photo shoot of chewey and hopie hanging out with preggo mommy charity

i absolutely adore this photo of story (chewey). he makes this smile all the time but it is so hard to capture it on the camera...he adores his little friend "hopie" shown here in what was supposed to be a photo shoot of hopie and her mom pregnant...story is also in love with hope's mom, auntie charity. i've told her several times i'd love to skip the dating phase and just make an arranged marriage between story and hopie.

story turned 3 this past sunday. his birthday party is this next weekend and he informed me on the way home from driving sea to school that he only wanted hopie to come. i said what about me? and he said, "oKAAAAyyy, you and hopie's mom can come, too but no one else"...following are way too many photos of the same shot...but somehow this provides a movement and captures the energy and love that was surrounding these moments we shared yesterday...i'll let the photos speak for themselves...












on the topic of babies and pregant...this is the card sea made for auntie becki's baby shower...with the baby outside of her tummy...

happy "ubu" day every day

i love this photo from sea's first valentine's day at school...i made her a necklace with yarn and a heart with missing diamonds her auntie breezy gave her...she is holding a card for her teacher and 24 identical valentines she made. the title of this post is "ubu" which is pronounced "uhhhb ewe" and is how chewey (story) used to say "love you" so that is how we still say it to one another in our family...

i was feeling sorry for myself this morning with a giant red rudolph-inspired pimple in the center of my forward, disheveled hair, no shower, messy kitchen, table, house...too much on my to do list...but this photo cheered me up and changed my focus...

story is playing happily alone...i'm listening to classical music...breathing...sipping hot carob milk that is just a little too warm to drink...my mom is still sleeping...manuel's mom and brother and his fiance are headed down shortly for sea's talent show...her eye is healing well (she ran into a wall at the party sunday)...

i'm being way too indulgent writing anything at all right now but somehow it felt like what i needed to do to feel centered and start my day...off to check things off my list!

ayari's "up" birthday party

today we went to one of sea's friend ayari's 5th birthday party...the theme was from the movie "up" complete with this cute house and balloons to carry it away...here is sea delivering a gift of photos from ayari's 4th bday party...


playing "hot potato"...



birthday cake...

outdoor preschool

mission gorge dam...our first "outdoor" preschool...story LOVED so much about it...
splashing through the pond...




and mud...



drawing with a stick...
chasing ducks...

"fishing"...


running through the "forest"...
searching for things with friends...

fishing and "catching fish"...
more splashing...
and walking on walls...
we hope to rotate outdoor locations once a week...

just over 24 hours until my first half marathon

sea and story holding hands at the beach

only time for a couple photos from our 76 degree weather at the beach a couple weekends ago...that's right, in january...most of the u.s. is currently covered in a huge snow storm...we are so lucky to live here in sunny san diego...

story wishing on a dandelion

these are the timeless moments i try to capture on film...i really don't want to write anything at all about them as they speak more to me on their own...

that said, i just want to apologize for signing up to blog every day in february and then not posting february 1st?! lame...i don't even want to come up with all the excuses and shuffling of priorities...basically i just went to bed early with my children...anyway, i have way too many events and photos from january if i don't have a meaningful photo of the day to post this month...today's photo should be sea wearing her little groundhog hat when i picked her up from kindergarten but of course that would require me to find the camera, upload the photos, etc. more effort and energy than i have...so i'll go back to the happy moment of story appreciating "little things" and try to do more of the same...