The 4th

We had a really fun 4th of July yesterday. Steve grew up in San Diego and his parents are some of the most hospitable people we've ever met. We've been to see them twice before and each time they have just folded us into their family and made us feel like just some of the bunch. With 5 kids and a passel of grandkids and visitors always in and out, it's really easy to just slip right in with the crowd. :) And there always seems to be enough food! :) I remember the first time we visited them coming home and just thinking that we'd seen the pure love of Christ in their genuine affection for us, who at the time were essentially strangers. It really got us thinking that whatever it was that this family had, we wanted it, too! And we knew it really was Jesus, shining out of their every pore because they were so full of Him that He just naturally spilled out wherever they were. Again, I'm reminded of the rewards of seeking after Him diligently! We had a really great time.

Couldn't help dressing up my girls for the 4th. Thanks, Granny for this special red white and blue outfit! [side note: my Granny went to be with Jesus last summer, but my mom went to the store and picked out some special things that Granny would have liked, because it would have pleased her greatly to dress Baby Nora up!]

Both girlies together. Sweet sisters.

Emma and Carolyn in their red white and blue

Throw me Daddy! High up in the sky! :) Thankfully he hasn't started doing this with Nora yet.

There were root beer floats for dessert. Carolyn was so excited- she saw the bubbles and asked in an awed voice "Is that POP?!" It was the first time I let her have a carbonated, high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden beverage. She loved it, of course. :)

The kids got to stay up to watch the fireworks- they're almost ready to start! :)

I know I shouldn't have taken pictures with a flash while the fireworks were actually going, but I just wanted to capture some of Carolyn's delight with the bursting colors in the sky. She was very excited about them at first, but she lost interest after about 10 minutes. Nora even got to see some of the fireworks because she woke up crying right before the grand finale... she wasn't a big fan. ;)

All in all, a great day with great friends and great all-American fun. Later this afternoon we head for Anaheim to rest up for our Big Day tomorrow! Disneyland here we come! :) I hope I get some pictures... but I think it is going to be VERY crowded, so we'll see how well they turn out!

THE Zoo

Yesterday was our trial run for the BIG day on Monday (Disneyland in just one day!) We went for two pretty major excursions in one day and, though we were pretty tired after it was all done, we think it went pretty well. After naps yesterday (there was more nap mutiny than would have been expected from two little girls who spent the morning racing back and forth on the beach!) we grabbed an early supper and went to see the Night Zoo at the San Diego Zoo. It might have made more sense to give the best zoo in the country a whole day of its own but since it's a holiday weekend, our choices were pretty limited for where to fit everything since none of us wanted to go anywhere near any of the tourist traps on July 4. Turns out, the night zoo is actually one of the very best times to go- it was cool with the sun going down and not nearly as crowded as it would have been earlier in the day. And the animals were a lot more active than they are when it's hot outside! Thank goodness for friends who are locals because without them we would have spent a hot, sticky, and crowded day seeing sleepy animals!

The flamingos are always fun. Carolyn was a little overtired and out of sorts; she thought the bus tour we took since we didn't have time to walk everywhere went on a little long... but overall, she behaved pretty well and seemed to enjoy seeing the animals.
These little picture spots were everywhere. Carolyn wasn't quite tall enough for this one. :)
Nora was pretty contented in her stroller most of the time.
Carolyn the caterpillar and Emma the butterfly. Both girls were tall enough for this one.
This is the first time in a petting zoo that I have seen Carolyn actually approach the animals. I think she was trying to encourage this one to pick its head up!
I saw this little onesie on someone else's blog and had to have one like it. :)
An attempt at silly faces from two tired girls.
This picture does nothing to show the real majesty of what we saw in the new lion exhibit at the zoo. We were literally within feet of this huge lion and his wife, separated by just this chain link fence. He was pacing to and fro with his eyes on Carolyn every time he walked past her. At one point, he actually roared- it was a little scary even knowing he was contained! You really get an idea for the size of the lions when you're standing right next to them! And you can see why they're called the King of Beasts. The lions were favorites for all of us. :)

San Diego Part One

We are in San Diego this week on a celebratory vacation. We feel very blessed to have friends who live in such a nice vacation spot! Steve and Carolyn were our best friends from medical school and we are thoroughly enjoying catching up with them and their wonderful family.

They have two girls also, just a little older than our two. Kate is 10 months, and Emma will be 4 in August. We are really enjoying watching our families grow together. We're close enough friends that Emma and Kate feel very much like nieces to me! We all got married the same day, Brad and Steve were in the same medical school class and we are all finishing residency this summer! So it's been quite a journey since we met each other over 8 years ago... but here we are! :) All of us are ready to start a whole new phase of life.

It was a bit of a grueling, long trip to get here. Delays and way too much sugar really made things crazy and we needed the first full day here to recover from the trip. We didn't do much yesterday; just hung around catching up and took the kids to the park. Carolyn went through a tube slide for the first time after seeming scared of them for the longest time.

Emma is just a little mama! She would hold Nora all the time if I let her!

And Nora really is such a bright ball of sunshine. I love that this is what I (generally) see when I go in to pick her up after a nap.

Today we took the girls to the beach on Coronado. It's a beautiful beach and we all had a wonderful time.

I was a little surprised at how quickly Carolyn was excited about the water. She's usually a little slower to warm up to things!

Almost the whole time we were there, the girls played this game where they got a bunch of sand in their hands and started shrieking "My hands are dirty!" and running down to the water to wash them off.

They really had a wonderful time.

Both of these girls are quite strong-willed and each has her own ideas about the way things should go, so there have been a few little scuffles between them, but overall, everyone is having a great time, and today, on the neutral ground of the beach, they got along so great!

Check out Carolyn's crazy hair if you enlarge this picture!

This was just about the best time for a vacation if you have to take an infant- Nora will still sleep just about anywhere. :)

Nora and Kate were wearing the same onesie, so we had to have a picture. :)

Brad "buried" Emma in the sand. She thought it was funny.

Carolyn thought she wanted to go in the hole and be buried, too, but she decided she didn't like it much once she was in.

We took Nora down to the water to put her feet in her first ocean. At first she just looked at me with a "what's this?" expression.

Then she decided it was NOT fun. But have you ever seen a cuter little pouty face?

I love our new family picture. :)

Can you believe she's almost sitting up by herself? She's still leaning quite a bit and totally not stable left alone, but she's starting to hold herself up! :) I'm so proud...

Check out the sand on this kid? Too bad there was nowhere to wash off because we had to do bathtime as soon as we got home, which totally sabotaged naptime- could be a bad omen for tonight's excursion to the Night Zoo at the San Diego Zoo! But we'll try it anyway....

PARTY PARTY PARTY!

Oh, my goodness, it has been BIRTHDAY WEEK!! After you read this post, you will certainly comment on how I totally overdid it... and I sort of know that... but Carolyn has been SO excited about birthdays ever since she went to a friend's party back in March, that I sort of just had to make a big deal out of it! :) I've never been very good at doing things halfway. So, without further ado, I present our series of parties for Carolyn's third birthday.

Friday night last week we had about six of Carolyn's little friends, and their parents/siblings over for a birthday grill-out. She was so excited to have her friends over to celebrate! They all wreaked havoc on our living room... the path of destruction was widespread and pretty intense! [but it was worth it; they had so much fun!] She loved all the presents that they brought her (even though they totally didn't need to do that).

Cake #1 was a "Jello cake" with cool whip and strawberries on top that spelled her name and (on the other pan) "Happy Birthday." This cake was remarkably easy and tasted great!

After cake and presents all the kids went outside to play in our little pool and in the sprinkler I got for the occasion. It was so blasted hot that day that everyone really enjoyed getting wet.

Carolyn's friend Rachel is so taken with Nora! She wants to be wherever Nora is at all times. :) She is going to have her own baby sister in a couple months and I think my friend Heather will be blessed to have such a sweet and kind girl to help her take care of baby Madelyn when she comes!

The kids had a lot of fun playing Ring Around the Rosies.

I love this picture because it captures their motion as they are "falling down." I love how unconcerned they are that they are trotting around the back yard in their swimsuits. I wish that we could keep some of that confidence as we grow older instead of always wondering what people are thinking about the way we look.

Saturday morning was Party #2. The family came to town to celebrate with us (I just didn't think I could handle both friends and family at the same time; it would have been too much for one day!) Uncle Bry held both his nieces while they watched Ratatouille while we got things ready for lunch.

Pretty much the rest of the weekend looked like this for Nora. Brad's grandma was in from Florida and she and Nora were fast friends. Great Nana kept joking that she was going to take Nora back to Florida with her (and I think she might have been just a little bit serious!) :)

For lunch, Carolyn enjoyed eating "worms" with Auntie Laura. [I made pasta; she called it worms.]

Cake #2 was a work in progress. We'd seen a friend's multi-layer princess cake and wanted to try and replicate it. Michelle and I put the pieces together and Papa came and frosted them!

It was pretty much the most magnificent birthday cake I have ever seen!

I don't have a great picture of Carolyn blowing out these candles. The giant cake is in the way! But she was so excited about the Princesses and just blown away (we all were) by how amazing the cake looked! Then pretty much she picked off all the icing and ate just icing and a little tiny bit of cake. :) She's her mother's daughter. That's exactly what I liked to do with my cakes as a kid!

Carolyn got some really great things for her birthday. This, pink, indestructible camera lets her take pictures just like Mommy! We're taking it with us this week on vacation.

The sparkly, shiny shoes were a big hit, too!

And here's Carolyn's new "house." Her old one was just a cardboard box that eventually started to fall apart, so Nana and Papa supplied her with a new little place to play. She sat in there for quite awhile with the cash register that Michelle and Bryan got her and just kept scanning things for people to buy. :)

While Carolyn was taking a nap, I joined Grandma and the two Papas in a (very casual) game of bridge. I enjoy playing, but haven't done it much since I was a teenager (there aren't too many people my age who know how to play). It was fun to play again; I enjoy the complexity of the cards and how every hand is different. Nora enjoyed helping Grandma organize her cards. :)

So finally, after much celebration that left us all happy but worn out, we made it to The Birthday yesterday. I stole a friend's birthday tradition and had the "Birthday Fairy" bring Carolyn a special new outfit to wear on her birthday (it subsequently got red popsicle all over it so we had to change it, but at least she started out in a new outfit!). Then per the Barton family tradition, there were Birthday Muffins.

Carolyn's trying very hard to show me "three." She can do it, but it requires some concentration!

I think that Cake #3 was Carolyn's favorite for eating. Like her daddy, she LOVES Nana's ice cream pie!!

And after cake came the Crown Jewel of the Birthday Present Lineup: her very own first BICYCLE! She's been telling me for months that she was going to get a pink bicycle for her birthday, and every time we've been at a friend's house who has a bike, it's the first thing she goes for. So now she has her own, and she was delighted!

She's still working on developing enough coordination to pedal properly, but this will come in time. Seeing her on a bike makes her seem like such a big girl- and she really is! I think "three" is going to be GREAT. :)