Photo Challenge: Day 6 - Childhood Memory

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  Loved this place as a kid!  I liked Great America a lot as well... but there was something about the rides and the beach combo that was great to me! 

Photo Challenge: Day 5 - Someone I love

Well of course I had to choose everyone!

Photo Challenge: Day 4 - Favortie Color

Yellow.  This picture was taken in January at a mustard flower field in town.  My mom and I took my girls and had a little "photo shoot"!  I of course had to take a picture of the flowers though since YELLOW is my favorite color!

Photo Challenge: Day 3 - Clouds

We have clouds folks!

Photo Challenge: Day 2 - What I Wore

I had to take this shot with the clothes on the floor.  I tried taking one of my self in different ways and it just didn't come out right!  So here is what we have for today!

Top - Old Navy tank
Pants - Kohls
Shoes - Roxy flip flops
Necklace - Pier 1

Tomorrow is supposed to be clouds... however that hasn't been a cloud in the sky in the last 4 days or so.. we'll see what I can come up with!

Photo Challenge: Day 1- Self-Portrait

Here I am!

Photo Challenge

My sister has a blog as well (http://suburban-chic.blogspot.com/) and on hers she posted that she was going to participate in a photo challenge for a month.  I thought, what a great idea!  I've been loving taking pictures of my kiddos and thought why not broaden my horizon a bit?  So here it is.. let's see how I do!

The Great Outdoors.

We can officially check off "Family Camping Trip" off of our bucket list!  The Strombergs took it to the great outdoors!

We went on a camping trip with a mom's group in Morgan Hill.  There were about 80 people total and a TON of kids!  We shared our campsite with a wonderful family whom we knew prior to the trip.  (Thank goodness or else it would've been really awkward being site buddies with a bunch of strangers!)

We had so much fun hiking, making s'mores, getting dirty (and boy did we!) and breathing in the fresh air!

Here are the kiddos on our last day enjoying a squeezy applesauce thingy!

Happy trails everyone!

Hello Jr-K.

My little girl started Jr.-k.  Wow, how time flies.  She was so truly excited to get back into the classroom.  During summer we would get the occasional, "When can I go to school?", "Why am I not in school?"; well baby, you're in school now... five days a week that is!

This has and still is an adjustment for all of us.  However, she loves to go which makes getting her up that much easier!

First day of pre-school

First day of jr.-k

My has she grown!

This school year has been so nice for all of us!  Gracie knew almost all of her classmates from the year before and I knew almost all of the parents.  It was quite a reunion!

Here we go!

Here's to another great school year!

Must Always Be Fancy.

Emily is completely "flappered" out!

Kids Say the Darndest Things take 2.

Gracie:  "Mom, I'm going shopping because I'm a girl." 

Looks like I'm in for it!  Again, like mother, like daughter!

Eat your lunch.

I haven't had an easy time getting my two girls to eat... except when it came to "snacks".  I've tried really hard to make things look cute, or be creative with the meals; whether it's making something different or putting it into cute containers or onto plates.  We've also tried eating in the most bizarre places.  Then I came across this blog... http://meetthedubiens.blogspot.com/.  This woman is amazing!  She has the most creative and fun way of putting food together on a plate.  I want to eat it.  Here is one that I copied from her.

I think hers looks better, but not too shabby if I do say so myself!  And Gracie ate EVERYTHING except one blueberry, and Emily ate EVERYTHING except for about half of the pbj tortilla.  I'm so doing this multiple times a week!  Happy creating!

A New Era.

OK, so we were actually trying to teach Gracie how to ride a big girl bike, but of course her daddy HAD to get a piece of that!

Jim started off by holding onto the bike to help Gracie with her balance. 

And of course, Emily had to participate in her own way!

She has actually learned to ride her tricycle since then which is great! 

Gracie was a little apprehensive about riding her bike, so daddy had to show her how much fun she can have riding a bike!  (I think she was having a little fun herself just running!)

Towards the end she was able to balance on her own.

Hopefully by the time summer is over, she will be riding with the wind!  (and her daddy!)

Happy Birthday Gracie!

 Well, technically her birthday was about 2 weeks ago... but who's keeping track??  My little baby is now 4 years old!  My, how time flies!!  We had a birthday party for her (which included 99% of her preschool class and some friends outside of school); so needless to say it was a little crazy!  But, the kids (I think) had a blast; and most of the parents too!  We served beer and Sangria which always helps!  For her actual birthday we took her and her sis to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  We had a lot of fun... although Jim and I came into complete agreeance that we HATE spinney rides!   But we sucked up it for our girls!

It was a little foggy which was too bad, but worked out great!

The girls made snow angels...

This is Gracie's seductive look!

Jim and I were laying on the beach watching the girls, and these guys walk up next to us and said something along the lines of.. "Oh my God, look at those girls!  They're totally wrestling!"  And they were!  Too funny!

They're in unison!

We buried our feet.

And we (Jim and the girls) were being chased by the waves.

After Santa Cruz we headed home to do more celebrating with the family!

Yeah for Charlie!

Gracie got a new big girl bike!

 

Happy birthday Gracie, we love you!!!