Christmas....

and then some!

Christmas morning



Christmas sunset at the beach



Snowboarding 12.27



Beach 12.28



The days can be long and hard, but how can I really complain?

I love this life.

Another Birthday!

My Two Boys

5 and 2. I can hardly believe it. But they will always be my babies!

We Made It!!!

After 4 long but incredibly smooth and enjoyable days of driving up the west coast, we arrived at our final destination yesterday afternoon. The three of us are experiencing some mixed emotions, and still processing the whole journey that we've embarked on, but overall are happy to be here. The rain from the past couple of days has gone, the sun is out today and the Skagit Valley is beautiful! Dylan is napping in a bed (as opposed to a car seat!), Kalani is outside riding the tractor-mower and burning yard debris and Gus is resting, happily, on the stairs. This feels good so far.....

I don't have my computer and I'm still figuring out how I will be able to upload pics, so I don't have any to share yet. But my wonderful friend Amiel, who flew down to OC to be able to accompany us on our drive up, is a fantastic photographer so I had him document our trip. I will post those pics asap!

Thank you, friends, for all the well wishes! This journey would be much more difficult for me, without all of your love and support!

What I Will Miss

John. Dad.


Grampa Fred and Granny Sue. Disney Days.


Beach. Friends (and I am incredibly blessed to say that there are WAY too many of you, friends, to picture here!).




The best neighbors EVER.



Balboa Island.


Balboa Ferry.


Endless sunshine.



And I'm signing off, for now anyway. I'll be packing up my computer next as we are quickly approaching our final days here in OC.

Easter Monday

Kalani was so excited about his Easter basket treasure hunt (still think of your crazy good treasure hunts all the time, Momma!!) and all the fun stuff and goodies he found that I let him have 2 tiny jelly beans and a stick of gum Easter morning, before breakfast. Bad idea. He was sick on the couch, throwing up, for the rest of the day. Poor guy, got his Mama's sensitive tummy :(

So, since our Easter celebration was to be just us, John, and Grandpa Fred and Granny Sue this year, we decided to let Kalani be on Sunday and have our celebration and feast on Monday instead! I had been cooking and preparing all the food from Saturday afternoon, on through most of Sunday, so I was initially pretty bummed to have it all just sit there over night. But it turned out really nice! Our Easter Monday morning was very relaxed and everything was already completely prepped and ready to go so it was totally stress-free for me. And we ended up having a fabulous meal, a really nice and casual day ending with some beach play time and a beautiful, long walk along the boardwalk. It was perfect.

The jelly beans...


and stick of gum. Argggh. But check out this expression. Priceless. Love him.


Flashbacks of naked, long-haired, 2 year-old Kalani in bunny ears, anyone? ;-)




Coconut Kumquat cupcakes. Yum.
(although my food photography could still use some work...)


My worker guy, workin' at the beach.


No caption necessary :)

Big Thursday

'Cause that's what my Dad always called it. And that's when my dad always dyed Easter eggs. We always used the vibrant Greek dyes; of course red and usually yellow, green, and blue also. And when my dad was feeling creative he'd make some purple with the red and blue dyes and we'd have some beautiful magenta eggs as well. Definitely my most fond and vivid memory of dying eggs is doing them Greek style with my dad, and then rubbing the almost too hot to touch eggs with olive oil to make them shiny and beautiful.

I wanted to carry on the "Big Thursday" tradition with my boys (well, I think Dylan was napping, actually ;-)) but wanted to go for a little more natural dye options. This year anyway. I'm sure I'll do the traditional Greek eggs with them another time. I used turmeric, red cabbage and annatto. The turmeric and red cabbage dyed eggs turned out great, super vibrant and gorgeous! The annatto was a little pale and speckled, but still pretty.

Our neighbor, and Kalani's best friend, Riley, joined us :)

Spring

Man, I just don't have the energy to post on here these days! Sorry followers, as few as you may be :)

Anyway... it's been beautifully warm here lately! Day after day of sunshine, and kids running around playing outside after dinner, hoping the sun will never go down. I love it.

Here's a couple cute pictures of the boys that our friend took for us.







And those spring time changes are definitely coming our way......

Catch up :: A Photo Journal

Auntie's come to visit. Pure fun, joy and happiness.




My sweet baby boy turns 1!


Seriously contemplating his homemade (of course!) gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar-free, rice-whip topped birthday "cake".




Guess he approved!


Nana couldn't miss this special day :)


Best friends and leftover cupcakes.


Enjoying his "leftovers".



Dylan's spotted the chicken bone on my plate and refused to eat another bite until it was in his hands.




He is definitely one of us (us, you know who you are ;-) )!!


The best, most handsome date I could ever ask for.