Much Needed

We've been here almost a year.

Can you believe it? In fact a year ago this weekend, was our house hunting trip.

Anyways.

It's also taken us a year to find a babysitter, who's great with the kids and doesn't cost us an arm & a leg.

Awesome, except that she leaves to go back to school in less than a month.

So I shall use her as much as I possibly can (and that my husband allows me to) between now & then.

We did use her this weekend to take a much needed date night.

Taking advice from my sister-in-love, Sarah,.....

why would you spend money on a sitter to do the easy part?

So instead, we left right after nap-time. Why did it take me three and half years to figure this out?

Started with a little happy hour on E-Street in Encinitas.

We brought our own half open bottle of wine to a lookout point.

We're classy like that.

And again, we talked about how much we love it here.

And tried to figure out how we can afford to stay here forever.

(It's probably not going to happen)

Relax, mom.

And then we worked on our bucket California list.

On Andy's.....

He says he's going to surf before the end of the summer.

He's avoided watching Shark Week, so he just might do it.

Oh such a flattering, camera phone pic, straight up the nose, but since I'm never on this blog, I just wanted to let you guys know that yes, I'm still here.

Then we headed across the street to a sushi joint that had been highly recommended,

mostly for their 7 day a week happy hour.

We're cheap like that, too.

It was great!!

Thanks for the recommendations, friends.

And then we used our Fandango Living Social deal to go see

Crazy, Stupid, Love that stars some of my favorite people.

I just love Emma Stone.

And yeah, this guy's not that bad either.

Andy jerked the phone away while I was trying to get a shot of Mr. Gosling....

So even though the babysitter was by far the most expensive part of the night, it was so worth it to get to date my husband again....outside of the house.

Next date night on the calendar.....Adele in a week and a half!!!

Be still my beating heart.

20 Months

I went to get out the stickers today and realized months 15-19 were still there unused. Oops.

Here comes some documentation for the "baby book" again.

Graham, you're 20 months ish....

you are: mischievous, can halfway throw a football, shoot a basket (your dad is so proud)

attached to your blankie & your paci

a champ at sleeping

book loving

juice obsessed

still willing to cuddle

OBSESSED with CARS, specifically, Mater.

You take him everywhere

wearing 2T clothes

size 6 shoes

outstanding eater....

you passed on Mac & cheese tonight but instead wanted my whole wheat pasta, balsamic vinaigrette chicken salad with feta, basil & tomatoes. What?

such a ham

still not that verbal, but usually we can tell what you're trying to say since you you say the first sound of almost anything.

Other clear words are: ball, car, mader, elmo, juice to name a few

You call your sister, "Ass".

As I said, we get the beginning sounds.

Name aside, you adore her, even though she has become increasingly territorial about her things when you are around

Graham with his "Ass"

and couldn't be happier

In an effort to keep the natives at bay...

We've had a little bit of a lull in activities over here this week.

I am not complaining either.

One can only take so much fairy, gymnastics, hard knock life camp.

But in an effort to keep the natives i.e. grandparents; specifically, Nana at bay,

here are a few pictures of my little munchkins last night after dinner

While Graham is a natural ham for the camera....

Addison is still practicing her "cheese" au natural smile

and an evening wouldn't be complete without Graham trying to dive head first into the pond.

Brown paper packages tied up with string.....

These are a few of our

I have wanted to throw a favorite things party for at least two years now.

Luckily when I moved out here, I met this girl....

and she had been wanting to do the same thing!

Annie and I have both been hard at work planning our Favorite Things party for over two months now.

It all paid off last Thursday.

We made these cute invitations (free by the way)...

and attached the instructions......

Here’s how it works…

You bring 5 items of one of your favorite thing $6 and under (not 5 different items….5 of the same item)…examples are kitchen utensils, lipgloss or nail polish, food, anything that you LOVE and want to introduce the group to. Have fun with it!

There will be no judging…..unless your item totally sucks. Just kidding!

And then we did A LOT of other planning to put some fun stuff together. I sent out a survey to all of the guests asking them about favorites including:

perfume, cleaning product, make-up, vacation spot, date idea, hidden gem....etc.

All the girls were asked to send me a copy of their favorite recipe as well.

So after putting all of that together, each guest had a bag with all of these fun results and recipes in them.

The day of Annie came over so we could set up.

We were a tad excited and started about 6 hours early.

We baked up a storm and had enough drinks to feed about four times our crowd of 23....oops.

On the menu...

Red sangria, white sangria, champagne punch, sparkling lemonade, decaf coffee

Oh, and there were desserts too

mini lemonade pies, baked brie, cookies, Heath brownie trifle, Biscoff cheesecake bars, and peanut butter cupcakes.

Where were the kids in all of this?

With an exceptional sitter....thank you Christa!

Finally, everything was ready to go!

When the girls arrived, they put their name 5 times in a bowl and grabbed a tag from the tree

Each tag had a number (for order of gifting) and an icebreaker question.

We had a lot of fun with those.

And then there were all the favorite things.....

Did you really have any question which one would be mine?

Before we got started, there was a lot of visiting, scoping out favorites, and a little bit of eating.

Seriously, I have enough desserts left in my fridge to feed an army.

Or at least Andy for a few days.

Amanda & Annie

the good stuff

Then it was time to begin!

Soula answering her question and drawing her lucky 5 people..

Lots of laughing going on....

Speaking of laughing....

This is my funny friend, Jamie.

She's also my gorgeous friend, Jamie.

Karen showing off her Starbucks card....dangit, I missed that one!

Mary brought Starbucks Java Chip ice cream.

My name wasn't called.

But someone who's name was called forgot theirs.

And as of 7am the next morning, I claimed it as lost property.

Our whole group

And since one of our very favorite things is music, each guest got a cd on the way out.

Annie and I put together a very eclectic playlist, complete with O.P.P.

And I don't want to play favorites, but these happen to be some of my favorite people.

This party was an absolute blast and Annie and I had so much fun hosting it.

We are thinking about putting a different spin on it come holiday time.

We just may need a few months to recover first!