Aloha!

This post is a bit overdue, since we went to Hawaii about a month ago. We went to get a little R&R and visit our dear friends, who moved away from living next door. We lived so much of our daily lives together. Thomas and Ramona were like siblings to Finn - he really didn't get the typical "first child" experience. (As soon as they moved, Finn started naming all of his toys.) The trip was uneventful - in a good way. Most of our time was spent at the beach and at the pool, just watching our kids reconnect and catching up on adult conversations too, with Dave and Liza!

The kids didn't skip a beat. Insta-friends.




Our 3 little musketeers! (Finn was so excited when he saw these toy swords, he picked one up and started a procession, holding it up-side-down......as a cross. Father Finn strikes again! "No Sweetie, it's a sword. Yeah, hold it up like that. Good boy.")


Liza's dad's pool is amazing. It just drops off over the golden hills and leaves you with this view of the ocean. Ahhh.....




Nap time for the girls, Ramona and Selah.







I took several pictures of Nate, but they all looked the same in the end - chair and book, sometimes a cold beverage. He read 2 or 3 books while we were there. He's usually reading about a past president or something with a title like "War and Conflict!" or "A Dictator's Demise" (I made those up, but you get the point.) Nate enjoyed himself.




Good friends Carrie and Tony hopped over from another island with their girls Lindsey and Riley, and we all chilled together and let the kidlets run around. Selah and Carrie's little one, Riley, were born about 10 hours apart.



Liza and Carrie are such kindred spirits. I love having these women in my life.


Here's the raging waterfall in Dave and Liza's BACK YARD!!


What's a vacation without a little bit of adventure?

The Great Outdoors!

The weather has been hit and miss lately. We are thankful for the rain, (California needs it!) so we've been hitting the hiking trails every chance of sunshine that we get. We live in such a beautiful place, we want to take advantage of it. One of our favorite places is the butterfly refuge on Elwood Bluffs. the monarch butterflies are just starting to take over the place. Soon there will be millions of them fluttering around.




We saw some of my favorite birds there, egrets (I think).


I rescued a butterfly from a spider web. Poor thing.


Down from the bluffs, at the beach, Selah had a ball with the sand.




Nate and his long time friend "Cookies" engaged in some riveting conversation by the seashore.

Another hike in the area is this beautiful stroll along side a creek in Montecito, passing by horses and surrounded by lush greenery, coastal oaks and plenty of poison oak. We escaped unharmed.

Finn's probably getting too big for this thing.


SNOW!!! We heard it was going to snow on Friday in the hills nearby, so we jumped in the car and decided to chase the storm, kind of. We drove up to Figueroa Mountain early in the morning and just when we started to lose hope, it started dumping snow! We scrambled out of the car in the warmest clothes we could throw on, and played for about 7 minutes until we got nervous the we would have trouble heading back down the mountain. The drive was really gorgeous though. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend 3 hours in car with a whining 3 yr old and a crying baby? I'm always game.






Selah actually loved it!

We went on a little Valentines Day hike (after eating heart-shaped pancakes of course) and headed out to some more bluffs nearby, called More Mesa. It was fun to see Finn exploring more on his own, running ahead on the trail, throwing rocks, picking flowers and.....peeing.








Selah was a trooper in the backpack and then finally crashed.




Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

Catching up...

Selah is now 7 months old!



At 7 months old, Selah is:

*always smiling. If she squirms around while she's waking up, I kiss her face and she'll smile before she even opens her eyes. That's my favorite thing right now.

*so close to crawling now. She's probably not in a hurry because she can get where ever she wants now by rolling over and over and then army crawling.

*eating real food now and likes it and loves drinking water.

*loves to make a lunge for whatever Finn is playing with.

*will forgo any real toy if she sees, hears or even smells a plastic bag nearby and will make a mad dash toward it....to shove in her mouth of course.

*is WORKING on sleeping better at night. (she needs to work harder.)

*18 pounds! She's down from the 90th percentile to the 75th now. (Letting the other kids catch up I guess, barely)



We love our little Selah!