Goat Hill Junction

Uh...so fun!

Thanks, again Kim for reminding us that THIS was the weekend that this was free!

We hadn't hit the monthly schedule right, and we kept missing free day, and we actually almost had to miss today!

The 3rd Weekend of every month, you can ride these trains for free in Costa Mesa. A lot of my friends have done this before, and it looked so fun! So, on our way, my friend Kim told us that I wouldn't be able to take Ivy on the train...kids have to be able to walk to ride the train at all...so, we were half way there and I thought I'd just warn Max that it might not happen today, and then call my Great-Aunt Bette to see if she'd come sit in the car with Ives, while Max and I rode...thankfully she was so excited to help me! You are not allowed to take pics while you ride, but it's a cute mini steam engine train that takes you for 2 loops around this ginormous park. it was at least a 10 minute ride...and we only waited in line for probably 5 minutes! Thanks Bette for playing with Ivy so we could go today!
Max kept saying... 'this is so cool.'
...and it was!

my craft date!

We went to Amanda's house yesterday for a fun day of crafting...it's been so long, and it was sooo fun! So, we first made these stinkin' cute spider clippies that I stole from my friend Lauren. They'd make cute octopus, too...but I loved them so much, she let me borrow her's so I could duplicate it. woo hoo... Ivy likes it!
Then we got busy making a little pumpkin patch...this is how mine turned out. The tutorial is found here. Mostly used my stash of fabrics for both me and Amanda...rad, huh? she told me I'm turning into Cheryl, my MIL, with a craft store at my house! They turned out so cute, huh?

here's 0ne up close. So easy, and so cute. Now I just have to wait until October 1 to stick them up, so I don't get sick of looking at them before Halloween.

Then today, {I think I caught the bug again}, I whipped this little sucker out for our upcoming road trip to AZ...it's a pint-sized neck pillow for Max. The monster is supposed to keep his head from bobbing back and forth. He was so excited about it. The best part is that I had the fabric to make this little guy, too...and the monster was only $1. beautiful! Here's the tutorial for the little monster neck pillow.

woo-doggy, I'm on a craft rampage now, and I'm headed to the queen of all crafter's house next week...I have some plans. Hope she's game!

b-b-b-busy!

Please pardon the pause in posts!

We've been busy around these parts...here's a little catch-up!

First of all, you know it was Jeff's bday, and we celebrated 'free' style. We got his free burger at Red Robin...then had our good friends, the Wilsons, watch our kids so we could go to Disneyland, of course for free, since we have passes...and of course we got our $72 gift card for free...woo hoo! We rode 3 of the big kid rides and it was sooo fun! Jeff is hilarious, did you know? This is his stinking white on white cake. He completely robbed me of my creative genious, as he wouldn't even let me color the frosting. So, here is his favorite sick-nast frosting, which actually was pretty good this time, and it is decorated as much as he would allow. I had big plans, but this is all I got to do...blah. We did eat it all by day 2...that's pathetic!

Max started preschool on tuesday, and he has been so excited about it! He keeps asking to learn about letters, and he could hardly wait to get to Carter's house for his first day. Amber, my friend, did an amazing job with their first day, and they did some really fun things! I can't wait for friday for my day to teach, this is going to be an awesome creative outlet for me!

Then, I've been working on some things for Enrichment night: here are some of my friends from our ward at our enrichment night. It was a Temple theme, as I have said, we had temple pictures everywhere, and everything was white, including the chile, which by the way, Ann Mousser, was freaking ridiculously good, thanks for the recipe! holy.

Then, did you know that even Pirates poop? This picture is not meant to be obscene, and actually he was actually just tinkling in his get up, but 'pirates tinkling' just isn't as funny! Max has been potty training since last Sunday after church. This is our second attempt, and he is doing sooo great this time around! We've only had 1 accident in the last 3 days, and he's been such a champ when the going gets tough... and pooping is tough stuff!

I haven't been crafting as much lately, which makes me sad. but after doing this quick little project from dish towels...tutorial here... I can hardly wait to do something else (I have a date to craft tomorrow!). Ivy is all set for Halloween, and I'm so excited about this outfit {and Halloween} that I could scream!and then...Nothing is sacred any more: Ivy is crawling all over the place, which is awesome, and so cute! But she also crawls out of the bumbo, the little stinker. I looked up when Max started crawling, and she's beating him by about 3 weeks! yikes...that's all I'll say about that.

sorry it's dark...it's just from my cell phone..and our apt is dark! She's so proud of herself!

Windowless

OK, HB4...

either we stink, or my idea was a flop...I'm thinking it was the latter, but really, 3 windows? I know more of you have gone than that. The sad part is that it's already half-way through September and there are only 3....3! So, plan a day to go, and I'll smuggle my phone into church one more time after Sept 30 and take another picture...it better be better than this one!

love me

28

i love that you do what you love and the rest comes

i love that the best part of your day is wrestling with Max and kissing Ivy

i love that you love to listen and you love to talk

i love that you can't keep a secret...

i love that you genuinely want to be good

i love that everyone that knows you, can't truly say a bad thing about you

i love that you are such a hard worker

i love that you chose me

i love you so much. i hope you have a such a fun birthday, deeds

love me
.

A Whale of a Day

Today was free-day at the Birch Aquarium. I've been planning to go today for forever, but I was also trying to squeeze in a trip to the Newport Beach Temple with the kids...I'll explain why later. Anyways, turns out that we were 3.7 miles, or something crazy close to the San Diego Temple, so I decided that I COULD fit in both!
Jeff remembers going to this aquarium as a kid, and keeps telling me that I should go, it being free day, I couldn't resist. It's a small aquarium, I took my stroller, but wish I hadn't because Max was out of it the whole time, and I held Ivy. Perfect size for little crazy guy. He could see and touch everything by himself, which is always the best.

Beautiful day with a teeny breeze...this is the view from the tide pools. pretty, eh?

Of course there were sharks, and of course, it was a favorite part. The Jelly fish were another favorite at this auquarium.

We had a really fun time, and Max was an amazing listener!

So, our ward's enrichment theme this month is The Temple. I thought it would be fun to get as many people from our ward to go to the temple this month, and to track it. I drew a 24 inch temple to hang on our bulletin board by the Relief Society room. I punched a bunch of blue circles to be windows, so everytime a family or a group goes to the temple, even if it's just to walk around it, they can grab a circle (a window) write their name on it, and date, or whatever, and tape it onto the temple somewhere. Hopefully, by Sept 30th, it will be filled up with windows. I just thought it would be neat to really see how many people go in a month...or don't go. It will either be a rude awakening, or really motivating, right?

So, I wanted to make sure that there was at least 1 window on the temple this Sunday when we go to church, and that's why I wanted to take the kids this week...mission accomplished and here is our proof! We'll be hanging our window up tomorrow before church!

Max, Ivy and I had a quick picnic on the grass and took a couple pictures before we started our drive back home. Again, Max was an awesome listener, and actually sat on the blanket while he ate...and he actually ate...!

Both kids zonked the whole way home, while I listened to Sheryl Crow and sipped a D.C...sigh...what a great day!

{ps...we'll see if I can bring my camera to church, along with my 30 other bags to take a picture of our naked temple...before and after pics are always fun, right? K, hop to it HB4...the world's looking at our bulletin board!}

Pretend City

Well, my friends think I'm dumb for going here because it's so expensive. Pretend City is a new Children's Museum that opened up in Irvine, which is super close to us. It is pretty expensive (you even have to pay for infants), but they have a deal that if you go for the last hour, it's half price. We thought we'd try that out. I didn't know how it would be: maybe it would be way crowded, maybe it would be dumb, or a lot like the other ones we've been to for free...It was Uh-mazing with a capital U. I see why it costs so much to go there, because it has so many really cool things: they really pulled out all the stops. Such an awesome place for kids to imagine, and learn about how familiar things work. They took a chunk out of Max's imagination, and put it in this gigantic warehouse. There was a garden that had buried fruits and vegetables... with unlimited tools to tend to the garden...watering buckets, etc....this was at the farm
There was a construction site...actually, 2...this one was a bunch of PVC pipe that we could build things with, hard hats, tools, etc, etc.

The cars were of course Max's favorite part, and I'm pretty sure that he test drove every single car in the place...he just loves these things. What was really fun was that there are roads all over pretend city, street lights, stop signs, hills, etc...even a gas station...

There was a grocery store: a pretend Ralph's, with sooo many different foods and aisles, even a frozen foods section, a deli, a bakery, checkout stands, cash registers, etc... This is Max's concoction: a Peanut butter, cheese, tomatoe, jam, cheesecake sandwich...mmm. He used tongs to make his sandwich.

We met our cute little RSM girlie's there, Kali, Tatum and Amanda...didn't see them much, but here is Tatum picking apples from the orchard.

more grocery store...Max gathered groceries numerous times.

more driving: pink car, he couldn't wait to drive the one that was his favorite color...Brandy, you know that's exactly what he said! Another cool thing about pretend city was that there employees at every station sort of cleaning up as kids whirled through, so that when other kids got there, there were still apples to pick off the trees, vegetables in the garden, groceries to gather, fireman garb ready to be put on, and in their proper places. Other museums we have been to haven't really been like that. It was nice while following around a fast-moving-crazy guy to not have to totally worry about picking EVERYTHING up after him before he was out of my line of sight. Max was sooo kind, he was especially great at taking turns in the cars, which is a pretty hard thing for him to do right now. He had so much fun, and was soooo sad to leave when our hour was up...1 hour was NOT enough time to play here!

So, my review is: yes, it's expensive, but it's really, really cool.

The ONLY thing I was sad about, was that I had Ivy in the baby bjorn, so I couldn't dig in, and play with Max as much as I wanted...bending over with that thing is not my favorite. Anyway...Grandma, you really need to go here with us!

Los Doyers

One of the perks of Jeff's job is that he can get MLB tickets. Who knows why it's taken us so long to go to a game, but when he told me that the Dodgers were playing the Dbacks, we hurried to get some. This was Max and Ivy's FIRST major league baseball game...though max is a seasoned college baseball spectator. Jeff and I have a goal to go to as many MLB stadiums as we can...now we have Dodger's Stadium under our belt.

We felt like VIP's.... we did not have to wait in line for parking...we got to jet right ahead to the front of the line. We did not have to pay for parking, but rather, parked right in front of the park for freeeee. We did not have to pay for tickets...we went to will call, and picked them up. We did not have to go directly to our seats, we went down to the warning track and watched BP on the DBacks side, even though we were told numerous times that people weren't allowed beyond a certain point. How did we do all of this? a beautiful thing called a scout card. Jeff was flashing it like a cop...I'm sure he felt cool, cuz I did. hee hee.

Anyway...some stinkin' fun stuff happened on the other side of the tape....as soon as we got down there, Miguel Montero (the catcher) aka Miggy, ran by, said hi to Max and tossed him the ball he was holding...saweeeet !

After the joy of that passed, Jeff sent a text to a co-worker who was standing next to Miggy, and asked him if he'd come over again to sign Max's baseball...

and he totally did! so fun!
Then we high-tailed it over to the Dodger's side to see if we could say hi to one of his old teammates, Andre Ethier, who plays right field for the Dodgers.

There's Andre stretching...

he waved at us, and told us he'd come over in a minute. Max kept hollering at him...

So...Andre signed Max's Ball as well...

Then we went up to our seats and watched the game for a while. Such a fun time! Didn't see much game, but we were there for 2 hours. Can't wait to go again!