

I love this picture even though it is so blurry. Henry's hand against the glass almost looks like an alien's with the jelly fish in the background.

Anna loved looking at all the fish!

I think Henry wished he could be inside the tanks!

Anna with Moster Sofia - check out their matching outfits!

Emma on the beautiful beach

James with Daddy - they match too!

I'm shocked Henry didn't get soaked!

The whole family

A very friendly (and very fat!) squirrel!

Gorgeous coastline

Bixby Bridge at Big Sur

Pictures of sunsets, especially through glass, never do them justice - but you get the idea. The food wasn't all that but the view more than made up for it!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Advent calendars

I spent hours last night wrapping 96 gifts for the kids' advent calendars. I love this tradition that my parents started for my sister, my brother and me when we were growing up. I don't know which is better - being little and so excited about opening a small gift every day or being a parent and watching your children excitedly opening their gifts. It's definitely worth a little sleep deprivation to get it all put together!
Notice that I have not ~~finished~~ started the twins' calendars...I hope they don't mind having their gifts in a bucket this year...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Looking back at Halloween 2011

I have four(!) sick kids at home today so instead of writing about runny noses and coughing fits, I thought it would be more fun to look back at Halloween! We visited the cousins in California over the weekend so the kids all went trick-or-treating in a cute little downtown area. There were tons of people and everyone had a great time. When we got back home the kids got to trick-or-treat again in our downtown area. I think we celebrated Halloween sufficiently!