Meet Boots...

This is Boots - Ella's best stuffed Buddy!

He is our pacifier and blankee all in one. When she is tired she sticks his tail in her eye and her thumb in her mouth and she goes to bed. When she is playing she usually carries him around by the tail - in her mouth.

He makes her happy when she is sad, he makes her cuddle with us.

I LOVE this giraffe...he makes me happy too.

Vacation Posts...

I just finished with our vacation posts --- they are long, but they are more for our sake than for yours. But still...enjoy what you want!

Arrival & Grandma and Grandpa's house!

We flew out of DFW on July 31st. It was going fine until we tried to check in - we did self check but somehow it timed out before the agent helped us so it was as if we hadn't (or so they said) but then we were less than 45 minutes to the flight because we were waiting in line so long. They had to get special clearance to check our bags. We rushed through security and had no time to get breakfast or snacks. I rushed to the bathroom where I changed Ella's first nasty diaper (it was followed by 2 more during the flight - awful!) We got to the gate to discover they had given our seats away and asked us if we'd take the next flight. I couldn't do it - it had been so difficult to get to that point. I was mad that someone else got free tickets to get bumped after all we had gone through - but I guess thats life. The kids behaved well on the plane - it was just Ella's bowels that didn't. But we made it - and as a reward we had In and Out upon arrival.

Grandma and Grandpa were so excited to have us stay with them. They had all sorts of surprises for Brody and Ella.

Grandpa bought Brody small dinosaurs that he spent hours playing with outside on their waterfall. He is such a boy - and it is so fun to watch him with his imaginary play. That waterfall is a little boys dream come true.Brody would wake up earlier than anyone else and sneak outside in his pajamas to play in the dirt with the cars or the dinosaurs. He even got a little sun burn from the sun beating down on his left arm. If he had to pick a highlight of our stay at there house - it probably would include playing in their backyard.

We had lunch one afternoon at McDonalds. It was a hit - literally. We were watching Brody play and he even introduced us to Gaberiel, a new friend. Apparently young Gabe has anger issues, because we watched him punch the side of the play place. Whatever, right - until he then goes and punches my sweet Brody in the nose (completely unprovoked). Thats when my fists go up. I took Brody over to Gabe - who ran to hide by his mom - and talked as stern as I could without it being considered yelling to the boy in front of his mom. I was mad - but worse was Brody. He was talking about this for the whole trip. He was so upset that his friend would do something so mean. He kept saying (in the midst of whimpers) that he wanted to go back and hit him as hard as he could. Inside I agreed - but we are trying at this age to just learn hitting is wrong. I will wait until he is old enough to know not to hit his sister before we start talking about defending ourselves - but if we ever see that Gabe again...Brody may have to let him have it.

Enjoying some fries before he was battered by that boy.
Ella - trying to say "cheese" with a mouth full of food.
Ella loved playing with Molly (the dog). Molly was worn out at the end of the day from her little shadow!

Orange County Fair

We got to California just in time to go to the Orange County Fair - and thanks to Amy and Will and their free tickets it wasn't as outrageous to go and spend an evening walking around and looking at all the animals and gardens. The theme was "Think Big" and they had giant sand sculptures that went along with the idea to Think BigGrandpa was looking forward to the funnel cake the most - yum! Most of the powdered sugar ended up on our cheeks and shirts as we all took bites.Ella is my animal lover. She got a kick out of seeing the cows, goats, pigs and more.

Farmer BrodyFarmer EllaI persuaded Brody away from a train ride to go to the Thomas the Train ride, but it turned out to be a bummer fun house. Not only was Brody not tall enough, he was wearing open toed shoes, which was a no no. We ended up leaving the fair afterwards, and about half way through the parking lot Brody realized he didn't have a train ride. Bummer.

San Clemente Beach

Brody has been asking to go to the beach since we booked airline tickets to California back in June. I was so glad to finally be able to take him there so he'd stop bugging me about it! We packed everyone up, sunscreened everyone up and met up with Lindsey, Avery, Ryan and Dani down in San Clemente. It was Ella's first time seeing the ocean and it was a lot of fun to watch the kids play in the waves - or run from them!

Cousin Dani introducing Ella to the waves - she LOVED it!

Brody loved watching the trains go by

Mommy and Ella with sand all over her face
Brody clinging to daddy and Uncle David - he was not as much a fan of the waves
Ella spent lots of time chasing the birdsHer face says it all...no trip to the beach is complete without sunscreen in her eyes (on accident of course) and melted oreos all over your mouth!

Beach Club

Lindsey (my cousin) planned a Beach Club Day with all our friends and thier kids. Who ever could make it came so that we could get the kids together and catch up ourselves. The kids
loved the beach club. They could play in the sand and water without the waves of the beach. It was so nice to see everyone. I'd post more pictures -- but I need to get them from someone else who was there...

Swimming with Marjeen

Marjeen & Theresa

I was bombarded with people at church telling me how Theresa (my mother in law) would say how great I was (obviously she imbellished)...so now I will return Theresa's favor. I have great inlaws. They are sweet to me, they love my kids, and they are generous people. That said, they have made friends with Marjeen. Marjeen was widowed about a year ago and has since needed help with things that her husband used to do, etc. Both Mike and Theresa have helped her out where they can and have just become friends with her as well. Marjeen knew all about our family through Theresa's stories, so she wanted to meet us during our trip. We planned a time to go to her pool and spend an evening with her. We ended up at her son's pool, but still got to spend time with her. The pool was great, and Marjeen provided much laughter during dinner and games that night.