Treasure Island Beach Family Photos

November 1, 2017 by

While Aunt Sarah was in town, we seized the opportunity to have her and her camera tag along with us to Treasure Island Beach in Laguna. The girls normally cringe at the mention of “family photos,” but with Aunt Sarah along, it just felt like another day at the beach. The girls quickly ignored the camera and started playing once we were done taking a few posed shots. The rest are candid (which always turn out to be the best ones) and a perfect encapsulation of a typical beach outing (crazy running around, sandcastles, kite flying, random meltdowns/tears, and wind in our hair).

Meredith wasn’t in the best mood that morning (teenager), but Aunt Sarah worked her magic and snapped some cute ones of her anyway. Thanks for the beautiful photos and easy-going morning, Aunt Sarah!

Queen of the Nile, Meredith, escorted by her caravan.

Getting ready for her close-up.

We bribed the girls with gummies to get them all together for a family shot before everyone dispersed to play.

I selected outfits from what we already had for these beach photos, but since we found out a few weeks later that we’d be having another girl, the pink ensemble worked out perfectly!

Jump, Samantha!

Run, Meredith!

Jump, Amelia!

Moody teenager.

         

Chasing the birds.

Meredith’s death glare.

Kite flying is a dangerous sport. The kite almost killed us five times randomly nose-diving from the sky straight down.

 

(Photos from my phone)

Hanging with Grammy.

 

I’m ready to be carried away, servants.

This wagon ain’t gonna move itself, slaves.

More pink coming soon! Thanks, Aunt Sarah!

Lots of love,

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Halloween 2017

October 31, 2017 by

After a VERY long month, it was finally actual Halloween! We were definitely ready for it to be over.

Last year:

Girls’ costumes of years past:

Family costumes of years past:

Meredith stayed in her full costume for about five seconds before discarding it for the night. There was something about that hood that drove her crazy.

Samantha and Amelia’s choice of costume evolved several times throughout the months prior. At first, they were set on being fairies again like last year. Then, after a friend handed down a really pretty butterfly costume from one of her kids, the girls decided they’d rather both be butterflies. I told them they could only re-decide one more time, and their final choice was a cat and a mouse costume. I’m sure they would have chosen something else last minute if they had the choice, but I put my foot down.

Samantha the sneaky mouse.

Amelia the silly cat.

Meredith the cute owl!

GET OUT OF MY BUBBLE.

Doing their best animal interpretations.

Ever since the girls started choosing their own costumes, I’ve given up on coordinating a family costume. Jake and I decided to be Harry Potter wizards, and figured Meredith could be our Hedwig. Somehow, with two wizards and three animals, it all worked out!

  

Our new neighborhood so far has been awesome, with several families taking the lead on organizing get-togethers and events. During the summer, there was a huge 4th of July neighborhood block party with a rented blow-up waterslide, movie nights at the pocket park with someone’s inflatable movie screen, a cornhole tournament with a taco cart, and random potlucks and parties. Many weekends, neighborhood kids and dads (I’m assuming there’s never any moms out on the weekend because, like me, they delegate the weekend for daddy-kid time while they get stuff done or just relax!) will be out at the pocket park playing soccer or just hanging out, so the girls will go across the street and play. On Halloween, someone organized a potluck before we all went out trick-or-treating. It was fun to see all the neighborhood kids dressed up and playing together!

After the neighborhood potluck, it was time to hit the streets. Since this was our first time trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, we tagged along with our next-door neighbors so they could show us their route.

Once Meredith was shown how to ring a doorbell and say trick-or-treat, she never looked back. We’d have to go pull her out of some people’s houses because she’d just let herself right in! She was in heaven with all those people handing her candy!

There were several spooky “haunted houses,” one of which featured their teenagers dressed up like zombies and walking creepily around their front yard as kids approached. One had a creepy clown who dragged around a shovel, pacing the driveway, until a group of older kids showed up, at which point he pretended to chase them with his shovel, while they ran away screaming. Fortunately, the girls weren’t scared and just laughed, but some of the houses were a little too creepy for me!

Meredith fell asleep at one point and then perked back up 15 minutes later. She looked like a zombie herself!

Trick-or-treating in our old neighborhood was hard to beat with little kids. The houses there were a lot closer together, making it so we could hit up the entire block in no time. Here, we only did our street and the street over and it still took us a few hours. Many people were trick-or-treating themselves, so it seemed like a lot of people weren’t home, but even though the girls didn’t get as much candy as last year, they didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they were allowed to have one piece that night (Meredith probably ate way more than that because she was sneaky about it) and could pick one piece to eat per day after that, but after day three, they lost interest and I threw all of it out when they were at school. About two weeks later, Amelia asked, “Hey! Where’s my candy?” When I told her I had given it to kids who didn’t have any candy, she was so upset!

Showing off their spoils.

Happy Halloween 2017!

Lots of love,

 

 

 

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The Month of Halloween

October 30, 2017 by

By the time Halloween finally rolled around, the month had seemed never-ending! I don’t know when Halloween turned into Christmas, but it seemed like there was something Halloween-related going on every day of October. We were pretty selective with the activities we did end up doing, but we still felt sick of Halloween by the time it got to the actual holiday!

Decorating pumpkins at preschool:

As the Room Mom, I helped out with this activity, and man, was painting pumpkins with 20 preschoolers stressful! I had to go home and take a nap afterwards.

Earlier in the month I had helped out Amelia’s class with a monster craft.

 

Halloween dress rehearsal for Meredith.

Preschool Harvest Party. Amelia just loves her teacher, Miss Becky.

The school’s Harvest Party always features a bunch of games, and this year, Samantha won a beta fish by successfully tossing a ping pong ball into the fish bowl. She named the fish Vivian and a month later we ended up getting it two new friends, who recently died after Jake changed the water too quickly and they went into shock. Vivian remains the lone survivor.

Grace and Zen class Halloween dance.

Decorating cupcakes with friends.

As a Room Mom, one of our biggest events of the year is the Annual Dinner. The most stressful part is constantly bugging everyone for donations to our class basket, which is then auctioned off at the dinner, as well as finding restaurants and people with connections to donate higher-ticket items for the live auction. We spent the better part of two months planning it, and I’m pretty sure other parents were avoiding me by the end since they were so sick of me bugging them for donations, but this year’s  rodeo-themed dinner ended up being a hit!

The Hamilton tickets Jake was able to get donated from a vendor of his firm went for the highest price of any item during the auction, and I was happy to have finally won the bid for one of the class platters (each class decorates a platter with their thumbprints and some kind of design– parents are always fighting over them). I also won the “Family Fun Night” class gift basket which included a bunch of movies, board games, a snuggly blanket, a popcorn maker, and pizza gift cards. Amelia made me promise to win one of the most popular items– an ice cream social with Miss Becky and three friends, but I was outbid by one of the other Room Moms. There’s always next year!

Phi and Sarahs’ kids don’t go to our preschool, but they were nice enough to support our school, buy tickets and join us for date night. So fun to to have them there!

This is the closest Jake has to anything cowboy themed in his wardrobe.

Jake’s back was killing him for days, but he said it was worth it.

Our town does a Harvest Celebration and I’m not sure exactly what it entailed since Jake took the girls while I… napped? Got stuff done? I don’t remember. But the girls came back looking like enjoyed the carnival. And since I’m not a huge fan of carnivals, it worked out well for everyone.

On another random Daddy Daughter Excursion, Jake decided to take the girls to Chuck E. Cheese of all places. They always come back from school talking about it (I’m assuming it’s a favorite amongst the other preschoolers), but the girls had never been. Finally, their dream came true! 

It was everything they had hoped for and more. Except they never really talked about it again and haven’t said anything about wanting to go back, so that’s a win for me since I don’t really want to go there.

Finger-lickin’ bbq chicken!

On Halloween morning, the twins had a preschool field trip to Zoomars. Since I chaperoned last year’s field trip, Jake took over on this one, but I decided to drive over there with Meredith at the last minute since we didn’t have any plans that morning anyway. It was the best of both worlds– we all got to hang out, but I didn’t have to ride the bus! I felt kind of bad thinking about Jake’s very long legs being squished into those tiny bus seats, but I had to suffer through last year, so it was his turn!

Who says I need to be in preschool to crash this field trip?

Meredith wanted to cuddle/ride/pet/hug every single animal.

Poor goats!

Some of the preschoolers were nervous about riding the pony, but not Meredith!

Who is the kid with the aviator glasses and bomber jacket?!

Meredith was kicked out of the guinea pig petting area for continually picking them up wrong and tossing them!

Meanwhile, the twins were so nice and gentle to those poor guinea pigs. They spent an hour in here and thus didn’t have time to ride the pony.

Samantha and Claire with their cuddly guinea pigs.

We tried to distract Meredith from the guinea pigs by riding the train again and again.

Those poor guinea Pigs. Don’t know if Meredith has been blacklisted from Zoomars, but we may have to wait another year before going back!

Lots of love,

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Legoland with the Gerins and Bubblemania at Moonlight Beach

October 20, 2017 by

Every October, we try to make it down to San Diego as much as possible, because many theme parks and activities are free for kids in San Diego the entire month! This Legoland trip, our cousins joined us for an action-packed day of rides and pure exhaustion.

Poor Hailey– not much for her to do except watch!

Meredith was tall enough to go on several of the kiddie rides– she was obsessed with this helicopter.

Hi cousin!

Legoland is definitely no where near as crowded as Disneyland, but waiting in line for more than two minutes with Meredith is basically torture.

Safari ride.

Hit the spot!

The line for this jousting ride was one of the longest– no idea why, but it was the girls’ favorite ride of the day.

Samantha is a total thrill-seeker and went on Legoland’s version of Splash Mountain twice with Jake and Zack.

Drying off.

Meredith followed this princess around asking for a pic.

Lunch break.

The struggle is real.

Too bad Meredith was napping; she would have loved the Duplo playground.

One of the highlights of the day was feeding the ducks. Should have just stayed home!

Meredith woke up right as Jake and the twins passed by on the storybook ride. Needless to say, she was NOT happy about being left out.

An exciting cousins adventure!

We stayed nearby at the Omni La Costa and enjoyed some ice cream and s’mores by the fire pit to end our exhausting day.

Before heading home the next day, we spent the morning at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. It had a nice park right next door and super clean bathrooms, checking off two must-have items on my list.  We were there early enough in the morning that the beach was uncrowded and it was a perfectly warm/clear day to boot.

Anytime sand is involved, the girls’ favorite pastime is to attempt to dig a hole to China, hoping to avoid lava on the way there.

 

Meredith needed a little time to warm up to the idea of getting wet. She kept wanting to wipe the sand off of her feet and legs with baby wipes!

Almost to China!

NOT happy about being stuck in a hole.

A bonus was this random old guy making giant bubbles with homemade bubble solution for all the kids on the beach to frolic around. He even does bubble birthday parties and gave us his card.

 

Inside a giant bubble!

Legoland, beach and bubbles made for the perfect short getaway!

Lots of love,

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