Home Depot

We made a trip to Home Depot with Bebo on Sunday to pick up a few things that we needed with my parents and Ben was quickly swept away with the painting brushes and rollers. My dad ended up buying him this painting roller and he absolutely LOVES it! Who needs a house full of toys when you can have paint rollers to play with?! ;)

A wild & fun weekend!

This weekend was a blur of fun!

Ben is continuing to love his sensory tables that Steve and my dad built him and stands at the door when it's raining or when he can't be outside playing in them (thinking we might have to move them to where he can't see them from inside). He gets DIRTY, DIRTY and DIRTIER and loves every second of it. I've decided to just leave my vaccum out during the weekends. :)

Friday night, we had a fabulous dinner at our friends, the Mia's house... we drilled Ben on his animal sounds in the video! (whew, luckily he passed considering it was an hour past his bedtime) Oh, and notice the activity that Sande is doing in the picture below... vaccuming! Note to Ben: When we go places for dinner and the hostess has to pull out the vaccum cleaner, this is not a good sign! Sooooo sorry about the broken pieces that he pulled down. We owe you big time! ;)

Then, last night, we went to the Magic Castle in Hollywood with my parents, Kelly/Mark & Anthony/Virginia (2 other couples) to celebrate my dad's birthday... it was great, as always! There's no photography allowed inside, so we had to snap a bleary eyed picture on our way out the door at 12:30 am. What a night!

Happy Birthday Dad!

It was my dad's birthday yesterday... can you believe this young looking guy is 64??? :) It was great to be able to have him here and celebrate together, versus over the computer and phone. We put the kiddo to bed and got on with the celebration... beers, buffalo burgers and apple pie!
Happy Birthday Dad!

New Mexico Trip & new stuff for Bebo!

I went to see my dear friend Jess this weekend in Albuquerque, which was a blast! We went skiing on Saturday in Santa Fe and then hit our favorite Japanese spa, 10,000 waves for the rest of the day... just a hop, skip and a jump down the mountain. It was DIVINE! I haven't skied in over 8 years and it was just like getting back on a bike. I was quite impressed with myself! I will spare you the video that Jess shot of me, but here's a few fun pics of the weekend...

Back at the ranch, Steve was being his usual creative and handy self... We've realized that we have to keep up with where Ben's at with his unbelievable desire to play in the sand, water and rocks, so of course Steve's creativity kicked in and he made some great toys for Ben! Sensory tables! We fill them with rocks, water, stick and of course SAND! I had to literally pull him inside tonight for dinner... sweeeeet!

My how they grow!

Our friends, the Lovans had us over last weekend for a phenomenal dinner, Wii bowling, and play time with the kiddos... here's a little comparison of Ben & Julia...

Julia & Ben at 5 weeks


Ben & Julia at 14 months

Beach Boy

It's been sooooo great having my parents here, er rather, having them in Carpinteria - close to the beach! (literally, like 100 steps from the beach). So, Ben and I have been hanging out with them in the later afternoons.... here's some fun beach shots from Sunday!

The "popper"

Doesn't every kid have one of these? I found this on Saturday for $3 at my favorite second hand store! Also, check out how he's learning to do U-Turns! (Sorry about the backlight - it was really sunny)

Ben's favorite thing right now....

wearing glasses! Looks like he hijacked Grandpop's glasses when he wasn't looking!

I swear...

this kid cracks me up! He's been doing this really funny squinty smile lately... and then he thinks it's SO funny that he cracks HIMSELF up! Pretty funny....

Family Fun

This has been a crazy few weeks... my parents arrived from Minnesota a few days before Christmas to spend the holidays with us... we have SO loved having Grammy & Grandpop around to spend time with, take advantage of some free babysitting and just have some family around to hang with us on a daily basis. Our holidays were a bit different this year as we aren't in the arctic cold of Minnesota (it was minus 4 there today) and we celebrated many traditions.... On the eve of Christmas, we had a traditional Japanese dinner called Nabe with my parents... it's one-pot cooking and it was yummy! Something way different for this Scandinavian family....

Then, on Christmas day, Steve's family came and we had a traditional Italian meal complete with Calzones made by Steve's parents, manicotti made my his brother and of course, wild rice meatballs made by my mom! (nothing Italian about that!) Food is always the center of attention in our family!

My parents have stayed with us for the last 2 weeks and they rented a beach cottage in Carpinteria for the month of January (partly because they want to get away from the incredibly frigid Minnesota temperatures for a few weeks and mainly because they want to hang out with their one and only grand-kiddo, Ben!)

It's an adorable little beach cottage and Steve and I wanted to give it a test run before they move into it tomorrow... so we have taken full advantage of the free babysitting and mom & dad stayed at our house in Santa Barbara with Ben while we stayed in Carpinteria at the cottage all weekend - it was soooo wonderful! We did all of our favorite things... slept in (ok, until 7:30, but it was nice!), walked on the beach, ate out, read a lot and set our goals & intentions for the new year for our family and me, for my business!

We ended the weekend with a trip to the zoo!

Happy 2009!