I'm Ivy

and I'm 15 months old!

I weigh 20 lbs (9%) and am 30.5" tall (50%)

and I'm the cutest girl in the world.

I love to give zerberts...it's how I show affection

I love to give kisses (mmmmmm-uh)

I love to toot and laugh about it.

I love to burp and laugh about it.

I love to play peek a boo

I love to say my prayers

I love to tinkle on the potty like a big girl before I get in the tubby

I love to take toys from my big brother that I know will tick him off and then run away laughing.

I love to EAT

I love to play the game: What does a (fill in the blank with an animal) say?

I love Doggies!

I love babies, but only real ones.

I love to read books, but only the ones that I choose.

I love to play in the ocean and the sand

I love to play with Max

I love to play outside

I love to play with shoes

I love to talk on cell phones

I love to say the words that I know:

"Ow!" "Hi" "Momma" "Dad" "Max" "Please" "Thanks" "Milk" "Ball" "Doggie" "This" "That"

"Shhhhh (baby's sleeping)"

I love to sign the words that I know:

Please, Milk, More, All Done, Helicopter, Airplane

Don't stick me in a car without a snack and a book, don't try to do my hair, get me dressed or change my bum. I don't like any of those things and I'll scream. Just as long as we have this understanding, life will be great!

The Hill next to "la" tar pits

And then we probably spent as much time outside the museum playing on this hill that we did inside the museum. Great to get the wiggles out! Check out Max in the middle going 'bum'-over-tea-kettle...awesome!

Alex at the very top, then Hannah, Nate, Taylor, Max, Ewan, Mika and Ivy

and I'm ticked at myself that I accidentally flipped the switch on my camera that takes it off 'auto'...and therefore I got blue pictures.

Sure wish I knew how to use this thing!

La Brea Tar Pits

Another thing I've wanted to do for forever is to go to the La Brea Tar Pits (

am I supposed to say 'the'...or does 'la' mean 'the' and make me sound like an idiot? either way.)

It's one of the free days that's been on my list of things to do!

(the first tuesday of every month, you can get in for free!)

My friend Kelly loaded us all up in her supercar and we watched Ice Age on the way to remind the kids what kind of animals we'd see when we got there...woo hoo...and it made for a quieter drive with 6 kids!

If you ask Max about the tar pits, he'll tell you it smelled like tires...There's a lake in the front of the museum...and crude oil, and whatever else has been bubbling it's way in for forever, creating...the tar pits. Everything in the museum are bones that they have found in the local pits. Including 1 woman...weird!

Here are two of Max's Sunbeam friends: Mika and Nate-dogg

Minus Ivy, here's who went: Max, Nate, Ewan, Mika, Hannah, Taylor, Alex

OK, so I didn't take many pictures inside, but they were awesome: Saber-toothed cats (did you know that it's totally not a saber-tooth tiger...but most people call it that erroneously!), Mastadons, Mammoths, Camels, Wolves, Condors (vultures), Sloths, etc. There is also a big fishbowl with people inside working on cleaning off the bones that they find there. awesome.

cwazy wig

Is it ridiculous that this is our first time doing this:

with Ivy's hair?

That's just sad. I guess since it's been almost 4 years with a boy, shampoo craziness slipped my mind. Come on, aut!

our fourth

the 4th of July is big time in HB! We LOVE this holiday! Here's what we did...

Ran the Surf City 5k with my friends: it was nice to just walk home at the end of the race!

We of course went to church in as patriotic as we dared clothing... I made Ivy and Max really cute little pins from Orange Juice concentrate lids that I found here.

I made a summer dessert pizza and decorated it Fourth-Style...got the star idea in the center from some blog, and I have no idea which one...stink! sorry! whoever you were, you're cute!

and because the summer dessert pizza is deemed as 'chick food' I also made Jeff and Doyle Chocolate-Covered Oreos. yum.

We rode our bikes to the Doyle's house...they are our HB family, and we love to play at their house! We had an awesome BBQ with the yummiest drink I've ever had! yum! Ivy loves Marie!

And the kids favorite part of the Doyle's is their best friend Buddy. poor dog, he's such a good sport!

After dinner and chatting, we rode down to the pier...Jeff and I thought Doyle was crazy going down there, we thought we'd never get out because there were 100's of thousands of people on the beach, and on the street...it was awesome! They shut down PCH, so the ride was awesome.

Here's our perfect little viewing nest. We sat right next to our bikes...awesome!

Max LOVED the fireworks this year, and didn't have his ears plugged the whole time, Ivy liked them for a minute, but was over it. But she was good and just floated from me to marie and back again.

And it was surprisingly not so bad to ride our bikes back home from the beach, but the kids were OUT by the time we even hit the numbered streets.

We had so much fun, and a pair of shoes filled with sand. Happy Fourth of July; hope everyone had a fun day!

ps...Ivy slept in until 7 and Max wasn't awake when I left for a meeting at 8! Can it be the 4th of July everyday??

happy anniversary!

happy anniversary, Jeff!

I love you all the time!

love, me

centennial farm

we will drop almost anything to go somewhere with friends! I've wanted to go to this cute little farm since last summer, but we just didn't get a chance to go. So, we got to go with some friends today and it was so cute and free, which makes it awesome!

Any where that has llamas is awesome because it reminds us of Mar Mar and Paw Paw's house. We haven't been home to see Dolly and Vixie and the other llamas in Washington, so we lOvE to see a random lllama every now and then...

Ivy and Max were running all over the place looking at all the animals. It was amazing, and the weather was perfect today!

They had the largest Dairy-ares that I have ever seen...seriously, these cows were HUGE

This pig was HUGE, too...and was halfway over the fence checking out our kids.

The best part was that it was feeding time...and the little baby calves were drinking from bottles. All the little kiddos were enthralled with that. It was so cute!

ewe! bums!

Loved it, thanks for inviting us, girls!

cash money sorting

Ivy had a sorting party, so I thought we'd big boy it up, and have a sorting party with maxer. we save our cold hard cash in two separate jars. One far for the 'brown ones' and one for the 'gray ones'. I found some of those coin rollers, so I thought it would be a fun project for Max and I to sort, count and put in packages. He loved it. And while it wasn't as laid back as Ivy's project was {because it didn't really matter where she put hers} it was still fun.

Something about the clink when you drop money is really fun.

Max was a big help, and LOVED loading up our rolls to take to the bank when we ran errands...woo hoo!

ps...the 'gray ones' jar is what we buy our Christmas presents with so that Christmas doesn't break our bank. :) we've done it the last couple of years and loved it!

who-ball sorting

Today, Max was playing airport back in his room, and Ives was rootin' around for something to do... so, I ripped open a skirt filled with these cute little who-balls that I made her a while ago, and gave her a cupcake tin.

This kept her occupied for about 10 minutes. She thought it was so fun, and was so proud of herself!

it was fun to watch her, and see where she'd put things...she had a system down. Not sure what it was, but I see some splendid organizational skills budding. yippee!

so cute

The other day, I turned around, and this is what I saw...and I couldn't help but smile. I love that! Usually, they enjoy jerking each others chains...but for about 2 minutes, it was yum.

U-Pick

Some girls in the ward invited us to go strawberry pickin' with them this morning. I remember my sisters going berry picking when I was little, but I never went...and I've always wanted to go!

Can you see ives? Jen took this picture and it's my FAVORITE!

All that girl did was EAT...she'd pick, and eat and pick and eat. I think she put one green one in our bucket, and only because it was too nasty to eat.

Max on the other hand was a pick-a-saurus rex. I looked down and our LARGE bucket was totally full. He LOVED it and did such a great job!

here's our booty, I mean our bounty

Max was just daring one of them to roll out.

meanwhile, Ivy kept eating. Good thing we paid before!

After we got good and red, we drove over to our friend, Amber's house, played at the park, messed up her house royally and then went swimming. I'm a blonde, and didn't pack a lunch, so we bailed early, but we had such a fun start to the day!