Jimmy's First Girlfriend

This is Abbey. She is the most adorable, sweet little girl. Jimmy seems to think so to. For about the last year, these two have been talking about how they are going to marry each other some day. They are such cute friends. She laughs at all of Jimmy's silliness and craziness and he holds her hand and makes her blush. They are both pretty smitten with one another. Unfortunately, her family is going to be moving soon. We are going to miss her very much. I only hope that when Jimmy is old enough to really get married that he will find a girl as sweet as Abbey.

El Matador State Beach

Okay, it's time to play catch up with my blog! It's been way too long. Back in April we were fortunate enough to have Jim's mom, his sister and her two little boys, Ethan and Camden visit us. We had so much fun. It's amazing what happens when you put 5 little boys together in a small apartment. The decibel level goes up significantly. The neighbors must have hated us that week!

When we have family in town we always go to the beach. There are a lot of great beaches around here but we have found a really nice little beach in Malibu. It is out of the way and secluded and it has great caves, tunnels, and tide pools. It was particularly busy that day because they were doing a photo shoot. We run into that a lot. Gotta love L.A.!

We actually found a baby octopus that day! The kids had fun observing it! The poor little thing looked terrified, but once the tide came in it was able to make it's way back to the ocean. I hope it survived!

Natural History Museum

We also had to make a trip to Luke's all time favorite place. He has a mild obsession with dinosaurs right now. It's cute. It's kind of a love/hate relationship. He is slightly terrified but enthralled at the same time.

I think this might be the reason for Luke's fear/love of dinosaurs. At the museum they have "Dinosaur Encounters" where they bring out a huge T-rex, which is actually just a person dressed up - but I don't think Luke has made that connection yet. He loves it, but I think he might have given me a few scratches on my arm as he was watching and holding on to me for dear life.

After dinosaur encounters we made our way downstairs and they had a real life python. As you can see from the pictures below. Luke inched his way up closer and closer. He had started back by Jimmy and Ben but made his way up to the stage and I had to go get him before he ran up to the snake and grabbed it by the tail or something. Who knows what he would have done. I didn't want to find out.

We had ice cream after thanks to Grandma!

Then we came home and crashed!

L. A. Zoo

We visited the zoo.

Where else would we take 5 crazy little boys!!

Trash to Treasure

Here is the latest project I completed. I had been looking for a small computer desk for the playroom and one day I found this beauty by the trash cans. I was so excited! It needed a lot of work but after a little sanding and paint it turned out pretty good.

Before

After
(please ignore the smudge marks on the screen :)

I found the drawers at Target. It was the last floor model and they were clearing the shelves and getting ready to throw it out so I got it for $8!!

Jimmy's riding a two wheeler

This post is long overdue but a few weeks ago Jimmy started riding a two wheeler bike. He probably could have been doing it long ago but there are not many places for us to ride bikes around here but we finally got smart and took him to the abandoned parking lot next to our apartment complex and it took him one try before he got it. Way to go Jimmy!! (There is a video too. I was having some trouble uploading it but hopefully it works.)

Rainy Day Fun

As you all know from the news California has been receiving an enormous amount of rain recently.* This, of course, translates into bored, wound-up, restless kids. So I was really proud of Ben when he turned that restlessness into creativity and decided to make a road with the books winding from the living room to his play room. He spent hours building and driving his cars along the road. Luke and Jimmy also enjoyed the road creation.

* I know that there are many of you reading this now who are living in never ending snow and below freezing temperatures that are dying to make a comment about how wimpy I am, and I just want to make a little clarification. I am in no way complaining about the rain. Believe me, I will take a little rain any day over what you are experiencing. And for the record, yes, I am a wimp and I'll be the first to admit it!!