Girly Time!

I started Girly Time with Bella when Charlie was a baby and she was feeling a little displaced. We take a bath, put on lotion, lipstick(chapstick) and paint our toe nails. Then we write in a shared journal have a snack and go to bed. It is wonderful! We both look forward to it very much.
Bella is starting school tomorrow and she keeps asking me to go to a salon to get her nails painted so I told we could before school started so we went on Saturday. It was so fun! Bella felt so grown-up and girly! I loved watching her little face while they were painting her nails. She was looking around at all the other ladies and I could tell she knew that this was pretty special and it was!

I forgot to bring my camera to the salon so here are a few pictures of the after.
When we were done she said "I can't wait to do that again. Can we go tomorrow?" Oh, I see lots of pedicures in our future!

These are Mr. Potato Head glasses...

The kids say they are grandma's with these on!

Family Game Night!

We LOVE to play board games as a family! Candyland, Bingo, Guess Who? and Diego 123 have been our favorites but after Bella got some new ones for her birthday we are branching out to Monopoly jr. Scrabble Jr. and Clue Jr.
Last night we played Monopoly Jr and had the best time! Bella got the concept right away and just loved that the board was an amusement park! We love going to the boardwalk here so we pretend that it is the Santa Cruz Boardwalk!

Charlie had a little more trouble understanding the concept and when anyone would land on his attraction and try to give him money he would cry and say he already had some money and didn't need anymore!!!

Can't wait for the next game night!

Sicky Day

Ever since we got back from our trip to the East Coast, Charlie hasn't been feeling very well. He had a terrible cough and finally we took him to the Dr. The Dr. said that he needed to go on antibiotics and may have pertussis. The Dr. said we needed to keep him away from kids for two days until the antibiotics kicked in so seclusion it was.

We actually had a lot of fun playing at home but by the end of the two days I was exhausted!

We colored, beaded, baked, played board games, rode scooters around the block, read books, took baths...

Here are some pics of some of our sicky fun!

Meeting Marcella

A few weeks ago we took a trip to the east coast to visit Bill's family and for his good friends wedding. One of the highlights of the trip was meeting my very first niece, Marcella (Ella)!
Bill had seen her a couple times but the kids or I hadn't met her yet and she is 6 months old!!

She is the sweetest little baby...she is so quiet, alert and smiley!!

Bella enjoyed singing and talking to her and playing with her toys. Charlie was not super interested at first but then warmed up and would talk to her and try to play with her. One day he went up to her and touched her ears and said"your ears are so tiny". In his little voice it sounded so cute!

The hardest part for our kids was being quiet when she was sleeping and not stepping on her when she was laying or sitting on the ground!

I LOVED holding her and talking to her and seeing her smile! What a sweet girl!

We miss you Ella! (and your mommy and daddy too)

Toot Toot Chugga Chugga Big Red Car!!!

Bella's birthday present from Bill and I was tickets to go and see the Wiggles!
Bella has been a fan of The Wiggles since she was two and we have tried a few times to get to a show but it has never worked out. Since she was turning five this year and I knew that her love of the Wiggles would probably be fading soon we thought it was the perfect time to take her. Tickets were expensive so we could only afford to buy two and I was the lucky one that got to take her!!!
We gave her the tickets on her birthday, along with their new CD and a t-shirt to wear to the show. She was so excited and had every song on the Cd memorized in one day!
We were going to the show two weeks later and I was surprised as to how well she handled that...not being able to go right away.

The day of the show we got all ready, packed some snacks and off we went. We arrived early and were in our seats about 40 min before the show actually started...thank goodness for big buckets of popcorn!!

Once the show started she did not sit still the whole time! She was dancing and singing and I was having more fun watching her than the Wiggles themselves!!!

We had really great seats and were fortunate enough to sit on an aisle and at one point Sam came out into the audience and walked right by Bella and she gave him a high five!!! She talked about that for weeks and weeks!!!

What a day! I am so happy I was able to enjoy that special time with my special girl!

Bella's 5th Birthday Beach Party!

Bella chose to have her birthday party at the beach this year and Dora the Explorer was the theme!
I was soooo excited to find Dora the Explorer beach stuff at the dollar store which was so awesome!
Bella just had the best time...she loved playing with all of her friends. They played in the water, flew kites, made sand castles and ate snacks and cake! So much fun!

Bella's 5th Birthday Day!!

Bella turned 5 on July 9th! Bill took the day off and we were able to spend the whole day together which was AWESOME!!!
It started right when Bella woke up...she was greeted with cut-out paper 5's hanging on her door and on the walls in the hallway with balloons strewn on the floor. She walked downstairs and found more 5's and more balloons and then the table decorated for a party! She was so happy!!
She opened up a few presents from Grandma, some new, super fun board games.
Then on to breakfast. We had gluten free cinnamon bread and fruit and she opened up her presents from mommy and daddy...
we got her a new wiggles t-shirt, a new wiggles cd and told her the BIG news...she was going to see the wiggles in two weeks!!!
She was so excited and sat quietly on the couch and listened to her cd start to finish twice and by the end knew most of the words to the songs!

We then got packed up, stopped for coffee for mommy and daddy, and headed to San Jose to go to the Children's museum.
It was so much fun! The kids played in the fire truck and ambulence, pretended to work in a pizzeria, played in the water area and really enjoyed the Curious George exhibit.
They had the best time and so did Bill and I. We ate lunch and then made our way back to Santa Cruz.

Bella was so excited to be five...five is a big deal to her. It meant that she got to go to kindergarten and chew gum!!! So, on the way home she had her first peice of gum!
I told her not to swallow it and just chew it until she was done then give it to me. She chewed for about 5 seconds then said, "I'm Done!" I said, "where is it?" she said that she swallowed it!!!! The look on her face was so cute...I couldn't get upset!
I reminded her that she wasn't supposed to swallow it and instead give it to me and we decided we would try it again another time!!

After we got back into Santa Cruz we headed to Bella's swim lessons and then met my mom at Bette Burgers for dinner. Bella had an amazing 5th birthday day and I am so excited to have such a wonderfully, beautiful, creative, sensitive, caring, sassy, loving, 5 year old girl!!!