anne steenblik

yes, anne.  this post is specifically for YOU.

i know you read my blog, thus i need to get in touch with you some how.  yes, i realize we both have a phone, and email and texting.  but this is so much more fun!

when you get this, confirm it in whatever way suits your fancy!

it's time you and i TALK.

yay!

the earnshaws

our buddies, the earnshaws, went and moved far, far away a few years ago.  since then our game-playing lives have not been the same.  nor have our party-planning days ever been the same.  we love them dearly and miss them even more.  they were cool enough to rent a beach house over the holidays and we jumped on the chance to see them.  it would've been even better had there not been a scheduling conflict with my family's annual benihana dinner tradition.  even so, it was a blast hanging out, eating "turkey sandwiches" that my girls made for us to eat.  the malan family also made it that night.  so glad!  we got to see their adorable new baby boy.

cute reese.  such a sweet and fun little girl.

all three guys got their flannel on that night.  it was just too perfect.

and the sunset made the night even more charming.  it was beautiful!

wyatt and abe FINALLY meet!  yay!  haley and i used to talk about what it might be like to have babies at the same time and how cool it would be.  then she had a baby!  but she lives way too far.  at last abe and wyatt got to roll around on the floor together and avoid poking each others' eyes out.  very entertaining!  they even held hands a few times.

the girls had a blast in the front room spying on cars outside and chatting it up.

sweet baby john.  if you ask me, he looks so much like his mama.  we shall see how he evolves.

although haley is attempting to feed ravenous abe, i kept it clean.  i just love haley's expression here.  miss her.

come back earnshaws, come back!!!

a morning in seaport

nina at blackbird ink photography was snapping away at sienna's five year photo shoot last week...so chloe, lia and i wandered around keeping ourselves busy.  i brought my camera for kicks, so here are some randoms we took.  it was a pretty cloudy day which makes for decent lighting a lot of the time.  the wind was also around, but that was fun too.  we eventually gave ourselves the boot from seaport village when it started to rain.  good call, i say.  good call.

 

my sweet, strange child.  getting a normal smile out of her is like pulling teeth these days.

i like to call this bottom picture, "little stinker", cause really...she is one.  but such a cute little stinker!

okay, so i didn't take as many photos as i thought, but it was a fun morning! 

i love bath tub pictures.  i think they are so fun.  especially when it's more than just your children.  my mom has several pictures of me and my brother in the bathtub with our cousins at my grandma's house when i was little.  i love seeing them, it cracks me up  these are not the girls' cousins, but it was fun getting clean together.  there was a tub full of sand at the end.  we had a great time at the beach yesterday with nina, shenda and kiddos.  helped make these extreme heats a little more supportable. (go away heat wave!)

nostalgia

is it so wrong for me to be so sad when i look at this picture?

you may ask why.  here i tell you:

1. sienna does not any longer have the cute curls in her hair

2.  sienna isn't little anymore, and i need to cope with that

3.  my hair looks good when the roots match the rest of my hair

(not like now...5 months and counting people!)

4.  i like my tan skin in this picture...not much to show today

5.  haley took this picture.  i miss haley!

that last reason reminds me how the other day, sienna and chloe were helping me peel about 12 pounds of apples we had picked, and i asked sienna what we should make with them.  she said exactly this, "i want haley to come over and make apple pie with us."  

of course my desire was the same.  oh haley, why ever did you move away?

a birthday!

one of my bestest friends is celebrating her birthday this week!  i knew i wanted to do something really fun for her, so i quickly set aside the saturday before her birthday so that she and i could go somewhere and just do what we wanted for a day.  so glad it worked out!  i knew i wanted to take her to los angeles to do some things so i made out a list of things that i thought she might like to do, most of which i wanted to make sure she hadn't done before.  the second of these activities?  the fabric district!!!!  still jumping for joy that we went.  next time though...it might be prudent to look at the calendar and make sure it's not yom kippur.  because of this jewish spiritual day, about 80% of the fabric shops were not even open.  at first i was confused, thinking, "i know this is where they are", which then made me think i was lost and in the wrong area.  nope.  i was in the right area (i'd been there before!), they were all closed.  luckily micheal levine was open!  hallelujah!  as was his lovely upholstery shop.  can you guess which fabric print above i couldn't live without? (wink)

so other than the fabric district we ate breakfast at the waffle, visited the site of crumbs, without much luck...thank you yom kippur.   next time i will eat one (or many) of those cupcakes!  

next was santa monica!  nina had never been to the pier, so we had to do that.  it's always such an experience.  i can't help but channel jim morrison when i'm there.  after reading the doors story as a teen, i had a slight obsession with jim and the band.  venice beach and santa monica hold particular regard for me because of them.

there are all kinds of street performers, some pretty good, some embarrassing, and others impressive.  this reggae-inspired buddy got some pretty fanciful bass tunes stuck in our heads.  not sure that i understood anything he sang, but i liked it!

the pier

i know i'm a little strange.  this picture may be proof.  

i love taking pictures of random people.  call it....photojournalism.  yeah.  

i think it's just their stance and the way they're looking at each other that i couldn't resist.

(and no, there's no baby between them that they're keeping warm.  i thought there was at first, but nina showed me the light)

then there was the circus act set-up, although nothing exciting really occurred while we were there.  they just teased us by standing up there looking like they were going to.

one girl swung and then fell, very gracefully.  i can do that.

many had their fortunes told.  i can't help but think of robin hood when i see these people.

i liked this little old man...we never spoke.  but i might've freaked him out by pointing my camera at him. 

more pics to come...

hippies paint

we had our cute little neighbor boys over the other day.  i was excited to introduce the activity for the day....

painting!!!  they took to it!

they concentrated

they talked with one another

they were picky about colors

they were so cute!

i seriously could not get enough of my friend, graden.  his little hand gestures on the hand not painting.  his big pretty eyes and his awesome rolling belly laugh.

a chloe painting profile

a calvin profile...so serious!

oh graden, that tongue!

and then there's my thing with feet.  i'm not a fan of my own, but i sure love little feet.  definitely my favorite.  

i love his concentration!

we had fun with you boys!  see you tomorrow too!