Memory Lane- I miss my baby

Took a trip down memory lane tonight. Oh, How I miss my baby :( she is getting so big.

The first link was of her crawling and pulling herself to standing. I remember I couldnt get her to crawl over for anything except for her favorite thing- A SPOON! She loved her spoons as soon as she started teething. We got her tons of fancy teethers and her favorite thing was a spoon.

2nd link is of her only a few months old eating Rice Cereal for one of the first times. She loved it and couldnt get enough. Now its hard to get her to eat at all.

3rd link is her Polly Pocket Dance she would do everytime the Polly Pocket song was played. As soon as the music stopped you could tell she was thinking WTF? we repeated this song a bunch of times to say the least.

Crawling and pulling herself up
Eating Rice Cereal for one of the 1st times
Polly Pocket Dance

Child Labor

Today I needed to get started on Baby Shower Project for my cousins baby shower coming up. I have little pots for the centerpieces that need painting. I also have a two year old running around and know she wont let me finish this in peace. So to kill two birds with one stone..

I gave these little pots...

To this little girl :)

No pictures of the paint job but it was a job well done! Mission accomplished!

A trip to the Foothills

Mike and I took Harlee up to visit all of her cousins in Somerset yesterday. We dont get to make the trek up their that often so we always get really excited when the oppurtunity arises. Unfortunately not the whole Famn Damily was there because they were vacationing in New Orleans but we still got to see all the kids, an uncle, and Grandma too.

So we set off early morning around 9 a.m.- thats early for us :) - picked up our Niece an headed on our way, I was nerous to see how the girls would do on the road trip. Harlee tends to have fits about an hour in to any ride. Luckily, the company of her cousin Holly kept her occupied :)

We made it to the hills in good time and then the fun began! Harlee fits right in with the mountain kids. I know when I use that term it sounds like they are plucked right from the "Deliverance" movie but I dont mean it in that way. I just mean they are free spirited, rough and tumble, barefoot babies. There just... awesome. Thats the best way I can put it. They are Kids in true definition. So as soon as we arrived, shoes were off and its go go go for the rest of the day playing, running, swimming, digging, riding, and most of all getting dirty. :) Its what all kids should be doing all the time. No care in the world. A lovely day that I wish could be repeated more often...

 The Pretty Girls :)

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

Swimmin'

Teeter-Totter

Another great thing about visiting family in the Hills? The food!

A Visit on Base

I have been telling my coworkers about Harlee's love of the airplanes. One of my coworkers who is in the air force told me she could give us a tour of some of the planes. We set up the details and this past Thursday we got to go tour a C5. I was expecting it to be exciting for Harlee but I didn't expect to be so interested myself. I credit that to my coworker Marie and her great tour guide skills. Due to restrictions and confidential top secret reasons I wasn't able to take pictures of us on the C5 but we took some photos at the Plane Museum.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday!

My favorite time of year has always been Christmas-that is until Harlee came along :) Now my favorite time of year can be narrowed down to one specific day-HER BIRTHDAY! I love planning, organizing, and creating for the big event. This year we went with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme because Harlee loves her some Mickey. I wanted to share some of the pictures from the day.

Here are some picture frames I decorated. The frames are wooden frames (IKEA for a few $) painted with your basic acryllic paint. I took my happy butt down to Michaels and found Disney, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Birthday themed stickers and applied them to the frame. I really love the Mickey Mouse Head button stickers.

I started this little tradition last year that I wanted to carry on which is the "Ode to Harlee" shrine I create above the fire place. I love snapfish.com collage posters and I created one with photos of her from the last year and hung it over the fireplace with the decorated frames sitting on the mantle below. Then I used my amazing cricut machine to cut out Mickey Mouse heads. The heads have the letter 'H' and number '2' cut out of the center for her name and age. Above it all hangs the Happy Birthday Banner I made with the cricut also. I cant remember the the name of the cartridge but it was Mickey Mouse themed. The poster reads "Our little Mousekadoer is turning TWO"

One of my favorite things ever about this birthday was that a few months prior I was in PetCo with Harlee checkin out the fish and happened to find one called a Mickey Mouse Platy- I couldnt figure out why the fish had this name....so I stared at it for awhile and then BOOM-I seen it- Can you?

On the tail of the fish is a black mark- I know its probably difficult to see, but its in the shape of a silhouetted Mickey Mouse Head! So friggin cool! I vowed to get Harlee these for her Birthday. They made a lovely display on the dessert table. I got her two fish and she has named them Mickey and Minnie and she loves them dearly :)

So about that dessert table! If your anything like me you have researched party planning and seen the amazing displays and parties being done out there. I know I do not come close to competing with those but believe me my little dessert table was a huge HIT!

I designed the Hershey mini wrappers in photoshop and printed them out on the sticker sheets I bought through OnlineLabel.com. They are really cheap :) The pinwheels were also DIY- I found a simple tutorial online. I cut out mini Mickey Mouse heads and placed them in the middle. I had planned on letting the kids have these to play with but pins were used to hold the pinwheel together and I just didnt know how well the hot glue would hold up so I decided against it. My cookies were bomb! I got the cookie cutters offline from disney and they came out really cute.

Do you know how to make the clubhouse appear??? well with the magic words of course! MEESKA, MOOSKA, MICKEY MOUSE!!

This is from the theme song in the opening of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse :)

Well, that was everything I photographed of the decor. I forgot some stuff, including the cute table cards I made with the individual characters. Each dish I made was themed after a character and a card was placed in front of the dish with the name. I did Minnie's BOW-tie pasta salad, Goofy's Garden Roasted Vegetables, Daisy's Flower Fruit Salad...etc.  It was all and all a really great day and I was proud of how it turned out :)  already thinking of the theme for next year....hmmm? carnival?

Did you know??

Just thought you should know :)


I love finding little bits of inspiration, lovely quotes, pick-me-ups, and tid bits that make me happy. This was one of them. I remember finding it and tilting the screen back and it made me smile. Hopefully you smiled too!

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

I really want to start documenting all the crazy, funny, smart, off the wall things my baby says. Sometimes I cant figure out where she learned some of it but either way, its hilarious.

Last night she was in the tub and had two rubber ducks she had sitting on the tub side. Both the ducks fell into the water and she picked one up, she noticed under the duck the water was drippng off and she said

Awww, your peeing! Im so proud of you!

and then she gave the ducky a big kiss. She said it with such emotion too as if she was really happy the duck was finally able to go like a big duckie!

It was so cute. Ever since she has begun to potty train, all of her animals and dolls are also in training. She is very suportive and encouraging to them too :) Love these little moments <3

She says she wants to be a Pilot

Lately, the hectic schedule of increased work hours, increased school load, and still trying to juggle everything at home has meant little free time. To get out of the house and do something fun, my daughter, Daddy & I go to the local air base. We live minutes away and there is a back road that runs along the air strip where the planes practice their Touch & Go's. We take a ride on over and watch the planes land and take off, they fly right over us. Harlee thinks it is the greatest thing. The road is very empty and no traffic so she occupies herself playing with Dad until the next plane comes in or takes off.

Here she is flying like an airplane

Silliness with Daddy

Tonight they flew the C5's that are absolutely huge!

The next Picasso? It's probable

More often than not life gets hectic and planning an outing is somewhat impossible. For this reason I try to find fun, artistic, and/or educational activities for home. One thing that I love is coloring or painting! I am a crafter by nature so this stuff is so fun to do with twaddler. I went to IKEA and found an easel for $14.99, a package of two smocks for $4.99, the massive roll of paper $4.99 (I think) and last the paint which I believe was $4.99 as well. We had the paint brushes at home but you can purchase them there too for cheap. This has been a huge hit at our house. It is a simple activity. The easel stays set up in the garage and whenever Harlee wants to paint, we throw on a smock and I squirt a few different colors on a plate then let her go to town. She is very serious about her painting. I love watching her at work. You can see in her eyes she is doing the painting with much thought.

The great thing about the IKEA paint and other paints I have in the garage is they come off the skin with just warm water. After her canvas was full, the next best thing was Mommy.

As you can probably see from the painting- I like to get in there and do some silly drawings too. Harlee often puts suggestions out there that she likes me to paint. Her favorite to ask for is the good ol' fashioned :0) smiley face.

This easel has a cool benefit too. There is a dry erase board on one side of the easel and a chalkboard on the other. Another thing I do when I have my nephew over-I let both the kids paint. They are not to good at sharing the canvas so to remedy this problem I just pull the paper all the way up and over to cover the other side of the easel. I use clothes pins to clip the paper tight on the other side. So you can have two kids painting at once.

So all in all, this is a fun, easy, messy but easy to clean up activity. I think its a good bonding experience for me and the little one too.

Tilden Park

So, I had been in a funk for the entire week and everyone at work could tell. Then I'm leaving work on a Friday and a coworker, Sam, says to me "get out of town this weekend, do something fun"...and I said I really wanna take Harlee somewhere cool, not the same boring places. And thats when he said it, "take her to Tilden Park"...and from that point on my life changed! lol

okay, so maybe it wasnt that dramatic but after he ran down some info on the place I was determined to go! We didnt see everything there was to see but we did a few things that Harlee loves. One was to see animals. There is an awesome Farm in the park and you can feed the animals! They have strict rules on what they are fed- but all the animals are allowed celery so if you go, celery would be your best bet. We brought two bundles of celery and it wasnt enough. Harlee could of stood there all day and fed the Cows (her Favorite).

The second thing we got to do that she found to be amazing was the carousel! They have an awesome carousel there up on a hill. Its located inside a building where they also have an ice cream shop. Tickets for the ride are $2.00 a piece I believe. And I think there is a deal where you can by 5 rides for $8.00-or something like that. Behind the building are some picnic tables too if you wanna bring a lunch and eat it under the shade trees. There are picnic tables all throughout the park for this too.

Last, we went for a stroll through the botanical garden which is pretty huge. The garden showcases all the plant life throughout California in way of different sections. Its really beautiful. Harlee loved smelling the flowers and running around on the trail.

Tilden Park has much more to offer too! there is a lake and steam trains that we havent gotten to experience yet. Planning to make a trip back there soon!

Tilden Park btw is located in Berkeley Ca. and was decently easy to find. Just remember when it tells you to go straight through the roundabout, it means go straight through the roundabout up the extremely steep hill. Once you enter the park you can go all around. We headed all the way down to the Left when we entered an it took us straight to the farm. Definitely recommend this place to families.

Long Time No Talk-Golden Gate Park

I'm Back :0) Trying to work on the ME time amongst all the other things I have going on and Blogging was something I enjoyed.


So I have heard about the wonderful park located in the city. After 27 years living near S.F. you would think I would've made a trip their once or twice-but NO.
After doing some research it seemed like a great family trip! Using the link above I decided the paddle boats and a hike up Strawberry Hill would be fun activities!

The address I mapquested was not the correct address to the paddle boats. So I had to zoom into the map and figure it out. Thank God it was a simple enough and there wasnt much drama in getting to the boats.

Cost: $20 for one hour on the paddles boats. you can receive a dollar back if you turn in the ticket you were issued but I like to keep stuff like that for sentimental purposes. Also available to rent are canoes. I seen a couple single adults using this option. The boats are not very strenuous either. Which is good because we wanted something more chill and less workout. The little moat (they call it Stow LAKE-but that name is misleading to say the least) you paddle on surrounds Strawberry Hill and is full of Ducks, other Birds, and some turtles. Lovely flowers and greenery too.

After the paddle experience we went over the bridge and hike on Strawberry hill. There are a few paths to hike. A relatively flat path going around the perimeter of the island and then a few that actually hike up to the top. So you have options. With my twaddler in tow we decided the perimeter trail would work best. We didn't make it to far, about a quarter of the way when we had to turn back. Harlee had been constipated for a couple day and finally had a bowel movement. Nothing like a little activity to get the kinks out :0) After the hike we went back and had lunch. Around the boat rental place is picnic benches but there seemed to be a school field trip so we decided to have lunch on the hood- Harlee dug it!

Here are a few shots I got of Strawberry Hill while paddling around-

Our Turtle Friend

View from the Captains Chair

A Lovely Waterfall on Strawberry Hill

So we definitely are planning to go back and next time are hoping to visit the children's park with carousel :) Harlee loves the merry-go-round!