Lovin' the party

We had a great time seeing family at my cousin Punky's wedding earlier this month. The kids were a bit tired from the long weekend, but seeing all the cousins made it all worth while! Ms. Grace was in rare form, being loud as usual and just having a good ole time.

Aden did not enjoy all the fuss with getting his pictures taken (the boy clearly takes after me...) and he keeps making this face:

But he clearly enjoyed posing with his beloved Danice:

Family portrait

We haven't had any great pictures of all 4 of us, especially not one where we're all dressed up. So we took to opportunity to get a good shot while at my cousin's wedding. We all clean up nice...

A year in review

A look back at how our girl has grown...

Kadence is 1!!!

I can't believe it's been a year since Kadence was born and what a year it has been! Our little girl is 1 - how did it get here this fast? It seemed like I didn't get a chance to savor each moment and every milestone. I blinked and her baby stage is gone. She is now a toddler. T-O-D-D-L-E-R. I am so not ready for it! She's little miss personality - always on the go and always has her little pointer finger telling us what she wants. She has given us so much joy and has made our family complete. We love her so much - especially her older brother who will not let her out of his sights. I am looking forward to the year ahead and I am consciously telling my self to savor each moment and to not take anything for granted since each moment passes so quickly, it's gone before I even know it...

Monkey see, monkey do

It must be the obsession about Curious George and how he's mastered the monkey speak - Aden hung out at the Orangutan's and had a staring contest with one of the Orangutans. We were there for the longest time and they just stared at each other the entire time we were there. My little monkey.

Fun at the zoo

It was Two buck Tuesday at the zoo last week, and since it was such a gorgeous day, I braved the crowds and took the kids to the zoo. It wasn't so bad since we got there quite early. We had a fun day and the highlight for Aden was the train ride (big surprise).

My wild child

Enjoying the lion ride

Too excited about the train ride

I'll never get tired of this...

Aden figured out games he can play with his sister and this is one of their favorite things to do. I'm amazed (and thankful) each day how much they adore each other...

LEGOLAND

We were finally able to go to Legoland on Saturday - the day that we were hoping to be back home. With all the storms that passed through San Diego, we had to wait until Saturday for Legoland to reopen. It was a beautiful day. We packed up all our stuff so that we can head home after Legoland - a long drive ahead of us. We got to Legoland by 10:30am and was there until they closed at 5pm. We had a blast and Aden was in heaven. He didn't particularly enjoy the roller coaster ride - I think he's still too young for that. He told me that it made his tummy feel weird. But other than that, he loved all of the other rides that he got on. Kadence was able to ride on a couple of rides with us. There were a lot to see there and the place was pretty amazing, definitely need another day to be able to see everything. We'll definitely need to go back...

Watching the waves go by...

We did our best to enjoy the "not so sunny" So. Cal. We checked out the ocean and had a fun time hanging out and enjoyed the scenery.

Aden took this picture for us - what an awesome shot for a 4-year old:

Little Miss Walking

The little miss has been practicing her walking skills while we were on the trip. Lots of fun stuff ahead. I'm done with the crawling - it's been almost 6 months!

Children's Museum

We checked out the New Children's Museum in SD on day 3 of us being there. They have cool stuff and has different exhibits than what we have here in Portland. Aden's favorite was operating the chariot, which is a pretty cool exhibit. The CM is not as big as the one here in Portland, but it was fun to check out what they have. Aden did awesome scaling the walls also, he spent quite a bit of time doing that. Kadence practiced her walking skills - she can't wait to join her brother for all the fun stuff.

San Diego Zoo

When you find yourself with a few days to hang out in San Diego without any firm plans, you are faced with lots of options of what to do. And I have been wanting to visit the famous San Diego Zoo. So we decided to go there on Day 2 of being in SD. I am so glad we were able to do that, it is definitely THE ZOO of all zoos. It is the most amazing place, I just loved being there. The zoo usually bums me out - seeing the huge animals in little tiny enclosures...but it is so different at the SD Zoo. They really try to give the animals great areas and they have so many animals there. We spent the entire day there, got to ride in their tram (which is amazing to see the view from there!), rode their bus and just was in great awe of being up close to most animals. We will definitely go back there again!

Sea Life

After our trip to Mexico, we planned on staying in San Diego for 3 nights, then the rest of the week was open to do whatever we wanted - maybe head up to LA since we were offered FREE tickets to Disneyland and Universal Studios by friends we went to Mexico with. I've purchased tickets to Legoland from Costco weeks before the trip and has told Aden about it. He has been looking forward to going to Legoland, VERY EXCITED about it. That's all he could talk about. So, our plan was to go to Legoland on Tuesday. We were pumped thinking we can escape crowds since it's a weekday. We planned on going for the full day. We got there and there's a huge sign that says Legoland is closed. CLOSED. I wondered if it was because of weather? We were escaping the Oregon rain by going to sunny Southern California...well the rain followed us. Not just sprinkles, but the full on storms that they haven't seen in years! Darin & I tried to pbe positive about it and kept telling ourselves that it wasn't too bad. Surely Legoland wouldn't close if it's raining - we're used to the rain. Well, it turned out that in off-season Legoland closes on Tuesdas & Wednesdays! Poor planning on my part, I just expected it to be open everyday. There goes our plans of only being in San Diego for 3 days...And yes, Legoland will close if it rains!



Let me tell you - the look on Aden's face when we got there and Legoland was closed. It was pure heartbreak and disappointment. He had big worried eyes and was close to tears! It made me feel so horrible! Luckily, Sea Life is right next door to Legoland and they were open. So that saved our day and gave us something to do indoors since the storm started to move in. Again I was so thankful at how great our boy was...no matter how excited he was to go to Legoland and our plans had to change, he took it in great stride and was happy to be in Sea Life. No tantrums at all - and we promised him that we WILL go to Legoland, as long as the weather will let us.

Road trip to Mexico

We embarked on a whirlwind trip to Mexico for a jetski video/photo shoot. With 2 kids in tow, we drove through the night and met with friends in San Diego. After a trip to Costco, fuel stops, buying Mexican insurance and a big snafu at the border, we headed off to Ensenada for a long weekend. It definitely was an adventure driving to Mexico. Luckily, our good friend Heather from L.A. rode with us and helped me feel at ease with our venture into the "unknown". She's made the trek to Mexico multiple times doing these jetski photo shoots, so I felt confident that we are in good hands having her with us. I just had a few concerns about safety driving at night, in Mexico, with 2 young kids. But, I quickly realized that there's really nothing to worry about, especially if we were travelling with a group and caravaning the entire time. I wish I took more pictures especially of crossing the border, but when you're stuck in the backseat and trying to entertain an 11-month old with hives, it's hard to get the camera ready for some scenic shots.

Aden succumbed to sleep during our long wait to cross the border...

Mr. Dean did not disappoint us and proved that he is the best traveller anyone could ever ask for. He did not once have a meltdown in the 26 hours that we were in the truck. He only watched a DVD for 2 hours out of that 26 hours. The rest of the time, he was either asleep or chit chatting with us. Or helping distract his sister from the fact that they've been stuck in the car seat for a very long time. I really do hope that Kadence will take after his footsteps and be an excellent traveller also - she's close, but still need lots of practice loving the long drives.

Kadence ended up with hives the night we were driving to San Diego. She's been on antibiotics due to a nasty cold she's had for 3 weeks. She took her last dose of antibiotics the morning that we left. She had some sort of allergic reaction to the antibiotics, so her body just needed to get rid of it. So the entire time we were in Mexico, she will get these hives all over her body and it made sleeping a bit miserable. We still had a good time hanging out in the sun and Darin got lots of riding in. We had a great time hanging out in the resort we stayed at, we ate lunch in our back porch everyday, which is steps away from the ocean. Kadence enjoyed discovering all the birds and I think she even started saying "bird" every time she sees one.

Here's the kiddos enjoying lunch outside:

Lunch with a view:

Enjoying the warm beach:

New Year's Celebration

We were torn this year for New Year's. Our usual tradition is to be at the beach for New Year's. This year, we ended up going to Bend to hang out at the Winters' fabulous digs. Although it was a tough choice for us, we had an awesome time and we really enjoyed spending quality time with everyone. The hard part was Kadence being sick...sleep was pretty much non-existent for us while we were there. Still didn't stop us from partying and having a good time. Although there wasn't as much snow as we were hoping for, we still had lots of fun sledding, ice skating, playing out in the snow and playing lots of card games! Oh and there was a bit of an obsession doing a couple of puzzles! All in all, a great time.

Playing out in the snow:

Ice Skating:

Hanging out with the sick girl:

Xmas 2009

It's been quite a busy couple of months for us. The holidays went by so fast. We had so much fun celebrating with the kids. Aden got into the full xmas spirit, he was very happy to have the Christmas tree and all the decorations in the house. Kadence really was still oblivious with what was going on, as expected since she's still quite young. Christmas morning was a lot of fun, we spent a couple of hours opening presents and playing with the toys. We spent the rest of Christmas with family and had a blast, too much fun that we ended up not going to the beach until the next day!

Some shots on xmas day:

Aden's 4!!!

I can't believe that we have a 4-year old!!! Aden is so excited to turn 4, he's memorized his birthday and has been telling everyone when his birthday is. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said banana cake with strawberries and George on the cake. So, I followed through with it. I made him a banana cake with strawberry filling and raspberries on top. He was in heaven!

We celebrated his birthday at the beach since it was thanksgiving weekend. Even though we didn't have any other kids there, he was still happy to be at the beach and didn't really mind that it was just us and Craig & Jenn to celebrate his day. He loves them as much as they love him, so it made his day. We had a great day, Aden opened presents and had his birthday cake, lunch at the Pelican and then we headed to the tidepools, which is one of Aden's favorite place. The cutest thing was when we were walking back home from the beach, Aden asked Darin if it was still his birthday. He enjoyed the day so much that he didn't want it to end.

Some highlights of the weekend:

Aden enjoying his cake

Enjoying the walk to the beach and the tidepools

Big girl

I love this shot, I wish it's not so blurry. Just shows how big the girl is getting!

She's showing us more of her personality every day. She just cracks me up with faces that she makes. She already knows how to charm mom & dad and I think she figured out that she has her brother wrapped around her fingers. It's so much fun seeing both of them enjoy each other and make each other laugh and how giddy she gets when she hears Aden's voice. She gives us so much joy and definitely made our family complete!

Come ride with me

Aden LOVES riding in a shopping cart with his sister. Here they are at the new Target by the airport...needless to say, Kadence only lasted maybe 20 minutes and then I had to carry her in the ergo. Aden tried to talk his sister into sticking it out and keep riding with him, but she wasn't having any of it! She figured out that if she screams hard enough, she'll get picked up. Go figure.

Playing Catch-up

I've been thinking about how long it's been since I've updated the blog, so many things has happened and so many things to write about. I just don't have enough time in the past 2 months to get everything that I want/need done. The big news is that we've moved. Sold the house and has moved "up the hill". We're all happy about the move - closer to everything and everyone. Aden is especially happy that we live in a cul-de-sac. He's able to ride his bike every chance he gets. We're also doing lots of walking...it helps that I broke down and bought a double jogger on Craigslist. We still have lots of boxes to unpack and lots or organizing to do. I procrastinate about it, luckily my husband is better at getting a lot of things done.

The kids are definitely keeping me busy. They are always on the go. Kadence is so close to walking now. She just cruises along and is definitely a speed crawler. She's 9 months now, and it's funny to think back when Aden was the same age, he just started crawling! Aden is enjoying his swimming class. We're going every Tuesday & Thursday mornings and it's amazing how much better he is at it. I'm glad that he loves it since we spend a lot of time in/near the water.

With the holidays creeping up, we have even more activities planned for the kids. The month is starting to fill up with gathering and events to celebrate the xmas season. I just can't believe it's almost Christmas! Time flies, I just constantly tell myself to soak up every moment with the kiddos since they are growing way too fast!