In the Kitchen With Lizzie...

Lizzie jumps at the chance to do anything in the kitchen lately. This day we were making pumpkin bread... now we all know I don't' bake, so as you can plainly see in one of the pictures it's a mix from Trader Joe's. It was really good actually. Lizzie pretty much did everything, I measured of course, but she stirred and even cracked the eggs. She's getting to be so good around the kitchen. She makes a salad every time we have one with dinner, she's even made lasagna with me more than a few times (that's her favorite to make). At this rate by the time she's in kindergarden she'll be making us dinner, or at least desert.

There's Abby at our feet, she was there the whole time.

The Girls...

It looks like these two are starting to become inseparable already! Abby is into throwing huge fits when Lizzie not around to play and Lizzie's always asking me if she can wake up Abby from her naps so she can play. On this particular day they were playing "babies" together. It's the only thing Lizzie can think of to play with her little sister... go figure. :)

More Pumpkin Patches...

I don't know how the two pumpkin patches ended up back to back, but oh well, here's another outing to a patch, this time local... just down the street at Lombardi's. It seems like every time we're at a pumpkin patch lately it's super hot and really windy. Poor Abby was getting pelted by hay the whole time.

Lizzie climbed to the very top all by herself... she was so proud.

Who's driving that thing? I certainly hope it's not the baby!

Pumpkin Patch at the Farm...

A little while ago we had a playdate, with my moms group, down at Underwood Family Farms (the same farm I always talk about/visit). It was the day of crazy fires and awful traffic, even some freeway closures because of it, but we still managed to make it there and enjoy ourselves. It was pretty windy and a little warm for the middle of October, but we made the best of it. The kids had fun running all around like little crazy people that's for sure.

Crazy Abby hair was in full force that day from all the wind.

The whole gang; Shanon's girls on the left, mine on the right, and Ruth's lone little boy on the bottom. That boy's going to be so spoiled (or driven completely insane)
hanging out with all the girls all the time!

Aww... so cute, but Abby thinks she's at a football game, or something, doing the wave!

Those are some big pumpkins, she looks so tiny.

Speaking of Games...

Check this bad boy out... he's so huge and almost real! This is an advertisement Sony did for their game and it's draped over a building on Wilshire Blvd in Downtown LA (there's also one in Times Square in New York City and I think one in Tokoyo too). It's Ben's big Leviathan boss he animated in the game and Sony even used a pose that he did for the ad... pretty cool stuff. We're totally going to have to drive down there and check it out. It's not very often that the work you do is plastered so big for the whole world to see. Ben, you rock!

Ben's Company Picnic...

At the beginning of this month Ben's company threw a big picnic shindig, at this beautiful ranch out in the mountains in Malibu, for the completion of their newest game, Resistance 2. It was really nice that it was a whole family affair... normally wrap-parties are just for the guys (and gals) that work there (they'll all go out out to dinner or race crazy fast cars somewhere, and then there's the holiday party, but that's adults only). I really hope they continue to do the picnic thing, it was really the only time that we got to see everybody's little ones and not so little ones, plus it was a lot of fun. The day of the picnic happened to be the only day it has rained all year around here... I guess you really couldn't technically call it rain it was more of a misty drizzle. I wish we had more days like that down here though (I loved it), a little contrast never hurts. It was really neat at the ranch watching the weather, the mist would get really thick and you could see the fog start to creep over the hills. It was pretty nice way to spend a Saturday!

Abby all snugly in her stroller. What's up with the really red hair?!

Ben totally cheating at the three legged race... go Ben, go!

Lizzie thought this was the funniest thing ever. She was completely freaked out to go by herself on the little mini ones though.

Lizzie and Neela trying desperately to keep their hula-hoops up... neither lasted very long! :)

Run Lizzie, run!

Lizzie was somehow brave enough to go in the human bubble...
I think Ben convinced her to go just so he could do it too.

Ben and Lizzie took a little paddle boat ride around the lake...
I think some of the ducks went with them too.

That's a lot of ice cream for such a tiny, little girl.
Ben was the one who got that plate for her... who knew! :)

Such a daddy's girl!

More San Diego (part three)...

On our third day enjoying San Diego we went downtown, wandered around for a little bit, had lunch at the Fish Market, and then headed across the bridge to go hangout in Coronado and play on its absolutely beautiful beach. Ben couldn't get over how empty (and clean) downtown was. I guess he's so use to the insanely crazy comic-con crowd.

Lizzie looking at the water from Seaport Village, downtown.

Abby in her little beach cabana... she had major issues that afternoon. Trying to eat all the sand she possibly could, rubbing it into her eyes and all over the rest of her face, and refusing to settle down for a nap. She was one cranky baby, but after about an hour she settled down and managed to enjoyed the rest of her day.

She's such a California beach girl.

One of my most favorite pictures ever! She did not want to stop being a mermaid. So the tide came in and swept over her multiple times.

San Diego Part Two...

So, day two was spent in it's entirety at the zoo again. So much fun... I would love to go back already and do it all over again. This day we took the bus tour around the whole zoo first thing and then spent the rest of our time wandering around until they kicked us out of the park.

On the tour bus, top deck of course.

This day was monkey day. We made it a point to see them all and for awhile. Ben and Lizzie loved it. They are so two of the same.

I think this was the only time Ben actually sat down to draw. It was pretty hard to do with the girls there, more than a few distractions to say the least. Ben wanted to just spend all day here.

This little guy was pretty funny. Lizzie had a big pretzel stick that she was eating and he came up with a real stick in hand and wanted to trade with Lizzie. He kept trying to stick it in the crack like it was just going to go through the glass.

The pandas were so cool to see. This is the place I could have stayed all day. They're so tiny for being "giant" pandas. Our girls had issues in this place though, cause you had to be quiet as not to startle the pandas and their little baby. We all know my two girls don't do quiet. ;)

Wohoo!

Yay! I think this may have just unleashed a monster.

First Email Post...

I'm just sitting downstairs watching Ben play his game (the beta version since it's obviously not out yet) and I think I finaly set this up right, so I guess we'll see if this works or not. :)

San Diego Part One...

So, Ben just had his post (the wonderfully anticipated vacation at the end of his project) a couple weeks ago and we took the opportunity to take a little three day adventure down to San Diego... the rest of his vacation was spent sleeping, playing video games, and just hangout, which was really nice since we haven't seen much of him for the last 2 months. Anyways back to San Diego, there's a lot of pictures, I even edited it down to 10 a day, so hang with me, and if you want to see even more you can go here.

San Diego was a blast, I think it's actually on of my favorite "downtown" cities, there's just so much to do and it's extremely easy to get around (unlike here in LA). Our trip was off to a rocky start though, as all of our trips seem to do, always leaving later than anticipated, and Lizzie (not even an hour into the ride) got extremely car sick, making a huge mess in the back of the car. She totally gets that from me... sorry baby girl. But luckily we were prepared and had everything we needed to do a quick pit stop. I did however have to do laundry that night at the hotel. There was absolutely no way I was going to drive around with a stinky car seat the whole trip! After that though it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way down. We stopped at a park off of Sea World Dr for lunch and to let the girls run around and then headed for the zoo.

Here we are at the zoo... it's a pretty phenomenal place (dad, you would have loved it). We spent two days there and still didn't see everything there is to see.

This was one of our favorite exhibits... the river otters. Lizzie was enthralled with them and how well they could swim. They were definitely a lot of fun to watch that's for sure.

Crazy hair baby!

These next pictures are of us on the sky tram. It takes you from one end of the zoo to the other. It was an amazing view from up there and at one point you were directly over the gorillas. Ben thought that was pretty sweet.

Ben and Lizzie could have spent the whole time just riding the tram back and forth. Needless to say, the two of them went on it multiple times. I was just fine with once. :)

The polar bears, they're huge... apparently I missed them when they went swimming, but Lizzie and Ben got to see them dive for carrots.

It was so cool to see some of the animals so close up. You could have totally touched a giraffe if they were standing on the edge slightly leaned over.

Here's part of our room. We loved it! The girls had their own separate area that we could slide a door closed and have our own space. So fantastic.