Family, Friends, and Feast

Date: December 10, 2015

Eve: approaching 6 months

Sierra: approaching 2 years and 5 months

Holidays, the most wonderful time of the year... the blur between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That is where we are living now. The only way I can tell you the date is because of the invoices I write for my job and the NON religious advent calendar that I open every day to give Sierra a piece of chocolate. I truly do love this time of year, though. This is my favorite weather for the region.  where we live: 50's-60's, sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny, improved air quality and GREEN EVERYWHERE! I love all of the holiday themes that come around now too. Since we have 2 kids it seems more fun, even though we're not truly "decorating" ourselves.

Lately I've been accepting the difficulty of consistent exercise with two kids... although I'm not giving up EVER!

On the update front b(B)aby Eve is approaching the crawling point; up on all fours and rocking. She brings her legs under her too! It's crazy to see how quickly it just happens all of the sudden! 

Baby Colten is her only baby friend and he is 8 months. He crawls like a champ and is approaching walking! Eve was showing off for him today by rocking on all fours!

Sierra continues to amaze me with her sensitivity and kindness. Baby Eve was crying when I tried to put her down for a nap and Sierra goes to me, "Mommy, Baby Eve is crying, she needs me." She proceeds to open her door, close it behind her, climb up onto the crib rails, and tell her, "It's okay, sweetie. I'm here, sweetie. Don't cry, sweetie." I peeked in at her through the door crack and almost came to tears.

Grammy is watching the girls once a week for me while I go to work. This week Auntie was here to help too! This is a post babysitting picture/selfie I sent to Daddy at his work. I try to send him a picture of at least one of the girls each day.

We're trying to break Sierra of her Santa fear, and Grandpa JerBear is just the guy to do it! He volunteered to ring the bell for the salvation army.

Sierra and her friend Ricker have been spending quite a bit of time together. They are very close in age, intellect, physical ability, sensitivity, and vocabulary. They get along very well and I love seeing them interact. We went to the FFA farm after we had breakfast with Santa at the senior center this week. Gus and I both really like their parents too, which makes our little families great hang-out pairs!

We visited the historical museum after breakfast with Santa too. Ricker and Sierra are so sweet with one another, even when they play rough they always apologize to each other.

Breakfast/meeting Santa didn't go so well for Eve. Then again, it didn't go well for Sierra the first or second time either!

This year we convinced Sierra it was like trick-or-treating which she really liked and we had pretty good results:

But no "high-fives" were given to Santa.

Sierra, although rough with the dogs at times, has a very strong fondness for them. She even thinks that Katy (Anne and Jerry's dog) is ours at times because of how often she plays with our dogs and perhaps how well she listens to us.

Sierra loves to dance and sing (and also wear all of her tu-tus. So it is a part of most of our daily activities!

I love spending time with my friend Emily and her kids. We try to run or walk together at least once a week, and the kids play together afterwards too.

My dad spent about 2 weeks visiting in November around the holidays, and he was able to help out a lot in terms of watching the girls with Grammy and doing some chores etc for me while I was tending to the girls' needs.

We love being surrounded by people with livestock and animals. It's a constant petting zoo. We feed the horses in our neighborhood carrots, pear and apple cores all the time!

Everyone gets the opportunity to hold Baby Eve nowadays!

Auntie and Baby Eve have a similar temperament, in general, pretty down for anything!

Jerry gave Anne a well-deserved back rub after Thanksgiving dinner. I think Auntie needed one too! She was cooking in the kitchen for a long time!

Liz (soon to be Aunt Liz) had some cuddle time with baby Eve too. She was such a sweet and sarcastically delightful lady! She cracked me up, and I can't wait to go to her and cousin Demetri's wedding.

A little game of cards post turkey for some of the guys.

Demetri and Liz cuddling on the couch after the evening began to wind down.

Jerry's youngest son Joe and his girlfriend with her family all came and enjoyed the meal! Jerry made cards with "thankful" quotes on them for everyone to read. Great idea!

Eve tried rice cereal for the first time.

The bird:

The feast:

The golf game that was played on our combined properties:

The love that Grammy and Sierra share:

My heart melts for these two, most especially together.

We took a trip to Monterey and saw my roommate/bridesmaid from college and her fiance, and went to the aquarium with them and my dad.

Needless to say Sierra took to Tricinda rather quickly.

She is in love with the ocean almost as much as me.

We also saw my neighbors and good friends from graduate school. Ashley and Scott are actually the reason why Gus and I met. We were both friends with them and met at their wedding. It had been at least a year since I saw either of them and Sierra clung to Ashley almost the whole time we were with them. She even asked to cuddle with her and called her Auntie without me even prompting her. She has that vibe about her!

Eve wanted to show off her impressive legs to everyone!

We went to the Fresno zoo with Pop-pop, and had a really great time there. I was impressed by how much they made an effort to give the animals stimulating and large spaces. It was really well done. Sierra really enjoyed it.

Baby Eve gets to use an activity saucer when she goes to Grammy and Grandpa's house, which is totally entertaining because we don't have one!

Baby Eve is a happy baby with the cutest little booty I ever did see!

My beautiful girls amaze me every day! I am so so soo lucky to be able to spend my days with them. Even the hard days are rewarding although tiring. I am so happy that Eve is waking me up less now, though. Only 1-2 times per night now that she is back in her bedroom.

Another month of excitement, fun and growth. We are all truly enjoying our experience!

The Fall!

November 11, 2015

Hooray for fall! The reprieve from the heat has been amazing, and now that the rain has come our property has begun to green up. I can't over-emphasize how lucky I have felt as of late. The weather and air quality has truly been awesome for us. 

 Sierra, Eve, and I have been able to get out in the common area of our neighborhood and explore with friends. Sierra is so much fun to be around outside, she loves to hike and run. I'm so happy to see her enjoying nature that it's hard to stifle. If she wants to wade in the big puddles, we take off her boots and socks and away she goes!

 On my runs around the neighborhood we stop and greet 3 of our favorite horses. One is exceptionally nice and recognizes us when we come by (it could be the carrots too). Sierra and him have become so familiar that he always lets her pet him on the nose now.

 My friend Julia (Auntie JuJu) came to visit and we brought her to my friend Emily's surprise party this past weekend. Emily had a tumor removed from her thigh 1 year ago (and truthfully you would have never known)! Her family and friends came up to a friend's house in Shaver Lake to celebrate. There were a bunch of kids there so Sierra had a great time too.

 We had to shop for clothes for Gus' new job this week so we drove to town, and on the way both girls fell asleep at the same time... a RARE occasion.

 Baby Eve is getting stronger and pushing up better on her tummy.

 She doesn't really sit-up on her own unless perfectly placed (as in this picture).

 I was able to complete a new oil painting this month, which I haven't been able to do in a long time.

 Halloween was a blast, we had Emily and her family over for dinner before going around the neighborhood. Sierra only lasted about an hour due to lack of sleep, but she really did seem to enjoy it and talked about it for days afterwards.

 We are constantly reminded of how lucky we are to have family so close, the girls get to interact with their Grammy, Grandpa, and Great Grandma frequently.

 Sierra loved her costume, she was a Hula Girl and she even did the hula (we were able to wear the costume multiple times).

 My mountain bike is back in business now, which means I can stop borrowing Gus's bike and we can ride together. He did a ton of work to rebuild my bike while the carbon repair was being done.

 We took a trip down to the LA area and were able to spend a few days with Joe, Elsa and their new baby Eli! We had fun going to the beach, a pumpkin "patch," and just catching up.

 We also visited Auntie Crystal and Uncle Onkar in Pasedena, and went to the "Kids Space museum" while we were there.

 We stopped in to Joshua Tree for a night of camping in Grandpa Jerry's truck (THANK YOU)!!

 While visiting our friends Lizzy, Andrew and baby Vivian in Palm Springs we went out to explore the area. We all got out for a hike, played in the pool, and actually had some alone grown up time together thanks to Liz's parents!

 Sierra modeled for Grandma during banned books week. She read her a great story about Tango the penguin with two daddy penguins. It is a true story and I am completely surprised that this children's book would ever be banned!

 We visited our friends Jenna, Derek, Wricker, and Colten up at the Shaver Lake playground for a hike and a picnic this month too. Wricker is the same age as Sierra and just as verbal, physically active, and spirited as well.

 Sierra went to the Fresno Fair with Grammy this month and had a spectacular time! She loved seeing all of the animals :) Gus and I switched off mountain biking and carrying "Baby Eve."

It was another spectacular month, where Gus has found and started a new full-time job and I picked up some more part-time work as well! We were able to see a lot of friends and feel revitalized by the change in weather!