Sarah

Grandpa’s 89th Birthday and Post-Christmas Fun

December 29, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

After Christmas, Auntie Lynn threw Great Grandpa a party to celebrate his 89th birthday (90th year!). Mike and Ali came from Wyoming, Sarah and Mike from Portland, cousins from LA, and the rest of us local family and friends celebrated at Wood Ranch in the Irvine Spectrum for Great Grandpa’s big day.

Family photos by Aunt Sarah!

All the grandkids and great grand kids.

The girls were excited to have extra family around to carry them.

Uncle Mike and Meredith.

Cousin Ben thought carrying around Eleanor would be a good bicep workout. He was right.

Ali and the chunk-a-monk.

Eleanor was excited to sit with Grammy at dinner.

The kids table was a little crazy.

Cousins doing what cousins do.

Must…touch…sparklies.

Happy birthday, Great Grandpa!

While most of the grown-ups chatted at the restaurant after dinner, the rest of us high-tailed it out of there for a walk around the Spectrum before the kids trashed the place.

Good thing Ali, Mike, Sarah and Mike were there to help carrying screaming/tired girls!

Meredith and Hailey were so cute! Two-year-old Hailey borrowed 6-month-old Eleanor’s coat for the evening and it actually fit!

A trip to the Spectrum would not be complete without a ride on the ferris wheel.

Ferris wheel photos by Aunt Sarah.

While we had aunts and uncles in town, the girls took them rock climbing at Sender City. This time, Meredith joined in for the first time and was pretty fearless.

We attempted lots of board games while we had family in town, even though they nearly always ended in tears. Samantha and Amelia are not the best gracious winners or losers, despite our best efforts.

Roasting s’mores with the fun aunts and uncles.

With all the extra hands, I got a lot of projects done while Grammy and Grandpa took on outings to the park.

Too much fun with their new chalk markers.

During the break, we also had a Secret Santa gift exchange with the Nguyens and the Erpeldings, which was supposed to be before Christmas, but we ended up having to reschedule. Since all the kids are in different schools, it’s been a long time since everyone has been able to play at the same time! Sheela had the kids draw names at the beginning of the month and wrote up cute letters for everyone, giving a few gift ideas for each kid received. The girls were so excited to see their friends open their gifts and announce that they were the Secret Santas. They also loved all the bonus gifts they got!

Practicing the art of balancing on the slack line with the neighborhood kids.

Practicing our tennis swings.

Amelia’s swing is getting pretty good!

Grammy watched Eleanor at home while I took the girls to the zoo. It felt like a lot less work just having three for a change.

We saw our friend, Brian, who works at the entrance!

All aboard the ferris wheel.

Jake and I celebrated our anniversary by staying at Pelican Hill Resort in Newport while Grammy and Grandpa watched the kids. Beautiful views and sunsets!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ali, anniversary, ben, ferris wheel, gerin, Grammy, Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Great grandpa's 89th birthday party, hailey, irvine spectrum, mike, Noah, pelican hill, rock climbing, santa ana zoo, Sarah, secret santa, sender city, tennis, uncle mike, wood ranch

Baby #4 Sprinkle

April 21, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

Friends had been asking forever when they could plan a baby shower, but with this being #4 and us definitely not needing any new baby girl gear, I kept telling everyone absolutely not! Phi persisted and finally convinced me to consent to a casual family baby sprinkle at the park, which I agreed to with the caveat that no gifts were allowed! I instructed her to keep it as simple and casual as possible, so that we could all just show up at the park, hang out and eat some pizza and dessert, but of course she had to put way more effort into it than required! So many friends helped set up and everything was incredibly adorable and PINK!

Phi’s husband, Michael, is the rice krispie cake king, and since they know that’s one of my favorite treats, he made a two-tier version in honor of the occasion. THAT is what I call precision knife skills. Loved this so much!

Like I said, I told Phi to keep it simple, so of course she made way too many desserts. Such a beautifully decorated and tasty gluten-free bundt cake!

Super cute pink cupcakes with crowns and heart toppers. Meredith kept asking for more “muffins.” We think she was trying to trick us into thinking they were healthier by calling them this rather than “cupcakes.”

Along with the whole “keeping it simple” thing, Phi couldn’t resist making her own printable with her own original poetry. Can’t wait to show it to baby!

Thank you, Phi, Michael, and everyone who helped set up and brought food! I kept telling Phi to either assign everyone to bring a potluck-type dish or just order pizza because I didn’t want her spending any time/money on this! She just had to take things up a notch and ordered from a place that does both pizza and mediterranean (my fave!) She’s always my go-to person to ask for awesome catering places, and this did not disappoint. Everything from the pizza and desserts to the kabobs, greek salad and basmati was delicious.

Jodi with Baby Corbin, Allie and Maliyah.

It was a blast getting everyone together and the kids were all occupied running around with each other.

Amelia, Owen, Maple, Samantha, Parker and Meredith enjoy their picnic.

More, please!

These guys spent so much time and effort putting everything together, and it was truly a super fun and casual night, just like I wanted!

Sarah stopped by in between the three other birthday parties she had going on that day.

Bubbles!

Amy tries on Sheela’s new hat that we all covet!

Awesome dinner and dessert at the park with friends!

Leighton, Parker, Mia, Avery, Owen, Oliver, Amelia, Meredith, Samantha, Maple and Gavin.

Phi asked if we wouldn’t mind wearing flower crowns as she wanted to make the girls feel special as the little “princesses.” I found a crown for Jake in our dress-up box and the girls wore their Easter flower crowns. Phi bought me the prettiest one of all, and I immediately had to go search on Etsy for one the baby can wear! Love Maple photo bombing in the background.

It wasn’t that long ago that Phi and I were pregnant at the same time with Maple and Meredith and attending our joint sprinkle thrown by Sheela and friends.

So grateful Phi convinced me go along with the sprinkle! We had so much fun celebrating with everyone and these guys went way above and beyond for us! Best of all, the girls really felt special with all the attention and even more excited for the new baby (if that’s even possible!) It was honestly my ideal perfect sprinkle! Thanks, guys, you’re the best!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: amy jim addison camdyn, baby #4 sprinkle, baby sprinkle, chee oliver mia, flower crown, jodi jared maliyah allie corbin, melissa dave leighton liam, park picnic, phi michael parker maple, rice krispie cake, Sarah, sheela todd owen avery gavin

Park City and the Alpine Slide

October 29, 2016 by Rebecca Whitehead

We LOVE Park City Mountain Resort, especially when we don’t have to deal with snow! It was the perfect day for us to get our fall colors fix as we drove up the canyon and met Aunt Sarah, Uncle Mike and their dog, Roger, in the mountains for a day in Park City. We were dressed for cold weather and left Meredith behind with Grammy, thinking it would be chilly, but in hindsight, she would have had a great time in the fresh mountain air and being entertained by all the twins’ adventures. Sorry, Meredith– next time!

We rode up the chair lift, which was slightly terrifying holding onto these two– I kept imagining them slipping through the bars.

Beautiful golden Aspens.

We watched others go down the Alpine Slide on our way up.

A walk in the woods with our sleds.

Amelia was having a meltdown over riding with Daddy; fortunately, Samantha was happy to be with me and didn’t fight her for the coveted ride with Jake.

Weeeeee!

Fun times hanging out with Uncle Mike and Aunt Sarah.

The twins were just barely tall enough to go down the Alpine Coaster, which was way more of an adrenaline rush than the Slide, I must say. Being total thrill junkies, the twins loved every minute of it. I don’t think Jake used the hand brake at all, so Amelia definitely got the more exhilarating ride, while Samantha and I took the fun, but cautious route (i.e. someone else was riding my tail the entire time because I was going too slow).

It was hilarious watching these two bounce on the bungee jumper. Amelia was totally content going up and down, while Samantha experimented with flips.

We couldn’t escape without doing the zipline.

Future mountaineers on the ropes course.

When we are having a great time, it’s hard to quit when we’re ahead, which is definitely what we should have done this particular day. Having skipped their nap to do more activities, the twins were in full on hangry/tired/sunburned/altitude sickness mode and we dragged them, screaming, out of the serene mountains and into the car.

At one point, Amelia was sobbing incoherently that she wanted a drink, and when I offered her my water bottle, she screamed, “NO! I WANT SPARKLING WATERRRRRRRRR!”

We don’t usually drink sparkling water no less have it on hand, so I have no idea where that outburst came from. You could tell from the looks of people passing by that they must have thought we were horrible parents for raising such spoiled children. Sigh.

On the otherwise gorgeous ride home, Samantha and Amelia went from overtired and cranky to wild and silly, and only slept the last 10 minutes of the ride. All Jake and I wanted was to enjoy a nice, QUIET ride through the mountains… argh! I would like to remind my future self to always call it quits when you’re ahead.

Back at home, Meredith had a grand time building a new fire pit in the backyard with Uncle Mike, Ali and Grammy.

Can’t believe you guys left me behind!

Barbecue picnic dinner and then straight off for an early bedtime for these ladies.

If only I could predict precisely the minute we would need to wrap it up in order to preserve a good outing!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ali, alpine coaster, alpine slide, bungee jumping, mike, park city, ropes course, Sarah, Utah, utah fall 2016, zipline

Springville Splash Pad

July 23, 2016 by Rebecca Whitehead

It’s always fun seeing old friends in Utah, but it’s hard getting everyone’ schedules to sync up and it hasn’t worked out the past few trips. This time around, we were able to get together with Sarah and Zuleika’s families for a morning at the Springville Splash Pad near Sarah’s house.

What a fun ~~zoo~~ crew! Despite it seeming like it would be chaotic with all the kids, they all entertained each other, so we could sit back and relax.