Emily and Camille

Best week ever! Emily and Camille came to my house for the week and we were in 2 year old land for the whole week.  It was perfect! Marilyn and Camille are about 6 weeks apart and they played like crazy for 5 days. It was awesome!

My favorite things of the week:

Watching Marilyn and Camille play Mr. Potato for hours on end

Going to the park in our jammies

Talking with my sister all day long for 5 days (my face was even tired at night...is that pathetic or what?)

Having 2 sets of pig tails around

Making "free spirit" rompers

Making gourmet dinners

Swimming with Marilyn (she was in love with the water)

Completely necessary photo shoot

The split  funny face breakfast at Village Inn (if you haven't tried it, go now)

Basically, the moral of my story, is I love my sister! I am lucky she is able and willing to come visit me! After she leaves, I am always sad that we live far away from each other but I guess it makes it a million times better when we do get together.  Thanks for coming, Emily and Cami! WE LOVE YOU!

this picture, and the one under this, are the outfits we made for the girls...pretty crazy fashionable right? they were super fast and too cute for words!

This is Marilyn when I asked her to smile at the camera...seriously? what is that face?

another strike a pose picture...love it!

This is when we went to the store...armed and ready with Elmo backpacks

Marilyn couldn't quite get over the fact that there was someone to hug other than me and Tom around here... We almost had to put her in timeout for touching Cami too much!

Marilyn was so proud when she was climbing, we couldn't believe that she made it that high...she has Tom's adventurousness...freak me right out!

Hello Gym, I am Sara

I joined a gym.  I am pretty excited about it.  I promised Tom that if I got a gym membership and once the gym opened, I would exercise 3 times a week. Kristin and I joined Planet Fitness when it was under construction which was great because then I could get my mind around the idea of having a gym pass before I even had to actually go to the gym.  It will be awesome for me but it will definitely take a little work.  This is a picture of my first night in a gym in my life.  Hopefully, in a few months, I will be the most in shape person on this earth.  (Well, actually I don't really care about that as long as I feel fabulous!)

I don't know why I have a sick obsession with taking really cheesy pictures...I promise, I will cool it with the craziness. 

Popcorn Popping On My Tree

When we bought our house, there was a tree in the back yard.  The people who sold it to us told us it was a "Fruitless Plum Tree".  Now, if you were told this information, what kind of tree would you think we had? A tree with no fruit? That's what we assumed...but unfortunately, certain types of fruitless plum tree's apparently produce plums.  Now, since we have some seriously gorgeous desert landscaping in our back yard, we have never taken care of that tree.  All we do is clean up the leaves every fall and pick up the fruit that has fallen.  This year we are planning out our back yard (goodbye desert landscaping!) and so I am deciding whether or not to keep the tree.  But when we came back from California, I remembered the reason I really love that tree.  Once a year, in the beginning of spring, the tree blooms from top to bottom.  It is so gorgeous and reminds me that spring is coming.  It also reminds me of the song "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" It feels like we sing it EVERY SINGLE Sunday in singing time.  But for some reason, I love it when the kids "get out their magical glasses" to see the popcorn out the window.  I feel pretty lucky that I have things to remind me how lucky we really are.  This is the third year we have seen these blooms (and I ALWAYS think I have time to take a picture, but always miss it) so I thought I would share.  This is my favorite part of my back yard, hopefully soon, I will love a few more things about my back yard. 

The Last Celebration, Promise...

When we got home from the drive from California, Jake, Janelle and Ayden brought a birthday cake.  We have a little tradition, for our birthdays we make awesome cakes and eat them together.  J, J and A definitely did not disappoint.  Here is the cake.  It was delicious and amazing. 

please excuse my cheesiness

The Party Continues

After the Elmo Exhibit (which was amazing), we came home to get ready for the dinner party.  Mar Mar the Great and Far Far Far, and Lisa, Jim and Brad Graham, Emily and Alden and Cami, all came to my parents house for the big Sha Bang.  We had fajitas (my favorite), and my dad made personal apple tartlets.  Everyone sang and celebrated.  It was so fun!

After dinner, Emily and I went out for a little much needed girl shopping time.  We were pretty funny, and the sales people might not have thought so but it was a good time.  While we were gone, Tom cuddled with Marilyn and Camille and watched Elmo.  He seems to be enjoying it right? The day was perfect! The week was perfect! It was all so much fun! We are so grateful to have friends and family like we do, and I am grateful to have a husband and a little girl like Tom and Marilyn.  Thank you so much!

It Is My Birthday!

Hi, on March 12th 1986, I was born.  I love love love my birthday! I love it so much that I made it a week, and celebrate my birthday week.  Everyone knows, we go all out for birthday's in our house, so this was no exception.  Here is some stuff we did to celebrate this great week. 

First of all, Tom and Marilyn got me an umbrella for outside so I can sit out there and watch Marilyn play and so we can eat out there without being blinded from the sun being in our faces.  I am pretty stoked about it...we will be spending ALOT of time out there now that the sun has decided to warm us up.  They also got me sew in labels for the little creations I have been working on.  (There will be a blog post when they get here!)

We gave Marilyn a bubble bath, to celebrate my birthday, she loved the bubbles except when we put a bubble beard on her.  It was hysterical. 

Wednesday of my birthday week, Janelle and I watched Americas Next Top Model, it was makeover week and also a tradition for us so it was a necessity for my birthday week.  She brought me flowers, which were gorgeous!! Then on Thursday, Janelle and I went to see Beastly.  Which we loved, but were also grateful that we had each other to see it with because our husbands didn't have to see it with us.  They stayed home with the kids and watch Killers.  It worked out great!

Then the big celebration began, we woke up the next morning and packed the car, and hurried our buns down to my parents house in Orange County! We had a killer awesome time! We went to Jalapenos for dinner, and then hit up the Perfect Circle (the cupcake store that won Cupcake Wars on Food Network).  We walked around the Orange Circle, still in shock that we were actually in California with my parents. 

Then we went home and put Marilyn down and went to sleep early on my birthday eve, preparing our bodies for the craziness that would ensue the next day.  We woke up early, played played played hard, until Marilyn's nap time, then we put her down and me and my mom went to get our toe nails done.  We have a little tradition at a darling little nail place on Katella Ave.  I obviously had to get cupcake toe nails.  We then went and picked up sweet little Marilyn so we could show her off at a bridal shower. 

After this we went to the Elmo's Body Exhibit at the discovery science center! It was AMAZING! Since Marilyn is obsessed with all things Elmo, we knew we had to go while we were down there.  We heard ahead of time, that the line to meet Elmo was crazy long, so we brought a little Army to stand in line with us and take turns taking Marilyn around.  But to our surprise and great pleasure, we got there at the perfect moment, because there were only 2 people in line to meet Elmo, he was about to go on break, so we ran as fast as our little legs would carry us to the line.  Marilyn is pretty shy, so I was concerned that meeting a Elmo that was bigger than Tom would FREAK her out big time, but she was pretty excited.  Armed with a little baby Elmo in her hand she walked up to Elmo and said "Hi, Elmo".  She was pretty excited to meet him! She gave him some kisses, and then we went on to see the exhibit. 

The exhibit was awesome, there were life size cutouts of all the characters.  And a real Elmo's world that even had a little Dorothy goldfish.  There was also a Ernie's rub-a-dub station, and a Sesame Street Set.  It was a really cool exhibit that Marilyn loved.  We are pretty grateful that we were able to go and spend this time with Grammie and Far Far. 

Marilyn loves Ernie...

The Oscar freaked us out a little...

Our Best Bites Cookbook

I have been following a website called ourbestbites.com (remember how crazy cute the pie pops were?) Anyway, I have been drooling over the cookbook these ladies put out called Our Best Bites.  I almost bought it at Seagull Book, but I remembered it was on my birthday list so I refrained.  Then I saw it online, and wanted wanted wanted it! But again, I stopped myself by shear will alone.  Then the kicker came, I sawit at Costco.  It was 7 dollars less then everywhere else.  I picked it up (just to look, I swear) and it was history, it was mine.  I came home, ripped open the plastic (ok ok ok I opened in the car the minute I got in), I couldn't wait to try every single recipe! I have had the cookbook for exactly 7 days now and have tried exactly 8 recipes.  I LOVED every single one!! The pictures are great, the recipes are great, for some reason I am great in the kitchen when this book is open on the counter.  It is pretty crazy, but I think this has changed my life.  (Well, at least my cooking life!) 

Happy 2nd Birthday, Ayden!!

This is Ayden Fullmer. Ayden is Marilyn's friend.  (Janelle is Ayden's mom, and she is my friend.  Jake is Ayden's dad and is also Tom's friend.) Basically, we are all friends.  I remember the day Ayden was born, I was 6 months pregnant and we went to visit Janelle, Jake and baby Ayden in the hospital and the first thing I asked Janelle was "Was labor the most horrible thing ever?" Not my smoothest moment ever.  Ayden's birthday party was at the park.  Marilyn got him a bunch of hot wheel cars, he loves cars.  Marilyn pretty much had no idea what the cars were, I guess that the difference between boys and girls. 

The party was ragingly successful! It was so fun to celebrate cute Ayden and how fun he is.  The cake was delicious, even though it said "Happy Ayden Birthday".  The pinata was awesome, it took every child plus Jake, Janelle and Grandma to break it! There were crazy cute bubbles being blown.  It was just so so so fun!

Happy Birthday Ayden! We Love You!

Marilyn is so cute...don't believe me? LOOK!

Marilyn is such a great helper!! She loves taking the clean dishes out of the water and putting them on the drying towel...she is so great!