Tunnel System

My little engineers are dabbling in the construction business. They take the cushions off the couch and place them over the couch and coffee table to create an L-shaped tunnel. Then they crawl through the tunnel until they wear themselves out. It takes me back to when my brother and I would build forts with blankets, pillows, chairs, pretty much anything we could find. I remember begging my mom to let us sleep out in one. I think we lasted ten minutes after the sunset before we begged to be back inside. I look forward to seeing more elaborate tunnels and forts as Paige and Nick get older and more creative.
And yes, that would be Paige wearing Nick's Peter Pan costume from last year.

Weekends

Like pretty much everyone else, I absolutely love the weekends. And I hate when they end. Around here, the weekends fly by in the blink of an eye. There's just never enough time to do everything you wish you could do. The kids look forward to seeing their daddy every Saturday morning. They love to eat breakfast with him, watch cartoons with him, and lounge around the couch together. Here's proof:

I think they sat like this for at least fifteen minutes. That's quite the record! We had a great weekend. We got in some pool time, Brian got some tennis in, I had a girl's night on Friday, and the four of us went to a birthday party together. Oh, and we did more than a surface clean on the house. Not too shabby.

Eight Years

Today is our eight year anniversary. Falling on a Tuesday does not lend itself to celebrating the day of, so we will be celebrating next Friday with tickets to Wicked and a one night stay downtown in the Gaslamp. SO looking forward to that! However, Brian was incredibly sweet by making fresh blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon this morning. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that he'll be able to get off early too. This picture was taken several years ago and I've always loved it.

In honor of our eight years, I wanted to try and describe Brian using eight words:

loving

kind

loyal

smart

gentle

adventurous

sincere

dedicated

Happy Anniversary!

Who Me?

Who me? Sick? Nah. I still want to climb all the furniture, including the nightstand in my room. I really get a kick out of pulling my sister's hair and scratching at her face. Mom gets really mad when I arch my back while she's trying to put me in the car seat, but I think it's kinda funny. I love playing with my train set, but when I get frustrated I chuck the trains across the room. I'm so excited to turn two in two more months although I think my mom is a little sad about it. But not me, I want to get bigger and faster!

Sick Days

Sometimes I wish I could call in sick on sick days. First it was Paige, then Nick woke up with a 102 degree fever this morning. I took both of them into the doctor today. With all the stuff going around, swine flu, whooping cough, and fifth's disease, I really didn't want to take any chances. Turns out, they don't have any of those, but Paige has croup and, most likely, Nick is in the beginning stages. So, I just wasn't enough for them today. "Mommy hold me...pick me up...play with me...sit with me..." I'm drained. They've tapped out anything and everything I had in me today.

Splash Zone

Legoland's splash area is a great place to beat the heat and cool off. We met up with Nicole and Pete this morning and had a fun time running around the water. The kids were soaked from head to toe and they loved every minute of it. Now they are napping blissfully which means some rest time for me, yippee!

Obsessions

The four of us are going through a rash of obsessions. Brian is obsessed with playing tennis several times a week. And especially after watching Wimbledon, he wants to crank it up another notch. I have become obsessed with my new favorite website Splitcoast Stampers. Everyday I'm looking at the latest cards to be uploaded as well as uploading my own. I've even been trying the daily challenges. It's been so much fun for me to get my creative juices flowing. Paige's recent obsession is her Ariel bathing suit and anything to do with swimming. She even wears it around the house. And as for Nick, he is having a love affair with the vacuum. He will strongly let me know that he wants to have control over it, so I let the little guy go to town on certain areas of the house. Will he be like this as a teenager? Oh, I hope so.

Independence Day

Once again, we had a fantastic Fourth of July at Bob & Melody's house. The kids could not get enough swimming in and I couldn't get enough girl chat time with my buddies. Then there's the shots. I only had one, mind you. There's just too much chasing around to do and diaper changes and getting mouths fed...well, the list goes on. But, any chance to spend time at their house is quality time and we enjoyed it so much. After swimming and eating some tasty burgers, we sped home to watch fireworks up the hill from our house. Paige, mostly, was enthralled by them and it's those moments I cherish the most, her wide eyes and her oohs and aahs.
And thank you to Terry for taking some fantastic photos...again! I couldn't ask for a better best friend-in-law.

Playa de la Casa

Playa de la Casa sounds like a warm sandy beach with plenty of surf, but in reality it's right here at home. Paige has turned our little courtyard into a "beach" complete with an umbrella, chairs, table, and plenty of sand. The only thing missing is the sound of crashing waves and our cabana boy serving up daiquiris. Maybe I should start training Nick early on that, but by the looks of this picture there might be a lot of resting on the job.

Celebrations

It's been almost two weeks since my last post and I never go that long, but it's all for good reason. We were out of town celebrating Brian's milestone birthday. The couple days prior was spent getting ready and the couple days after were spent cleaning up. As soon as I receive pictures from our trip, I will put them up. Like many busy moms, I ended up only taking two pictures the entire trip so I'm waiting for kind family members to send me theirs. In the meantime, there were two other birthdays in June besides mine, my mom's and Brian's (the big 4-0). I took the kids to my parents' house and made her breakfast for her birthday. It was a mellow way to celebrate, but we all had fun. For Brian's birthday, fourteen family members and two dogs took the trip to Santa Barbara County wine country; after we returned we also celebrated here at the house with some of his buddies and cherry pie.