Leave You With A Smile

Lucy's Solo Swim

May 30, 2010

To celebrate Memorial Day we were invited to a wonderful Memorial Day Pool Party by the Land Family. Laura and Will are friends from college and Laura is my big sis from my sorority. I love any opportunity to get together, hang out, and let our kids play. Today was so special because it was Gavin's first time in a pool, I wondered would he scream & hate it? love it? our just want nothing to do with it?...well to our surprise he LOVED it. I took him and swam around with him and he loved it never one cry or freak out, which was completely different then how Lucy reacted when she was a baby.

Another great event that made the day AMAZING was Lucy did her first real long distance solo swim. Last summer we worked sooo hard at getting her comfortable with water and teaching her how to swim. She went from the kid who wouldn't leave the step to the kid who would swim holding your hand and would let you give her a little distance but not much. Today was her first time back in a pool since last summer and I was so nervous that we would have to start all over again. Nope, she was eager to get into the pool and swim her heart out. Lucy adopted Brad a college friend of mine to be her swim partner. He helped her get the confidence to swim across the whole pool by herself. We were all so proud of her and you could tell she was proud too! I feel so blessed to have such amazing kids, their smiles and daily quirks leave a smile on my heart! It was a great day, good food, good friends, good swimmer, and good water baby made for a great way to celebrate our Memorial day weekend.

Laura swimming with Lucy & Cate

Lucy & Brad

Lucy's solo swim across the whole pool

Such a proud girl of her awesome solo swim...We love you Lucy!!

Mr. Lizard

May 2010

Lucy's new favorite place to eat is Cosi, thanks Janelle for telling us about it!Everyday almost Lucy asks if we can go there for lunch. She loves their "Snores" haha she means Smores but it's so cute I cannot correct her. Lucy loves her cousins and we enjoy any opportunity we can to get together with them so we planned a lunch play date with them and of course we went to Cosi.
The boys LOVED Cosi and Lucy was so excited to show them how to make a Snore.

After Cosi we all came back to our house and the kids played. As usual Lucy came up with something creative to play...they played house and she was the mom and Jake was the dad and Sammy well they told him he was the cat...not the kid, the cat so naturally Sammy got into character and jumped on the hood of the jeep meowing..it was hysterical, my sister and I couldn't stop laughing at how funny they all were being.

As the kids were playing we heard loud screams from all the kids so we went to see what was wrong...well they were visited by a lizard. As my sister went to see the lizards it ran out at her and she screamed loud sending it up my house. I almost pee-ed my pants laughing so hard. It only felt fair to give Mr. Lizard his 5 seconds of fame....so without further a due introducing Mr. Lizard

As you can tell Mr. Lizard is missing a tail so I assume he visits people a lot.

Go Lakers

May 27, 2010

We love the Lakers in our house and watch every game together. Lucy loves wearing her Lakers jersey and cheering with her daddy. So it was only natural we would get together and cheer for our team with the Lawler family. They too love the Lakers. We watched the game, the kids all played, we ate pizza, and had a great time chatting & cheering.

Ally & Lucy

Lucy & Ethan

Building the Tiki Hut

May 22, 2010

Day 1 - of the building of the Tiki Hut. I had a great idea for Gavin's birthday party to make a ticket booth and recruited my dad who is an amazing woodcraft men to make it with me. As we discussed the ticket booth I thought why not make it now and use it at Lucy's birthday Luau and call it the Tiki Hut..so the Tiki Hut was born.

Lucy thought she was so cool with the tape measure and measured everything haha

See "Grandpa Owen" its he number 5", Lucy was a crack up & so excited about her Tiki Hut

Lucy even helped saw..of course Grandpa held her hand to saw...safety first!

There she is all built...now paint, lettering and curtains left.

Day two...here is the Tiki Hut with the lettering and paint.

The finished Tiki Hut :)

Samantha's Princes Party

May 2010

We went to Samantha's 3rd b-day party which was a fabulous Princess theme. Tawny is so amazingly creative and loves to throw a good party. She had zebra & hot pink everywhere. Hot pink tulle tied around the chairs, hot pink & black tissue pom poms hanging from the ceiling, handmade signs tied together with ribbon, every detail was amazing and kept the theme complete. The princesses arrived at the Paino castle and made their crowns, got makeovers, had tutus to try on and play with, made necklaces and the list goes on and on. Lucy had a blast & loves Samantha. It's so nice to see Lucy and Samantha play together and grow up since Tawny & I are college buddies and sorority sisters :)

Lucy was so proud of her princess crown that he made. Lucy, Samantha, and a couple of other princesses had a blast looking at all the fun stuff they were able to put on their crowns. There even were some older princesses to help assist them with their creations.

Lucy & Samantha were twins and it wasn't even planned...hum great minds think alike, right?

Prince Gavin had a blast watching all the princesses! Lucy gave hugs to the pretty birthday girl!

Thanks Tawny & Joe for letting us share in your princess's special day!

Baking Cookies

After all the excitement of Gavin saying Mama & sitting up for the first time I thought that the kiddos and I would celebrate this beautiful day and bake some chocolate chip cookies! Lucy LOVES to bake...so the mention of baking cookies she ran and put on her apron. She loves every part of baking cookies but I think her absolute favorite is eating the cookie batter just like her daddy!

Lucy LOVES her cookie batter /Gavin was the supervisor :)

Are they done yet? She must have checked every minute

All done and SUPER tasty!

So proud of my baby girl & her yummy cookies..kisses for the cook!

Gavin Sits Up for the 1st time

May 15, 2010 (I know I am super behind on posts)
It was such a great day, Steve & I woke to what we thought was Gavin saying Mama...Yes, Mama. We looked at each other & jumped out of bed to go to his nursery and get him...we were so excited! These words were never repeated that day but we swear he said Mama. I got the kids ready for the day and Steve left for work. Our little man suprised me again by solo sitting for the first time. I was so excited seeing him sit all by himself and play with his toys...so precious! Lucy loved it too she kept clapping for him and telling him he was a "good boy" haha. He kept looking at us with the "what's all the fuss" expression on his face but we couldn't hold back our excitement.