12 Weeks

My little man turned 12 weeks today. Rick wanted to have a photo shoot of Athen after church today, it was a perfect time to document his 12 week of life. Here are some of his 12 week photos.

This is what he looks like most of the time - his fist in his mouth and a big full belly.

He is a doll!

For Athen's 12th week birthday he laughed out loud for the first time when his papa was playing with him. What a cutie this guy is.

Athen is a sweet well tempered little guy who doesn't cry much. He is pretty relaxed. I am hoping he just isn't lazy. Every time I put him in his pink bumbo seat the first thing he does is rest his head on the back. He doesn't even try and support his head. Hope he doesn't grow up lazy.

Athen doesn't mind being in the car but he doesn't like being in his car seat much. This is what happens when we come to a stop. 

As soon as the car starts moving again he quiets down.

Athen loves to suck. He will suck on anything. I gave him a pacifier when he was one week old because he wanted to suck on my breast all day long even when he wasn't hungry. He took to it like he was a hungry vulture and has loved it ever since. He also loves his thumb, fingers or fists which ever happens to fall into his mouth first. In the middle of the night when he wakes up he doesn't cry he just sucks on his hands and that is how I know he is up and ready to eat. The other day I decided to give him his pacifier upside down to see what he would do and sure enough he took that thing upside down and didn't blink twice.

After our photo shoot today we headed down the street to Alameda beach to go on a nice Sunday afternoon walk along the water. It was a perfect day for a walk along the beach.  I asked Rick to get him dressed for our walk along the beach and this is what we got.  I love it!

We have had some good meals over the last few weekends. Last Saturday night we went to Linguini's my favorite Italian restaurant in Alameda. We had Penne pasta with cream sauce, pancetta and mushrooms (my favorite meal ever) and a fuji apple salad with mixed greens, white pistachios, heirloom tomatoes, apples, feta, and balsamic vinagarette. It was delicious. This Saturday we went to Asena in Alameda with my friend Jenna and her boyfriend. We had Breaded chicken with procuitto and truffle cheese, potatoes and vegetables, Muscot duck raviolis with orange mint cream sauce,  breaded and fried spanish olives stuffed with mozzarella and mushroom caps stuffed with lamb and feta cheese. It was all delicious.

Basketball

I took my boys to their first Warrior's game and they loved it. It was LDS night with the Warriors and the Jazz so we headed to the Oracle Arena for some basketball fun. I was a little worried about Athen's ears and the noise. I wasn't able to buy some baby ear muffs in time so I made my own. You don't want to know what I made them out of but they worked. Athen was fine at the game. The single people from Rick's old ward (SF) were sitting behind us and enjoyed passing our cute little one around. 

Valentine's

I got Athen all dressed up in his Valentine's outfit. I bought this cute red and white striped outfit in 2000 for a friend of mine who had a baby. However, I never got around to sending it to her before her kid grew out of it. It says be mine 2000 on it so I couldn't really give it to someone else over the years so I kept it for myself. Lucky for me it fit my little one on Valentine's Day. Notice his cute shoes. My friend A made them for him for Valentine's Day, aren't they adorable?  

We started our Valentine's off with a play group on Friday morning at the church. There were about 12 or 13 kids there, half under the age of one and the other half up to two or three. The mom's with the younger babies stayed on one side of the room while the bigger kids played on the other. It was a pot luck so we ate lots, had fun visiting and then the kids passed out Valentine's. Athen's first Valentine's.

On Saturday, we spent the day shopping at the mall. It was our first time shopping together as a family. Rick and I use to go to the mall a lot together but we haven't been with Athen yet. I got a Valentine's Day skirt and Rick got a new work shirt. 

On Sunday, my sweet romantic husband made me a very special dinner - my very favorite thing in the world, rissoto. Rick knows how to make the best rissoto ever. It is so rich and full of umami, it is to die for. We also had some delicious chicken and french beans. The table was set nice with my new black & white place mats and red napkins, with my white plates and red wine glasses. We even had red and white candles burning. He was dressed up nice and served me dinner. I felt like I was at a fancy restaurant. We had a wonderful day together!

Monday was a holiday so we got to spend the day together as a family. The weather was nice so we headed down to Santa Cruz one of our favorite places to show Athen around and spend the day. We headed straight to Samba Cafe for an Acai bowl. I have been waiting for a long time to eat one, I wasn't able to eat them when I was pregnant because of the caffeine. It was delicious, it had strawberries, bananas, large slivers of coconut, granola and aci. We then went to Steamer's Lane to check out the surf. The waves were huge, bigger than I have ever seen them there. No wonder Maverick's was this week, the ocean was wild. We got a good parking spot so decided to pull out the Bob and stroller around for a while. 

It was high tide. If you can believe all the white water in this picture is actually covering up all the sand on a beach that we go to. I can't believe the water covered the whole beach.

We decided to head to Capitola for some lunch. We had my favorite - Togo's on the beach. Again, I had been waiting a long time for that as well. I couldn't eat Togo's while pregnant. Togo's on the beach is one of my favorite things in the world! 

Rick headed out in to the surf for a little while while Athen and I played on the beach. We set up Athen's new little peapod tent which I love!! My friend Elise just sent it to us and it was the perfect gift for us. It will get used ALL the time (thanks Elise). We didn't get any pictures of Athen in it but he loved it. He just laid in that tent and kicked his legs smiling and enjoying the fresh air.

We then headed over to visit our friends Justin & Silvia for a little while. Silvia is from Brazil and wanted to get Acai bowls so we headed back to Samba Cafe and had another Acai bowl. Can't get better than that - 2 Acai bowls in one day. This time we had one with bananas, papaya, pineapple, mangoes, granola and acai, again very delicious. 

We then headed home around 4:00. It was a perfect day in Santa Cruz. We are so glad our little one loved it as much as we did. 

My twin sister gave me some of her old baby stuff before Athen was born. One of the things she gave me was her Bumbo seat. However, since her youngest Georgia is a girl the seat is pink. We took it anyway and decided to see if Athen would fit. I think he may be a little small for it but he looked pretty cute in it. I think it's perfect for him because it proped up his head so he was looking up at the ceiling which is one of his favorite things to do any way.

Athen's first road trip

Sunday night my twin calls me up and says we are going on a girls trip in the morning. I packed my bags and said good bye to my sweet husband. Monday morning Mariah, my mom and I headed down the coast along the 1 to San Simeon. It was a beautiful sunny day and perfect for our drive. Sweet Athen was a DCT. He didn't make a peep the whole way there. We stopped along the side of the road to check out the ocean and the rocky cliffs. I changed Athen and feed him quickly and then we were off again.

We got down to San Simeon and checked in to our little lodge. We then took a tour of Hearst Castle. It was beautiful. It made me feel like I was taking a tour in Europe. I think they should let people entertain there. It would be very cool to stay the weekend there and throw a party. Athen stayed in the baby bjorn during the tour and again didn't make a peep. 

After the tour my mom took us out to a fancy restaurant in the cute little town of Cambria. We had steak, potatoes, veggies, swordfish and of course creme brulee for dessert. What a great week, I got to eat creme brulee twice this week!

We then headed back to our lodge. It had two open rooms together which was nice. We had to jump on the beds because of course that is what you do when you are having a girl weekend. This is my first time documenting it but Mariah, mom and Lauren have documented this before. My pictures didn't turn out as good as my mom's. We were planning on playing games and eating junk food late into the night but after we finished watching the bachelor we were pretty much out. Little Athen had spent the day sleeping so didn't want to go to sleep. Even though he didn't want to sleep he was still a good boy. He just quietly played in his crib for most of the night. 

We woke up and ate breakfast a a cute little french bakery and then walked around all the shops in Cambria for awhile. Athen was good on the way home as well. He was so tired from playing all night that he slept the whole way home. 

It was fun to get away with the girls for a night. It isn't very often that we get to do that without kids (Mariah's kids that is).

My little guy has recently found his thumb. Now that he knows about it he tries looking for it but doesn't always find it. If he is lucky it accidentally slips into his mouth when he's waving his hand around trying to find it. It is adorable. I must say it is nice when his pacifier falls out and he gets a hold of his thumb, we don't have to get up ourselves. However, I'm not so sure the thumb is a good idea. If anything, it is so adorable to watch him with it.

This is Ricky's job when he gets home from work. Each night Ricky gets to feed him his bottle while I pump. He then changes him and puts him to bed. Isn't he a good daddy? Athen loves his dad time each night.

Blessed

We decided to bless Athen the first weekend in February since it was our anniversary weekend. Rick's parents came into town for the weekend. They flew in Thursday night. On Friday Rick went to work while the rest of us went shopping and ran some arrands. On Friday night we went to a delicious restaurant that Rick found in Alameda. It's called Asena. We had fried artichoke hearts, a cheese platter, Gulf prawns with a peppercorn fettuccine, gnocchi, paella with shrimp, chicken, and mussels, and chicken with prosciutto and truffle cheese.  We then had creme brulee for dessert. All of it was delicious. 

On Saturday, the boys built some shelves for Rick's toys and the girls did some cooking for the brunch on Sunday. Saturday night we went over to my mom's house for a family dinner. Mariah came into town to visit and for the blessing. We had beef brisket, homemade BBQ sauce, baked potatoes, salad, corn and cherry dump cake with ice cream. It was delicious. 

Some of my brothers and sisters at our family dinner.

Some of Athen's grand parents.

On Sunday morning we blessed Athen. It was a great day and a wonderful blessing by Rick. We are lucky in that we have church on temple hill, so we were able to take some beautiful pictures after the blessing. We were so thankful for the family members that were able to attend and share this special day with us. We then went back to our loft and had brunch. We had chicken salad on croissants, tortellini pasta salad with heirloom tomatoes and artichoke hearts, fruit and coconut cake. 

Family who came to Athen's blessing

Proud parents of Athen on his blessing day. He was such a good little boy, didn't make a sound.

Twins - one's wearing heels and one isn't.

Two Years Already

Two years ago we looked like this...


Now we look like this...

We celebrated our two year anniversary yesterday on ground hogs day. It was great. Ricky got off work early and walked in the door with a big long tube of paper. I couldn't figure out what it was and then I opened it up and it was some beautiful calla lillies that were three feet long. Grandma S came over to watch the little bun for us while we went out to dinner. 

We headed over to Del Navio which is the restaurant we went to for our wedding luncheon and for our first anniversary. We got there and sure enough it was closed down and another restaurant was there. Rick wanted to go some where else a little nicer and more romantic so we headed over to Piedmont to try a restaurant that was recommended to us. We got there, and although the food looked good it wasn't as nice and romantic as we wanted so we decided to walk around and find a place. By this point we had already been gone for an hour and hadn't even found a place to eat yet. 

We walked past a place called Xyclo, looked at the menu and I was sold. It wasn't as romantic and nice as we hoped but the food sounded good. It is a modern Vietnam restaurant. We started off with a mango and lychee spritzer which were both delicious. We then had the seven elements appetizer. Lettuce wraps with shrimp, cashews, toasted coconut, jalapenos, onions, lemongrass, lime and chile sauce.  We then had marinated beef with salad. The beef was very delicious and rare - yeah I can eat rare beef again. Then we had a claypot medley. Chicken, shrimp, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots over rice. The rice had different textures and the bottom layer was caramelized and crunchy. It was delicious. It hit the spot. I would definitely go back.

We then headed home to our little man, who was ready for bed. We opened our gifts. Rick got my a beautiful black satin robe from VS which was perfect since we already have way too much lingerie. He also got my some beautiful cotton place mats and napkins from Macy's. The gift for two year anniversaries is cotton. That was a perfect gift because I have been wanting place mats and napkins for a long time now. He knows me well and picked out a perfect pattern. Rick got some cotton himself, I won't go into any more of the details.

We then had a piece of cake which is my favorite new tradition. I ordered us a cake from the bakery we ordered our wedding cake from, which is what we did last year as well. The cake is the best cake I have ever had. Our wedding cake had a few different flavors, this year we ordered the spice cake with Bavarian cream filling - so delicious. We ate the cake with our hands and smeared it in each others face a little. Since Rick was such a gentleman on our wedding day and didn't smash cake in my face, I told him he could on our one year anniversary. He definitely did last year. We had a blast eating our cake together last year. However, who knew butter cream frosting would be so hard to get off your face. It was like we smeared Crisco all over the place. This year we still enjoyed ourselves but went a little easy on the face - much easier to clean off. That is the end of our story to tell. We enjoyed the night. 

This is last years mess, imagine this again this year but a little cleaner. 

I am so thankful to be married to such a thought, wonderful husband who is the best daddy! I love you Ricky!

I gotta post a new picture of our little bun because he is so precious.  This is how our little bun sleeps at night - spread eagle. Arms and legs wide open. This is how he was in the womb I know it! For the first month or so we use to swaddle him in his swaddle me straight jacket but then he started to jimmy his way right out of it. We would go to check on him and he would be busted right out of it, so we had to stop using it. He likes to be free.