Summer Playdates - Beautiful Beach Day

We only made it to the beach one time last summer! Getting to the beach is such a production that we hardly ever go. And with a 1 month old it's even more difficult. I was just thankful we got to go at all. Of course, we went with our buddies Jack and Sammy and Luke. It was a beautiful day!

The beach isn't really that different than a park with sand for my kids cuz they don't actually like going in the water. I tried to encourage some swimming, of course, but this is as close as I could get Austin. McKenna wouldn't even get this close!


McKenna was very content to dig and dig and dig.


And warm herself in the sun


Austin was just super happy to be there!


And my bella Bella thoroughly enjoyed her first visit to the beach by sleeping through it. Such a good baby!


Our playfellows are sure cuties too!


Jack was doing his best impression of a corndog!


And Luke loves his grandma snuggles

Happy 4th!

4th of July last year was our first holiday in our new house, so we decided to christen the place with its first bbq. My parents and Brian's mom joined us for some yummy guac and hamburgers.

The kids sporting their cutest patriotic outfits.








McKenna discovered she likes guacamole!


And then the kids "napped". This has been a favorite game ever since.



Bella's really really good at this game!

Torrance (inexplicably) still didn't have a fireworks show, so we went on a search for a new good show. Fireworks are kinda my favorite! We ended up finding a last second parking spot (it may have been in the red) near El Segundo's main park, plopped ourselves on someone's lawn. I didn't get to take any pics though because both my big kids were fairly terrified of the fireworks and I had to give good snuggles to make it through the show. Someday they'll love them as much as me!

Summer Playdates - Palos Verdes Fountain

Each summer we try to get together with our buddies each week for a different playdate adventure. Even with our new little addition, we tried to make as many as we could. It was a busy summer for everyone, so many playdates ended up being just Reeves & Crowleys, but those were fun too! We love playing with them!

The first one was splashing at the Palos Verdes Fountains. Always a winner, even on a cloudy day!

Seeing A Circus in a Suite

There are more than a few perks to having Daddy work at Mattel! One of those perks is that Mattel owns a suite at the Staples Center. Which means that anytime there's a game or a concert or any event, Mattel automatically has tickets. Occasionally Brian gets to go to a basketball or hockey game. It's really rare that he gets an extra ticket to bring anyone. They are hard to come by. But last July, the circus was at the Staples Center and apparently not a ton of people wanted to go to it! So not only were we able to go to the circus with our best buddies, we had the whole suite to ourselves!

The kids had a lot of fun! And I have to confess that I probably had even more than they did. I can't remember the last time I went to a circus and I really like that type of stuff. The kids were ready to go before I was.






My favorites:

Lions!




Acrobats! It was amazing how high this guy is in this pic!


Elephants!




Lots of motorcycles in the ball of death!

My Sweet Firstborn

In the same way that he looked huge the day we brought McKenna home from the hospital, Austin seemed to grow a foot the day we brought Bella home too! I made sure to take some cute pics and video of my firstborn in June to contrast against the littleness of my newborn!

I sure love this kid!






Austin had just recently become obsessed with legos. He is amazingly good at following the instructions all by himself. He has a great attention span (when he wants to!) and very good problem solving skills and attention to detail (again, when he wants to!). This was his first real "big" set though that he put together. He was so very proud of himself!


(I love McKenna's photobomb in this pic. Love her excited face!)


I took this video of him because there are just a few words that I always want to remember how my kids say them. For Austin, "granola" is one of them. I have a few more that I captured later months, but those will have to wait. He pronounces it "gralola" and I just think it's the cutest! And he also has a really silly way of saying "recycling bin" that I just love.



About this time, he figured out how to spell his name too. He still says it with the same inflection and he still spells it to just about everyone he introduces himself to.



In July, he went to VBS. On his packet of info for the week was a bible verse that they were going to focus on and I thought I'd see if he could learn it before the week was over. I was so impressed that he was able to! He's a little hard to understand but he knows it. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23"