mia's 1!!!

my friend, cyndee, who i call martha stewart, (cuz when she throws a party she gets every little detail... down to the rhinestoned first initial of each kids name on each one of the party favor bags and the tissue paper hanging flower "thingys" she had hanging from the EZ up's)...anyways, her daughter, mia had her one year birthday today and i was amazed at the amount of time she put into getting prepared for this party. it looked like a page out of a martha stewart magazine (if there is such a thing). anyways, i know who i'm calling to help me plan the next party i throw. you did a great job cyndee!

Botanical Gardens

snap did it again...we wanted to get leia's 15 month pictures and a family picture (derek's side of the family) all together, so snap worked his "magic". :)
here are a few...

blogger friends???

okay, so i've seen people do this before & i thiught i'd try it cuz i know there are a lot more people that read my blog than i am linked to or have linked to me. i'd love to add to my "blog roll" and meet more of the people who read mine, so if you haven't ever commented before and have a blog, please leave a quick comment so i can get to know you & so i can add you on.
did that make any sense???

nice to meet you (o.k., that was cheesy) :)

the happiest place on earth...

yea, you would never know that we were at the happiest place on earth by the look on kaia's face in this pic...she really was having fun, i promise ! :)
leia MADE sure that we saw goofy...
she was mesmerized by him!
40 minutes later...we're on the new Nemo ride!
daddy was kinda sorry he went to the rocket...we always feel really old after we get off this one (we didn't used to get dizzy so easily)...
here's kaia and me in line for the Matterhorn...
here's some of the Halloween decor...
it's so hard to get a pic of them both looking (let alone smiling)!
can't forget to take a fam. pic.

on the tram going to the car (poor leia's teething) :(
still smiling, though!
another great day at Disneyland!!!

up in SLO for 24 hours or so...

wow, i wasn't even trying to rhyme...anyways, we drove up to San Luis Obispo for a night and got home last night. the main reason for going up there was to meet our friend, bryon, who's considering going to Cal Poly & we wanted to show him the town. we had a fun filled 24 hours including stuff like going to Farmer's Market, shopping downtown, derek giving bryon a tour of the campus, going to pismo beach, and me getting my hair cut (nothing major...just layers) at the salon i used to go to when we lived there. we were gonna stay at least one more night, but the girls started to come down with a cold and i started to come down with a case of PMS (for the first time in about 15 months...due to nursing leia, but, that's a whole different blog entry)...i'll just say, when it's been 15 months, you (i) get easily irritated.
oh, and it was the first time we've ever been there without our friends, kellie and jesse living there (remember, they're the ones that moved to hawaii)...it just wasn't the same, we miss you guys!

here are kaia, derek and bryon at farmer's market enjoying frozen yogurt!
kaia's brushing up on her putting :)

after eating burrito's (no, not chipotle) in pismo...

here are kaia and leia on a carosel in pismo...

getting dizzy!

leia LOVED chasing the birds!

all i have to say is that those poor pigeons, they were tramatized!

uh oh, leia DID NOT want us to hold her hand, but you'll see the reason we wanted to in the last pic...

here's leia by the San Luis mission ...

checking out the fountain by the mission...

leia LOVED the bear by the fountain...

poor baby, she was having so much fun before she fell. i felt so bad, she looked like she was in a boxing match!

Our little princesses...

ever since we got back from hawaii, kaia hasn't been wanting to sleep in her bed, cuz she got so used to sleeping in the bed with us. she's never been the type of kid that is scared of things in her room, but her room is slowly becoming more bare cuz she thinks everything is scary. anyways, needless to say, we haven't gotten much sleep lately because of this new (hopefully temporary/over VERY soon) phase. we have had this princess-over-the-bed-vail-thingy for months now that we've been putting off hanging it over her bed and i thought "hmmm, we've tried everything else, why not FINALLY hang the princess bed thing". so, we did, and so far she LOVES it and she is in her bed NOT CRYING! yay!

I didn't even cry

well, it's official...kaia's a pre-schooler and i can't believe i'm blogging during the day. usually i'm up very late updating my blog, but not today...kaia's at preschool, leia's napping and i'm blogging. what a concept! anyways, kaia already LOVES being in preschool and we only stayed about 10 minutes after we dropped her off. it's gonna be a great year!
let's go!!!
leia REALLY wanted some candy she saw in the fridge as i got her milk out :(
kaia's checking out the other kids as we wait in line to talk to the principal...
she's excited!
here's kaia talking to the principal (she makes sure the kids aren't sick every day)
here's kaia standing by her cubby hole (it's the one on the bottom) :)
kaia's already making friends and crafts...
not bad kaia...
kaia's checking out her new friends' work...

see you in 3 hours, kaia!

she's growing up...

well, the day that seemed so far away 3 years and 10 months ago, is finally almost here...kaia's first day of preschool is in 4 days. i thought that it would feel more like dropping her off at sunday school, like we do every sunday than it does so far. that will probably change soon, but for now, i feel like we're sending her off to college. yes, i know, she's only going 2 days a week for 3 hours a day, but right now, it seems like more than that. this might seem kinda silly, but i almost cried when i saw kaia's cubby with her name on it.
anyways, last night was the parent-teacher orientation and this morning was the day where the kids meet their teacher. here are kaia and her teacher, mrs. russell and she seems great!

leia enjoyed the classroom too...
kaia loved checking out all the classroom stuff...

leia enjoyed the playground too!

here's kaia in the driver seat (as usual)!!!

already making friends on the monkey bars

here's kaia standing in front of her class room, her class is called the "Busy Bee's"

me and my first baby...

kaia loves her daddy SO much!

leia's such a supportive sister :)

...hey leia, where's your shoe?

all these pictures and it's not even the first day of school YET!