Just Chillin'...

Just hanging out watching some cartoons... it's way too hot to do anything else lately. Got to love how Lizzie's littlest pet shop dog is sitting in his chair watching too!

We Have Babies...

No, not us silly... the eggs have finally hatched in the nest right outside our door, well at least one of them did. Here's a little video that Ben took this morning before he left for work. Enjoy, my girls sure did! :)

Amazing, But Not So Bright...

So this little mama birdie on the branch in the middle decided to build her nest here...

In our gas fireplace exhaust vent (or whatever you call it). This also is not the first time she has done this either. When we first moved in she had a nest in there and we didn't know it. We didn't even think to check to see if the vent was clear or not before testing to see if the fireplace worked in our walk-thru, and Lizzie had also turned it on while we were eating dinner that night, so as if doing it once wasn't enough torture it was done a second time. The little baby birdies didn't survive the extreme heat and poor Ben was devastated... he was the one who had to clear the vent all out.

Well needless to say, mama birdie didn't learn from her past traumatic experience and has since then built another nest in the very same spot. Here's the start of her nest. It was pretty fascinating to watcher her build it... totally wished I had a camera that could do time lapse.

Here is her completely finished handiwork as well as four little eggs (the fourth one is kinda hard to see). It's been almost two weeks now and still no little birdies, but soon I'm sure. And just so we don't hurt the little birds again the switch to turn on the fireplace is completely taped down and almost impossible to move. Why do we even have a fireplace in Los Angeles anyway... like we'd ever use it!

18 Month Check-Up...

Abby had her 18 month old well baby check-up during the middle of our move of couple weeks ago. It was a pretty ordinary baby appointment, with Abby getting yet another series of shots... this time though I had to hold her on my lap (since she's getting so big), lets just say she didn't talk to me until later that afternoon... she was a little miffed at me to say the least. Abby's still in the 90th percentile or above in everything. She weighed in at 27 lbs 3 oz and is 32 1/4 inches tall... normal stats for a 2 1/2 year old. :) So, because of that we're not doing whole milk anymore, hooray everybody drinks the same stuff now, makes me so excited that we're slowly phasing out of separate baby purchases! The only thing that the pediatrician was a little concerned about was her speech. She is really behind in that area, only saying 3 or 4 words and not very often. But since she completely understands what we're saying and follows directions really well, we're waiting until she turns two to start her in speech therapy. I'm a little torn with the whole idea... I really don't know if it's even something worth doing for a toddler, who will more than likely figure it out in her own time. Hopefully we won't even have to peruse that, who knows... we have until December. A lot can happen in the world of a toddler in 5 1/2 months.

Our New Space...

Our outdoor space at our new place is pretty sweet. We spend a lot of time out there everyday... in the morning enjoying multiple cups of coffee before it gets too hot, at night barbecuing or just playing around until bedtime. It has quickly become one of our favorite places in our house to hangout. We technically don't have any yard, just like at our last place (and I'm completely convinced that a yard of any size is really hard to come by in LA), but we are situated on the corner of our townhouse complex and get to enjoy the rather large green space, that's fully maintained by the association, so it's almost like having a yard of our own. The wildlife that is around here is pretty amazing. Everyday we see multiple birds (finches, chickadees, doves... yes doves and hummingbirds), tons of bunnies, squirrels, butterflies and snails. Lizzie likes to go for walks at night to look for those slimy little guys.

Here's part of our patio facing the grass. Our front door is around the corner to the right. As you can see we're right on the corner and at the front of the complex, so there's nobody next to us... which is awesome. The wall, in the background, is great at blocking the very busy street we're on and makes it feel more private. We even put up a white metal baby gate, which you can barely notice in the picture, so I can relax and not chase the girls (or Mabel doggie) down the street constantly.

Here's the other side of the patio. It wraps around from the front door all the way to the sliding glass door in the livingroom. This would also be the girls' part of the patio, as you can clearly see.

There are paths that wander throughout the complex, this is one right next to our patio. The girls like to have car races on these and this is where Lizzie and Ben walk around at night in search of creepy crawlers. Heidi's complex is right on the other side of that fence, so we're all still really close... you can walk down the path and even see her car parked in her spot. Being on the corner with the grass we also get a lot of neighbors walking by with their dogs and chatting with us, which is pretty cool and totally opposite of our last house. I didn't even know who are neighbors where at our last place.

Our birdfeeder is quite popular with the local birds...

and the squirrels too aparently! Talented little guy took the top right off.

We have a whole family of bunnies that live in the bushes by the wall. The babies are so cute, but really sciddish and virtually impossible to photograph. These bunnies also love to torment and tease Mabel when she comes over for a visit.

Hummingbirds... strange to actually see them in a tree.

And here's the dove, there's actually two of them that come around and eat the food that falls from the birdfeeder.

Happy 4th of July...

We spent our holiday weekend avoiding all the crazy traffic and crowds, just hanging out at home enjoying our last full and extended weekend before Ben's insanely crazy work schedule starts up again (only 9 more weeks of Ratchet, yay) Friday was wonderfully uneventful, it was spent playing games, drinking coffee and playing around with the girls. On Saturday we had water balloon madness, went on a bike ride, barbecued some grub, and of course watched some fireworks. By the time Sunday arrived the girls were slightly exhausted and just chilled all day. It was such a wonderful non stressful holiday weekend... why can't they all be that way?!

Getting the water balloons ready

Abby not admitting to the mess all over the floor

Ben trying to barbecue on our little dinky camper version... one of these days we'll have to upgrade.

Watching the fireworks at the park we use to live by

Abby Love...

These are also from Lizzie's party, but they're of Abby off doing her own thing (of course) and hanging out with her most favorite person ever... Auntie Heidi. :)

I think somebody's more than a little tired...

Lizzie's Birthday Party Day...

These are from Lizzie's birthday party that we had the week after her birthday. We tried to avoid Memorial Day weekend, but even then it ended up a pretty small party, Lizzie didn't seem to mind though and it was a ton of fun. The party was outside at the park (good thing too, since our house was in utter chaos in preparation to move) and the kids had tons of bubble stuff to play with along with all the normal stuff at the park. Oh, how I love parties at the park... so much less stuff to worry about.

Abby trying to figure out how to work the bubbles...

My attempt at bubble themed cupcakes! ;)

Ah, the start of the Littlest Pet Shop addiction...