Summer Fun

Here's what we've been up to this summer:

{Hiking with friends}

(Check out that waterfall!)

{Playing in the sprinklers & eating popsicles}

{Having tea parties}

{Swimming & swim lessons}

{And taking lots of fun pics!}

What have you been up to?

Kate turns 2!

Our sweet little Kate {who, in fact, is not always so sweet, but very sassy!} turned two!  Can you believe it?

We had a family party for her with, what else?  A Tinkerbell party!  Our third Tinkerbell party in less than a year :)  What can I say?  We love Tinkerbell at our house.

I made her a delicious Tinkerbell cake {for reals - it was so yummy!}, which she loved.  And we had homemade peach ice cream.  Mmmm, so good.

{Kate loved the ice cream!}

{The Birthday Girl and mommy}

{Papa and Grammy}

Kate got some fun presents . . .

But her favorite, by far, was this Dora bath toy:

She carries it around with her everywhere!

{Uncle Derek thought something was funny . . .}

{Dawson loved the cake!}

{Aunt Lindsey and the Birthday Girl}

{Blowing out the candles!}

{Kate and her daddy - she is SUCH a daddy's girl!}

Here are Kate's two year stats:

{Height}:  35 inches (81st percentile)

{Weight}:  30 lbs (85th percentile)

She's slowed down a little!  She has always been off the charts in height, she's catching up to Emmy so fast.

 {Love this sweet little face}

Here are some things we want to remember about our Kate:

- Her favorite things in the world are a sippy cup of milk, her "cozy cozy" (a crib-sized comforter), her "lamby" (a stuffed animal lamb) and now her Dora doll.

- She totally can beat Emmy up.  She'll hit, pull hair and scratch.  And not only Emmy.  Jake and I have both had battle wounds, as well as a poor little boy at the gym :(  Naughty girl!  I finally had to tell Emmy to hit her back.  Emmy was not happy with this.  But, eventually, she realized she needed to defend herself against the sassy Katers!  And the hitting began . . .

- Despite her violence, she can be a sweet and cuddly girl.  She is so good at giving hugs.

- She is becoming a great little talker.  Sometimes she has to repeat herself once or twice, but we eventually can understand what she's telling us.  Most of the time, she talks in at least 4 or 5 word sentences.  She'll yell, "Stop it!" if she doesn't like what you're doing or saying (or in my case, singing . . .).  And she's really good at saying "thank you," even without being reminded.

- She loves eating broccoli, tomatoes, olives, blueberries, grapes and applesauce.  She's our good eater!

- She loves watching Diego.  When she wants to watch TV, that's what she asks for.

- She is becoming very independent.  She wants to do most things by herself.  If you don't let her, watch out!  The tantrums will begin!

- People ask all the time if her hair is naturally curly.  Honestly, what two-year-old is gonna let someone curl their hair???  I politely tell them yes, the curl is natural :)

- She's happy in the mornings!  Emmy, on the other hand, is not.  It's nice to have one child be a morning person!  She gets that from her dad . . .

- She LOVES to color!  She even colored with a permanent marker all over the counter, chairs and herself . . .

- She likes to sing (yes!).  She's got a cute little voice :)  One of her favorite songs is J Lo's "On the Floor" - that's right, she's turning to her latin roots.  Ha!

 {This girl loves the boat!  Grammy and Papa sold theirs, though :(  Anyone wanna take us out on the lake?}

{Sweet sisters}

We can't believe our baby is already two!
We'll keep her :)

Tinkerbell 30th!

I turned 30 this year.  That's right - three + zero.

Well, my wonderful husband decided to throw me a surprise party!  He recruited my sister and my friend, CC, to help him out.  I had NO clue - I was totally surprised.  The party was at my parent's house and some family and friends were there to help me celebrate!  It was a blast!

What's even better is that it was a Tinkerbell party.  Quite appropriate, I thought. Had to keep a youthful theme going, right?

So we ate some delicious food, had cake {of course}, played games - we even had a Tinkerbell pinata.  And we ended the night with a little Glee Karaoke on the Wii - thanks to my sis for that present!.  {Side note - Emmy and Kate totally fight over the microphone every time we play it.  Note to self: get another mic for the Wii!}.

The group that helped me celebrate:

The pinata!  My dad got some great {ahem} action shots:

{The first person never breaks it, right???}

{Lindsey knocked it off the rope!}

{Jake and Derek playing baseball with the pinata}

Me and my sis:

{Yes, I had a birthday crown :) }

So thanks to all my friends that could make it to the party and thanks to Jake, Linds and CC for putting it together!  There's nothing like friends and family to ease the pain of becoming another year older.

The thing is, I still act like feel like I'm 20.

I was kind of freaking out about it after I turned 29.  I couldn't believe I would be turning 30 years old.  Cuz that's always sounded old to me.

But you know what?  I've decided that 30 isn't too bad.  In fact, as one of my friends told me, 30 is the new 20!  And I feel just as good as I did when I was 20.  I'm getting older AND wiser.  So here's to another 30 years!

Doh!

Emmy likes to type her name into the computer.

I'll open a blank Word document and let her go.

A few weeks ago, she was typing her name and I looked at the computer.  

This is what I found:

Hahaha!  Jake and I were totally laughing.  At least it's all in innocence, right?

DISNEYLAND!!!!

Fair warning:  this post is gonna be a total picture overload!!!  But what happens when you go to The Happiest Place on Earth?  You get picture happy.  And you just have to take a ton of pics.  And when your blog is your way of journaling/scrapbooking?  A LOT of the pics get posted!

Jake wanted to take a little vacation when he was done with finals.  My sister and her family wanted to go to Disneyland and so we planned a trip to Cali!  We left about an hour and a half after Jake's last final :)  Thanks to our tax return for making this trip possible.

I did a TON of research on cheap places to stay.  Seriously, I spent hours on the computer searching/comparing/reading reviews, until finally settling on a hotel.  We stayed at the Cortona Inn and Suites.  It was about a ten to fifteen minute walk to Disneyland (which meant we didn't have to pay for parking) and the hotel itself didn't charge for parking (which a lot of them do).  It was a decent place to stay, no complaints.

We spent the first two days of our trip at Disneyland/California Adventure.  Oh how we love that place.  And the last day we went to the California Science Center in Los Angeles and then to Huntington Beach.

{At our hotel the first day - heading to the big D!}

{Best cousins!}

{DISNEYLAND!}

{Cute kiddos}

{Kate was clapping after the Winnie the Pooh ride w/ this confused look on her face . . .}

{Ella & Emmy in their Rapunzel dresses}

{Derek & Jake were supposed to be watching the babies (and by babies I mean Kate & Dawson - they still count as babies, right?  They're almost two . . . :) ) while the rest of us rode the Matterhorn.  Apparently by babies, they thought we meant phones . . . }

{Kate loved this little door by The Mad Hatters, and she's screaming because someone had a bubble machine and there were bubbles everywhere!}

{Dawson & Kate waiting patiently while we were in line for a ride}

{Sisters!  We ate at the Blue Bayou restaurant (the one inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride).  It was fun to do once, but I probably won't do it again . . . especially after the $180 bill - ouch!  Luckily it was for both families, not just ours.}

{Teacups!}

{Kate loved the Carousel}

{Rapunzel and Flyn Rider!  Definitely worth the wait in line :)  It was the longest line we waited in - we waited for about 45 minutes}

{Kate had to get in on the action, too}

{2nd day at Disneyland!  Started on the Jungle Cruise}

{Carousel @ California Adventure}

{California Adventure - minus Kate who was taking a nap in the stroller}

{Classic Disneyland pic.  Like the girls' matching dresses?  I made 'em!}

{Dole Whip!  Definitely something we get every time we go to Disneyland.  That and the corn dogs - yum!}

{The premiere of Pirates 4 was the day after we were at Disneyland so they were setting up for it while we were there}

{Partying at the beach!}

{Wha?}

{It was actually pretty cold while we were at the beach.  I didn't even get into my suit.  But that didn't stop the kids - or the dads, for that matter!}

{Kate was laying face down in the sand, which resulted in . . .

. . . a nice little sand beard.  Oh, and she ate the sand, too . . . }

{Kate was so cold after she got out of the ocean that her toes and fingers started turning blue!  Jake had to wrap her in his sweatshirt.  That girl was freezing!}

{Waiting to eat at BJ's Pizza in Huntington Beach}

We had such a fun vacation - we can't wait to plan our next family vacation to Disneyland!!!