Uncle Adam & Auntie Carissa got married on June 20th and the girls were Flower girls, along with Carissa's niece Novalee. All 3 girls got along SO well with eachother, it's a shame we don't live close to eachother...
After the wedding the entire family spent the entire day in Disneyland & California Adventure. Ellia learned the song "It's a Small World After All", discovered Bug's Life & had so much fun prancing around with Novalee!
Here are the 1st of many School Photos. By definition they exist to make you cringe & laugh many years later! (Mostly for celebrities)
This photo sums up pretty Claira pretty well. Often she is so eager to go take a trip that she points to her jackets hanging in the closet and yelps at me!
This trip out took us to Mother's Beach in Long Beach. Ahh, the weather was perfect. I watched a college-aged girl do an extensive ab workout on the grass in front of me. I thought to myself: "Her next class at Long Beach State probably isn't until 6:00pm so she decided to head to the beach to exercise in the fresh air and then read a book in the sand while adding to her tan. Wow, I remember when I had that much time on my hands to make 'la-la-laaa' decisions..." I stopped looking at her and went back to looking at my girls. Then I tried to get a tan from the knees down.
This trip out was to Liberty Park in Cerritos. I had been here a few times before just for the playground. Little did I know that behind me was a fountain sculpture that is puuuuuurfeeeect for these two kids! Whew, what a discovery. They use their sand toys for the water...
Then they realized they could make mud (or should I say chocolate pudding, chocolate shakes, chocolate milk) Claira is pretending to "eat" her "chocolate"
This trip out was to the San Diego Wild Animal Park! We took the trip with Grandpa, Grandma, Adam & Carissa & we had a wonderful time. Ellia's favorite part was the lion sitting on top of the car, then he took a nap in the sun. Ellia and I had lots of funny conversation about it.
Here Ellia is playing waiter before she cooks me something.
STEP #2: WRITE DOWN THE ORDER
STEP #3: COOK FOR A REALLY LONG TIME BEFORE SERVING
Look at THIS photo! Yep, I took it. You know, I was feeling guilty about not taking Claira to get JCPenney portraits every 3 months like I did for Ellia. But, Claira has redefined our lifes in a whole new way. So, why do stuff the "old" way! And this picture makes up for a few missed portrait sittings.
I let these two goobers paint and this is what they do! Ironic turn of events:
I asked Ellia to draw her family & here are a few of her portraits. Above is Mommy's portrait (don't I look sexy). Below is Grandpa's portrait (she's drawing his beard "Grandpa has a lot of hair!")
...looks so mature here.
I got to spend a few hours with just Claira on this day. I have not done that since my first 2 months of maternity leave. I was startled, actually, at the slight difference in her personality. It's not something I can really describe...just different. One thing is for sure, I could tell she was really enjoying being the "only one." I'd like to do more "dates" with each of them, someday.
Just for the heck of it I plopped her down in Ellia's forward-facing seat to try it out. She was kind of confused but liked it, of course. Looks like that'll be the next purchase!
