We moved

I still have almost no bloggable pics of our new place. I am super unmotivated to blog lately and I have not finished decorating (or even started). I guess I also haven't put anything on the walls because they are so nice and clean I don't want to poke any holes in them. Our new place is still in the same neighborhood. Phil walks right up our road to his work. We can see the building from our place, it's so close. We moved right after my sister left. It all happened so quickly and it took forever to get the internet up and running, so I guess that is my excuse for not blogging. It has 2 bathrooms, central air, a dishwasher, a balcony, a HEATED swimming pool, legitimate landlords, and more square feet. The paint and carpet are new and we only share our ceiling. No neighbors below or beside us on any sides. Now my kids can run and jump and no one pounds on the ceiling. We can go swimming every day and we love the patio. This is the view from our patio. It is very serene, beautiful and clean. More pics later when I have "finished moving in"

So far behind

I have seriously neglected my blog so I am going to attempt almost 2 months worth of stuff in 2 or 3 posts. My sister came for a visit right after Ben's birthday. We enjoyed swimming, the beach, the Skirball museum, lost of yummy food and late night video games and movies.

Birthday Boy

Here are the pics from Ben's birthday "party" (just us, but it's still a party right??) I guess I really went over the top with blue, but it just happened that way. I love making a fancy cake so here his is. I actually made 2, which ended up being nice when we had a video malfunction for the first one and had to sing to him a second time (see the video).

I attempted to make the cake argyle, but I made fondant from scratch and it was not easy to use, hence, it is not my best creation, but not my worst either. I had fun making it and Amelia helped me frost the cake and told me the whole way how beautiful it was. She also helped me wrap up Ben's gifts including picking the paper and bags for each one and where it should go after it was wrapped. He loved his cake and opening up his stash of balls. He loved hammering his workbench and looking at his books. Thank you everyone for your calls, texts, emails and gifts. Ben had such a good time and so did Amelia. It was a great birthday. Can't wait for next time.

Benjin's One

Exactly 1 year ago today at 11:49am our little Ben was born. He has been such a sweet, cuddly, happy and easy going baby that it's hard to believe he's one. I'm not much for slideshows, but I love my collages, so here's a picture tribute to Ben's first year of life.(you've probably seen a lot of these and click on it to zoom in) More to come of all the festivities today.

Santa Barbara

Last weekend we went to Santa Barbara for the day. We spent a few hours at the zoo, which is one of my favorite zoos. It overlooks the ocean and a lot of the exhibits are open and you walk through them. Check out the prime piece of property this giraffe has in the collage. You get to be so close to the animals and the landscaping is genius. I highly recommend it to anyone who goes up there. The weather was perfect so after we headed to the beach. Amelia is funny about being dirty. She wouldn't cross this line of dried out seaweed for about 5 minutes. Finally after she figured out no one was going to come and get her, she screamed as she tippy-toed across it. Then she refused to put her feet on the sand so she sat in this position until finally crawling on top of me where not one inch of her was touching the ground. When it was time to go sit on Phil's lap, she walked to the end of my feet and jumped to Phil's leg as if the sand were hot lava. I know I say this all the time, but seriously, Amelia is definitely a city girl.

Get your own bed

Amelia comes in our bed in the morning when she wakes up at 6 and goes back to sleep only if she is being snuggled. This particular morning she was so squirmy and started to cry. I asked her what her problem was and she responded, "I need more room. I'm falling off the bed". Look closely. Not only is she not falling off the bed, she has my pillow!!! And people wonder why I am so exhausted half the time. I think I need my own bed.

Don't be Zealous....(this is how a Marshallese would say it)

I'm sorry, but is this not the cutest baby you have ever seen?? And I am trying to figure out his eye color. I used the eye dropper (picks the color of whatever you touch for the non-techies) on his eyeball to make the background color of this collage. Seems like grey to me.