Happy Birthday, Ruby!

It's the birthday girl!!

It's really hard to believe Ruby is already one! The year has flown past. But Ruby has brought so much joy and fun to our family! She is totally loved by us all.

Last night the girls worked together to decorate around the house--putting ribbon streamers around and drawing pictures to tape to Ruby's door.


Everyone was up pretty soon after I got back from running, just waiting for Ruby to make her first peep. They helped her find her gifts--a couple of shirts and a little thing you sit on and make move with your feet. That particular toy has gotten more use by Ellie and Hattie today than Ruby.



Today after I picked up Eliza and Libby from school and their art class, we went straight to McDonalds to support the school's fundraiser and have dinner. We came home and my parents came over to watch Ruby show off her new walking talent (she still crawls most of the time, but she is taking off walking!) and for cake. Ruby sure enjoyed her cake! She tipped it off the plate first, then grabbed the frosting off with her hand. She looked at it and played with it for a while before realizing she could eat it. Once she realized it was good and edible, she went to town--eating most of her piece.



Here are some fun things about Ruby:
--loves walking--she gets SO excited to walk to one of us. She makes the cutest face and when she sits down she'll squeal and start clapping.
--loves to be around people
--loves phones--pretends to talk on them
--loves her daddy--when he gets home from work, she goes right to him and puts her head on his shoulder
--smiles A LOT and is cheerful 99% of the time
--loves to eat and gets so excited when we put her in her high chair
--does not like dogs. This is something new--I was at my neighbor's one day letting their dog out and right when Ruby saw him, she clung to me like nothing else and just cried!!! So sad!
--she loves books--especially the one we got for her in California--called My Friends.
--When I put her down for naps or bed, I sing her a song and recite a little part from Goodnight Moon. When I start singing, she immediately puts her head on my shoulder.

She is such a doll and sweetheart. Happy birthday, Ruby!!

Hattie-ism

Hattie: "Mom, you are the best, but sometimes you are mean."

Ah, thanks, Hattie!

Sunday Fun

On Sunday afternoon, I couldn't resist the sunlight coming in our front room. I had to get the camera out and shoot some pictures of my girls. Then I was brave and let them take a few pictures. I won't tell who took what. LOL

"Best-Of" Date Night

Last night Brian and I went out on our date and tried a couple of the winners from Phoenix Magazine. I saw America's Taco Shop in that magazine a while back and have wanted to try it, so we did that for dinner. I was a little nervous driving there wondering if I'd be brave enough to eat there, but it was kind of a cute little place. I had a carne asada burrito and it was so good. The meat was delicious! We also loved the salsa. From there we were going to hit Smeeks, but they had closed at 6. This wasn't from the magazine, but we went to Nordstrom Rack, H&M and we walked around Kierland for a bit. We ended with some ice cream from Sweet Republic--other Best Of Phoenix winner. We shared a two scoop--I got the salted butter caramel ice cream and Brian got peanut butter chip. We loved those but we weren't brave enough to try the honey blue cheese flavor or the sweet corn one. I fell asleep on the way home (aren't I a fun date?!!), then I had to wake up to grab a couple things in Wal-Mart. I love date night.

Musings

Last week was Grandparents' day at my girls' school. My mom joined Eliza and Libby for lunch. They have been looking forward to it and planning it for quite sometime. My mom told them she would bring them lunch, so Libby put in her request for Paradise Pasta at Paradise Bakery with a snickerdoodle cookie and Eliza changed her mind last minute from Subway to orange chicken at Panda Express with a peanut butter cookie. My mom made the cutest personalized bags to put their lunches in and she also bought each of them a pack of Silly Bandz and put in their bag. They were so surprised and excited. Libby's lunch was first and she didn't want to sit at the special table for grandparents that had a tablecloth and balloons, etc. She just wanted to sit at the regular lunch table, so that is what they did! Eliza joined them and they enjoyed a fun lunch. Brian's dad was there with Luke, so they got to eat with him, too. What a memorable day!

(the pictures from a phone and some before the camera died!)





Eliza gave our family home evening lesson on Monday night. She is a natural. I tell her that she is going to make an amazing missionary one day! She says she wants to go to Paris. :) But she taught about prayer and she got a bunch of pictures from the gospel file that related to prayer and she talked about each one. It was just really cute how she made it flow.

Right now my girls are taking a Young Rembrandts art class after school. So far they have drawn a really colorful bat. They did a great job on it. I'll have to scan their drawings and post them.

Conversations

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this. It's a conversation with Sheri Dew and Julie B. Beck and her daughters. Really good.

Catalog Living

I really get a kick out of every post on this website. Catalog Living

Cute and Hattie funnies

Ruby is loved for sure!




Looks like Ellie and Hattie had some fun with the camera when I wasn't looking!





Hattie said a couple of funnies yesterday. When it was time to pick up Eliza and Libby, I asked her if she was ready. She said, "Ready as I'll ever be!" She told me it was from Barbie and the Pegasus.

We went to Target and she saw the candy corn. I decided to get some in honor of fall. As we were walking away from putting it in the cart, Hattie said, "Your are a super special mom for getting the candy corn." Wow! What a compliment. Ha ha.

Preschool Girl

Yesterday was Ellie's first day of preschool with Miss Laura. Ellie has been SO excited to go. She kept asking when it would start and how many more sleeps until she went, etc. Then yesterday morning, she was up and ready and had her backpack on about an hour before we needed to leave. Brian and I dropped her off and she was so thrilled to be there! She had a great first day and said she had a lot of fun!

Rest of Our Trip

These were all around the hotel. Loved those!

View from our room.
Downstairs near our dinner room.

Somehow some of the pictures in Santa Barbara and driving to and in Laguna Niguel got erased!!! We were so bummed about that. So I'll have to try to rely on my memory. In Laguna Niguel we stayed at the Ritz and that was one nice hotel. It was probably our favorite of the trip. The service was amazing--sometimes we weren't sure what to do with ourselves! The hotel just smelled so good and the decor was beautiful. It was kind of a deep purple with silver decor, which I loved since that is similar to what I want to do in our front room. I loved the flower arrangements in the entrance. I felt like I was at a really nice wedding.

We got in to Laguna in the evening, so we went back out and grabbed some dinner at a Mexican food place, then we found the closest Baskin Robbins. :) The next day we weren't sure what we were going to do for sure. We started by driving by the Newport Temple. Then we went to a mall in Costa Mesa to look for some more things for Libby's birthday. We left there and headed to Anaheim. We seriously considered going to Disneyland for the day. We went back and forth (mostly me, Brian wanted to just do it) whether or not to do it. It would be fun but $70 each for just one day and we are going in December, etc. etc. So we went to Downtown Disney and said we'd think about it. We walked around for a little bit and ate at the Rain Forest Cafe there. Ultimately we decided we'd just do Downtown Disney slowly and enjoy it since we are never there without kids and never can just leisurely look around. So that is what we did. And we had a great time looking in most every store. Those pictures got deleted though. :(

We got back to the hotel in the early evening and got ready for the last dinner with the rest of the people who were on the trip. We had dinner, then went back to the room to relax before flying home the following day. We surely enjoyed the weather there and enjoyed relaxing and being together on a fun trip.

Oh one more thing--on the morning we flew home we were driving to the airport and looking for something to have for breakfast. We saw a sign for bagels and thought it would be good. Holy cow...probably the BEST bagel I've had! I had a sweet cinnamon bagel and it was just delicious. I wish one would open here!

Oakland Temple

I forgot to mention--the first night we got there, we drove over to Oakland and saw the temple. We were a little nervous when we asked the concierge at the hotel for directions and she said, "I don't know if you want to go to Oakland. It's not very pleasant." I think she thought we'd be walking around late in downtown Oakland! We just drove straight to the temple and didn't see anything scary! We went into the visitor center and they had an art display so we looked at that, then we walked around the temple. It's a really neat design and was pretty at night.

PCH Day 4: Santa Barbara

Day 4

Wednesday was our longest driving day if I remember right. We had to drive from Monterey to Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful drive though. We got a bite to eat at Lily Mae's--a cinnamon roll place on Cannery Row, then we headed out. We started with the 17 Mile Drive that took us through Pebble Beach. The real estate there is incredible. Incredible! I love dreaming about living in some of those homes! From there we made our way down the 1 toward Santa Barbara. Our big touristy spot along the way was a visit to the Hearst Castle. It was a very wealthy publisher's home that he built. Amazing!






We took one of the tours, which was very interesting. The funniest part was that you can't touch anything in the castle or even the pillars or anything! And you have to stay on the "tour carpeting." Several times people would accidentally step off the "path" or rest against a pillar or on a ledge and the tour guides were right on them and said, "Please don't touch the ancient marble" or "Don't touch the ancient Egyptian artifacts." Brian and I got a kick out of that for some reason. We would tease each other throughout the rest of the trip or joked that we would say that to our kids at home: "Please don't touch the ancient tapestry." It was probably only funny to us, but it made us laugh. We drove through Solvang, but it was around 6 and most everything was closed for the evening. So we just drove into Santa Barbara, which is a beautiful city. We stayed at the Four Seasons. It was a nice property. Our room was really nice--another one with a fireplace. After we dropped our stuff in the room, we drove down State Street to find something to eat. We opted for a little place called California Pasta. The food was great! I had a chipotle pasta, which I loved even though it was quite spicy.

The next morning we got up and took a run along the beach and into a neighborhood. I found a couple houses that I would love to own. We got back and got ready for the day. We spent our time in Santa Barbara shopping on State Street. I got Libby a birthday present at the Billabong store and we had lunch in the cafe at Nordstrom. It's on the third floor, so the view was nice. I found a purse in Nordstrom, so I decided to get that instead of do something at the spa in the hotel. It'll last longer for sure! After we were done shopping, we drove to our last stop--Laguna Niguel.

Pictures from our hotel in SB: