Work, Play, Pack

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Thursday we had a busy day- the girls came with me to a meeting (always productive and professional :) and behaved themselves fairly well so we had a Shoup Park playdate afterward with a picnic lunch and creek stomping. They tired themselves out so we walked home for naps- Maisie went right down, even with bathroom remodeling going on on the other side of her door. Francie wasn't quite ready for her usual 3/4pm-ish nap and pleaded to watch "Olivia"- I gave in so I could pack. 2.5 Olivia's later (what's up with the 22 minute shows when you DVR them!) we were packed and headed out the door to meet dad... I think I left the house in shambles.

If she knew any swear words she definitely would have been cursing trying to put these boots on - maybe cursed with sweaty feet like her mom!?

snack break. ummm, tomatoes

all done

My Mother's Day

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I had a great Mother's Day with my sweet husband and sweet girls. I feel very lucky :) and we spent the afternoon and evening with BOTH of our moms... fun to have everyone over at our house and not be stepping on each other!

Saturday morning started with a ceremonious beard shave outside. The beard on my mountain man was fun for awhile (he's had it since Christmas when he forgot his razor when we went up to Red Bluff and it appeared after about 2.5 days) but I was ready to have his face back!

I had the honors of shaping the fu manchu. What was I thinking??

Then everybody came over around 6 for dinner. We started with a cocktail cruise down to the Redwood Grove Nature Preserve near our house

Clara Marie (in her super cool stroller made especially for TALL dads:)

My silly grils - Maisie likes to try and put "pretties" in her hair and Francie snickers and goes "Mom- even though she doesn't have any hair!" It's ok Maisie- it's coming in

walking in the "neighbor preserve" as Francie calls it

Sarah, Mark and Clara on the paths

My Dad, Jannie, Christian and the girls

John and The Jans!

and back home for dinner

James, Jannie and the girls

Em and Jan B

Oma cooking up the risotto

Sarah at the bar

Thanks for a great Mother's Day Heff!

Wild and Crazy Friday Night

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Cousin Kate Heffernan came down to visit for the weekend so we had some friends over Friday night for dinner and lots of drinks (my advil bottle is empty- but guess what, they sell Advil liquicaps on Amazon now, TG) We had so much fun with Kate and are doing our best to convince her she needs to move down here. Friday night was a little crazy here but it is a whole new world to have room to entertain in the new house!

Christian and Summer brought RAINBOW pasta... the colors are healthy things like spinach and carrot. Amazing.

girls cooking up. and I love that crazy Real Housewives of NYC is on in the background! poor Heff :)

Summer, Wyatt, Francie and Maisie

Kate and Libby

Rainbow pasta = huge hit! (side note- Christian reported that it was $15 a bag at Draegers. So I was just inspired to look online and found it for $26 for 4 packs on my favorite unnamed site :)

Summer Lovin'

ice cream- you scream

Mr Tickle must have been really funny Libs ;)

then Jer and Allison came by to visit!

and Courtney our more-than-full-service realtor/friend and her husband Michael came by to talk shop and check out the house

and Allison had a robe for a bridal shower she needed a monogram on... It was a busy night at the new house!

Monogrammed up and looking good

Sharkie thinks so too

Uncle Jerry engineered some impressive emily-block-buildings

that were quickly destroyed

can't wait for more fun nights with lots of visitors this summer :) the warm weather better be here to stay... come visit us!

All in a Day's Work

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Heff took Francie to lunch today while I was getting a little work done at Academic Trainers and Maisie was snoozing. She looked so cute on his shoulders walking through town but she had one concern...

"Dad- everyone can see my bumsie." Ahhh, yess they can france.

Heff always puts those jeans on her if he gets her dressed (probably one of the only pieces of clothing he can easily tell are clearly HERS after a few mishaps with Francie in 12 month pants and Maisie in 3 yrs. She was rocking the plumbers crack today that's for sure.

and then she was kinda tired after playing at BB all morning so she got to watch a Mickey in Heff's office. Hopefully the other end of the conference call didn't get distracted and start doing the hot dog dance. I didn't know he keeps a pillow and blanket hidden behind the couch!

my kinda day at the office

Exploring

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We love walking to the park lately in our new green wagon and walking around downtown. It is so fun to get to know our "new town" :) I have lived in Menlo Park almost my whole life (except four years in Virginia for college) and even though we are only two "towns" away now- a whopping six miles from downtown Menlo- it feels like a whole new experience. New grocery store, restaurants, parks, library, walking trails, having to put your own house in the NAV sometimes to get home from San Jose! We went to mass for the first time Sunday at our new church, it is only a block from our front door, no excuses to be late! We hear the church bells every Sunday to start each mass too so no excuses not to go either :) We are loving our life in Los Altos.

I took this pic w my camera phone driving in for the first time with a load of stuff in the car- I know- dork!

Back to the park... "Hummm- someone left there hot motorcycle ride here... how do I look?"

Francie insisted on a "high pony tails" today

Maisie showing some leg on the playground

Dad would NOT approve!

getting too cocky- down she goes!

Francie made friends with the kids flying the helicopter of course

Francie downtown for lunch

Maisie is happy along for the ride

Park Play

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The past two days we have loaded up in our new green wagon and hit up Shoup Park around lunch time. Yesterday we ran into one of our old neighbors there and played with her two cute kids over lunch- then today we arrived just as our friends Lindsey, Isaac and Wyatt were getting there for a picnic lunch! Here I was worried we wouldn't see as much of our Menlo friends and we've seen them more often than when we lived in Menlo! We had fun hanging out at the park in this sunny weather with friends...

Buddies Francie and Isaac

and Buddies-to-be Wyatt and Maisie

Maisie just hanging out with her big girl sippy

big kids

soccer game. Isaac is the most coordinated kid ever- hope some of it rubs off on mine!

and yesterday after the park Emily meet us to walk downtown for lunch at a mexican restaurant- afterall it was Cinco de Mayo, hence the margaritas at lunch! This funny little boy kept taking pictures of us on his mom's iPhone (who is the paparazzi now?!) and then told me I should have been holding maisie's hand when she fell down. Ok kid- back to your own table :)

Storage

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One of my favorite parts of the new house = storage! There is a great L-shaped storage room off the downstairs playroom and it didn't take me long to fill it. HOW did we have all this crap stuff in our little McKendry house?

and this little area in the storage room will hopefully be my craft room at some point when we put in a window- bringing back the embroidery machine from Jannie's! watch out, I might start monogramming everything in sight.

Nashville: The 500 Year Flood

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My sister Ann, her fiance Pat and his entire family live in Nashville, Tennessee. Their engagement party was Saturday night and we were all excited to fly out there to celebrate with the Williams family but decided at the last minute things were too crazy with our house(s) to go. My parents flew out and my Uncle Bill and Aunt Tere too. They arrived to a little rain- which got worse and worse and worse. Saturday night for the party it had been raining all day but it seemed like it had to let up- then it rained all night and the next day. The water rose 12 feet above the flood stage and so many homes and entire neighborhoods are destroyed- but it's hardly getting any press. So we're thinking of you guys out there in Nashville and we hope you dry out soon.

The Grand Old Opry full of water

and this video Pat's sister Margy posted on Facebook shows a lot of the devastation

sending you all good thoughts in Nashville...

Hot Stuff

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I haven't been a very good picture-taker/blogger this week. We've been trying to figure out what furniture we need where (but got a new bed today- a GIANT QUEEN- graduated from the double and we feel like grown-ups now :) and fixing up a couple bathrooms and getting everything settled in a new house. We are loving it here and still can't believe this is our house!!

Maisie hanging out on the patio at Rosewood- she thinks she is hilarious putting on everyone's sunglasses

"What? You sayin' I'm not?!"

and it seems like I just posted video of her first timid steps but she is a walking machine now. She is bow-legged and walks like a little old lady but she can get going! Tonight we all went to Costco to stock up and Maisie kept wanting to walk herself- well she might not have had shoes on and we might have gotten home before we looked at the bottom of her bare feet and saw they were BLACK!

and Maisie loves books - this one is her favorite. I think it's called "Doggies" by Sandra Boynton. She makes the different doggie sounds- her favorite "uggggg" and "mmm-mmmm" and she gets sooo excited if you read to her- but only for a few pages and then she's over it.

and of course she loves her sister and follows her around everywhere. She's learned to flinch really well.

Sunday Night Dinner

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Okay so I am a WEEK behind and this was last Sunday but we had my whole family (missed you Baby Ann!), Mark, Sarah, Clara and our honorary family member Christian over for dinner last Sunday night for our first big family dinner.

Allison and Francie reading in the front window

and yes I am a huge dork (and had nothing else to do) so I organized the books in their temporary holding place by color.

as soon as Jerry and Allison got there in the early afternoon to check out the house- we made Jerry my very talented audio-visually inclined brother go to Best Buy with us for a new TV and receiver- the house has speakers everywhere built in we had no idea what to do with. Thanks Jer! He had it all working perfectly by the time he left.

Francie LOOOVES Awoo! Thanks for reading

Aunt Sarah and Clara down by the creek- notice the makeshift plywood gate until we baby/dog proof :)

Maisie tugging up her pants ready to jump in the water!

Cousins

Christian and Em

Heff, his brother Mark and Aunt Sarah on the patio- more plywood gate serves as a seat

My dad getting creative with his BBQ skills and cooking prime steaks on our fire pit!

The BBQ men

Jerry with his godbaby

fun night with the fam :)

and late night s'mores!!! We are 2 blocks from downtown and ran out to the grocery store for provisions once we realized the firepit was going to be smoldering all night

Awoo and Heff

Christian and Mare

deeeeelish

First Open House Day

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Our McKendry house is officially on the market as of yesterday and it sure looks great! Of course you do every single little improvement after you move out to put it on the market- which you should have done while you still lived there. Heff even re-insulated the attic and I keep catching him standing on the pull-down ladder just looking at the fluffy, clean pink abyss of clean ;) The backyard is ready for parties and thank goodness it's going to be 80 degrees and sunny today to entice those buyers! We sure are going to miss our little house- but we have our memories (and maybe a few pictures? :) and hope we find someone who will enjoy it as much as we did.

Here is a link to the TOUR

Their pictures look so amazing- Courtney our realtor does a first class job getting a house on the market!

today is the first open house from 1 to 4:30pm- I'm nervous! I want a hidden spy cam :)

the girls were good sports and helped us with all the final clean up yesterday

or maybe played on my iPhone while we worked but for 1 and 2 year olds- that's kinda helping

"What? She's the one hogging the phone. I'm ready to work in my overalls!"

nothing says "ready for an open house" like fresh bark and flowers

Heff and Miles joking around- we'll miss seeing our neighbors 12 times a day!!! But we know we'll still see them a lot. We're only 8 miles away!

Good work turning this house around Heff :)

one last look

we'll miss you 369!