Summer 2013 Random Photos

I was looking through my photos and found some random old ones that I had not posted.  So here are some photos from the summer.  Enjoy!

We went to a 'messy party' for the one of the girls' friend's 2nd birthday.

They got to play with finger paints.

And Shaving cream.  They had a blast.

In August, we celebrated my nephew Micah's first birthday.  (I guess we are in the stage of life where we are just going to a ton of birthday parties all the time . . .)

There was a bounce house/water slide.  Here are the girls with Grandma.

Katelyn coming down with Auntie Carol.

Brookie & Micah enjoying the little pool.

The birthday boy & his mommy.

Katelyn & daddy coming down the slide.  (The adults enjoyed the slide too as it was pretty big.)

Towards the end of summer, we met my sister at a nearby park that has a splash pad.

Katelyn really got into it.  Brookie not so much.

Cousins!

 

Here are a couple of photos of the girls coloring.

Katelyn learned how to write her name and draw stick people this summer.

Brookie just like to color.

Including coloring herself, which is a constant battle when she has markers. (Notice her arms)

I have to say that I am rather enjoying our nice cool weather right now when I am posting these hot summer photos.  We have had a very small amount of rain over the last couple days, but that is the most we have had all year.

We have a 4 year old!

It has been a couple months, but I can't miss posting about this life event.  Katelyn turned 4 on November 1.  Kyle took off for the day.  We started by having cinnamon rolls with a candle for breakfast.

Happy Girl!

Then we surprised the kids by heading to LA Zoo for the day.

Katelyn likes to pose by every animal statue.  Here she is with a snake.  She did not want to climb in the middle of it though :-).

Right next the apes.

The Gorillas were huge and fun to watch.

The petting zoo was a hit.  The girls are finally getting over their fear of animals.

 When we got home, Grandpa & Grandma came over for Katelyn's favorite dinner - chicken and rice with white sauce.  Dinner was of course followed by cake and presents.

She loved her big girl bike from Dad & Mom.

The following Monday we scheduled a playdate at the park for Katelyn's birthday with some friends.  She loved it.

The girls and 2 of their best friends.

My birthday girl.

A cutie patootie.

Katelyn's friends playing

Katelyn's favorite slide at 'her park.'

After the park, her second cousins (my cousin and her kids) came over for lunch and some more playing.

She was a big fan of the hat.

Mmmmm grilled hot dogs.

Getaway to Dana Point

Well, I haven't given up on this blog yet.  A lot has happened since my last post, and I am going to attempt to catch up on it all, but for this evening, I am just going to post about our recent getaway.

Kyle was supposed to be off the first week of January, but was really busy with his client load, so he was not able to take off.   So . . . he was able to take a couple days off this past week, which would normally never happen during late January.  It was wonderful getting to catch up on some household items on Thursday, including putting some well needed new flowers in some of our planters.

Friday morning we went to the funeral of a family friend, who at the age of 94, was ready to go home to be with The Lord.

After the funeral, my mom took the girls home.  They were sooooo excited.  They really didn't care where Kyle and I were going.  We took off to Dana Point, a small beach city in South Orange County, about an hour from our house.  Kyle & I had never been there before and we really enjoyed it.  We spent Friday afternoon walking around the shops down by the wharf and walking on a couple small trails and paths on nearby cliffs overlooking the harbor and ocean.

The harbor from a cliff above.

We stayed at the Blue Lantern Inn, which we loved.  We had a great view of the harbor from our room.  We had appetizers on Friday afternoon and a good breakfast this morning.

The view from our room.  We had 2 beautiful days.

23 weeks from the little park pictured above right outside the Inn.

This morning we went whale watching.  On our two hour trip, we saw at least 4 or 5 grey whales and thousands of dolphins.  Kyle had never been whale watching before and I hadn't been since my sixth grade field trip (when we saw no whales).  We both really enjoyed it.

I love this guy!

Grey whale fin.

Then we had some lunch and headed back home to get the girls.  With busy season gearing up and the baby due in May, this will likely be our only getaway for the year, and it was a good one.

Halloween 2013

We don't make a huge deal out of Halloween in our house.  I'm not into all the scary ghosts and skeletons, etc, but we do like to have some fun with it.

We didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year, but we carved pumpkins a couple of days before the 31st.

This year, we had a princess and a chef/baker.  I did not want to spend a lot of money, so we used dress-up clothes and I bought some new jewelry for Katelyn.  The girls loved their costumes and Katelyn informed me when we got home that next year they are going to switch.

We have been going to storytime at a local library each Thursday, and Halloween fell on Thursday this year, so all of the kids dressed up for story time.

After dinner, the girls' friend Caleb came over to go trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  They had a blast and got quite a load of candy (although they still haven't eaten too much of it).  When we returned home, the girls loved handing out candy to the kids that came to our door.