Christmas Card Pic 2012

Finally.

Our Christmas cards are done.

And OMG was it a pain getting the picture!

First: I burned the cookies (at least it prevented me from scarfing them down).

Second: Landon HATES the Santa hat. I can't really blame him, it's itchy and awkward and too big. He normally is very gung-ho about hats so I put one of his favorite beanies on and then snuck the Santa hat on over top.  This fooled him for all of four pictures, but we got it:

He has grown so much since last Christmas!  And his little mind is just soaking it all in this holiday season!  So fun!

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving 2012

This year, for the first time ever, we hosted Thanksgiving.

I am unbelievably thankful for the 27 family members who crammed into our dining room (and also for those who couldn't make it).  There was not one single thing that I didn't have help with, from the turkey to the clean up.

The Wombat absolutely refused to try a bite of anything, so here he is with his yogurt during the feast.

He did love the whipped cream though.

Happy Holidays!!!

No Mess Finger Painting

My toddler loooooves to finger paint. 

Case in point:

The kind we use is super easy to wash off ANYTHING, but they still make a heck of a mess!  With the rainy season around the corner I decided to try a mess free finger painting option that I pinned from The Hippie Housewife.

Here are all the supplies you need:

First introduction lasted all of five minutes.

Sometimes old fashioned finger painting only lasts for 5 minutes too so the onvenience of leaving this mess free painting option up for a couple days made it an instant winner.  He kept coming back with renewed interest every couple hours or so.

Saving this for upcoming rainy days!

Halloween 2012

This year marked Landon's second Halloween and he could not have been more excited about it.  He has been practicing wearing his costume for quite sometime since I found it at a garage sale a few months ago :)

Ben had to work on the 31st, so we kicked off Halloween early and attended a local Trunk or Treat with some friends.

Without further adieu, Yoda and his Dragon pal:




The Wombat was sooooo into trick or treating this year. He is too young to realize that he's getting candy, he just loves collecting things and putting them in his bag :)

We even ran into C-3PO (Landon did not care for him much)

But he did love the bounce house! 

And playing in the haystacks

On actual Halloween we trick or treated the.entire.neighborhood.  He had the time of his life ooo-ing and awe-ing over decorations, knocking on people's doors and asking for treats. His bag got so heavy that I offered to carry it, which did not go over well.  I ended up just sneaking candy out of his back and into the stroller.

Hope everyone had a good Halloween!!! Here's a flashback to 2011 Nemo.

And on a separate note, looking forward to blogging more now that I got my laptop cord back and we've made some serious progress on the house!  Yay!

Wedding Weekend

Earlier this month we attended one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever been to: My sister-in-law and now brother-in-law's ceremony at Slide Ranch.  The venue was totally unique and STUNNING, as was the bride.

Brigitte and the bridesmaids got ready in the super cute cottage that we stayed in, courtesy of my father-in-law, in Muir Beach.  This place is definitely going to be somewhere to return on vacation someday.

The Little Wombat was the ring bearer.  Unfortunately he had to walk a very loooong way holding his cousin's hand and so there were some tears but he managed to make it down the aisle....where I was waiting with a sucker to keep him quiet for the rest of the ceremony.  He was his normal, adorable little self the rest of the ceremony and reception, which was a relief since this is how he reacted the first time I tried his complete outfit on:

There were too many things for The Wombat to explore at the venue so he forgot to be upset about his attire.  Plus I also bribed him with sticks.

I was busy keeping this little one year old from throwing dirt at guests, sticking his hand in the extra sheet cake (OMG I would have DIED), wandering too close to an electric fence around the chickens and just trying to keep up with his four year old cousin. That being said, I didn't get to take as many picture as I would have liked to, but their photographer did an amazing job!!! He was super on the ball and had them up on his website a few days after the event. You can check out the rest of his pictures over at Duy Ho Photography but here are a few of my absolute favs:

The first glance. Oh, how I love this picture!!!

The ceremony.

The kiss.

Landon hugging his second cousin :)

Our little family.

The bride and groom did all of the signs, centerpieces, bouquets, basically everything themselves.  Seriously, amazing.

The party.

We could not be more happy for them!!!

The following day we were able to have a little family fun at the beach, which was just a short walk from our cottage.

It's not often we get to visit the ocean so it was a nice treat to wrap up what was already a great weekend :)

H is for...

Handy Helper.

This is not even staged. He put those gloves on all by himself :)

Who? Me?

Today we had a "Who? Me?" Little Wombat episode.  It happened while I was in the bathroom.  It literally took him about 20 seconds since he was in my room when I started peeing.  We had just come home from a weekend trip to my sister in law's BEAUTIFUL wedding and when we hurridly unpacked the car last night, most of it got put away immediately set on the floor inside the door.  Including (drum roll please) a small bag of ground coffee.

And I'm pretty sure they both ate a little.

Here's a peek at some past Who-Me moments....

Tupperware in grandma's kitchen:

These are my anatomy gloves from college.  Why did I even keep those?!

This was once a nice gift basket from my sister:

And thank the Lord, this was just chalk:

Amen to this:

 

via

Pismo Beach

Last week some unfortunate circumstances led us to take a trip down to Pismo Beach.  My mom's cousin and uncle both passed away and since my mom was already at our house helping us move, Landon and I drove her down to Pismo to be with family.

L and I kept busy by being the errand runners - food, clothes, what have you.  And we also played at the beach (get ready for picture overload)...

I love Pismo because the sand is so soft and doesn't get stuck in little toes.  Plus there are swings EVERYWHERE.  And if you know anything about The Wombat, you know he loooooves swings.

And we visited Dinosaur Caves Park, which is pretty much the cutest park ever.  It has a random mix of dinosaurs and sea animals.  I love finding unique parks like this!  It's nice to switch it up a bit from the mundane play structure you see park after park.

Takin' a ride on the USS Imagination.

 

And a ride on a dolphin:

 



We even braved a ride on the tire swing:

My offer to drive sort of just fell out of my mouth before I had the chance to think about the potential disaster this sort of trip could be with a one year old who just learned the word "no"  but a few hours later we were all packed up and on the road. I didn't have time to count all the things that could go wrong.

Which is good because nothing went wrong.

We spent 20 hours in the car in a four day span and this kid maybe cried for 10 minutes of drive time and slept straight through every night. He was quite the little road trip trooper.  I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to show our support to our family and to spend some quality time with my mom (it's not often we get to hog her all to ourselves). 

Roadside Rescue

Shut the front door!  Look what I found on the side of the road!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A perfectly good Little Tikes Big Digger Sandbox just sitting out on the sidewalk waiting for someone to save it!  It was in SUPERB condition, just a little dirty:

These suckers retail for 48.22 on Amazon!  All it needed was a good scrub down and it was good as new!  I never find anything worth saving that's been dubbed free on the curbside so I was pretty darn excited about this.  And The Wombat is just in heaven over it...

Who would have thought that I'd pay more for the sand than the actual sandbox?!