BFFs

Last weekend Rick's BFF Ben (and Haddie) of 31 years came into town for the weekend. Friday night we had a nice childless night in San Francisco. I wanted a delicious restaurant and some adult conversation. I wanted to go to a restaurant that we wouldn't want to take children to. We do take the kids to all kinds of restaurants and even nice ones sometimes but usually not a nice restaurant in the city. We went to Anchor & Hope. It was delicious. We had fresh oysters wrapped in bacon and garlic shrimp as appetizers. I had the Chilean sea bass with wild mushrooms and garlic potatoes and Rick had Swordfish with ham and beans. They were both delicious.

On Saturday we all headed in the Land Rover (all 6 of us) to Santa Cruz. Of course we took our guests to Samba Cafe for some delicious Acai bowls. We headed over to Natural Bridges and did some skimboarding and playing on the beach. It was a beautiful and warm day at the beach. We walked around Steamers and enjoyed the day. On the way out we stopped off at Mariann's for some ice cream of course.

Crew stayed in the tent on the beach for the afternoon.


Me skimboarding




Here are a few pictures of the kids at my mom's house. Athen loves to ride the wooden rocking horse as he watches Word World or Barney. Crew loves to sit in the swing and fall asleep.



Here are a few pictures of our little one trying food for the first time. Although the picture doesn't show it he did seem to like the peas and want more.

Fall Time

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch with uncle Jesse, Josh, Sara, Alyssa, Blake, Grandma, Athen and Crew. It was a perfectly warm day. Athen loves pumpkins and always has, so he was in Heaven. He kept trying to pick them up and carry them to the wagon saying "heavy". We also went through the straw maze, saw the animals, played in the corn pit and at the park. It was a fun afternoon. As you can see Athen wore his clown costume which I made. Don't look too closely, I don't know how to sew, remember.








We also spent the morning making some of these - my favorite cookies. Pumpkin chocolate chip with maple frosting. I love fall.

Gilroy Gardens

We have been planning a trip to Gilroy Gardens with the family for a few months now. Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Josh, Aunt Sara, cousin Alyssa & Blake all joined us on Saturday at Gilroy Gardens. It was SO FUN! I don't know who was more excited Athen or I. Athen loved it but I was just so excited that I actually have a little boy to take to a fun place like this and ride on all the rides. Gilroy Gardens was great. It is like a Great America for little kids. All the rides are for toddlers. Athen and Alyssa went on the cars, fire trucks, trains, horses, and a million other rides. The weather was great as well, which added to our perfect day. It was sunny, warm but not hot with a fall crispness to the air. Here are some pictures:












My little Crew B was such a good little man all day long. He loved being outside in the fresh air.

North Carolina

We spent the week in North Carolina. We go to North Carolina every few years or so to visit with my best friend of 24 years. We love visiting there. It is so relaxing and slow paced. My friend Toni has the most adorable kids. This was our first time going there with kids of our own. Athen had the time of his life following all the big kids around, playing at the park and going to the museums. Here are some pictures of our trip:












This is Toni's charming house. They live in Charleston homes. It is the perfect neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, the kids play outside together past dark, the mom's talk at the park and share recipes etc.

Before we left

Before we left for vacation we spent a few weeks doing some sleep training. For the first 20 months of life Athen did such a good job of going to sleep for naps and for bed time. He laid right down, said good night and was quickly lost in slumber. Some of my favorite moments in life are watching my children sleep. They look so precious they melt my heart.


At about 20 months we started seeing this:


And we quickly had to resort to this:


Which lead to the sleep training. We took advice from all the pros. We did our good night routine, read lots of stories, laid Athen down, gave hugs and kisses and told him to stay in his bed. We then waited by the door and watched him for very long periods of time. Every time he got up we marched in there, picked him up and put him back with out a word. No emotion, no words, no nothing. The first few nights we put him back in his bed over 150 times and spent over an hour. My days and evenings were taken up with my nose to the door of his bedroom. It has been a painful experience for us. I think I spend more time getting him to take a nap then his actual sleep time. He has slowly gotten a little better. We then took our trip to North Carolina and I was a little worried. He did ok there. Now it is back to the routine.

Some other things we did before our trip to the east:


This was Athen's second time to the dentist but his first time getting his teeth cleaned. He did pretty good.

We also spent a warm Sunday afternoon at my dad's house. My dad taught Athen how to drink from the hose. He then went on to watering the grass and getting all wet. Check out that diaper. What a wet load.

September update

I know it has been a long time since I have updated our blog. It has been a busy month and a busy last few weeks. We have been doing sleep training for the last few weeks and that has taken up all my free time. More on that to come.

For labor day weekend we decided to head up to our cabin in Westwood. As Rick kissed me good bye Friday morning I told him I was going to pack up the car so we could head to the mountains for the long weekend. I decided that morning to invite some friends to come along. I was glad that they were spontaneous and decided to join us for the weekend.

We went to the park, the shake shop for shakes and fries, Buffalo Chips for delicious pizza, we had a BBQ in the backyard, we went to the lake, played in the water and ran around outside. It was a nice warm and relaxing weekend.





My little one turned 3 months this month. He is a cutie pie. He loves to laugh out loud. He smiles a lot and just started rolling from his back to his tummy and his tummy to his back. He pushes off his feet and scoots all around on his head. He is a pretty good sleeper. He wakes up once in the middle of the night and then again in the early morning. He is pretty mellow and doesn't cry much. I was lucky enough to get another good baby who doesn't cry much.






We went to the food truck street fair called Eat Real in Jack London Square last weekend. We go to this each year and try the new food trucks. This year we ate from the pilipino truck and the cuban truck. We also had some strawberry and basil popsicles. It was a fun day down by the water.




Athen pulled out the watermelon rind from the garbage can and put it on his head. He walked out to show me his "hat". It was pretty funny. He has a fun personality.