Camping, Swimming, Playing...We love SUMMER!

Hey, Hey, she's our Monkee!!

In front of the Hollywood sign (I know, you'd never know it thanks to the smoke!)

Great Grandma giving Bucket a taste of ice cream...yum!

Emma LOVES Smores!

The FAUX-hawk

Emma and her omnipresent Princess neck pillow, measuring up to Johnny Depp's hands at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood

Em's beautiful Cinderella dress from Auntie

Bucket's first taste of camping dirt--ick!

Kaia loves the bath!

Kaia and fake Mama

Over the 4th of July, we enjoyed some lovely camping with some friends on the river, just 45 minutes from home! It's so much fun to camp in your own backyard (so to speak). The girls had a great time, getting dirty, swimming, and eating camping food like smores.

We were home for just one day--July 7--and then the morning of the 8th (after an unfortunate dog-boarding fiasco...ugh!), we left for Orange County to visit family.
With Farley (the dog) safely cared for, we drove to Sacramento to stay with Lewis' generous, fabulous Aunt and Uncle, and then to Anaheim Hills to visit my dad's family. We were blessed to spend time with my Dad's brother, sister, and parents and all of their families. The girls loved seeing Grandma Jean and Grandpa "Birthday" (as Em keeps calling him!). I was able to see my 5 cousins that live in Orange County, and meet my newest cousin, little 3-year-old Chloe. Emma Grace, Kaia, and Chloe loved swimming together and playing outside.

Kaia had a fever much of the time we were there, but it was oppressively hot for a little cold-weather girl! As soon as the climate cooled, so did the fever.

After a L-O-N-G drive home, we finally got in our own bed (yay!) at 10:30 last night.

So very proud...

Our little ballerina was so amazing in her performance on Wednesday night! She performed a ballet with her preschool ballet class and did such a wonderful job! She remembered all of her steps and was so adorable! We're so proud of her!

Bubblicious

There has finally been a sliver of sunshine after a couple of weeks of gloom...As always, it seems Summer is dragging its feet! I am giddy with anticipation for Emma's summer break from school...I miss her so much and can't wait to have her home! She only goes twice a week for 3 hours, and I'm there with her often, but it will be nice to have some lazy mornings at home...provided the girls sleep past 6am. Yesterday morning, they both got up at 6, and I did three loads of laundry, fed them breakfast, bathed them both, swept and vacuumed the floors, and had to be at Costco by 10am. I looked at the clock thinking it was time to go and it was only 7:58! I'm starting to love all the time we have in the mornings with our little alarm clocks getting up an hour earlier than they used to!

Happy Birthday Lewis! Lewis turned 34 yesterday. He wanted "a LOT" of sushi for dinner. So I made A LOT of sushi...enough for dinner tonight, too!

Our little girls both love bubbles...Kaia goes up to Emma and makes "blowing" faces and raspberries whenever she has bubbles out. When Emma kindly shares the wand, however, Kaia just puts it in her mouth. Here are some recent shots of various things...

Sunshine and Summertime

It's been so gorgeous here lately...and the girls have been loving splashing in the kiddie pool! Here are some new pictures---the one of Kaia and Mama was taken by Emma! She does such a good job with the camera!

Baby Steps!!

Little Mama

Recently, Emma Grace has been playing "Mama", having different animal babies that she's PRYG-NANT with (Praig-nant? Prayg-nant? She says it with an interesting accent), then she has the baby, says, "Look, Mama, it's Newborn!" and pushes it around in the stroller. She doesn't let Kaia play with the newborn babies, she says, "No, Kaia, this baby is newborn, it's too little to be played with". It's pretty cute.

A Decade?

Last weekend we did a bicycle "race" as a family...there are options of up to 100 miles, and we selected the equally challenging and honorable 10-mile family ride. (The 100 mile is a century, so did we do a "decade"?) Emma Grace rode her own bike with training wheels part of the way (and as is so en vogue, wore her fluffy pink princess dress as well!). Kaia rode in our bike trailer, and Em joined her for much of the ride. When we first took off, Em rode in the trailer because there were lots of people and the space was small...and she peeked out behind her and shouted "We're WINNING!!". We explained it was a ride for fun, but she loved that "winning" feeling! Kaia B had an orange wedge at the rest break area, and she was enjoying it so much, we let her have it in the trailer. When we finished the ride, she had eaten ALL of the orange, ALL of the pith, and much of the peel, and was covered in fragrant, sticky orange oil and juice! She was a happy baby.