Nothin' Like the Beach in January

We took a trip to San Diego last weekend where my parents were staying at a condo overlooking the beach in Mission Bay.  

The view out the windows was incredible, and all night long you could hear the waves on the shore.  Sophie thought she'd died and gone to heaven!

The first night there we took a walk along the beach with Gramma and Grampa just as the sun was setting.

It was a little cool, but fortunately Sophie's a little furnace that never seems to get cold, so she was just fine with only her sweater on.

Grampa convinced her to walk with him to the water.  She wasn't afraid at all to get her feet wet, even though it was pretty cold water.

Letting the waves run over their toes.

Avery, on the other hand, has no fat on her body to keep it warm, so she stayed nice and cozy in Gramma's arms, wrapped in a towel from the condo.  Love those baby blues!

Sophie couldn't get enough of the beach and would've stayed out all night if we'd let her.  She is seriously addicted to playing in the sand, whether she's got a shovel and pail or just a little seashell to dig with.  She loves it all!

The next time we visited the beach was during the day, but the water wasn't any warmer.  Sophie had fun running from the waves.

She spent most of the time sporting these amazingly attractive goggles from her cousin.  Look out, Boys! (in 16 years)

Grampa with his two two-year olds.  I think Gramma and Grampa were in heaven, too!

I loved catching my Mom making this in the sand, and she and my Dad indulged me in a little lip locking for the camera.

Gabe and Avery didn't hang out in here too long.  Avery doesn't ever want to be laying in one place for long anymore.  She just loves to be held and to be standing whenever she can!

Music to My Ears

Sophie got a tea set for Christmas and plays with it all the time.  She often invites me or Joseph to come to her tea party which, as you know if you've ever been to one, can become a leetle bit tedious after the 28th time.  So it made me love my husband all the more when I heard Sophie ask him for the umpteenth time "Daddy, would you like to have a tea party with me?" and his quick reply was "Why yes, I would like to have a tea party with you.  I'll just get us a treat and be right in."

Then he endures a few minutes of sipping tepid water with his toddler and commenting on her colorful set of plates and cups.

I knew I loved Joseph for a lot of reasons when I married him, and I was sure that he would be a good father, but I had no idea how much it would melt my heart to watch my girls with their daddy.  I am so lucky.

Thanks for being a good sport and indulging your daughter in her imaginary play.  I love you two!

Avery at 6 Months

Avery is already 6 1/2 months, but we were just getting back from Utah when she turned 6 months, so that's why this is a little late.  I can't believe she's already so old!  Those 6 months honestly flew.  Here's some of what Avery is like and can do at 6 months old.

She's a teeny little thing at only 13 pounds which is 10th percentile for weight.  But she's 55th percentile for height and 70th for head circumference, so she's measuring right on those two.  She's just petite!  (She definitely hasn't chunked up like Sophie had by this point!)

Avery is now eating fruits in addition to rice cereal and loves bananas and prunes the best so far.  She is not an easy one to feed because she loves to arch her back in between each bite and often makes a big mess doing it.  She just doesn't want to miss out on anything going on around her!

Avery is such a sweet and happy girl.  She always has the biggest smile for anyone who looks at her and she has brought so much joy to all of us!  She has been rolling for over a month now but she only rolls to the left.  She manages to figure out how to get to just about anything she wants to by rolling, pivoting, and dragging herself.  It's fun to put her down on one side of the room and watch her end up at the other end within a matter of minutes, and having played with everything in between.

She can't quite sit up all by herself yet, but she's SO close!  She'll sit for about 5 seconds but as soon as she gets excited or tries to reach for something, down she goes.  I figure that without much of a behind it would definitely be hard to sit for very long because there isn't a base to support you, so it makes sense.

Sophie and Avery are still trying to figure each other out a little bit.  They have quite the love/hate relationship.  Avery would love Sophie to pieces if she'd just leave her alone.  She laughs and laughs at whatever Sophie's doing, but Sophie has struggled with sharing our attention with Avery and takes it out on her periodically.

Case in point.  Joseph and I both thought the other had Avery this morning when things got really quiet in Sophie's room, and this is why.  She had been painting Avery with some of my waterproof mascara!  Poor Avery Jane.  She didn't cry at all, just wondered what on earth was happening to her.

Our poor little raccoon :(

We do love you, Peanut!

Heat Wave!

After reading several other people's posts who live in the northeast and midwest about their frigid temperatures right now, this is probably not nice to post.  But California is currently experiencing a heat wave.

This entire week we've been donning shorts, t-shirts, and even hats to keep from getting burned while we play at the park and go on lots of walks.

Have we mentioned before that we like California?

We do.

Family Pictures

(This is the last of the Christmas posts, I promise! :D  Just had too much catching up to do.)

While we were in Utah we took family pictures with both sides of the family.  The Jensen family was all together for the first time in like 5 years, so we took a professional picture with all of them that we haven't gotten back yet, but with my family we just took a semi-spontaneous one in my parent's living room.  The girls thankfully cooperated nicely for both and I think they turned out well.

The picture with our own little family still didn't turn out the best, but that's okay.  Maybe if we just photoshopped Avery's mouth closed?

Recreatin'

While we were in Utah we all went bowling with the Lamb's.  That's one of our favorite things to do as a family, but I had no idea how creative some of my siblings had become with bowling.  I don't think Scott threw a ball that didn't go in the gutter at some point down the lane, but often it would pop back out and still hit some pins, sometimes all of them, because of the speed with which he threw it.  Very amusing I assure you.

Sophie and Austin got a lane with bumper guards and had a lot of fun for about the first 5 bowls, then had more fun playing with each other after that.

Joseph and I always have a bet on bowling games, and for the first time ever we were both able to get what we bet because we tied with a 120 each!

The kids liked putting the ball up on this nifty contraption and watching it fly down to the lane.

Joseph was pretty proud of this action shot, even if I do look a little silly.  I don't think bowling on the Wii has done anything to help my game, unfortunately!

We also went to an indoor pool there which both girls absolutely loved (well, it was a teeny bit cold for Avery, but we tried to find the hot spots to sit on for her sake.  I was successful until Peter decided to exercise his brotherly prerogative and push/pull me off of them every time I found one.  Still such a bully!  Some boys never quite grow up! :D)

Pretty Lights

Our little town does Christmas big.  I mean really big.  You don't see many houses that don't have lights on them, and most have a bajillion huge blow-up things on their front lawn in addition to a million lights.  Sophie loved it.  For our FHE activity one night we just drove around town looking at all the lights.  So we knew she'd be excited about seeing Temple Square while we were in Utah.

She was.  They've cut the number they put up almost in half which is sad, but I guess the lights were hurting the great big trees or something so they no longer put them on there.  She still loved looking at all the others, especially the pink ones (her absolute most favorite color!)

Even pillow got to come along!  (We really don't usually let it out of the car for things anymore, but this was an exception.)

We were glad it wasn't too cold the night we went since it was pretty frigid the rest of the time we were there!

Sophie enjoyed seeing the Christus statue with the universe behind Him.  I love how little she is as she points up to Him (but I wish I could've gotten her without anyone else around!)

Our Taste of Snow

It was beautiful here in California all December, but it just didn't feel like Christmas because it was too warm and there was no snow!  We were all excited about going to Utah where Mother Nature had so obligingly dropped feet of it for us.  

Sophie knew all the fun things there were to do in the snow and couldn't wait to play in it for the first time in her memory.  But the first time she touched it she started to cry and wasn't sure if she wanted anything else to do with it.  I guess she wasn't expecting it to be so cold and to sting like it did!

We went sledding with the Jensens and had a lot of fun, but Avery wasn't sure what on earth she was doing with 8 layers of clothes on, outside in such a cold place, and with ever-increasing dry and chapped red cheeks.  So we took her in before too long.

Sophie loved sledding as long as she didn't get her hands in the snow at all.  She also liked watching her uncles and aunts do daredevil slides down slippery stairs.

Avery and Sophie love their Grandma Bob and we're sure glad we got to spend some time with her and all the Jensen's at our first ever family reunion with Joseph's immediate family.  We all had such a great time!

We ROCKED this Christmas!

Literally.  The inner rockstar in us all was brought out on Christmas Day when my Mom made my Dad's dream of being the lead guitarist in a rock band come true with this gift of Guitar Hero.

My brother Jonny, who's already very good at the drums, had bought himself Rock Band and the drumset to go with that, so we had a total of two guitars and one drum to play on and they definitely got used.  My Dad, it turns out, is quite the bass guitarist!  And even Sophie and Austin were some pretty hard core drummers on the freestyle setting!

Sophie and Austin both got scooters from their Lamb grandparents which they were so excited about.  Now when we go to the park and Sophie sees all the kids riding bikes and scooters, she can join in the fun!  (I realized too late that I didn't take any pictures of our Christmas evening with Joseph's family. Sad!  But needless to say, we were spoiled by all and appreciate all the fun things we got!)

My brother Geoff, quite an adventurous chef, decided he wanted to make a Buche de Noel (a traditional French yule log cake) for our Christmas dinner.  He enlisted my help with the decorating of it, and I think it turned out pretty well (considering neither one of us really knew what we were doing).

It was especially impressive for him to do this since he's never even made a cake before in his life!  I am kicking myself that I didn't snap a picture of the end where you see the sponge cake rolled so nicely with yummy mousse in alternating dark and light browns.  It was beautiful and we had a lot of fun making it look like a real log dusted with snow and adorned with holly berries and leaves.

This is how we Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve and morning at my parent's house this year.  We have some similar traditions in our family as Joseph's family which is nice, but there's also a few things we do differently.

(Who needs Santa, I've got grandparents!)  Ain't it the truth.

We started off the night eating what's become the traditional Christmas Eve dinner, an Italian Sausage Soup, cooked by my Dad!

Then we acted out the Nativity.  Sophie was hesitant to be Mary until she found out that a baby doll was in the equation (we weren't about to trust her with one of the two real babies there!)  Austin made a cute Joseph and swung his bow around like a master ninja the entire night.  Scott made an excellent donkey.

What a cute but interesting holy family.  (See what I mean about Mary and the baby?) 

Gabe made a very cute Angel Gabriel, and Joseph took Avery to be one of the 3 Wise Men with him and Jonny.

We ended with some cute pics of the kiddos in their red Christmas attire.

After singing lots of Christmas songs and telling several stories we were off to bed so Santa could come do his job.  It was a fun evening for all.