Look who's getting bigger!

Piper is growing up way to fast! She will be 8 months old next week and I don't even know where the time has gone. She has sprouted two bottom teeth and has been chewing on EVERYTHING and slobbering ALL OVER! She has been crying more than her normal self (which is normally never), but she is happy as long as I am holding her. I think the crying is due to her teething as well as separation anxiety. If she thinks she has been left alone in a room she WAILS, but as soon as you return she is fine.

If you look closely you can see her two teeth here:
And she has also decided that crawling will be in her near future. She hasn't gone far yet, but she practices being on all fours often. In the meantime she doesn't have any problems rolling or scooting to where she wants to be. Baby gates are back in place.

Lincoln turned 6!!

Last week was Lincoln's 6th birthday and we celebrated with a Lego party. This year we scaled it back a little (last years scientist party set the bar a little high, so I hope his friends weren't too bored this year). Lincoln was allowed to invite 6 friends of his choice and we had a couple games planned.

I had purchased Creationary thinking we would play a quick game of building & guessing, but all of the boys just chose to just have free play instead.

Some of the boys got bored of free play pretty quick (I know - who gets bored of legos!), so we had a little game of Lego Master Says (Simon Says) while waiting for pizza.

A quick song of Happy Birthday followed with some ice cream cones (sorry boys, no cake at this party! Lincoln doesn't like birthday cake)

For those who were disappointed at there being no cake we made up for it by bashing in a Lego head pinata. Luckily it was strong enough to let each boy hit it at least twice before it broke open. Then the boys rushed and filled up their bag with candy.

We had time to open presents and hand out our goody bags. Some of the boys even had time to assemble their lego kits that were in their bags before their parents came to get them.
This years party was everything Lincoln was hoping for when we started planning it. He had so much fun with his friends and scored some awesome gifts that he has played nonstop with. Happy Birthday my big boy - I love you!

Hazel's first "real" haircut

I have a rule with my kids that before we leave the house they either need to have their hair done or wear a hat. Hazel has finally reached that point where she hates to have her hair done and she always wants to wear it down. Her hair is so thin that without it pulled back it just looked scraggly and undone all the time - TIME FOR A HAIRCUT!!

Before:


During: (she loved it!)

After:

Now with it cut into a "bob" she can wear it down without it looking scraggly. She also loves to wear it with headbands or she will sometimes let me pull just the front pice out of her face. So much better and easier for me :)

Family Vacation - FINALLY!!!

The kids were long overdue for a family vacation. We go on little vacations yearly to visit family members and go camping, but we wanted to do something super fun this year and take them somewhere they had never been before. CALIFORNIA!!! We flew out to save time on traveling and the kids had so much fun on the airplane - well, except Piper. She HATED it. She is such a good baby that I really didn't know what to do with her when she started crying on the plane. Binkie didn't work, bottle didn't work. Tommy finally had to stand up in the aisle and rock her until she fell asleep.

After the plane landed and we got our rental van we went straight to Huntington Beach (my favorite beach). The kids had so much fun chasing waves, finding kelp and burying each other. We probably could have just done this the whole time and they would have been happy :) The next day was Disneyland. We had soooo much fun!! It had been over 14 years since I had been so I think I was more excited than the kids. Hazel's favorite part was meeting the characters. She hugged Mickey, Minnie, Tinkerbell, Fawn (another fairy), Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Tigger and Pooh. She was so cute with them and loved it when they asked her questions. Her favorite ride was the Winnie the Pooh ride and Pirates of the Carribean. Lincoln was such a good sport and tride every ride we asked him too (which is amazing because he hates fast rides). He hated Indian Jones and the Matterhorn, but loved Thunder Mtn Railroad. His favorite was also Pirates and was lucky enough to get his pic taken with Jack Sparrow. We were lucky enough to have my mom come along with us so it worked out very well switching off on rides. Piper was a trooper throughout the whole weekend and was never cranky. We switched her off between the stroller and baby bjorn and she was happy as ever. Her favorite rides were "Small World" and the Nemo Submarine. Disneyland was by far Tommy's favorite and he can't wait to go back and spend 3 days there sometime. We went during their "slow" time (max wait was 30 min for rides) so they closed at 8. At first I was sad about this, but as we were walking out of the park Hazel fell asleep on my moms shoulder and Lincoln was done, so in the end I think it was perfect timing.

The next day we woke up and drove down to Legoland. It is AMAZING what they have made out of Legos. The rides here were slower than Disneyland's and more to my kids liking. Lincoln said he would go here everyday. He is very into Lego's and loved to look at all of their creations. Hazel was a little sad because she wasn't able to ride 3 rides that she really wanted to ride due to her not being 4 yet. I really wanted to lie and tell them she was 4 (since she is the size of a 4 yr old), but didn't want to teach her that lying was ok, thus resulting in a crying kid. Tommy and I thought this park was a little slow, but it was so worth it for the kids for how much fun they had there. They had so much to do that we barely made it through everything before the park closed.

Then we were off to Sea World the next day. It was nice to have something a little slower paced. Hazel was a little bored at the shows, but Lincoln and us grown up's loved them. These animals are amazing! Both kids loved to just walk through the animal exhibits. Hazel really wanted to see the penguins, Lincoln wanted to see sharks, and I wanted the dolphins. I finally was able to pet one (a little dream of mine that has now been fulfilled :) and Hazel was brave enough to pet them too. I was also surprised that both kids wanted to feed the seals some fish. We didn't stay till closing, but we were able to see all of the shows and exhibits and then call it a night. Hopefully this will be a trip that they will remember for a while!

The last day was spent at the beach again. It was a little chilly so we didn't play in the water as much, but still had tons of fun.

I loved the whole weekend. I don't think I had a favorite part (other than spending time in the sunshine). I just loved watching the looks on my kids faces. They had so much fun. I wish we could do this a couple times a year (or actually move there, I love California & the beach). My family is amazing and I love hanging out with them!

6 months old!

I can not believe it!! Piper is 6 months old! She now weighs 14 lbs 5 oz and is 27 inches long (which is much better since her last appt). We found out since her last appointment that she has a food hypersensitivity called FPIES to milk and rice protiens. Now that she is on soy milk she is growing great and is starting to chunk up. She is such an easy, fun loving baby. She has been testing out her voice and screaming quite a bit. I love that she falls asleep in her crib and sleeps all night (almost all of the time). And one of my favorite things she does is push her binkie to one side of her mouth while sticking her tongue out of the other side. She is growing up so fast!

We have been practicing sitting up and she is getting better at balancing for a few seconds at a time.

and Yes, she does have my ears...

And today she started saying Da Da!! Tommy is out of town so I had to take this video so he wouldn't miss out (oh, and sorry but I am super annoying in this video. I don't know why I feel like I must always talk - ugh!). She started staying it this morning and has been repeating it over and over all day. Lincoln and Hazel think it is the cutest thing ever :)

Easter

Easter was a little more relaxed this year due to Lincoln and Tommy being a little under the weather, but we still had a great time (and I turned a year older). Lincoln and Hazel LOVED coloring the eggs. When they were dry we took turns hiding them in the front yard and then running and finding them. Good thing Hazel hid them last because when Tommy peeked out the window to check on her he saw her CHUCKING the eggs into their hiding spots. She even threw one over our gate and into the backyard. Too bad we didn't have it on video. Lincoln was pretty sad that they were so smashed up after only 30 minutes of being colored, but then he decided he was pretty happy that now the Easter Bunny could just hide plastic eggs with candy in them. Sunday morning the kids loved finding their baskets and hunting for eggs that were scattered both upstairs and down. Hazel was so pleased with her findings she said "mom, the Easter Bunny is a genius!" Yeah!! Gotta love it when the kids are happy :)

School Lunch

Last week Lincoln had his first school lunch and he thought it was so cool :) He chose to have Tommy to go with him this first time. At first I was happy about his choice because that meant I didn't have to find a babysitter or bring the girls with. But the day of I was really sad that I was missing out. (I hate to be left out of things!) I had Tommy take a lot of pictures for me to document it though.