yee/young picnic

Alycyn Henseley (Young) invited sophia and i to their family picnic. sophia had so much fun and so did i! we all havent seen each other since we went to discovery museum 2 years ago, and altho the kids had fun, the mommies were running after their over-stimulated offspring and we could only chat in passing each other while running from one activity to the next. the kids never really wanted to play on the same thing at the same time. this was just perfect to hang out, chat and let the kids play with each other.

all the kids

kendall (marc's youngest) loves water of any form. she played with the ice for forever!
the sophia, jordan and nathanial have a hammer whammer bonking fest.

it was all fun and games until someone got hurt (but no one lost an eye!)

Happy Fourth of July

Okay 2 people started to ask me today: 'Do you celebrate 4th of July in Italy' but then caught themselves....ha ha ha. The answer is no and therefore i forced my kid to celebrate Independence Day doing the good ol' American traditions:

We got up early and went for a 'walk for a reason' in Orinda to help raise money for the awareness of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (like SIDS but after 1 year old), which is organized by our friend's family. Their daughter died at 21 months. Sophia walked almost the whole 2 miles!
There was a parade after the walk.

Olivia and Ava came over to play and we had a bbq

(no pics of actual bbq, sorry).
And of course fireworks...Safe and Sane still legal in the UC!!!

(notice the 'great america' fireworks in the background/not legal fireworks...ahhhh the UC!)

the Reality

this is face is the epitome of Sophia's enthusiasm for the day.

Stepping Stone

Step 1: add water and mix

Step 2: Squish your hand in
STep 3: show off dirty handStep 3: show off dirty hand
Step 4: squish the little pieces in.

Tadah! we are finished...

girls day out

holly is off on a romantic holiday with her husband and filling in for her today was tyler! we had a fun day at ceramics! she even threw 3 little pots!

the extreme eyebrow make-over

my sister's eyebrow drives me CRAZY! i think im just eyebrow obsessed! so our girl thing is that i drag her sorry butt to the brow-bar at macy's when im here. Before...

(see the fuzzy caterpillars, arent they cute! we should name them!)

work in progress
Tah Dahhhh!

I'm sure she is gonna kill me for blogging this, but that's what she gets for being an eyebrow slumlord. Keep up maintenance while im gone!! dont wait til it becomes a legal matter!

the Sidell's

Daisy St in the UC, there were lots of families with kids, but we mostly played with the Matsumuras and the Sarmientos. We're still family friends with both families, only now we kids have grown up and have kids of our own. We don't get to see each other too often, usually just at weddings and such. In fact at Mich's wedding Ava and Sophia had so much fun together, Dolly Sarmiento (now Sidell) invited us over for a playdate. After swim lessons we went to get Auntie Nelly and my Mom and headed over to San Ramon. Everyone had a great time!! Dolly had lunch ready and waiting, so the adults were happy. The girls played dolls and had tea parties were over joyed. Poor Evan, the oldest and only boy stayed upstairs until 2 friends came over Macy and Payton and then everyone had a little friend to play with.
the Sidell's are house sitting for a friend, who has an estate home. OMG the house was gorgeous!! we just went to use the pool, trampoline, sandbox, slide and any other toy they had back there! the little ones were so tired from running and screaming and having fun, that they cried when it was time to go.