Napa Round 2

Two years ago my mom called and asked me what we wanted for Christmas. At the time I had a 2 yr old and a 2 month old. What would every other mother out there want? Some sleep, relaxation and some time with my hubby!! So she gave us money for a hotel and promised to fly up and watch the kids for us so we could get some time away. We decided to go down to Napa for the weekend and had the BEST time, so this year we opted to do the exact same thing. We stayed at the same hotel as last year in Yountville and it was every bit as fun, relaxing and beautiful as it was the year before! Just like Heaven, I keep telling Jim! I don't know what it is about this place that I love so much, but I just can't get enough of it. I'm already ready to go back. We don't even go wine tasting when we are there. We just sleep in, eat an amazing breakfast at the hotel, read the paper, then move to the pool and lay out. This year I finished an entire 400+ page book. Do you know how long that would have taken me to get through at home? Months! Of course we top of each afternoon with some yummy local beverages (aka WINE) and some delicious cuisines. Seriously, the food there is soooooooo amazing.

My mom had a great time (and extremely busy) 3 days with the kids. She took them to the zoo and fairytale town in ONE morning (all by herself), swimming at the pool, frozen yogurt, the park, the play area at the fountains, a train ride, dinner at CPK, walks to the park etc... She even got Cole to nap 2 out of the 3 days and then to top it all off, we come home on Tuesday to a home made meal of enchiladas in the oven, banana cream pie from scratch for Jim, freshly made brownies for me, all of the kids clothes and towels washed and put away and the house was immaculate. She amazes me! Please come back again mom!! Thank you both for the Christmas gift, it was very much appreciated!!!

This was the view from our front door this year.




The view from the other side of the room.


Dinner Night #1 - Mustards Grill! So GOOD!!!!!


The nice thing about going out to eat without your kids (beside the obvious) is that when they tell you there is an hour wait for a table, well that just means you get to drink a little more :-) Here we are enjoying the scenery of Napa!





Day #2 - This is where we had breakfast every morning.


Another tough day at the pool.


Leaving for dinner night #2


Taking some time to stop and smell the roses :-)




The view from our dinner table at the Culinary Institute of America


Our yummy dessert platter!

Discovery Kingdom

We decided to buy annual passes for the family to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. A few of our friends/neighbors had been there before and recommended it. It's the Disneyland of Northern California :-) It's like a mix of Sea World/Disneyland and Magic Mtn. We went there over Memorial Day weekend, planned on staying until 2-3 adn then heading back, but we didn't end up getting home until 9:00 at night. They had a ton of great rides for the kids and a waterpark that Olivia couldn't get enough of. We hope to make a few more trips back this summer.

Taking a break for lunch

OUCH...My poor baby

This is the before. Doesn't she look so pretty??


And here she is after. OUCH!!!


This picture makes me want to cringe! But this is what happens when your 19 month old falls from her highchair and hits the corner of your kitchen table. (Parents you have been warned!!). Still not sure exactly how it happened since I was standing right there and even caught her when she fell. I think she must have slipped on the lip between the chair and her booster seat and lost her balance. But a trip to the ER, a shot in the cheek and 4 stiches later, she is healing. She was a total trooper through the whole ordeal! Screamed like crazy during the stiches, but calmed down the second they were done and she never once pulled on the stiches, complained of pain etc...I meant to give her some pain reliever that night, but forgot and she slept just fine. She didn't even move when they took the stiches out-she laid there perfectly still. I had to post some pics on here so she can remember where her scar came from :-(

Waiting to see a doctor in the ER. She was as happy as could be. She had no clue what was coming her way :-)


This was taken 2 minutes after she got her stiches. Once she had her mommy, sippy cup and lollipop, she was as happy as could be. (I had to leave the room while they were stiching her up. Too much for me to handle and Jim stayed by her side).


This was the day after


Her Nanna wanted daily updates on her to see her progess, so I think this was taken on day 3. (The horrible picture above was Day 2.)




Stiches all gone!

See they really do love one another sometimes

It doesn't happen often, so when it does, I must capture the moment (even with my blurry lens)!


In all seriousness, they really do love each other. They fight A LOT, but when they aren't fighting, they are the best of friends. Olivia follows Cole around where ever he goes and will do anything he asks her to. And Cole does love her (at least this is what I keep telling myself :-), he is going to be so protective of her and I know he will always have her back. In fact, today at the park, he ran up to me crying because some little girl was making scary faces at Olivia and it was making her cry. He says to me with tears (and snot) running down his face, "Mommy, make her stop. I don't want her to scare my sister!". Awww, I love these kids!

And here is some more proof that he loves her. This past weekend she was inside playing dress up with her princess clothes and Cole wanted her to go outside and play "Star Wars". Whatever that means. Each time he plays the game it's a little different, but it usually involves lots of sticks and "killing" the bad guys in our backyard. Anyways, Olivia wanted him to dress up with her, and he wanted to play Star Wars and without any parental intervention...they COMPROMISED!! She took off her dress (but kept on the shoes) and wore his spiderman mask that he wanted her to wear to "kill the bad guys with" and he wore the princess shoes!! I go outside and this is how I find them. Cole was using that blue thing to pretend he was Astro boy.
Look how cute he looks in these shoes :-)

Mother's Day

I had a perfectly perfect Mother's Day this year. I love my husband and I love my kids and I truly feel blessed being a MOTHER! It's the best job in the world (99% of the time!). My day started off by sleeping in!!! It could have stopped there and I would have been pretty darn happy. But Jim got up with the kids and took them out to the grocery store so he could make me breakfast. I was woken up around 9:30 with the kids pounding on the door. Cole was carrying flowers, Olivia had a box of See's chocolates, Daddy had a gift certificate for a massage and they had picked me up my favorite drink from Starbucks! The morning was off to a great start! Jim made an awesome breakfast with homemade omelets (brie cheese, ham, onions and fresh dill from our garden) as well as breakfast potatoes. The man can COOK! He topped it off with some mimosa's and of course the kids had to get in on the fun (they had virgin) and here they are giving each other a "cheer". They were so excited to be drinking with us :-)




Cole took this picture himself and he was VERY proud!

Roseville Strawberry Festival

Time to catch up

Well while we have been busy living, my blog has been on the side burner. Seriously, I don't understand how quickly time has been flying by. Summer is FINALLY here and I'm really enjoying it. The kids love being able to play outside all of the time now. Cole started riding his 2 wheel bike (with no training wheels!) about a month ago. I'm still working out at the gym 3 days/week and we've been swimming almost every day after my classes. The kids love it and I love it! Let's see what else?? Olivia had her first trip to the ER (post/pictures to follow), Jim and I got a little vacation to Napa (total Heaven!), and now we are gearing up for our annual 4th of July block party. I figured I better catch up on my blogging before all of the summer activities kick into high gear and I never get around to doing it.
Jim was nice enough to upload all of my iphone pictures to our hard drive, which is a great thing because I'm starting to realize that I use my phone more often to take pictures then my actual camera, so I better get them backed up. Anyways, as he was uploading the 200+ pictures, it was like reliving our past year looking at all of our adventures/memories and also made me kind of sad looking at how much the kids are growing up.

I came across a few random pictures that I wanted to post on here so that they will make it to my photo book/blog.
The first one is of Cole last October when he got his new balance bike. Look at that cute butt :-)



These other shots made me laugh as well. Oh my husband...the biggest kid you will ever meet. For Christmas, my brother and sister in law gave the kids this HUGE inflatable ball that you can actually roll around in. Not sure who was more excited to use it.... Cole or Daddy? Jim was out in the garage one night for about an hour and when I went to check on him he had been busy filling this ball up. Apparently there are like 20+ different chambers, so it took forever. We knew we needed to take it to the park to use it because you need a ton of space...well the darn thing wouldn't fit in our car. So only my husband would come up with an idea like this!! We all rode to the park on our bikes and Jim rode with the ball on his head! You should have seen the looks we got!