Monthly Archives: August 2013

Like I couldn’t just jump at the opportunity to take some oceanside pictures of the children while we were in San Diego. I haven’t taken pictures of the kids in a long time, so it was nice to add a few more into my overflowing albums of them.

London’s eyes were bothering her that day; we had spent a lot of time in the water and I think she got some salt water in them…and probably sand. Side effects of the beach, I suppose. I just love the picture of Jackson…he looks so grown up in photos. I don’t notice it in person, but in photos he is just so…big.

Brooklyn 3, London 4, Jackson 7

My little treasure turned 3!

She’s been looking forward to this for months now. Whenever she was asked how old she was, it was always answered with, “I two, but soon I be three!”.  Her birthday was sandwiched in between our Disney day and Sea World day, so we spend Aug. 13 by the sea, just relaxing and playing. In her mind, she had celebrated her birthday the day before at Disney, so I think she was a little confused that the birthday action never seemed to end!

After playing and cleaning up, we headed down to our favorite pizza joint. Its called Knockout Pizza, and it is so great. Just a walk away from our condo and the water.

After pizza, we came home and ate cake and opened presents! Her cake came from this amazing, authentic french bakery just down the street. I swear I was going to turn into a chocolate croissant by the time we left for home. That place is amazing.

To my precious Brookie-Bear,

I really wish you would just stay my baby forever, but you’ve got other plans. This past year was a big year for you! You learned how to sleep in a big girl bed, started sharing a room with your best friend, ditched those diapers for underwear, gave up your binky, and found thousands of new words to express exactly what you were thinking and feeling. The only thing you have left that reminds your sad-to-see-you-grow mother of your days as a tiny face is a tattered, well loved blankie. Your personality is really starting to shine through; you are the family clown and love to make everyone laugh. You are quick to comfort if another is sick or hurt, and on several occasions have used your blankie to wash tears from your sister’s face. You love pink and purple, your favorite Disney princess is Aurora, and Tinkerbell has a special spot in your heart. In fact, it isn’t a rare occasion to see you crawling on the floor up to my feet and hear you say, “My wings are freezing! I can’t use them! Please take me to spring so they will warm up again!”. Then I have to pretend to be a snow owl and fly my little warm fairy to her warm place. You insist on matching your sister with clothing, and since you are almost as tall as her, you look like you have a twin. You have an opinion on what you wear, and if for some reason I override it or just don’t listen (Mommy is very sorry), tears erupt. You prefer skirts to pants, like any little princess should. 😉 You are independent, and we hear “I do it myself!” a lot. My favorite thing? You are a snuggler. You love to cuddle up on my lap, or crawl into bed with me in the early hours of morning. You sit on my lap with your arm up around my neck, pushing my face closer to you so our cheeks can touch. You give the best hugs and if I ask for one kiss, I usually get 10. You ask to “cuddle you” every night before bed and several times during the day.  I try really hard to never say no, because I know these days will soon be gone.

Happy Birthday, my sweet bear. We love you so much, and thank God everyday for the blessing of you in our family!

We took our long anticipated vacation to San Diego this month! We adore San Diego and had such a wonderful time last year that we decided to rent the same condo and live by the sea for a week. Going back a second time is so much more relaxing than the first; you know where everything is, you’ve found your favorite spots to eat, and you know what to expect. Plus, Brooklyn was a whole year older which meant no pack n play or diapers! Truly, this was the best vacation we’ve taken yet. It honestly would be hard to do anything else…we could go back every year!

We spent a lot of time at the beach. Our condo is only about 100 yards or so away from it, so every morning we would pack up and head down and play for several hours. London and Brooklyn just hung out at the shore line, content with building sand castles and watching the waves break over them. Jackson was much more ambitious and developed a love for the boogie board, even if it only meant sitting on it and riding it in. There were picnic lunches, games of catch, Mommy and Daddy holding the girls diving into waves, lots of sunscreen, and a million laughs. (And sand ev.er.y.where.)

School had started almost everywhere in the country by mid-August, so crowds were low and we had the beach mostly to ourselves until lunchtime. The weather was gorgeous; almost everyday had sunshine by 10 and the temperatures never got above the low 70s. I mean, it really was perfect.

On Monday, we decided to head up to LA and hit Disneyland (about an hour from our condo…we stay a bit north of San Diego).

Brooklyn was turning three the very next day, so we took advantage of her being free AND got to celebrate her birthday! Of course, everyone thought that the “twins” were turning 3, so I’m pretty sure they got some extra special attention. For example. The Princesses.
First, I’ve never done the “meet and greet the princesses” thing. Its called Fantasy Faire, and you stand in a ridiculously long to meet 2-3 princesses…whomever they have on deck that day. We waited for about half and hour and were finally led in by the court to meet Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel. I thought it was going to be a “hug the princess, take a picture, move on to the next princess” kind of thing. From what I’ve heard, that is what it normally is…but not with my girls. I’m not sure what happened, but they shut the line off behind us and Aurora pulls them up close to her and asks if they want to play a game. Brooklyn about jumped out of her skin with excitement, and London suggested hide and seek. Ariel pops over. The princesses count to 10 and the girls hide in the castle room. Then the girls got to hunt for the princesses. Conversations and hugs took place, then Ariel told the girls that she had a special surprise for them. They had to close their eyes and Ariel held their hands and took them to an empty room and let them know that Cinderella was hiding and they had to find her! I’m practically crying over the awesomeness of it all. They found her, and then Cinderella suggests that they play Simon Says, so of course another game ensue. I mean, we were probably in there for a good 15-20 minutes. It was the most magical time I’ve ever had at Disney. I honestly didn’t get very many pictures because I was just enjoying the moments with them. But here is one, lol!

Unbelievable, right? It was truly amazing. Our whole time there was great (minus a few hiccups here and there). We hit up the girls favorite ride (Dumbo) and Jackson’s favorite ride (Star Tours), with a dash of Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Winnie the Pooh, and many others in between. We had lunch at our favorite place (Carnation Cafe) and Brooklyn had a birthday cupcake! We didn’t get a chance to do the Jedi Academy like we wanted; really, you have to have two days at Magic Kingdom to really have time to hit everything. We got awesome seats for the parade (quite by accident, actually!) and had those awesome huge corn dogs for dinner while watching our favorite characters sing and dance by us. We planned to stay until fireworks that evening, but everyone was beat by the end of the parade, so we headed back.

While we loved getting the chance to go, I don’t think we will go as a part of our San Diego vacation again. We will make a whole vacation for it! 😉

Another day was Sea World (yes, we are crazy)! This was probably the best day; remember, everyone is in school so the park was only lightly crowded, which always makes theme parks way better. We got to do, and see, everything we wanted to with minimum wait times. Our favorite was the dolphin show, and Jackson got to ride the Sky Tower, which he has been talking about since our last visit (we didn’t get to go on it last time).

So much fun was had by all. We all had a hard time packing up and saying goodbye. Usually by the end of a vacation I’m ready to get home to our normal schedules and routines; I easily could have stayed another week or two. We are so blessed.