Just Like Daddy...

There is absolutely NOTHING in this world that makes me happier than this...

Seeing Ben be artistic (it's amazing to witness the communication between his head and his heart), watching them together... painting side by side. It turns me into mush everytime. I LOVE it!

To Pasadena for Our Anniversary...

For our anniversary we decided we'd take a little drive to Pasadena. It's one of my favorite places to wander around for hours and hours, I absolutely love it there, plus it's really easy to convince Ben to go when it's the closest good art store to us. So with the girls in tow (yup they came too) off we went to celebrate! First stop the Art Store...

Ben (and I) were both in heaven stocking up on stuff we were out of and getting a couple of large canvases for later painting.

One of the guys that was testing all the pens with Ben drew this since he was wearing his Red Dead shirt... again!

I think the girls loved the art store just as much as we did!

Playtime at the park!

For dinner we went to La Grande Orange. It's in this historic old train terminal, so it has this really cool vibe to the place. It is by far my new favorite restaurant and I don't think the girls have ever been more well behaved than they were on that night!

Ben and his sketchbook! : )

Lizzie loved that her food was on this divided tray... she's kinda crazy like that, does not like anything to touch each other. Everything we had there was amazing. Ben had their burger on a homemade english muffin, so good, and I had the best salmon I'd ever had! Their sangria was pretty killer too.

My contribution to the art of the evening! : )

I love, love, love this picture!

Ah, dessert, it was almost the best part of going there. We all shared a make your own ice cream sundae, with a ton of different toppings to slather on top! After dinner we wandered the streets of downtown Pasadena, in awe of a places that didn't close at 9pm (like everything around our house), hit up the local bookstore and enjoyed laughing at ourselves as we walked around with two sleepy little children around 11pm while the club crowd started to come out of the woodwork. 

Happy (late) Easter...

So I'm going through all of my pictures and just now realized that I haven't posted anything from Easter. I feel so behind, ugh... oh, well, better late than never right?!

On Good Friday the girls and I made resurrection buns (biscuits, rolls... whatever you want to call them). It was really simple actually, just your basic Pillsbury biscuits rolled out into 5 inch circles, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, stuffed with a marshmallow and topped with more cinnamon and sugar. As you can see Abby was a little heavy handed with the sugar mix!

Covering up the marshmallows with the dough.

Here they are... all the marshmallows sealed in their little tombs.

We baked them according to the directions on the package.

And when you open them... they're empty! It was a great way to share the story of Easter with the girls while they had something hands on to do.

On Easter morning we had a little egg hunt outside in the common yard and then went inside to watch the church's live broadcast of that morning's service... since I was sick that weekend, fun I know right?! Good thing we didn't have plans to go anywhere... it was a pretty low key afternoon just playing games and hanging with the family. We did have a big lunch, but nothing crazy  though, it was just us after all! : )

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!

We're Walking thru the Woods...

Over the weekend we went for a walk through the woods over at placerita canyon. It had been raining the last couple of days, so it was crazy to see so much water in the creek. Normally there is nothing, well barely nothing, there. Abby was mesmerized!

We built boats and floated them down the creek

Abby could have stayed here for almost forever... she loved playing in the water, even though it was so cold.

They found a big, long stick and Abby was pretending to fish

Everything was so green and so not desert like... such a nice change.

In many areas the creek flooded the trail so people threw large logs over so you could cross without getting too wet.

Our little gopher friend that wasn't too thrilled we were there!

Lizzie dancing and singing to her echo!

Exploring the old Walker cabin

Kindergarten Open House...

Lizzie had her kindergarten open house not too long ago. I'm not going to bore you all with a million pictures of how awesome my little girl is (I think you already now where we stand on that one), but I will show you a few. She was super excited, as always, to show us around her classroom, showing off what she had been working on and giving Abby the grand tour of what school will be like in a couple of years for her... it was way too hilarious. I seriously cannot believe the school year is almost over, we only have two more weeks left and then I have a first grader. Can't she just stay in Kindergarten forever?!

It's been a lot of fun to see her get so excited about so many new things, make great new friends, and to watch her grow so crazy fast. I love that she's so quickly become a lover of reading... that girl can devour a book like nobody's business. Now if we can only find a way to stop Abby from destroying them...

Our Little Garden...

Over spring break the girls and I planted our meager little garden. We don't plant much. For starters we have no yard and therefore no dirt, so everything must go in pots on our patio... which isn't this biggest of spaces. Truth be told I kind of like having everything in planters, I find it a little less overwhelming. We are kinda new to this whole gardening thing after all. We once again planted husky red cherry tomatoes (our favorite, come to think of it we should have planted 2) anaheim green chilies, baby bush cucumbers, better boy tomatoes for slicing, and in the front we're trying some lettuce (which has already started sprouting, yay), some basil, parsley and chives, which we got from some yogurt containers... not really sure if we'll get anything from them. We'll probably venture into some actual flowers soon, they're kind of nice to have on the patio and the hummingbirds and butterflies are finally back. I eventually want to try a couple dwarf citrus trees and maybe a blueberry bush (I loved my mom's blueberry bush growing up). We'll have to see how these guys go and go from there. Hooray for spring!

Birthday Belle...

Here's some pictures from a birthday party we went to last weekend for the adorable little Sara, who was turning three (her daddy works with our daddy) and it was really nice to see some more folks we rarely get to hangout with since we Insomniacs kinda live all over the place down here. The party was at a beautiful new park down south from us and we were so lucky, once again, for no rain... it sure tried hard to though.

Can someone please tell me how she got so big?!

Belle was there face painting, playing games and making balloon animals for all the little ones.

That's Craig and his crazy camera. His little girl and Abby were born on the very same day. It's so cool to see his Izzy running around, just being a normal kid after all the heart surgery she's had to endure. Their story is simply amazing and you can read more about it here if you'd like.

No painting on the face for my girls, so on the hands they went... smart, very smart!

I love this picture! Lizzie is the only one getting her groove on with Belle.

Piñata time!