Bouncy Kitty...

Birthday Party Madness...

Last Sunday the girls and I headed down to Los Angeles for Little Ben's birthday party. It was at this really neat play space with tons of stuff for them to just go crazy on, it was even a costume party... ah the joys of having your birthday celebrated with a major holiday. My Ben doesn't like that part at all, nothing against Halloween, he just wants his birthday to be just his birthday with no theme attached... anyways. It was a fun time had by all and Lizzie even was excited to eat birthday cake, she never eats cake... I guess if it's from Porto's she'll eat it! ;)

Sorry Ben, you missed out on the scrumptious chocolate banana cake!

Just a Somewhat Normal Sunday...

Here's some pictures of our kitchen turned art studio over the weekend. Ben was planning on actually painting too, he even primed a huge canvas and everything, but he was thoroughly distracted by the little ones' constant need of paint refills and the 'daddy, daddy look what I did"... it was really cute actually. Even Abby joined in fun for more than a little bit and was extremely excited to make a mess and draw on stuff without getting in trouble for it, crazy little girl.

Pumpkin Patch and Grandparents...

Ben's parents came down for a visit not too long ago. We didn't end up doing much in way of going places and doing stuff, but it was really nice just to hangout. Of course our fridge ended up breaking down while they were here, which was fun, but they stayed at Heidi's place anyways and we ended up borrowing her fridge space for a little while (thanks Heidi). We did manage to make it down to the farm just in time for all the pumpkins and picked some delicious raspberries.

Abby went a little crazy with strawberries... I have some video of the strawberry inhaler I'll post a little later.

Insomniac Company Picnic...

Ben's company had a family picnic on Friday night, a couple weeks ago (sorry I'm so behind on this blogging stuff). It was a good time, definately not as cool as last years, but still fun. It was at night, after work, so it got dark pretty fast and without a whole lot of light so it was slightly hard to play and actually see what you were doing after a little while. It was carnival themed with some booth/games to try your luck at, with stuffed toys for the kids to win and scratch tickets for us big kids. I somehow happened to be the only one, out of our group who won ( yay) but my scratch ticket ended up being a dud. There was also a inflatable whale slide thingy (which both of my girls were freaked out by) and a climbing wall. Along with the games and toys there was caramel apples, ice cream, and barbecue... and don't forget the margarita machine, the most popular attraction of the evening! :)

The girls at the mouth of the "beast"!

Are you sure you don't wanna try it?!

Ben and Ted getting ready to climb the wall

Camping...

A couple weeks ago Ben finally had a much needed vacation (feels like we haven't seen much of him lately with his crazy work schedule) so we went camping! We chose a place by the beach again, of course, and spent 4 whole days enjoying the beauty and our family. The campground was a little up past Santa Barbara called El Capitan. Such a great place with so much to do and explore. Half woods, half ocean beach and with a bike trail as an added bonus. The girls did great. I should say Abby did great, wasn't too worried about Lizzie, she's been camping before, but it was Abby's very first time and my littlest was more than fine... filthy dirty the whole time, but thoroughly enjoyed herself. I wish we could go camping more, it's just so nice to unplug and get away from it all. To walk barefoot on the beach, explore the vastness of the woods, to see the stars in all their glory and remember how black the darkness of night really is.

Sunset on the first night we were there, just steps from our campsite

Our site, complete with little play tent for the girls

The ocean view from our spot

Nap time!

Exploring the far shore. Love the danger sign in the background!

A walk through the woods. They had some huge crazy trees there.

The beach at El Capitan

Finding critters in the tide pools. Abby loved poking the sea anemones.

Getting ready for our 2 mile bike ride up to Refugio State Beach.

Refugio was beautiful... lined with palm trees and shaded in fog. I know it looks super cold, but it was actually very warm.

Ah, so ready to do it all over again!