Quick Trip to Red Bluff

/

Tuesday night we had a mellow dinner at home on the deck and then started packing up a few things for the girls and Heff to go to Red Bluff for a meeting he had up there the next morning (I was going to stay and get ready for baby showers/work) but I realized I'd miss them too much if they went without me and a trip to Red Bluff sounded like fun. So we threw together our bags and jumped in the car to all head up together that night. We were packed and ready in 15 minutes - record for sure and on the road by 9pm. It was a fun 2 day trip and well worth it! We joked we escaped the bay area 96 degree heat wave by heading to Red Bluff where it was 113 degrees that day!

Wednesday morning Brendon came over with the big forklift to help move our playhouse to it's FINAL resting place at Oma and Opa's! She had a great pad built for it to sit near the red barn and the red chicken coop on Oma's ever growing farm. She is going to put a climbing tree house structure on one side and a little deck around it. We're glad it found a prefect home at Oma's!




The girls delivered some hay bales with Dad on the four-wheeler and played around in the barn

then lots of fun with cousins and the Flynn's who came for dinner too!





Funny France

/

Francie put on her second show for us after another week of nature camp in August- more funny pictures of her so into performing for a crowd! And she was so excited that Jannie and Grampa (who drove all the way from work for the 20 minute performance and had to get right back to a meeting!) were there to watch too.

She has been entertaining us round the clock lately... tonight I asked her about which characters she is excited to see at Disneyland (we are finally taking her this Fall!) and she said:

"Welllll, Minnie texted me that she is bringing her kitten Figaro and I texted her back that I am going to bring Ollie so we both have our pets."

I asked her how she got Minnie's number and she said she just borrowed my phone and sent her a text message. It's going to be a loooong wait for your first real cell phone kid so keep dreaming!

and tonight putting her to bed I said goodnight/see you tomorrow and she said in front of Heff "I'd like Dad to come say goodnight to me because I just really like him." (aka she knows he is a sucker for lying down with her until she falls asleep!)

Morning Friends

/

Monday we had our friends Noah, Eliza and Gideon over to play for a morning of fun. Their mom Melanie and I met in Bradley Childbirth class :) Great memories on green shag carpet in a lady's living room in RWC. And pretty crazy to think three years ago to date we were still waiting for our first babies to arrive and now there are 5.5 of them. We had a great morning in the playroom and feeding them all a big lunch. Thanks for coming to play Noah, Eliza and Gideon!

Dinner with Friends

/

We had some friends over for a fun dinner- Francie loves to hang out with Tate, Talan, Tristan, EK and CC and could hardly believe it when we told her they were coming over for dinner at HER HOUSE. The kids were great and fended for themselves most of the night while the adults relaxed, ate, drank and tended to the occasional crying child. We love having friends who bring great food & champagne, help with ALL the dishes and stay until after 10pm to keep the party going!

Francie, Maisie and CC

Lookin like a big girl

Table for 6

They were running around so fast I couldn't even get a picture :)

Francie and her BFF E.K.

Dinner on the deck

Best Buds!

Week in review

/

We had a busy week and I haven't even blogged! About to finally upload a week's worth of pictures from my camera but here are my random iPhone pics from our week. I know, sooo exciting :)

MONDAY: Sushi date with Maisie and Heff Monday night while Francie had a SLEEPOVER at Jannie and Grampa's! She was soo excited and Maisie was really cute to get some one on one time with :)

TUESDAY: Curious George story time at PBK at the mall- brave mall workers gave out stickers, tattoos and PENS for kids to color

WEDNESDAY: Jannie called me about to faint after she cut her pinky finger badly on a knife (trying to get a melted candle out of a glass jar- glass broke and knife went through her finger, ouch!) I was meeting my friend Emily for lunch who lives in Menlo and was 20 minutes away when Jannie called about to pass out so Emily went over there to help her and we all took her to Urgent Care, dropped her off, had lunch and picked her up and hour and four stitches later! Francie said "WHOAH." when she saw the stitches

THURSDAY: Back to the new sushi place (twice in one week!) with Jannie on Thursday night while Grampa had a partner's meeting.

and then Baskin Robbins for dessert! (scene of the crime for the banana split :)

FRIDAY: Side Pony with the Mickey scrunchy Allison gave Francie - she thinks shes looking pretty good with sparkly Mickey's on her head!

and heading home from a busy day at Brilliant Babies with all of their favorite friends

8-9-10 Ranch Party

/

Our friends got married on 5-6-7 and have a party every year to celebrate the 13 months later on the next consecutive date. So this year we went over to the coast for a Ranch Party on 8-9-10! (or 8-8-10, it was the closest weekend day :) The girls ran around getting facepaint, doing art projects, playing arcade games, watching trapeze artists and chasing baby animals in the petting zoo. The family picture above would have been cute for a christmas card without the hello kitty white face on Francie!

does this hat go with my binky?

they had a really fun family style dinner set up with cornbread, ribs, hanger steaks and authentic ranch-esq food

Francie fell asleep literally 7 minutes before we got to the party... Heff laid her down on a couch and threw some horse blankets on her. Just like she used to do at a party when she was a baby and we had to put a "don't sit on me!" sign on her!

we had to wake her up to play after awhile- she had a serious "where the heck am I!?" look on her face

crafting

Facepaint! Francie's favorite thing. She picked a full faced Hello Kitty of course. We were cracking up watching her trying to keep her eyes closed without squinting. She takes it very seriously :)


pretty happy with it

Maisie wanted a turn of course- she got some flowers on her face since I still get to pick hers :) (actually Heff did this time, good choice dad)

trapeze artist (not a chance she was going on the high rise although there were some 2/3 year olds who did it!)

Maisie not into photos

but willing to show off her new sommersault skills whenever she finds soft ground (walk your feet Maise! Jannie taught her how to do it!)

Chris and Emily!

petting the newest black baby cow orphaned on the ranch (Francie still talks about the first one she met named Rocky, then next time we visited it was Revlon... this one needs a good name!)

won't leave the baby animals... but the fog and mist rolled in so we rolled out!

Cousins Weekend

/

This weekend Maureen, Doug, Ellie, Kate and Patrick came to visit for the weekend on their way home from a conference in Monterey. They are finally back in CA for easy visits like this and we love it! Francie loves nothing more than doting around after her big cousins. They had a sleepover in the playroom Saturday night and were so cute with their dolls asleep around them. Mark, Sarah and Clara came over for a Burgers BBQ and lots of playing in the creek (which dried up last week then miraculously started running again and ends right past our property line- no rain to speak of but we'll take it) I think Ellie summed up the weekend best "this is even better than a sleepover with your friends because it's with your COUSINS!"

Getting muddy and sandy in the creek (I was too busy chasing Maisie to get any good pics!)

bathtime after creektime complete with graffiti crayons

after dinner yogurt treats at Miyo! We had 9 huge cups piled on the scale

Cruzin' DTLA- my new Cruz!

The three big girls in the wagon

this was usually the scene- three one year olds piled in the wagon and the older girls taking turns double teaming the plasma car

We took a long walk downtown Sunday morning for breakfast at Rick's Cafe

then playtime at Shoup Park and the girls and I navigated our way up the creek to see if we could get from the park to our house. It was easy and a fun little adventure with some blackberry picking along the way. Kate climbed on this tree and ASKED me to take a picture of the three of them (I only hope my child will do that one day:) but it left her with a splintery bum! sorry kate!

we met the wagon pullers at the Nature Preserve and the kids found a fuzzy caterpillar to torture

Shoulder rides- Maisie's outfit is a rainbow of fruit flavors :)

and home for popsicles (6 minute version "Shirley Temple popsicles" on the zoku thingy) and squeezing in a little more playing before the cousins had to leave!

Dinner at The Beach

/

The last night down at the beach house, the Machado family was nice enough to invite our whole crowd over to their cool beach house in Santa Cruz for dinner. The sailboats come right by their house on Wednesdays and they had tons of appetizers for us all to gorge on and take roadies down to the beach for sunset and sailboats. It was such a fun night and they couldn't get rid of us after dinner!

Erin, Jimmy and Mick watching the sunset with cocktails

Uncle Bill, Jannie and Aunt Tere

Heff, Gary, Allison and Jer

Dad and Mr Machado

Maisie with a good grip on her crackers and cream cheese

Patty was so sweet to Francie and helped her build a sand castle in the giant hole we found

Francie HAD to have her CamelBak pack on the whole time (her nature camp backpack with built in drinking water!)

Hanging out on the beach watching the sailboats head into the harbor




and then the JUMPING recklessly into the giant hole...

and Gary jumped in to entertain the little Doo


a fun night on the beach and YUMMY dinner. Thanks Patty!

and everyone was very patient to sit through one of Francie's "shows" with Maisie as her sidekick

Giant's Game

/

Tuesday night Heff bravely took both girls to the SF Giants game to meet two other Red Bluff dads and their kids for a night game at the Park. Not only was he crazy enough to insist both girls should go- he took them on the train there and back without a stroller or anything! They left at 5 and he dressed them and packed them up himself since they were still napping when I ran out for some errands... good work on the matching outfits and warm enough clothes Heff! He said the girls were troopers, especially since they missed the train to come home by 4 minutes and didn't make it home until after midnight- both girls still awake!

I love that he is so good about taking the girls on adventures :)

they had bleacher seats and it was a pretty rowdy crowd so Heff and the girls walked around the kids fun zone, hit some balls in the little diamond and played around. They got hot dogs and lots of treats

Heff had to carry BOTH girls around everywhere besides the play zone since it was a crowded game- his poor arms were so sore the next day!

and Francie had way too much fun hanging out with her new BFF- she was so sweet with Francie

waiting for the train at the station for almost an HOUR (they changed the schedule from on the hour to 20 'til trains at night!) and the end of game train that leaves 15 min after the last out ended up being the same time as the 10:40 train anyway. To make it worse they got on the non-express train that stopped at every single station and took twice as long! But while they were waiting at the station they ran into Uncle James there to meet emily coming up on the train from her Dailey Method class!

The Beach House

/

We had a great week at the beach with the Simonson Clan! Jannie rented a really cool house with tons of room for everybody. We have lots of good memories from a week at the beach like...

Sitting with Dad in the morning in PJ's - deciding if our busy day should start with a walk for coffee or board games after Grampa or Uncle Bill's big breakfasts (we went through 5 pounds of butter in 5 days)

matching outfits with Jannie for a shopping trip to Santa Cruz

corn hole on the beach (the super fancy one Jerry and Allison MADE and painted in CalPoly style)

more doubling dipping in the ocean


cousin bonding with Mick

a big mexican dinner out at Miguel's

Loving spending time with ABA

and more time with Dad who continues to be way more patient than I am on the daily chores with the girls

a trip to the Aquarium with Emmy




and lots more!

Beach Shower for Ann & Pat

/

Sunday afternoon Aunt Mimi, Claire and Emmy hosted a shower for Ann and Pat at the beach house. It was a cute red, white and blue beachy theme and a lot of fun. It was so easy to be at the beach all day, help clean up a bit and have all the guests arrive for the shower! ABA threw one of her dresses at me a few minutes before the shower (no trust?! or maybe I forgot to bring anything shower worthy :) We had great food and a good time celebrating the newly engaged with family and friends.







Aunt Mimi serving cheese puffs on the beach, full service hostess!

Impossible picture of the girls smiling on my lap :)


and mid-party Dad took the girls for a "swim"!

I thought...
"at least their dresses are getting short- they won't get their clothes wet."

WRONG

Having too much fun with their Dad

Maisie kept running back into the ocean every time he let go of her hand- little daredevil!




Back to the shower :)



equally as awkward as Heff and I trying to pose for a photo- :)

toasts and roasts (ok we were nice- mostly just toasts)



awww even made ABA tear up (she'll kill me for posting prob)

Saved room for dessert I hope- I know Francie did!