July 2017

4th of July vacation!!!

2015 v. 2017            

 

 Boys' Day was spent shooting guns and riding quads.

 

Bowling

 

We stayed in the same house as last year. It's perfect for us, and we especially love the backyard!

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Montana de Oro sand dunes were a first this year. Everyone (with the exception of 1 year old Marlee) walked all the way up, which could NOT be an easy task for tiny 2 year old legs. Then we jumped, rolled, cartwheeled, slid and rode boogie boards down (and back up again).

 

On the other side of the dunes are tide pools!

These boys love each other so much!

Twins!

 

3rd of July fireworks show at Sinsheimer Elementary School park from the SLO Blues baseball game.

 

 

 

 

4th of July slipping and sliding - best part of the trip!

 

 

The water balloon fight (and toss) in the backyard also topped the list!

 

Happy Hour at The Cliffs (where Daniel and I were married 8 years before), our annual gathering of the group with matching kids' shirts.

The Fenwicks

The Kelepouris'

The Rogers'

The Palmquists

The crazy adults

The whole gang

We spent one morning at Shell Beach

 

 

 

 

Our annual "hike" (i.e. nature walk where strollers can go) was at Poly Canyon again this year.

 

 Brave boy walked on the "natural balance beam" all by himself!

A long walk for little legs

Froyo in downtown SLO

 

 

Since this vacation, Brooklyn regularly has us "sit on the couch to watch a pretend movie....ummm, Netflix...okay, it's loading..."

During Boys' Day, the girls took the kids to the SLO Children's Museum again. They all loved it!!

 

Patriotic crafting

Girls' Day included pedicures, food, a walk on the beach and an almost nap in the sun. Almost perfect!

Adult night out!

One of the Firestone Grill lunches we enjoyed...

The last group pic of the vacation is always in front of the house. I love the friendships here! They are all such sweet kids that (most of the time) love to hang out together and look forward to this "bacation" each year!

Post-vacation...

Landon went to basketball camp this month. He thought it was really fun!

 

 

 

 

 

Brooklyn had a little accident. She tried to climb out of a pack & play crib...and failed. She bonked her forehead on an adjacent metal filing cabinet, and the swelling dropped into her eye. It must have looked worse than it felt because she never once complained after the first 20 minutes. At the E.R. she had a CT Scan to make sure her eye and facial bones were okay (since they couldn't see anything due to the swelling), and all was perfect with her! Her eyelid was swollen for about a week and she had a black eye for a couple more weeks. Her eyelid still appears to have eye shadow on it, but it's barely noticeable.

 

 

 

 

 

I felt the need to do a little make-up on her right eye to give her a matching (although not as good as the real one) black eye...just for kicks.

 

Daniel and Landon enjoyed Daniel's Father's Day gift of a Giants @Padres game with their buddies, Mike & Mason Fenwick and Leif & Canon Palmquist.

 

 

 

 

When the boys when to the ballgame, Brooklyn and I had a date day ourselves. We went to the car wash...

...the Duck Pond...

 

(She loved chasing "the duckie with the pony tail" the most!)

(She still loves to give hugs...to anyone and anything.)

...to lunch (It turns out that she has inherited my love of bread sticks.)...

...on some rides...

...home for storytime and nap...

...some body painting...

 

 

...a pedi...

...and more bread sticks at dinner!



Auntie Amber and Zoe were going to join us for girls' dinner, but Zoe was completely terrified of looking at Brooklyn's eye and absolutely refused to join us.

The kids and I had a mini-vacation at Grammie's house for 5 days. We spent time in Grammie's garden picking tomatoes, lemons, strawberries, blueberries and (giant) zucchini...

...played games (such as hallway soccer)...

...danced...

...and ate Grammie's yummy cooking...

While Landon attended the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" musical with Grammie and Papa, Brooklyn and I indulged in some chocolate cake.

Of course, we went to Pavion Park a couple of times. We also went to Lake Mission Viejo with Grammie and Erin, Sydney and Mackenzie Garcia. 

 

 

 

Auntie Gail and Uncle Fred supplied us with some amazing squirt guns, which later resulted in a fantastic squirt gun fight between Uncle Matt Matt, Landon and Grammie.

 

The rest of us spectated from the sidelines...

 

We also attended Mission Viejo's Superhero themed 'Symphony in the City', where we listed to the Pacific Symphony after the kids got the opportunity to play all kinds of musical instruments.

 

 

 

 

The trumpet and trombone were Landon's favorite instruments. I was shocked that our little guy had enough breath to make sounds from these instruments, but he definitely did...and was so proud of himself!

Daniel took the kids to the last Summer Sunset Concert in the Park of the season. They had a great time playing ball, running around, getting face (or, in Brooklyn's case, arm) paintings and dancing!

We have made great use of our pool this summer, and we love to have the cousins over to swim!

Lucas's 1st birthday party was fun!

A few months ago I won a tasting event at Dream Dinners, and we finally found a date to get the group together to go. What a fun girls' night!

Landon loves playing with his spelling toy.

It wouldn't be a proper summer without popsicles in the backyard (on top of the sandbox?)!

Landon took up roller skating with the skates Brooklyn gave him for his birthday, mostly because he liked wearing the safety gear. He would take 5 minutes to put on the helmet, elbow pads and knee pads, get the skates on, stand up, then take another 5 minutes to take them all off (without even skating)...then do it all over again IMMEDIATELY after.

 

Landon's type A personality in action:

She wants to be just like her brother. We turned away for a minute and she had his helmet and skates on!

There was a terrible pink eye epidemic in this house all month. Eyes sealed shut and all. :( We think it's finally gone.

 

Boy, do we have fun with Zoe!

So that Mommy does not to join "boys' night (morning)," they pretend to sleep. Last night Landon, Daniel and Brooklyn were doing something sneaky in the bonus room. I asked if I could go too, and Landon said, "Ummm, no...it's going to be boring." Thanks a lot, kid! But great job making things up on the spot!

Just a regular Tuesday reading a book with my superhero and hammerhead shark.

I wanted to see how many states Brooklyn could puzzle on her own. She did really well!

...then Brother helped her finish.

Twinsies! They were excited to be almost matching.

My baby doll in my old dress with my old baby doll (in almost matching clothes).

Big girl on her new scooter

Zoe's 3rd birthday

She had a Frozen (movie) themed party with Elsa herself! Elsa even painted faces, a cheetah for Landon and Olaf, the Frozen snowman, for Brooklyn.

 

Brooklyn was so excited to wear her Elsa dress and have Elsa hair, both of which she is still obsessed with wearing.

The day after Zoe's birthday was Brooklyn's (second and a) half birthday. She began the day with a stack of M&M half pancakes and ended with a half cupcake and half birthday song.

Both kids did great for the dentist. Landon's a pro now, and Brooklyn got her first x-rays done. (Dental x-rays were a piece of cake after getting the CT scan done not too long before.) She wasn't too excited for the dentist to get in there, but we got through it.

After the dentist we went to the super exciting mall for some games and a train ride. (For some reason, they LOVE going to the mall.)

Zoe fell asleep waiting at the front window for her cousins to come over and play. Landon and Brooklyn thought it was really funny to mess with her while she was asleep.

July Bloopers:

The cutest crying face

 

My little pink-eye'd cartoons ;(

Who can spot the diaper that needs to be changed?

He was supposed to sleep on his sleep pad between the two beds, but he decided to sleep on the tiny window sill and ended up sideways using Addison's bed as his pillow.

Of course Landon needed to do his business (and couldn't hold it) as soon as we got to the farthest point of our nature walk. Daniel found a spot away from everyone, but somehow the kids found their way back to him. Poor guy just wanted some privacy.

 

Cooties (or a freezing cold hand)!