June (phone photo review)

 The last month has included some of the following:
Boating
Visits with Grandmas
Gardening - first crops!
Beach trips
Disneyland
Park visits
Pool time
Visits from friends
Visit from uncle Peter
Farmers markets
Library time
Dinner with friends
Date nights (yay!)
Wine tasting
Tide pool discovering
Time with friends. Time with family. Time together, loud and peaceful.
It's been a good month.

Our friends Angie and Ryan invited us to join them on a boat cruise around Balboa Island - and since Uncle Peter was in town he got to come too!

Our first trip to our local library was great fun - for Stella especially! She found the baby dolls and went ahead and started feeding them!

Disneyland was a hit! As you can tell by the exhausted Hudson in the picture below! H is favorite was Mickey Mouse's house. For a week after we went, he would put his socks on his hands and walk around saying he was Mickey! 

One of our new fave spots - Corona Del Mar tide pools!

We had a great date night at the Beachcomber down in Newport one night - right on the water! 

In a house with an energetic 3 year old boy, Stella takes a few minutes here and there to steal away and play with Hudson's toys when he's not looking. Smart cookie. 

The Jones' visited from DC! On their way to Hawaii they stayed with us for their layover, and we loved it!

Farmers market berry tasting!

Six weeks ago i planted these veggies…and now! looking forward to enjoying it all summer!

Andy and I had the opportunity to go wine tasting in the Santa Barbara hills (Solvang, etc) and it was so fun! I was lucky to be with some of my very dear friends Sandra and Melissa, and we both really enjoyed the day away to be adults!! :) Lucky we have a great babysitter here already!! Now if we could only figure out how to grow our babysitting fund so we can do this more often...

Summertime!

 June has been a busy month for us, with visitors and adventures galore! We had visits from both grandmas, as well as a short visit from some of our favorite people - the Jones'! Of course there were many beach days (and more to come of course), lots of time outside, and some great memories made!

 Hudson's imagination is amazing right now - and Grandma Rosdil is helping foster the creativity with some costumes!! hudson's been putting out some major fires in our yard - thank goodness he's here! 

 Friends for life - Quentin is definitely one of Hudson's favorite people. 

 Try to get five kids together for a picture…and this is what you get!

 Apparently i don't have any kids in this picture.

words

Stella has been saying more and more words lately - and is excellent at communicating what she wants or feels. Some of the words she says now (16 months old):
Daddy
Hi
Brother/Hudson (they sound similar)
Turtle
Shoe
ChooChoo
No (not too thrilled about that, but i guess since it's hudson's favorite word it was inevitable)
Nana (banana)
Doggie
All done
Book

She loves going outside, and checking on the veggies and fruits we have growing in the yard. She will walk up to the lemon tree and smell one of the lemons, look at me and say "mmmm". She loves to clean up, bring toys to brother, follow Hudson everywhere, play in the dogs food and water (taste it now and then too), go for walks and bike rides, take baths, sit and read, color, and so much more. Her sweet demeanor is such a delight, and kind of a breath of fresh air on the days when Hudson is being a raging three year old. :) I can see a bit of attitude coming through her behaviors now and then, but I think most of it is mocking everything she sees Hudson doing. Oh, and she hates when i'm at the computer! Right now she is pulling on my leg crying, because she wants to sit up here with me.

SO I end this post for now - more pictures coming up!

my heaven on earth

 It's no secret that I love the beach. I love the beach. Simple and 1000% honest. SO you can imagine how happy I am to live in a place now where I can go to the beach with my family every weekend. And that's what we're doing. Every weekend. And i love it. Apparently the rest of my family does as well, so it's a total win. This was at south Newport beach, at some time pools I read about online. There were no starfish, apparently there is something killing them all along the coast and they don't know what yet (so sad!), but we saw plenty of crabs, etc.!! This trip Stella was loving the water, and had no fear about walking straight into it! But the beach is just a peaceful, fun, happy place for us (always has been for me) and i'm SO SO thankful we can do this together. Making memories to cherish a lifetime. 

 OK i'm putting this picture on here not because i think Stella looks adorable in this picture. Of course she is adorable, but this picture is more to show the MOLARS this kid is getting. She has at least 6 teeth coming in right now, poor thing!!! Considering she had TWO teeth on her first birthday, her mouth seems to be making up for lost time. It explains the crying out during the night, excessive drooling, and random moodiness (maybe). :) My poor little girl - she continues to smile most of the time though, and thankfully trips to the beach like this tire her out so she sleeps much better!! 

By the way - this picture is her saying "CHEESE" to the camera. One of the few words she says very clearly, and intentionally when you point a camera at her now. SO funny. 

adventures in disney

 This little beauty...

 Today Angela and i (thank you again for going with Ang!) took the kids to Disneyland. It was a blast - we spent a good amount of time in Toontown, and took a nice tour of Mickey's house, Donald's house, and Goofy's house. Got a pic with Goofy and Mickey, and saw lots of other characters as well! Hudson had a great time, and Stella was a champ as usual - keeping up with it all. For a first time in Disneyland (we did California Adventure with them separately) it was quite a success!!

 Cute pic of them both lounging in Mickey's living room!

 Stella was trying out Goofy's piano

memorial day weekend in Claremont

 Sometimes i think about why i do this blog, and have to remind myself it has so many great purposes - one of which is for me to do a little journaling. I was never one to be devoted to writing in a journal (though i have seasons), but for some reason this blog has been a wonderful outlet for me. The other day i was talking to Andy about a family i learned about that lost their 4 year old son to a brain tumor. The tumor was found in January, and the boy died May 13th, 2014. It was a heartbreaking story, and I honestly cried about it more than once. Partly because i was so sad for their loss, but partly because it hit very close to home in reminding me of our scare with hudson two years ago. Talking to Andy about that made me realize how much this blog helped me process some of the things I was feeling. I lost 15 pounds in 2 weeks. I almost stopped eating entirely, and barely moved throughout the day. If my baby couldn't eat food, then neither would I. If he couldn't leave the room and run around, then neither would I. The connection I felt to him during that time was astounding, but i do think, looking back on it now, that somehow I needed this blog. I needed the family and friends around me as well, and the amazing doctor we had. I needed God, and tried hard to trust him through the fear and uncertainty. But the blog helped me work through it and stay connected in a way. SO today as i write this post, i'm thinking about how grateful I am for this simple website of mine. Grateful I'll be able to look back two years from now and see how i was processing and reflecting on life. How I was living it. Appreciating it. Or how I wasn't. Right?

 One thing I have LOVED about being back out in California, and with a home that has a yard, is the garden we've started to grow!! Above is the newest addition (just the plants, the rest was there), and i have actually added a few more things since this picture. It's so cool to be planting foods we can eat, and actually seeing them GROW! Definitely reminds me of how amazing God is, and how on earth he thought all this up when he created the world. Awesome. 

 Stella has started to copy Hudson regularly - here she is showing me an ouchie she had on her finger, because Hudson had one. Oh my. 

 She has also figured out how to say cheese for the camera! Her 5 teether look so adorable when she shows them off!!

 Andy had the great idea of making a chalk road for Hudson - and what a hit!! This kid is "driving" all over the place!! With all that energy he has every day, this is a fun way for him to run some errands for me, build his imagination, and get some wiggles out!! Stella of course is on the road as well, either pushing the shopping cart or vacuum. She tries to get on the train, but Hudson quickly puts a stop to that. Yea, sharing can be hard when you're the first born and all the toys are yours, AND you're 3. But isn't he a cutie pie?? My baby boy. 

my girl