Tiny Prints

Oh how I love the Christmas season! Although it gets a little tough to get into the spirit when stores start carrying Christmas decorations in SEPTEMBER when it's still 100 degrees outside, once it gets closer to Thanksgiving I can start dreaming of the holidays.

One of my favorite parts of this season is getting (and giving) Christmas cards. And most of my favorite cards come from Tiny Prints. Most recently I used Tiny Prints for Sienna's birth announcements and her 1st birthday invitations and was soooo happy with both. I've already started scouring the site for our Christmas cards for this year (who knows, maybe we'll choose this one. Yes, that is Allie's picture!) But my favorites so far are this one and this one.

Tiny Prints has a ton of other awesome things like stationary, photo books, calendars and gifts. But what's even better is they are offering up to 50 free holiday cards when you blog about them and then fill out this form. How great is that?!

Newport Beach!

My oh my this post is so long overdue but for my documenting purposes it has to be done (and I got some adorable pictures of my girls that I must share:) Last month we went on our first real family vacation just the four of us to California. I have to admit I was very anti-bringing the kids at first. Selfishly I wanted to leave the girls with the grandparents and spend a whole week reading, lying on the beach, going on romantic dates and just spending time with my hubby. But Matt wasn't budging and insisted that we make it a family vacation (I won't say that part of him regretted that decision by day 3:) Family vacations with a one year old and a three year old are not exactly relaxing (especially when your one especially difficult child is sick) but we bonded in many ways and all in all had a wonderful time and made sooooo many memories...

Rode the merry go round and other rides at Beaumont park

Played in our hotel room


Did lots of snuggling

Played at the beach a TON





Met some good friends at Sea World



Lots of sleeping due to two ear infections :(

Road to the ferry to Balboa Island and went bike riding


Slept in the bathroom (poor Sienna)

Went on lots of picnics

Went to a pumpkin patch


Oh how I just love my family!

15 Months Old!

Really? How can this be possible? Is my little tiny baby really 15 months old? Well, I guess she was never really that little or tiny, but still! I have to say sooooo much has changed since my last Sienna post. It was 3 months ago so I guess that's not too surprising. But going from posting every single month in the first year to delaying now for a few months is a little strange. But since this is my pseudo-baby book, I have to document how big my baby girl is getting!

Her vocabulary has taken off in the past three months - she says...mama, dada, Allie, ball, go, up, more, dog, help, no, all done, hi, bye-bye

She got sick for the first time (first time at 14 months old - not bad!) We had to take her to urgent care while we were on vacation in California and it ended up that she had a double ear infection :(

She is walking! It took about two weeks from the time she took her first steps to her walking about 90% of the time. I love the 'new walk' that babies do, it's adorable to see her waddle around :)

She's doing pretty good with eating. Definitely not as picky as her sister (thank you Jesus) but she's not a 'she'll eat anything' kinda girl. We're still working on it and I pray it gets better but I am happy with where she's at right now. Her favorites are grapes, peaches, pears, corn, pizza, quesadillas and smoothies.

This girl loves her milk, she drinks about 4 sippy cups of milk each day. My girls are gunna have some strong bones with all the calcium they get!

She still loves her paci. Pacis are one of those things that are both a blessing and a curse. I know it's going to come to a point where we are going to have to take it away and it might not be easy but she's definitely one of those kids who is soothed so easily by sucking it's been totally worth it for us. We'll start to phase it out here soon (sorry Sienna!)

She loves her 'b' (blanket) and won't sleep without it. It's one of those Aden and Anais blankets that Allie has too, both girls are addicted to them (they are the best:)

Her teeth are completely wacky (as you could see from a couple posts below). She didn't get her first tooth until she was 10 months old which is abnormal, and it has continued that way. She has her middle two bottom teeth, then just one more on one side. THEN, instead of getting her middle two top teeth, she has her two fangs! It's pretty funny, and there's no sign of the middle four coming through yet. ALSO she has two of her molars! Weird I know, one on the bottom left, and one on the top right. Wacky right?!

She continues to be our feisty little girl - she's definitely going to be strong-willed (or I suppose the politically correct term is SPIRITED!) This girl goes from 0 to 60 in .2 seconds...most of the time over something as small as her sippy cup falling over. She definitely is making me learn a lot of parenting skills that I never had to learn with Allie!

She's still sleeping AMAZINGLY! She goes to bed around 7:00pm and most mornings I have to wake her up at 8:00am (I've always gotten her up by 8 so her nap schedule isn't too crazy) She takes an hour and a half morning nap and 2-3 hour afternoon nap. Can I tell you how blessed I am to have TWO incredible sleepers? (Yes, you can be jealous:)

She is so sweet, smiley, completely attached to me and totally in love with her big sister. I love this little girl to pieces!

Beach Robes

One of my very favorite blogs to follow is MADE. This woman is so cute, has such great ideas and is an amazing seamstress. A couple weeks ago I purchased my first pattern from her, a beach robe. I thought they would be perfect for our trip to Newport since the past several years it was pretty chilly at the beach. Well, of course there was a heat wave the week we were there and it was WARM so the girls didn't even need them :( But at least they are big enough and I know they will fit next year.

Vampiress

Do you think she could be cast in the next Twilight movie???

I'm seriously beginning to wonder if the middles ones are ever going to come in! (click on the picture to make it bigger to see what I'm talking about)

Fantasy Football

Those two words pretty much dominate our house from about September-January. Obsessed is an understatement (I'm describing Matt, NOT me!) Matt has been in a Fantasy Football league with his brothers and dad, my brother and dad and several friends for the past 4 years. It's actually quite funny to see how involved they get and how serious they take it.
Each year Matt has always gotten the jersey of his FF quarterback and worn in for Monday night football when his family comes over for dinner and to watch the game. Well, this year he INSISTED that the girls and I get involved. I'm not sure Matt has bought a single article of clothing in the last 12 months but this year he ordered 4 football jerseys all on his own, representing his FF players. Here we are...
Tony Romo and mini Romo (Allie of course had to be the same as daddy)

Maurice Jones-Drew

Jason Witten

Go team!!!

Preschool Open House

Why, oh why, am I so bad at taking pictures?! I swear I almost always have my camera with me and then I just completely forget to use it! Ugh. Anyways, Allie had her first preschool open house a few weeks ago. It was so incredibly cute. We got to go see her classroom and see all of the art projects on the walls that the kids have done. Allie showed us around and even told us about some of her friends. I didn't remember to take pictures until after we toured her classroom and were outside so here's the only three I got...

Can you tell that she LOVES her preschool :)

Doing the cake walk

Eating a lollipop

Santa Monica Wedding, aka Anniversary trip

Late last month Matt and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary. Yes, NINE years! I can't believe it. I know we got married young but that seriously makes me feel old (And I am NOT old!) It just so happened to be restaurant week during our anniversary so we totally took advantage of it and went to a restaurant that I have been dying to go to...The Melting Pot. We had so much fun and enjoyed an amazing dinner and evening. The Saturday after our anniversary, a good friend of Matt's was getting married in Santa Monica so we decided to make a weekend of it to continue to celebrate. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, had breakfast on the beach, walked along the boardwalk, enjoyed the gorgeous wedding up in the hills, ate room service and just relaxed. It was a wonderful weekend. I was HORRIBLE at taking pictures but here are the three that I got...

I'm Still Here!!!

Don't forget about me, I'm still here! This month has been absolutely crazy for Matt and I. For the month of October, I have been gone 16 of the past 24 days, and Matt has been gone for 19 of the past 24 days. It's insane. Buuuutttt, that means that I have a TON of posts coming up, I promise! I'll try to do them in order, but some I just cannot wait on :) Stay tuned!!!

Chef Allie

A couple weeks ago after playing in her kitchen literally all day long, I decided that Allie needed an apron. A proper chef needs all the right gear right? I'm hoping that she can start making us meals soon. Well, maybe in a few years. For now, I will continue to eat wooden cookies and plastic chicken :)