Two reasons to be thankful...

Jacob and Abby,

Every day I am so grateful that I am your mommy. That I get to see your smiling faces first thing in the morning. That I get to hear your infectious laughter daily. That I get to experience all of your milestones right alongside you. That I get to receive your love.

Every day I am thankful, but especially this Thanksgiving as I take note of all of my blessings, I count you both at the top of my list.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

the saga continues

This post is long overdue, but with the countdown beginning to New Moon I realized that I just had to blog about my fun girls night. For my birthday I got my girls together for a yummy dinner at Fuzio (my favorite restaurant--thanks to my time at UC Davis) and a "slumber party" (if we are allowed to have those at our age) at the downtown Hyatt for a Twilight marathon.

This summer my girlfriends and I started reading the Twilight Saga and I must admit, it's become a bit of an obsession. I was dead set against it at first. Jaime and Danielle started reading the series and I was totally turned off. Who wants to read about vampires and werewolves? I mean, come on--all that is crazy. But then Sandy read them and convinced me to just give them a chance. So I picked up a copy of Twilight and honestly didn't really put it down until it was finished. Then came New Moon--same story. Then Eclipse (which I actually read on the drive to and from San Francisco--Brad says I can't claim that I have motion sickness anymore). Then Breaking Dawn. All in two and a half weeks time. And these are long books. By the time I was done I had convinced nearly every around me to pick up the books and read them (even my own mom.)

So when my birthday rolled around I knew exactly what needed to happen. A Twilight Girls Night. And we had sooo much fun. Jaime made a super yummy cake, we enjoyed some wine, and watched Twilight (again) together.

We've vowed to have another party after the 12:01 am showing of New Moon this November 20th.

Thanks ladies for a great and memorable birthday. Can't wait until our next all nighter!

Engaged

I have lots to blog from our wonderful weekend with our good friends, the Andersons, but I thought I should update everyone and let them know that Jacob is engaged. We picked up Bella and her family from the airport on Friday and before we had even gotten home Jacob asked Bella's dad if he could marry Bella. Reunited after 3 years and all it took was a twenty minute drive to rekindle their romance:) Of course I couldn't be happier!

In all seriousness, though, it was so great to see Jacob and Bella play together and really enjoy each other's company. I look forward to many visits in the future! And here's a picture of the two little lovebirds. (Oh, and try to ignore Jacob's fat lip...that's another blog post, complete with video coverage.)

All girl

It is no secret that Abby is all girl! She LOVES pink, anything with princesses, and has recently become quite fond of make-up. While she's still quite a few years off from that, I did recently purchase her some Ariel lip gloss to get all dolled up with.

Well, this morning as I was packing up for our day at the water park, Abigail comes in the room and says, "Mommy, look at my lips!" Oh my, sweetheart, how could I miss them!

Yo ho, yo ho...it's PARTY time for me

Last month Jacob celebrated his fourth birthday with a big pirate themed bash at the Little Gym. Let me just say--this was the way to go. All of the kids had an amazing time and I didn't have to clean up any mess! It was wonderful. The instructors were also great and even planned out a little "treasure hunt" for the kids to participate in. Everyone came decked out in their pirate attire and had so much fun "walking the plank" and searching for lost treasure. They even "made" a cake for Jacob (think pat-a-cake) and he got to be the "candle" in the middle.

Thank you to everyone who made Jacob's party so special. I really can't believe my little guy is already four. He keeps me laughing every day, teaches me the meaning of being selfless, and is the one who made me a "Mommy." I love you Jacob--I'm so glad your birthday was everything you hoped it would be.

toddler iphone

Abby told me that she was talking on her iphone.

A day at the bay.

One of my favorite places to visit in California is Monterey. We used to go there nearly every year (or at least it seems that way) for my birthday growing up. We would wake up in the morning and head over to the two story McDonald's for our breakfast and then begin our day of shopping. There was this great Barbie doll outlet on Cannery Row and my parents would take me there on my special day and I got to pick out a doll just for me (or two, or three). 

I have always been so excited to take my children to Monterey to begin creating their own memories of this beautiful destination. Our first trip was back in September of 2007, but things didn't go according to our plans. We had just found out the week before that Dad had stage IV kidney cancer and though we thought our vacation would be a good distraction, neither Brad nor I were emotionally ready to be away from home.

This summer was different. It felt like the Monterey vacations that I remembered from my childhood. Maybe because Jacob and Abby are two years older, maybe because Brad and I aren't still numb from the shock of Dad's cancer, and maybe because going there somehow in some way made me feel close to my dad after having spent the past year apart from him. Whatever it was, it was truly wonderful.

I loved watching the kids amazement at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. That place really is like another world. It is crazy to me to think that all of this life exists just under the water's surface. It was so great to see the kids absorb all of this and have fun while doing it. There are so many great interactive exhibits now that Jacob and Abby didn't stop going and going the whole three hours we were there.