Haircut

Yesterday Anthony and I celebrated 12 years of marriage! I can hardly believe it! And apparently I can hardly remember it... after I had been out of bed for over an hour he said Happy Anniversary to me first, then I forgot to put my wedding ring on before going to church and then at church I went to write the date on something and I couldn't remember what the date was! Sheeeesh! We did get to go out to a nice dinner together and a movie while my mom watched the boys for us, which was a really nice, special treat. We saw Chronicles of Narnia, good movie. Anyway, I have been wanting to get my hair cut for ages and just haven't gotten around to doing it and so yesterday I just decided to go for it. I LOVE it! I had gone online and used this really cool website called The Hairstyler where you put a picture of your face and then you can try on tons of different hairstyles. I picked one out that I really liked and I think the girl did a pretty good job of getting it... of course it doesn't look exactly like the picture, but I still like it. I think the color change alone helped give my hair some volume and made it better. The pictures I took aren't that great, but you can kind of see it... the front picture doesn't really show how it is flips up on the sides. Anyway, let me know what you think!

As I look at the two pictures above, my new haircut and the picture from The Hairstyler, they don't appear to be very simliar at all! But in person it actually does look a little more like the picture... my hair isn't quite as full but it was hard to capture on film! :-)

Good-Bye to Jason

I got some better pictures on our last day visiting with Jason so I wanted to add them. We picked up Jason in La Costa and drove down to Seaport Village and ate appetizers and drank wine and then walked around the seaport for awhile, which was fun because I hadn't been down there in a long time. Again, the boys had fun playing with Uncle Jason and we all had a nice visit with him before he headed back to New York. Jason rode on the carousel with Aidan and Alec and mom and I stood and watched and we started reading this board they had there about the history of that particular carousel and how it had been made in 1895! And how it has been to about a dozen different places and parks in its life. The most interesting thing about it was that it in the 50's and 60's it was at Pacific Ocean Park where my mom spent time as a child so she had ridden that very carousel as a kid and there she was watching her son and two grandsons ride the very same carousel! I thought that was pretty neat.

Jason's Visit

My "little" brother Jason came for a quick visit this weekend. He has a conference today in San Diego so he came in Saturday night (from Brooklyn) and spent the night with us and we got to hang out Sunday as well. It was so nice to get to spend some time with him, just hanging out, no plans. Sunday morning I made pancakes and eggs and then we all went for a walk around the neighborhood a little bit but even though it wasn't even 10 am yet it was blazing hot so we decided to head to the pool. Nonna and Trace showed up and swam with us for awhile too. The kids are just loving the water (especially the heated pool water) and it was fun to watch them playing with their Uncle Jason in the pool. We went back to the house for lunch and naps and just some relaxation time. I did make Jason look at my scrapbooks... he is such a good sport. He doesn't leave to go back to New York until tomorrow on a red-eye so I think the boys and I are going to meet up with my mom and go hang out with him for a few hours, maybe meet Anthony for dinner and then mom will stay with Jason to take him to the airport. I miss having Jason around... I wish my kids got to see him more often and I wish we could watch my niece Cali grow up (and Lola... once she gets here, only 6 more weeks till her arrival into the world). Oh well... we're family, we'll always be in each other's lives at least! xoxoxox love you lil' bro.

Backyard Planting

We decided to spend yesterday planting plants in the back planter box. On one of the hottest days at the hottest time of the day we decided to plant in the backyard!! It was 97 degrees here yesterday! Actually, it wasn't that bad once we were out there and started digging, there was a nice breeze and there was the pool of course (1)! The plants make such a big difference in the yard. I was feeling like the backyard didn't have much character to it and now it has a definite start in the right direction... besides the amazing view of the mountain (2). We planted two pygmy date palms on the ends (4), asiatic lillies, a bush with white gardenia flowers, a hydrenga, a philadendron (sp?) and some other stuff I can't remember the names of! (3) I put two of these garden butterflies in random spots among the plants and later in the day the sun cast like a halo around one of them in the coolest way (5).

Anthony and Aidan hung out in the pool for awile cooling off after a hard day in the yard (1) and showing off their tattoos (6). If you can't see it in that picture look a little harder in picture 7. After Alec woke up from his nap we finally came in the house to get out of the heat and Alec was just too cute in my hat (8, 9).

Quick swim update... We went to the pool in our neighborhood on Thursday and spent a good two + hours swimming, the kids loved it! They were doing really well with their water wings again. It didn't take long before Aidan was jumping off the top step by himself and then even off the side of the pool. After about an hour or hour and a half he decided he wanted the water wings off... so off they came and he was still jumping in all over the place! Of course someone had to be there to catch him, he can't quite get himself up to take a breath but he didn't lose any of his confidence just because the water wings were off. I was so proud of him and totally encouraged that the water wings were the way to go.

(Be sure to click on the image above, it will enlarge it and make it easier to see each picture)

DISNEYLAND

Our family went to Disneyland this week! We left Monday afternoon and drove up to Anaheim to our hotel where we just hung out and went in the pool and jacuzzi and took a little walk and waited for Nonna to drive up and join us. After my mom showed up she stayed in the room with the boys while Anthony and I got to go out for the evening! Yes, like on a date! We went over to Downtown Disney and walked around the shops for awhile and then we ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which felt very much like Disneyland itself. I had a terrible night's sleep that night. I had been having a little bit of insomnia for the last 3 days where I would fall asleep OK but wake up really early in the morning and not be able to go back to sleep... but this night I couldn't even fall asleep! I think I slept a total of 3 hours. It didn't help that we had no idea the alarm clock in our room was set for 6 am. It woke us all up and Aidan, Anthony and I couldn't fall back asleep. By the way, after Anthony messed with the thing for a long time and it was seemingly 'off'... it woke us up again the next morning at 6 am!! That sucked because again Aidan wasn't about to go back to sleep. Luckily for me I had taken Advil PM the night before and I fell back asleep for another 2 hours! Anyway, Tuesday morning we all got ready and took the shuttle over to Disneyland. The first ride we went on was Pirates of the Carribean! It started out like almost every other ride for the rest of the day for Aidan... "I don't like it... I don't want to go..." and along the way he was literally shaking in his seat! But no crying and no fits or anything so I figure he isn't traumatized or anything! Anyway, as soon as we would get off the ride he would say, "That was fun!" After Pirates we went on the Jungle Cruise and then Nonna took the boys on the Winnie the Pooh ride while Anthony and I went on Splash Mountain... BIG mistake! We got SOAKED! And not even on the last big hill it goes down, no, that just kind of splashed us a little... the two smaller ones before that literally dumped buckets of water into our laps! Then we went over to what used to be Tom Sawyer's Island and I guess is now Pirate's Island and walked around and let the kids explore. We had to cut that a little short because we had reservations at the Blue Bayou restaurant. So we went over there for lunch. It brings back a lot of memories for me from childhood and I enjoyed it but with the prices of their food and limited selection I doubt we will go back there again on our next visit. We headed over to Fantasyland after lunch and road on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride... I always remember that ride as one of my dad's favorites. We also waited in line to ride Dumbo. The kids were doing great, Alec is a rock... nothing phased him either way, he wasn't scared but he wasn't jumping up and down with excitement either. He would say after each ride, "Not over yet, Not over yet!" The one ride Aidan got really excited about and wanted to go on more than once was Autopia! Of course he has some experience there since he owns a yellow Corvette! Unfortunately, two cars ahead of us was a kid who obviously couldn't reach the gas pedal very well because we were constantly stopping and the car in front of us had his mom in it who instead of nudging him along was stopping every time he did to take his picture (from behind!). Anyway, we also took Aidan on Matterhorn because he just made the height requirement. Let's just say he didn't love it... I mean he was shaking! I did tell him he could close his eyes, which he told me later that he did... but if you ask him about it he will tell you about the mountain with the monster in it. It was also hard to resist going on a ride like that when the wait was only 15 mintues! It was the perfect day really... the weather was great and it wasn't crowded at all, we waited on average 10 to 15 minutes per ride and the longest we waited was 45 minutes for the Nemo Submarine ride. We went to Toon Town where the kids got to meet Mickey Mouse and Goofy and they weren't scared at all, they loved doing that.

The next day we went to CA Adventure. It did seem like there were a lot of rides the kids couldn't go on because they weren't tall enough. We all went on the Ferris Wheel together and will probably never do that again! The cage that you sit in swings around as you go around the circle and at one point Aidan said he was sick! Luckily there is actually a sick bag on the ride so I was holding it in case Aidan threw up, which he did not! After lunch we went to some of the shows they have. The first one was an Aladdin musical and it was really good but both boys fell asleep which was actually perfect. Aidan hadn't even taken a nap at Disneyland so I was glad he got some rest that day. After that we saw the Muppets 3-D show which was fun to see the kids' reactions. Then mom and I took Aidan to the Playhouse Disney show where he got to see all of his favorite characters from his favorite shows like, The Little Einsteins, and Handy Manny not to mention Mickey and Donald and Goofy. Anthony took Alec to Bug's Land and they went on rides and Alec ran through the water stuff they have there. After the show we met Anthony and Alec at a bench where we sat and waited for the Disney Pixar parade to start. That was a lot of fun since Aidan knows all the caracters and he was waving at them as they went by. The park closes at 6 pm during the week so after the parade we hit the store and loaded up on souvenirs and then headed home!

We had a really fun time on our Disney vacation with the boys and I am so glad my mom was there to share it with us. I wouldn't say that the kids thought it was the best time of their lives... which I think has to do with their age and their personalities.... like they aren't still talking about it or asking when can we go back. However, they did great and they had a good time. I think we will wait a few more years to go back and then it will be like going for the first time all over again!
Check out all of our vacation photos at: COSTCO PHOTO

Just a Note

So, I was thinking how it had been a few days since I left a post and really, I don't even know if anyone is reading this thing anymore! But I thought I would "check in" anyway. There just hasn't been a whole lot going on around here ever since the weather turned back to Early Spring! Gray outside all day, the temperature in the 60's... kind of makes you feel like staying indoors and there isn't a lot to report about what we do in indoors except how can the boys annoy each other? It is kind of like an all day version of what goes on in the stroller for an hour in the mornings on our walks. Although, right at this very moment there is a calm quiet in the house as they are actually eating lunch together without yelling, spitting or banging on the table... aaaaah. And then we all know what comes after lunch, right? NAPTIME! Sweet, sweet nap time. Maybe we will head to the park after naps if it isn't too chilly outside.

Right now the one thing I am really looking forward to is next week... We are off to Disneyland! I can't wait! We are going up on Monday afternoon and checking into our hotel and we are just going to hang out. Tuesday we go to Disneyland and then Wednesday it is California Adventure!! I love Disneyland and I hope the kids do too! So you know when we get back I will be posting all the details and pictures... so stay tuned. Till then, have a blessed day. xo

Backyard Swim Fun

I know, I know! It isn't even summer yet! But I do LOVE the summer time! And it has peeked its head out a few times this Spring and we are taking full advantage of it! So my friend Stephanie's little boy got this really cool pool for his birthday and when I saw it I just knew we had to have it! So I went by Wal-Mart today and picked one up. It is so much better than the little plastic pool we bought when Max was a puppy 7 years ago! This one is deeper, bigger and, get this, has a slide!! It actually didn't fit in the back of my van all that well... I had to practically fold it and this older couple walking by took pity on me and helped me shove it in. But I got it in and got it home! It was the perfect day out today, not too hot, about 80 degrees. Aidan did brave the slide a few times, but we all knew who kept going up and down, up and down!