{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

Bring It...

Tips and tricks of menu planning, that is.

I'm teaching a Relief Society class on menu planning next month. I know how I menu plan, but that is what works for me. I would like to offer some variety so please tell me, how do you menu plan?

P.S. Have you noticed I have been halfway MIA, lately? No? Oh, well, OK. Never mind. ;)

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

Heading Home

We head home from California tomorrow. I’m ready to go home. I miss my husband and my routine. I am not ready, however, to leave my parents or the sunshine. If there was some way that they could be part of “home” for me I would be one blissfully happy mama. Alas, we will just get as many cuddles and stories and hugs from these two wonderful people as we can before we leave. 

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

Enjoying the California Sunshine while Brandon Was Freezing in Utah (Sorry, Honey)

Our first week here was busy with the holiday festivities and a bit chilly, for California. The second week, Anne and I were both sick with the flu. Literally, every single person in the house got this bug at some point (that’s 8 adults and 2 babies). William and Marie? It completely skipped over them. I am still saying prayers of gratitude for that tender mercy. Anyway, this last week   I was determined to spend as much time outside as was possible. So we went to the zoo, to the beach, had picnics, played at parks, rode scooters in the front yard … you know, all those things that we now will have to wait about 2 or 3 more months to do in Utah.

These pictures make me laugh because I took about 20 different shots and this was the best one out of the bunch. I love my kids and all their exuberance, I really do. That energy just doesn’t make for very good picture taking. What did I tell you? Energy with a capital E. Vitamin D overload will do that to you.   The zoo was pretty good. If I hadn’t had to spend most of the time talking William out of looking through the telescopes, we might have seen a few more animals. It is so funny because they have these telescopes at almost every exhibit (that you have to pay $.50 for) and sometimes the animals are only a few feet away. At least they made for some good pictures.  These are the only three pictures I took the entire day. I was in the mood to just enjoy and be in the moment, rather than worrying about documenting the moment.I should have at least documented Marie having an accident at the end. That was lovely. Riiighht…

We Went to the Beach, Of Course

Trip Number One:

Rachel and her husband (and his parents) love to surf. They have offered a number of times to teach us how to surf, so we decided to take them up on the offer. Well, Brandon took them up on the offer. I decided that wet suits and nursing probably wouldn’t go too well together so I had to pass. I didn’t realize how much I really wanted to be out in the water until I was sitting in the tent with a super grumpy Anne  instead. Add that to the fact that I was absolutely exhausted from my sweet baby’s sleepless nights and a few tears might have been shed.  Thankfully, the weather and sunshine and ocean breeze were therapeutic and watching the kids have a blast made up for my less than ideal morning on the beach. The surf wasn’t that great that day but Brandon still enjoyed himself. Although, I think he prefers a boogie board to a surf board any day. Look at this beauty! Not long after this picture she was running from the waves and got caught. In her words, “she went rolling and rolling and rolling out into the ocean.”  It was scary for her at first, but then she decided it was funny. I was just grateful that she was wearing a dress/shirt because I didn’t have anything to change her into. We just removed her pants and was able to still remain modest.  William could spend every day for the rest of his life chasing waves and would be perfectly happy. I didn’t even bring suits or shorts to Cali with us because it was wintertime. Silly me. Cold water never stops kids from getting soaked.

Trip Number Two:

After a less than perfect first trip to the beach, I was insisted that we make another go of it. This time, it couldn’t have been a better day. The weather was as gorgeous as it gets, Anne was a happy camper, I was a happy camper, we were all just peachy keen. Grandpa did have to bribe William with a scooter to get him to go. It was a great idea that I would have never thought of myself, well done Grandpa! Why we had to bribe William to go to the beach is beyond me, but at least we thought of a good bribe!

Look at that smile. Now that she was feeling a bit better, she decided the beach was a pretty good place after all. Oooo … I love that smile.

  

How can you not love a park that is right on the beach? After some “scootering”, this was our next stop. I will readily admit that I was utterly envious of the parents that were at the park with us that live in the area.  One mom there had jogged down from her house or apartment to let her little girl play. I couldn’t help but think of the weed infested path back home that I jog along and the park that gives me a fabulous view of the local elementary school. Yes, I was quite covetous in that moment.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

California Science Center

We had planned to go to the zoo today, but the weather helped us to decide to do something inside. The LA Natural History Museum was recently renovated so we went to downtown LA to check it out. Once we got there Mom went in to the Science Center to get some cash and found out that the Science Center was free. We went inside to check it out for a few minutes before heading over to our original destination. Three (or was it four?) hours later we came out to head home. William was in tears because he wanted to stay longer. What a gem of a place! We had hopes to go again during the trip, but that didn’t happen. Darn, it looks like we will have to visit California again sometime. :)

I couldn’t help but giggle at the irony of this picture. Here we were in California to get a break from the snow and we are taking pictures on a snowmobile in front of a fake snowscape. It’s crazy to think that for many of the kids who frequent this museum, this is the closest they will get to real snow.

There was an area specifically for kids under the age of 7 that was really cute. They had several bins of toys that the kids could “check out” from the front desk. Each one had a theme like, “engineer” or “city workers” or something like that. The bins also had stories in them and suggestions for activities.

We laid Anne down to let her kick a bit and Marie was eating a banana. Anne would not allow us to leave her out of all that yellow goodness so Grandma fed half of it. Yes, she ate half of a banana at 5 1/2 months old. This girl cracks me up.

And for $2 I rode a bike that was 3 stories up in the air. It really wasn’t that thrilling, but it sure did scare the kids. They were glad to see it when I stepped back onto solid ground. William was especially worried that Brandon would want to do it. He didn’t want Daddy to die. He is such a worrier sometimes or maybe he just doesn’t think Daddy is as talented as Mommy at such challenging activities. Hehehe.

Updates

I'm furiously catching up on documenting the busy-ness that was December. I've backdated a few posts so that they are accurate to when they really happened. Scroll through December, there about 5 new posts ... so far.

Happy New Year, friends!

UPDATE (January 8, 2011): Some yucky sick bug debunked my plan to "furiously" update anything. There aren't any new posts this week. Lo siento. Phew, I am going to have a lot of catching up to do here soon.