snow

each year, around wintertime i wish we lived in a place where it snowed. i always think it'd be so nice to wake up to and have it around for the holidays. i almost feel like we are missing out on the fullness of the holidays by not having snow. it's so pretty! but then we get a little dose of snow and i am quickly reminded how much i love southern california in the winter 🙂 our family can only take snow for a few days before we realize how wimpy we truly are 🙂 we took a little trip to lake arrowhead and stayed with some friends. when we woke up, we looked out the window and saw the snow falling. it was beautiful!

nice to get the car cleaned again 🙂 i like how the snow covers my dent that the post office pole made on the side.

we didn't expect snow so we came unprepared in regular street clothes. we don't even own clothes much warmer than this 🙂

we took a little walk to a tea shop and this is when i want to quit and stay indoors and not get back outside till it warms up.

good memories! chris posted one of my favorite arrowhead pictures here. he'll be posting more eventually.

happy new year! my two resolutions for the year: exercise and blog more. i never put exercise on my list because i know i will never go through with it. just putting it on the list this year makes me feel like at least i will attempt it at some point. 🙂

January 1, 2010 9

doing stuff

maybe it was because i did a december daily album last year. maybe it was because i was trying to fill that album with stuff. i was constantly recording/photographing/jotting down things each day. (i am very sad i didn't do a december daily album this year! i think i might try a summer daily album, a little more time to work on than just the month) 🙂 anyways, i cannot believe it's the last weekend before christmas. i am so happy to have the kids home, to be on vacation, to have family visiting, to go out of town for a bit. i love it. good memory from last year's ice skating in santa monica. we really should go out there and do more. hard when all we want to do is stay inside, drink tea and watch movies and eat snickerdoodles 🙂

i'm way behind on my handmade christmas gifts and still have a few kids to buy for but i am so okay with it. there's still 6 days 🙂

December 19, 2009 7

warm and happy

snickerdoodles.

she is so used to working with just 3 fingers of her right hand. she puts the other 2 in her mouth, so she knows to keep them up like that when she's in public, trying to keep them germfree. 🙂

snickerdoodles. onions. breakfast. tea. even brussel sprouts. these are all examples of things I didn't like when i was younger, but as i got older (and wiser) i slowly started to like these things more. i love telling these little factoids to the kids, 'oh one day you'll like it. believe me….' for instance: snickerdoodles- i'm just not a big sugar cookie person. i need other things of sugar goodness in there to make me satisfied, ie chocolate or caramel. but then i tried a different recipe and i think they turned out awesome. note that there aren't cookie pics after they were baked. they were devoured too quick!

tea. okay geez, it's not like real australian tea, it's chocolate mint. hahaha. but i do love it and i am so glad that dots cupcakes introduced it to me. i'll even drink a green tea mint. 😉 onions. used to hate them. over time and with plenty of innout burgers, i began to have them grilled. now i love them raw even. 🙂 just depends on my mood. breakfast. i would go to school every morning against my mom's requests to eat breakfast. i just don't like breakfast food. but lately i'm so into eggs over easy with garlic fried rice. i could eat that every morning and i firmly believe my days will go by smoother 🙂 that being since jelly filled donuts are totally unreasonable on a daily basis. 😉 brussel sprouts. this one's a stretch but has to be doused in butter and herbs. and i won't make them. they have to come from someone else's kitchen and resemble nothing like the brussel sprout in it's normal state. 🙂 i still stand very firmly on my inabilities to eat spicy food though. 😉

there you go. my afternoon of baking with elsie transformed this whole post into a favorite parenting phrase of mine, 'one day you'll like it'. 🙂

December 15, 2009 11

love this time of year!

tree is up. house is somewhat decorated. fireplace lit every night. lots of snuggles in bed. scarves everyday. the rain stinks but hopefully there's a little snow at the mountains so we can drive up sometime soon. i love the age where the kids are at- they decorated this all on their own.

i don't have to stress at all about prepping or how anything turns out. they are happy with it just as it is! i just get to do the clean up! i love their fake smiles and how cam doesn't even bother 🙂 ha! these are funny because els is witnessing cam begin eating the house. she's in shock! (els decorated that light fixture all by herself, she was so proud and i love it!) we've started wrapping presents with lots of scraps we have around the house. trying to do a lot of handmade gifts this year. either by me or my addiction to etsy 🙂 we're gonna bake and eat by the fire all weekend. i have been drinking an insane amount of this tea and lattes. love my weekly visits to dots to have my favorite fleur de sel. so in love with that flavor. salt and caramel. mmmmmm. lots of phone call chats with sister in law who's coming to town soon. kira's on the high school soccer team and has been playing in freeeeezing weather, even tonight it's raining and they are still playing! love seeing the differences between me and her, you couldn't pay me to do something like that in high school 🙂 or even today really! skipping out on christmas cards agaaaain this year. just don't want to fill my plate up with too much. just trying to enjoy it all and be less grinchlike 🙂

have a good weekend!

December 11, 2009 5

he loves sports he loves photography

what better birthday outing than to take his family to the annenberg space for photography?! when it's your birthday, you get to pick what you want to do, what you want to eat, everything. he was in heaven! (all of these were taken with my phone, as i didn't know if you could take real cameras into the exhibit)

she was pretty impressed with the girly sports 🙂 the kids had so much fun with these interactive photo tables. so awesome, i want one in my home! and we were all very impressed with jordan and his hands!
we were blown away by the images and the videos they displayed. even i, the non sports enthusiast, was impressed. the day ended with birthday cupcakes and a birthday laker win. a very happy birthday to daddy! we love you!

December 7, 2009 10

layouts

yesterday the garden went up at 2peas!

the theme is 2page layouts. i feel like i haven't done 2pagers in so long! and when trying to do them i kept getting stuck. so i felt like i went back into 2005 and went with the patterned paper combinations, lots of white space and lots of letter stickers. it was fun.

product focus:

an older weekly challenge that i liked. having baby fever badly!

i also did a gift card class that you can download here:
the other day i layed in bed with a ton of my scrapbook albums. i flipped through them all and was just so happy that i have so many memories written down, and embellished with cute papers and stickers 🙂 some of the memories i had already forgotten! i love my hobby! now if i could just get crackin on those christmas presents i am supposed to be making! 🙂

December 3, 2009 5

before we eat

at chris' aunt's house, we stop by the nearby stables for a visit with the horses. els went thru a horse phase a few years back. first thanksgiving. second thanksgiving. and last year's didn't seem to get posted. this year, i only had my phone with me when we stopped, so here's horses and fam via iphone.

that's my crazy clan 🙂 especially the crazy little one wearing her italian sundress in late november. more pics to come later! (real camera ones) ha!

i participated in a cute DIY holiday class at 2peas, check it out here. i cannot believe it's december 1 tomorrow. i better get organized!

November 30, 2009 4

thanksgiving

for my healthy family. for our beautiful community. for friends. for hobbies. for technology. for treats. for time off. for having what we need. for angels all around us.

have a beautiful thanksgiving!

November 24, 2009 3

before

we were 6, we were 4. seems so long ago. we lived in santa barbara while chris finished up school. cameron was just born.

thanksgiving always makes me think of this period of our lives. cam was a few days old, we didn't travel to LA to be with our family for the holiday, but my sweet sister in law and her family and my mom came to us and made us dinner. i look at that picture of cam and i remember those skinny, hairy arms. i could smell the baby detergent on that outfit. chris spent lots of time rocking him in that chair that we got as a handmedown from someone, can't remember who. our tiny apartment in santa barbara. every year we try and go back. post one. post two. post three. so nostalgic! i specifically remember nights where chris would be up late writing papers, i'd sleepily hand him an awake baby and he'd put him in the little baby chair and the boys would be up together.

and now our boy is 11.

he's been athletic all his life, but recently found a new passion for the piano. this makes his mother very happy and proud as she played the piano from 6-16yrs. (i miss it!) he watches snippets on youtube and then rushes to the piano to play it. he knows snippets (as youtube only shows a certain time length and not the full song haha) from coldplay, pixar's UP (my favorite!), super mario brothers, zelda, indiana jones, and star wars 🙂 this past year he has changed so much, becoming more adventurous and social but still the sweet boy he's always been. he's kind and compassionate and i do believe that he will grow up to be a very good husband. we love you cammy!

November 20, 2009 6

he said she said

i've already twittered and facebooked this but i need to record it here on the ol' blog for posterity 🙂
she's nearly 4 and has been attached to her fingers since about 3 months old. (oh my gosh, looking back at the blog to find that- i can't believe so many pics i haven't scrapped! i love my blog for taking me down memory lane for a bit tonight!) we've had plenty of family members tell her she should stop sucking her fingers. most of the time, she takes them out for a second, then sticks them back in ever so defiantly. 🙂 today while at trader joe's, a man was walking past us, stopped, looked at her and said, 'you shouldn't suck your fingers, stop that.' he then turned and knocked over a stand of oranges. i didn't say anything, i think out of pure shock. that was the first time a stranger commented on it, to her, ever! i walked away with elsie, looking at her, trying to read her thoughts. i could tell she was hurt and sad and maybe embarrassed.
later when we were home, i asked her how that incident made her feel, and she replied, "sad…… and i wanted to punch him."

🙂 🙂 🙂 that's a girl with 2 older brothers. 🙂

ps thanks for the kind words on the brothers post. nice to know that the evolving sibling bond is similar all over the world.

—– and we would really like her to stop with the fingers. we know eventually she will stop. she doesn't do it at school.. the first few days of school, she came home, shocked that no one else did it. i think as she gets older, she'll phase it out herself. she's the only one of our 4 who does this! those pictures capture her 2 soothies. her fingers and her blue blankie. heaven to her!

November 16, 2009 20