The PB & J Life

The PB & J life is what I've been living for the past almost five months.  The PB & J life is what I want to live all the time, but I can't.  What is the PB & J life you might be asking yourself.  Let me explain...it's when most days include packing some sort of sandwich lunch (our sandwich of choice this summer was PB&J since Bailey can now eat peanut butter freely)and heading out to do something.  We did just about everything that I could think of this summer--BEACH, pool, Disneyland, Legoland, Sea World, fair, field hockey, mall, parks galore, family fun, friends,  movies, parties, or just hanging out at home doing nothing.  I loved hanging out with my girls everyday.  Yes, there were days when Bailey drove me a little crazy or Brooklynn didn't feel like taking a nap, but I still loved every second.  The PB & J life is my ultimate goal!  I'm afraid I have to just enjoy it temporarily, but a girl can still dream.

If I sound sad, it's because I am.  I have to go back to school in two weeks and I feel absolutely sick about it.  I'm pretty sure you could read similar posts to this one every August since Bailey has been born.  Yes, I know I've been so lucky to have five months off.  And yes, I know I'm lucky that I get so many weeks off every year since I'm a teacher.  I know all of those things you're thinking, but I'm still sad.  I know that I'll be better in about a month, but right now I'm no.  I'm completely up for suggestions on how I can make money and stay at home or maybe I should start buying lottery tickets.  My bet is with the lottery tickets.

So enough wallowing in my own pity...here are some recent pics from our awesome PB&J life (I just figured out how to load pics from my phone which is why it's taken me a while):

Bailey and Hailey took swim lessons for much of the summer.  Can either of them truly swim yet?  Nope, but they sure did have fun.  The funny/scary thing is that Bailey thinks she can swim, but really she just does a real nice glide/sink to the bottom of the pool.  She is getting better since we've just been swimming in our pool a lot.

 

Brooklynn is getting so big!  This bottle hold is completely accidental and very temporary, but I can get her to do it every once in a while.  Being able to hold her own bottle is one of those life changing skills.  That means that I wouldn't have to sit and just feed her.  But I'm willing to wait if that means she'll stay my tiny baby :)

Here's one of our stay at home and do nothing days--equally fun as the rest.

This was Brooklynn's picture day.  She did so well!  I will scan the pictures and post them later because she looked adorable!  I tried to get a good sister picture of the two of them, but they weren't as successful.

Here's one of our many beach days.  I wish I would have kept track to see exactly how many times we went to the beach this year.  Judging by the amount of sun screen that we used, we went a lot.

We have also been doing a lot of pool days lately.  Here's my tiny bathing beauty!

Bailey loves the sand, which is a good thing because after times like this it stays in her hair for a while.  When she starts doing this, it usually means it's time to pack up.

Sandy monster!

One day she found a gigantic seaweed pod that floated up to shore.  It was her seaweed baby.

It entertained her for quite some time.  As soon as she was done with it, the boys next to us picked it up and cracked it open.  I was glad that she didn't notice because she probably would have started crying.

Good til the very last drop...not just a slogan for coffee these days.  Bailey did not want to miss out on any of her frozen yogurt, but I can't blame her.  They did have delicious flavors.

My angel baby!  I went downstairs to make her a bottle; when I came back up she was sound asleep.  I love this tiny munchkin so much!!

We spent a couple of days at a time share in San Juan Capistrano with the fam.  My dad rented one of these awesome bikes and we went for a ride.  Bailey was so excited to ride in front and wear the helmet.  We kept telling her to wave like she was in a parad.

I strapped Brooklynn in the back between me and Toni.  She feel right asleep to the rhythm of our pedaling.

She's ready for some big wheels.

I took this picture for two reasons: 1--so you could maybe see all of her hives; she's had hives for almost a week but I think they're on their way out.  2--to see the extreme difference between her tan, summer legs and her glowing, white belly.  She is a beach bum, but no bikini beach bum!  Her stomach and legs look like they're two separate people.  That's how much we've been to the beach.

I still have two weeks left and I plan on jamming them full of fun.  If you want to join in on the fun, just let me know.  (Sorry that these pictures are kind of fuzzy; most of them were taken with my phone.)

Summer Days

We've just been packing our days full of fun lately.  I only have one month left of freedom, so I'm going to make the most of it.  Here are just a few fun events that we've had:

On Brooklynn's blessing day, she wasn't feeling very smiley in her pretty dress.  I wanted to have another photo session of her in her dress to get some smiley pictures, so I finally did it last week.  She did great and I got some very cute pictures.

I posted this one because last week she was really into sucking her bottom lip.  She's kind of already over it, but at least I have it documented.  It was funny because she would suck her lip so hard she looked like an old toothless lady.

This is a classic Brooklynn smile

She still loves her hands

I think she was so happy to have so much fabric to grab and chew.

This smile is ultimate happiness--I love this little girl!

Last Friday night I decided to braid Bailey's hair so she would have super curly hair the next day. She sat remarkably still as I did the three french braids--thanks to the Little Einstiens show. She was so excited to see her hair curly in the morning. We woke up the next morning to see if the plan had worked. It did! I undid the braids and let it go free. You could tell by the way she walked around that she felt beautiful; it was really cute. She wanted to look at her curly hair in the mirror and she said, "Look! I have curly hair like Hailey!"

Here's Bailey with her braids in what I call the J Lo stage.  (There's some old movie with Jennifer Lopez in it where she had her hair in three braids like this.)

Here's her curly hair in all its glory!  It turned out so big I loved it.

Here's her fro from the front.  Look at her pose you can tel she loves it.

The finished product complete with sparkly headband.

Last Saturday Adam and Teryn were married!  It was a really fun wedding.  They're both so happy!  And we're happy to have Teryn a part of the family.  Here are some pictures from their big day:

The ceremony was outside at a golf course in Fallbrook.  It was a beautiful day for a wedding.

Here's Brian, of course, cheesing it up for the camera.

Here's their first dance.  Teryn looked so beautiful in her dress.

I never get pictures of both of us, but since we were kid free I had time to remember.

The past month Aunt Nancy and Uncle Patrick have been in town for the wedding.  They live in Michigan so we don't get to see them that often.  It was fun to be able to hang out with them and for them to be able to see the girls.

Patrick was kind of like the baby whisperer with Brooklynn.

Aunt Nancy with Brooklynn

Bailey and Nance in coordinating outfits and sippy.

Brian's dad and sister Lauren came in town for the wedding too.  It was their first time meeting Brooklynn.

Being 3

Today in the car on the way to the beach, I had a classic conversation with Bailey.  I just had to write it down so I don't forget it:

We were talking about something fun (I can't remember exactly) and Bailey started arguing with me.  This is her new thing--arguing.  She'll disagree with you no matter what you say, just for the sake of being contradictory.  I asked her, "Bailey are you arguing with me?"

She responded, "No mom!  I'm just freaking out!"  Which she then proceeded to do.  I let the freak out happen and then moved on with our conversation.

Most of our awesome conversations take place in the car.  There are days when I either feel like cranking up the music to drown her voice out or just turning on a DVD so she'll zone out.  I have nothing against  movies in the car, but I only use them on long trips.  I don't want to miss out on such "precious" moments like this because she was quiet and tuned in to her show.  I actually would like to miss out on some of them, but I'm just not going to give in.  We do have some really good learning moments and some great sing alongs in the car, but she likes to keep me on my toes and throw in one of these every once in a while.  So I'm just hoping that this too is a phase that she'll quickly grow out of--or at least by the time she's 4 :)  (I've heard that 4 is the magical age where they become nice again--right?)  Here's to being 3!!

Another Awesome Week!

Last week Keri and CJ came down for a visit.  We had so much fun and were so incredibly busy everyday.   I decided tonight that they need to live much closer :) 

Brooklynn and the Birthday Girl

Keri's birthday is on the 4th of July, so every year (for as long as I can remember)we've celebrated her birthday at the beach.  This year was one of the best beach birthday celebrations yet!  We decided to try a new location for our all day hang out; we went to Carlsbad instead of Oceanside.  We switched because Oceanside was getting a little bit ghetto, they got really strict with their parking rules on the 4th, and I usually see students at the Oceanside beach and in my bathing suit is definitely one place that I don't want to see my students.  Carlsbad beach was awesome!!  I wish we had switched there a lot sooner, but at least now we know.  We had always claimed a huge territory to fight off the huge crowds at Oceanside, but this year it was totally unecessary.  We did have a huge amount of beach front property, but we had the whole place to ourselves.  We decided that they are just way less aggressive in Carlsbad and that suits us just fine.  So we had an awesome day at the beach.  Brooklynn slept for most of the day just like the little dream baby that she is.  It was perfect beach weather and almost all of the family was there so that made it a fabulous day!  We ended the night watching fireworks in the Big O Tire parking lot; we've been doing that for the past few years and I think it may be one of those super classy family traditions now.

I couldn't resist buying the bathing suit for the 4th

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Birthday girl, Bailey, and Toni

Ty, Dad, and Keri hanging out in the back part of our large beach territory.

Brooklynn was a 4th of July kiddo too! (as far as her outfit goes)

family photo

First task of the day for the boys--dig a large hole

Bailey became the little mermaid

Brooklynn's first time in a bathing suit and first time on the sand.

She had no clue that she was lying in the sand, but she was totally covered in sand after this mini photo session.

Brooklynn and her Papa!

She's one cool chick!

Here's most of the crew at the end of the day

This was Bailey's seat for the fireworks show.

The rest of the week was filled with beach (we went every single day!), shopping, tennis, family volleyball, Wii dance games, delicious food, and tons of fun.  Keri and CJ are just two people who always like to be on the go, so we joined in on the fun.   My life would be perfect if I could go to the beach everyday, so last week was kind of a dream come true.  I brought my camera along to all of our outings, but I didn't take many pictures since we were just too busy having fun.  I must also mention that it was awesome that Toni was down for the whole week and Aaron came down on the weekends.

We came over after church on Sunday to see Keri and CJ one more time before they left.

My girls and Auntie Keri

 Here are some pics that I stole from Keri's blog taken during the week:

I love this picture!  After one of our late night volleyball sessions, we came home and Bailey was asleep on the couch like this.  My dad watched her while we all played.  Bailey didn't want to go to bed, but she feel asleep right here.  She looked so peaceful.

On Wednesday we all went up to Irvine Spectrum to shop and eat.  We took some lovely pictures on our way out.  Tera and Ty were already on their way to the car, which is why they don't have a lovely photo here too.

So once again, I love my family and I'm so glad we can hang out and have fun.  I just wish that it could be all the time and not only a few times a year.  So until next time when we're all together again--December!

Here are a few pictures from when we went to the Del Mar Fair before Keri and CJ came into town:

Bailey's whole purpose of going to the fair is to feed the animals.  She would stay in here all day if she could.  The only animal she didn't want to feed was this four-horned devil goat.  I couldn't get a good picture of it, but it really did have four horns.

This is Bailey's Rapunzel picture.  It's not a tall tower, but a short silo.

Bailey got to pick one ride and it truly made me sick.  It was this spinning ride that is 1000 times worse than the teacups as Disneyland.

Me and my girls

I know this flower is a little large, but I thought it looked so cute!  I heard some lady say look at that head ornament on that child.  I still think it was adorable.