The Fire

http://vimeo.com/6335740

This is just terrifying.

Ben & Maddie

What can I say? Ben is such a handsome little devil that the ladies can not control themselves around him. Good thing he has a sister!

Tea Party

Rachelle invited us over for a tea party last weekend. Her neighbor has grown boys and loves to throw girlies tea parties for her little nieces. She made desserts and fancy sandwiches, which the girls didn't touch. Other than pouring "tea" in and out of tea pots and cups and all over the place, their only interest was changing clothes over and over and over. They loved it!

This picture freaks me out! Maddie is 2 and this picture is like a flash forward to when she is 16.

A Lily original:

Belle and Belle

So this is a little long, sorry. But my favorite part, other than hearing Molly crying in the background, is Ben stealing the show.

More Beaches

We finally left the house on Sun. night (after the flu) to go to the beach park in Playa. We walked over to the beach to watch the sunset and we all came home super sandy and Ben had no pants .

Lily is ALWAYS dancing.

Daddy made Lily into a mermaid at Venice Beach

Diggin'

Venice Beach

We couldn't let Jimmy and Molly visit without hitting up Venice. Where else can you get falafel, your name on a grain of rice and cheap sunglasses? The kids were super cranky, but we had no clue they were the next victims of the dreaded stomach flu.

Ben passed out in the car and stayed asleep for a while in the wagon because of my mad mommy skills. (Moving sleeping babies)

Ben licked this. Gross.

Only in Venice.

I found this interesting:

More of The Pizza's

So yeah, Matt found Jimmy playing.....alone......with Ben's crane. We checked back in 20 minutes and he was STILL in there playing! :)

Marina Concert, freezing! It was so cold!

Jimmy and Ben playing with toys at the beach in Malibu.

The pier in the 'Bu!

This was when we walked to the pier to eat lunch after combing the sand for Molly's wedding rings. J&M stayed to watch the spot and wait for the metal detector owning grandparents to drive there. They got there 1.5 hours later and found the rings in about 1 minute. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of them! Also, Molly's diamond from her promise ring came out the next day at the LMU pool. (They took the kids because we were barfing our guts up the entire night before). After walking back and searching the ground the whole way, there it was, under the bench in the locker room. Molly has some crazy luck!!

More Disney

SO, everyone knows Jimmy Pizza is a very larger child. He is freaking hilarious and here is a good example:

On Buzz Lightyear, which Ben was the most excited about. But who is having the most fun here?

Ahahahahahahahah! Look how serious he is!!! HAhahah, Jimmy, you crack us up!

Molly was pretty into it too!

We waited for about 1.5 hours to see the princesses. Lily was the most patient of all of us. The boys had secret ice cream while the girls were in line. Not so secret.

Worth the wait! Belle was the first princess!

Lily taught Ariel some skills. She's new to legs, you know.

Disney '09

Uncle Jimmy Pizza and Auntie Molly came to visit! We got to do so much fun stuff with them, including going to Disneyland. It's amazing that we did so much that day, but I doubt we put a dent in the park. That place is just huge. We're so thankful we got to go with J&M, who are just big kids anyway!

Ben's favorite ride, Dumbo!

SurfMoms

I'm a part of a group of surf-moms. We have an email group where we can connect, get information and sometimes get together. Occasionally, we can coordinate our schedules, meet up at a beach and take turns watching kids and surfing. We were asked to be a part of a surf moms book and went up to Malibu for a photo shoot. I had a terrible surf day, but it was still fun. I had trouble because Leo Carillo is a point break and you need to take off next to a giant boulder in the water. It's also a rocky bottom, so when you do catch a wave, you see all these super sharp rocks on the bottom just waiting to rip you open, Jack Johnson style. I tore my feet to shreds and even ripped my baby toenail off. OFF! It's gone!

Sadly, I look TERRIBLE in the photos. I am terrified about which ones may end up in the book. Molly tells me that I look fine and the abnormally ripped woman surfing with me threw off the photos. Right.

I took these:

I just love these. My family is beautiful.

We stopped at the Malibu pier for lunch and ate at Ruby's on the end of the pier. Beautiful day, watching the surfers, eating lunch. A man was reeling something in for the entire time. When we finished eating, we went to check it out. It was the biggest Ray I've ever seen. I couldn't believe they didn't throw it back. It was flopping around and gasping.....for water, I guess. Just horrifying to watch. People started yelling at the guy, "you going to throw that back? Just going to let it suffer?! Kill it already!!" Horrible! It also had a bunch of babies swimming around it when he pulled it out of the water. So it was a dying mommy! There was also a small shark on someone's line. We left and I totally lied to Lily and told her they were going to throw it back.

Ben's First Haircut

I thought it might be beneficial to go to a kids themed salon for Ben's first haircut. When I looked online, I found a place with trucks for the kids to sit in. Perfect! Not so much. The pictures were deceiving, the place was kind of sketchy and Ben ended up sitting on my lap for his haircut anyway. It all ended well though, so I guess it was worth the drive.

Lily is a champ. You could put on a Disney movie and give her a tattoo and she wouldn't flinch.

Before:

After

Look how handsome he is!! He was so happy with his lolly.

Crazy Day

We get our car washed at a great place. People who wash cars here take it very seriously and take a very long time. The place we go to happens to be near a lot of places I needed to go anyway, so a busy day ensued. Dropped car off, packed Ben into stroller, stopped at Petco, walked a few blocks to Bed Bath and Beyond, Starbucks, Ralphs for groceries, back to car wash to wait because it STILL wasn't done. Because I had Ben in the stroller, Lily pushed a kid cart, which she takes very seriously. You know what I take seriously? Don't run my ankles over with that cart, that's what. You know what Ben takes seriously? Being 2 and having major mood swings that blow us away. Anyway, Lily was SO helpful and we got everything done with minimal damage.

I said "minimal." Here is Lily being a little old lady. This is also where I gave her my house keys with my Ralphs card on the ring which she then shoved into her backpack when I wasn't paying attention and when we got home to find them missing, she let me drive back to two locations before reminding me that "OH! I remember! The keys are in my backpack!"

Oh Ben's Precious Hair

Ben's hair is glorious. Long, flowing precious locks. I love Ben's hair. It's so soft and I can run my fingers through it occasionally (when he allows it). So what if he gets called a girl and gets food in it. He's 2 AND he's a surfer dude. I'm just not ready to cut it. BUT......he did look like Donald Trump yesterday. It was BIG. So the seed has been planted.

Any thoughts??

Marina Concerts

Marina del Rey puts on a series of concerts in Chase Park every summer. They're held right on the water and they're free! Perfect! We pack up the kids, grab Chipotle and rock out. We have a great little set up. There are symphonies, operas and big band performances. Lily dances like crazy no matter what the genre. So thankful for these summer treats.

Lily truly dances like no one is watching. It's AWESOME! My favorite move in her repertoire is the Donkey KICK!!!! It's glorious.

More Summer

So, it turns out that Twister is really hard to play if you're not an extremely limber four year old. It's especially hard when it becomes "Extreme Twister" because a two year old hurls himself at you while your trying to go from Right Hand Green over Left Foot Yellow.

Lily and Allison

One of Daddy's paint face masterpieces

Ben and Ava are so cute together. Now we can alternate the big kids (Lily & Kai) with the littles (Ben and Ava). The little ones are trouble though.....trouble.

People always ask us if they are twins......we reply by passing out from the fear of that reality.