Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This Cinco de Mayo, we (and when I say we, I mean my sister) had a great idea to have lunch at Jardines in San Juan Bautista.  This is of course a Mexican restaurant, but very pretty outside... lots of flowers!

It went fairly well...

Nice Alyssa!!

and then my sister caught a look from me proceeding a stern "talking to" to the girls!

I was saying "ugggghhhhh" :)

After a lovely lunch we decided to take a stroll downtown.

At the very end, Alyssa and Charlie parted ways, and the girls and I enjoyed some nice old fashioned ice cream!

Thank you Alyssa and Charlie for a wonderful day!!

The Joys of Picture Taking

I will be the first to admit that I am no photographer (although that would be fantastic if I were)... but when it comes to taking posed pictures of my kiddos, well they have their own ideas.  Every year, along with most of America we try to get that "perfect" Christmas card picture to send out to the ones we love to show off our little ones.  I decided to take the picture a little suddenly; nothing was planned.  You'll notice the girls have a gold medal necklace on, along with a macaroni necklace they made   And now that I'm looking at the picture again, Emily has a pearl necklace on.  (It's always a good time to have a pearl necklace on!)  I decided not to try to take them off because I didn't want to cause any tears or ruin this so-called moment.  When picture time has been decided, you don't want to do anything to rock that boat.  Oh, and yes, that is a pajama top Emily is wearing!  But like I said, when the time is right, you must strike!   So this is one of the first ones we took.

OK, so things are going so well.  Emily refused to sit next to her sister so I thought, hmm it might be cute if Gracie got behind her and gave her a hug.  Uhhh.. not so much.  Next we got this..

We're getting a little better, but what's up with Gracie's eye??  (Check out those necklaces and pj top!)

Finally we got this one.. the winner!! 

Thank you girls for such a "perfect" picture.  Doesn't it appear that we have perfect little angels and that our life is always so calm and full of rainbows??  That's what I wanted!!

Now we had to have a little fun!

We hope you and your family have perfect, yet silly holiday season!  Cheers!!

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all friends and family!  We spent this bountiful holiday at my sister's house along with my parents, and my brother-in-law's family.  We shared many laughs together as well as way too much food!  The turkey was delicious, however Emily still had to have her ketchup up and Gracie had her honey.  At least they ate their dinner!  
I am thankful for many things in my life.  Of course family, friends and my health are always at the top of the list.  Although I do have a few unconventional things I am thankful for.  Those are...
*Gracie wearing "panties" through the night
*Emily taking wonderful naps
*Our new mattress (just purchased today, and yikes are those expensive!!)
*The new drink my mom introduced to me... sparkling water, raspberry syrup and some half and half (can I just say yum?)
*A working heater
*Nice sized playroom
Those are just to name a few!  Now that turkey day is done... it's time to get into that holiday spirit!  Christmas Carols, here we come! 

Lovely centerpiece thanks to my mom and girls

 The girls and I have been on a crafting kick lately, not sure really where this is coming from! 

Little Indians that Gracie created (with a little of mom's help of course!)

Getting ready for feast time!

 This seriously entertained my girls for like 20 minutes!  They also took many napkin rings and were stacking them.  Whatever makes them happy!

Gracie being silly at the dinner table

Until next year....

Happy L-O-V-E Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!! Now that I have a blog I thought it would be nice to get Valentine's Day pictures and post them, but of course our camera finally decided to poop out on us this morning. So I have to make do with some random pictures. However, Gracie's picture is of her getting her daddy's gift ready... so I suppose it's kind of V-dayish. We hope everyone is having a wonderful love day and are enjoying their weather as much as we are! (btw, not sure what is up with this underlining! It just started to do it :)