Road trip to LA!

Last week the staff at our church went to the Catalyst Conference in LA. So instead of being home alone with the kids all week Rachel and I decided to get away ourselves. Rachel's parents live near LA as well so we packed all four kids in the car and made the 6+ hour trek to LA. We were not sure if we were crazy for doing this or not but it indeed up being ALOT of fun. Caleb and Peyton entertained each other the whole time. We actually had to turn off their little TV screen in the backseat at 10pm because they would not fall asleep. The babies did really well too! Micah does not like being in his car seat so he had to cry himself to sleep but Amber was fascinated by another baby crying that she stayed quiet just listening most of the way. And Rachel and I talked and talked and talked and I realized just how blessed I am to have her in my life. Here is the photo blog of our road trip!
we put the toddlers together in the back hoping they would get along and they did! They were so cute back there singing and dancing and watching their movies together. I think Peyton offically has her first crush!

We stopped at a McDonalds for Dinner and PJS. They had these cool video games that Caleb and Peyton loved playing with.
Caleb cutie patootie in his PJS
lolliepops kept them happy!
we made it to LA. Rachel droped us off at my moms house. The first day we went to Victoria Gardens out to lunch and played in the water fountain. It was nearly 100 degrees that day!
Got to spend some time with my brother and his wife. here is my brother holding amber for the first time! So cute!
Amber in the car on the way to see her boy friend micah in big bear. so excited!
We drove up to Big Bear to spend the day with our friends
Caleb and Peyton threw rocks in the lake for nearly an hour. They are super cute together!
on the way home we stopped at yet another Mcdonalds for dinner and PJS

This picture sums up how precious these two are. Caleb asked to hold Peyton's hand on the way to the car. It is not the greatest picture because I pretty much had to drop everything I was holding (including the baby) to find my camera to capture the moment in time. It will be great black mail for when they are older though! :)

Yeah for fun friends!!!

update on the girls...

The girls are growing and changing so fast I thought it would be a good idea to do an update on them. They do new things everyday its hard for me to keep up, let alone people who don't see them everyday. So here is what they have been up to!

Amber is now 3mo. old. She is turning out to be a beautiful baby (not going to lie we had some fear when we first saw her with a swollen face and thick black hair lol) She smiles all the time at anyone who will give her the time of day. she is a very good baby but gets easily over stimulated with her big sister around so we have to be careful and make sure we let her sleep.

she giggled for the first time two weeks ago while Peyton and I were singing the 'Wheels on the Bus'
she is very close to being able to sit up. She is a big strong girl weighing over 13 pounds all ready!
her hair is so long I like to play with it. I can even get it into a pony tail!


Peyton is now 26 months old. I think she says at least a new word everyday. Some of my favorites have been 'adorable', 'amazing', 'cute', 'hungry', and 'munchies'. She is starting to get very interested in swimming. she kicks her feet in the bath tub and blows bubbles. I think we are going to sign her up for swim lessons this summer. We just got finished with "toddlers sports academy" a six week class that taught her a different sport every week. I think her favorite was basketball. She actually could dribble the ball!!! she also liked picking flowers on the grass during soccer!
she all the sudden likes to play with her doll that Nana gave her for Christmas. I think it is because she sees mommy with Amber and now knows what to do with it now.
She is a good big sister. A few days ago I took her out with me while Brandon stayed home with Amber. The whole time we were running errands she asked "where Amber go?" It made me realize she has adjusted to Amber being apart of our family and it feels weird to her now when she is not with us.
She is really into dress up!! The bad thing is that the dress up clothes are taking over our house with no place to keep them. On a daily basis she is a butterfly, a princess, a bunny, or going to a tea party. I love that she has an imagination and is not afraid to use it!

So those are my girls! Never a dull moment. They keep me happy, tired, frustrated, elated but most of all full of love!

freak accident...

I am sooooooooooooooooooo behind on blogging. Guess it has been busy around here lately. So my goal this week is to get caught up.
A few weeks ago it was a really windy day in Santa Cruz. I was driving to Small group with my two girls and while on the frwy a huge tree branch was blowing around and hit my left head light and then hit the wind sheild. It happened so fast that I hardly knew what had happend. Peyton even said "ut oh mommy!" I continued on the frwy not knowing that my head light was shattered and some major damage had been done to the body of the car. My first thought was thank God it didn't hit my wind sheild first because I think it might have broken it and thank God that we are all still alive. I am starting to feel like I have nine lives but I am pretty sure this is like my 7th! I think I am running out of them. It is freak acidents like this that get me thinking... I must still be on this earth for a reason! It kind of got me motivated to rethink my life and my purpose and why God has me here.
So the real bummer is that head lights and body work is very expensive so for now I am driving around with my car looking like this and I get fliped off atleast once a day because people think I am not using my blinker on purpose.
So if anyone has an extra $500 bucks laying around hand it over. :)

My blog got a face lift!

I used all of nap time today trying to figure out how to make my blog cuter (that's a word right?) Well this was the outcome. Hope you like my new look!

Easter in santa Cruz

So I am 28 years old and this is the first Easter EVER that I have not been with my family. My mom always does a big Easter brunch at our house and the extended family comes over and the whole day is full of TRADITIONS that have been that way for as long as I have been alive. So the anticipation leading up to my first Easter away from every thing familiar was getting to me. So I decided this would be the perfect time to start some traditions of my own. Thanks to my amazing Mom who always made holidays so fun and special I really have a deep desire to do the same for my own family. So this Easter I went crazy...Easter baskets, egg dying and hunting, pictures with the Easter bunny, church breakfast, pretty new dresses the whole nine yards! Here are a few pictures of our weekend. we had a blast and even my husband (who doesn't really understand the whole big holiday tradition thing) ended the day by saying "We live a great life huh?" I smiled back and said "Yeah."
Thanks mom for teaching me the importance of family memories and holidays. I Love you!

Easter egg hunt as Santa Cruz bible
Amber found and egg too!
Caleb's family was there
face painting

Going down the BIG slide with Daddy!
Egg Dying


Babies first Easter!

sneak peek of family photo shoot...

So for those of you that can't wait any longer there are some pics up of our family photo shoot this last weekend.When I get the CD of all the pictures I will post them on my blog. But if you want a sneak peek go to http://amynave.blogspot.com and seriously if you know someone who is getting married and needs a wedding photographer or an album made she is your girl! she is amazing as you will see. :) She also has a web site WWW.AMYNAVE.COM go check her out.

Ya Ya and the Easter Bunny!

Last week I took the girls to see the Easter Bunny. We decided to drive out to Plesenton and meet Sarah at the Mall. I always have huge anxiety right before my kids get their pictures taken just because you never know how its going to go but this was one of the easiest times yet. We got to the mall and found the Easter Bunny. There was no line so we walked right up. Peyton loved him and practically ran over to sit on his lap. Amber did great too! I think she is learning to follow her big sisters lead. Within 10 min we had our picture and its pretty cute too!

After seeing the Easter Bunny we decided to go to one of the many beautiful parks in the area. We found this one and it was pretty cool with huge slides and fun stuff to climb on, even a water park. We decided this is a great meeting place to hang out! Ya Ya of course had some surprises up her sleeves. She made us Easter cupcakes with fonda. Each cupcake had a pretty fonda flower on top. Peyton eat the flower off of five cupcakes and that is all she would eat of them, but she had fun!


Amber looking pretty in her Easter outfit.

Crazy Slides!!! Peyton wanted to go down them herself! She has no fear, it is scary!



Ya Ya went down the slide too... ;)

The last surprise was an Easter hat, gloves and purse for Peyton's growing dress up collection! She absolutely loved it and she looked pretty cute too!Thanks Ya Ya for making our day so fun! We will have to do it again soon!