Lately

Just a few pics from the week and a cute moment from tonight - kids and I went to Rubios to fuel up before hitting up Target, Old Navy and Babies r' Us. As I was throwing our trash away to leave, the kids got up and started to head out before me - I see Kaylie go over to grab Matthew's hand and she turns to him and says "let's go buddy" - so precious, and to make it even better Matthew was just ecstatic she said it too. He is always asking her if she's his best friend, he's really into the "best friend" thing right now. So it was really cute. Wish I could say taking them to 3 stores after that was cute too, but anyone with kids knows, well, it's almost impossible. But we survived :) Here are a few pics from this week:

.

Enjoying the spa with Grandpa on Thursday, beautiful day :)

 .

Kaylie is getting to be such a big girl, no longer needs the baby swing!

Kaylie's 2nd Birthday Celebration!

Yesterday we celebrated K's 2nd birthday with our family by having a little party at our house. We have such an amazing family, I feel so blessed - we had so much fun! K is so funny because she is ultra shy for about the first 15/20 minutes then she comes right out of her shell and was bouncing off the walls the rest of the time (maybe because she drank some mocha punch and had a few cake pops?) - regardless of why, she really enjoyed herself :)

.

A little bit of the decor - Hello Kitty, Red & Black :) 

Oh and rainbow fruit skewers (plus a bunch of other 

yummy delicious finger foods - thanks for the 

contributions of my parents & mother-in-law!!)

 .

Some of our amazing family - L-R, T-B: Uncle Eddie, Auntie Briana & Cambria, Auntie Simone (39 weeks preggo!!), Uncle Eddie, Grandpa Eddie, Auntie Brittany, Auntie Simone & K, M & Uncle Rudy, M & Kylian, Uncle David & Josh, Grandma Sandy, Auntie Brittany & Auntie Simone, Auntie Briana, Cambria & Auntie Cher, Grandma Nancy, M & Grandma Sandy.

 .

Food, food & more food! M & K enjoying the treats, Grandpa Scott w/ M & Gigi w/ K (not pictured, Aunt Amanda & Uncle Ryan) :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Started the morning discovering the evidence of the leprechaun's visit :) This year, that included some green sugar cookies (apparently the leprechauns didn't have a clover cookie cutter haha), green batter left in the fridge to make green pancakes with, and green play dough on their arts and crafts table which was adorned with green clover stickers :) Matthew was really excited, and if Kaylie was feeling better she probably would have caught on to the excitement too. Next year :)

.

 .

Next year I need to be better at having a green outfit for everyone to wear - just had to find something that resembled green in their closets ;-) I love all wearing green, it's fun. Love that Matthew's preschool gave him green clover sunglasses :)

.

Picture says it all :)

Awesome Day

Today was a special day. A VERY special day!! Matthew spent the night last night at my parent's house - in the morning, when my dad was doing the dishes, he said Matthew started praying - "Dear Jesus, I want you to be my Savior. I know you are God. I want you to live in my heart." Or something like that

 (a little sad I wasn't there to witness, but if he was going to say it in front of anyone Grandma and Grandpa would be it :). He was so excited to tell me he prayed the Lord's prayer, or God's prayer, don't exactly remember. We plan to pray with him again too, and I'm sure (well, I sure pray about it!!) throughout his life there will be another time he dedicates his life to the Lord, but today really made me happy :) To celebrate, I took M out on a Mommy/Son date night - we got Panera for dinner, then saw The Lorax at the theater complete with popcorn and fruit snacks - really cute movie by the way, and he sat through the whole movie happily, first time ever! Even topped off the evening with some Coldstone  - yum!! Today is one of those days that just blesses a mother's heart :) Praise the Lord!!

.

Me and my boy waiting for The Lorax to start :)

  

Free Flight Aviary, Del Mar

M & K both love the movie Rio - such a cute movie, it's one of my faves too! So when my friend Jessica Davidson invited us to go along with them to the Free Flight Aviary in Del Mar, a place with exotic birds you can feed and get right up close to, M & K were both so excited to go!! K walked right up to the caged birds and started saying hi, she love the birds. M was a little apprehenzive at first, they were so close, so loud, but once he warmed up to feeding them he didn't want to stop! K was even able to feed some of the smaller caged birds by hand they were so gentle. There was also a cool little koi pond, lots of vibrant koi fish. We'll be going back again!!

.

Beach Day

What a beautiful weekend we had!! So Matthew was just a tad (ok, more like a huge amount) upset that I wouldn't let him swim in the water Friday night at the beach, it was dusk and then dark, just a little too cold - so when Saturday turned out to be another warm and beautiful day, we packed some lunches, loaded into the car and headed straight to the beach! Matthew is already loving the beach so much more this "summer" (ok, summer is still a few months off, but I feel like beach season is beginning) - he just runs right down to splash in the water, he loves it :) Kaylie is going to love it more this year too, she loved playing in the sand (instead of eating it like last summer, haha).  Looking forward to many trips in the near future!

.

K trying the splits, M loving the water :)

.

Fun in the sand!

.

Later that day, enjoying a mini-ice cream (and yes, it made a huge mess) :)

Warmer Weather

The weather has been so up and down lately! One day we're enjoying the rain, cold and hail, the next it's just about in the 80s! I've actually enjoyed it, the best of both worlds :) Today was one of the warm ones, so after naps we headed to the beach to watch the sunset - beautiful!

.
He loved jumping over the "cliff"

 .
Playing in the sand :)

 .
I love this sweet face :)

 .
Watching the sunset!

Hello, Kitty!

We're having a little family party to celebrate Kaylie's 2nd birthday, so in preparation for the Hello Kitty theme I'm planning, I decided to try out some Hello Kitty cake pops! I had no idea if I'd be able to pull them off, but I'm so happy, they turned out super cute :) I took a few pictures of the process, just for fun - if you want the full tutorial visit Bakerella :)

.

Some fun supplies :)

(except I ended up using chocolate cake mix for these)

 .

 .

 .

<3 Hello Kitty! <3

Adventure Walk

What a beautiful day it was today! The kiddos and I celebrated by getting out of the house, going down to the duck pond to feed the ducks, then going for an "adventure walk." What fun :)

.

Ready for our adventure - pretty darn cute if I do say so myself. 

I'm working on the whole spiking of the hair thing, haha ;-)

.

Me & my boy :)

.

Kaylie found a ladybug! Or should I say a ladybug found Kaylie!

A Birthday in Pictures (mostly)

Our sweet & silly little girl turned 2 yesterday!! We celebrated her special day by spending the day at SeaWorld, what fun! Here's her birthday fun in pictures :)

.

Kaylie woke up to pink balloons all over the floor - both she 

and M have had a blast with those! We started the day with a 

cinnamon roll birthday "cake", she got to blow out the 

candles (with big brother's help of course)

.

.

Our sweet baby girl, as a newborn, on her first birthday, 

and yesterday on her 2nd birthday!! So pretty :)

.

We made it to SeaWorld! Posing with the Walrus (Kaylie wasn't so 

thrilled), posing as a fam, stacking some blocks, bouncing fun. . .

.

Meeting Elmo! Matthew walked right up to him, lots of big

hugs, great pics :) Kaylie wanted nothing to do with them, haha :)

.

Love this pic, walking with my kiddos <3 (BTW, Matthew 

HATED that ride straight ahead - "let's not do that ever again"

.

Kaylie riding on Daddy's shoulders <3

.

Underwater viewing stations. . .

.

Waiting to see the Shamu Show, which is how we ended our fun

day at SeaWorld :)