Bennett's First 4th!

Here's our little family before we left for our super fun 4th at the Fowler's house!

When talking with our community group we realized that none of us had any plans so we figured we should make plans with each other! We had a great time swimming and eating and playing music and watching movies! It really was a great time!



In other news... Adam and I have both managed to hurt ourselves pretty well! Adam smashed his finger and lost his fingernail while working on a project for a friend and I twisted my ankle when I misstepped at the bottom of our stairs walking to the car.  Oh well... such is life! 

Summer had proved to be very busy...

In an attempt to stay up to date on blogging, this is going to be a long one!

Last week Bennett, my mom and I went to God Chicks in Pasadena! It was a great time, there were fabulous speakers, tons of awesome music and dancing as well as plenty of women who wanted to hold and play with Bennett!

Here's Bennett dancing with Jervaun on the first night of the conference.

Bennett really was such a good baby the whole time we were there. He slept pretty well and only cried when he was hungry (although he did take a 7 hour nap on Sunday afternoon-think he was tired?)
Here's a shot with Bennett and my mom on Friday night.

On the second night of the conference there is always a "surprise". Last year it was a Farris Wheel, this year it was hot air balloons! I had never been in one before and it was really fun! It made me want to go on a long hot air balloon ride... we'll have to save up for that!
In the last week we have also celebrated two birthdays:

Mine (Turned 28 on June 26th)

and Casey's (Turned 15 on July 1st)

In celebrating Casey's birthday, Bennett had a first. It was his first time going to Richie's Diner. Going to Richie's for breakfast has become a tradition in our family for birthdays and going back to school ... I don't know how it started, but it's fun!

Another first in the life of Bennett would be his new love for veggies! The poor boy is teething and wants to chew on anything he can get in his mouth! Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to give him celery (with out mom knowing) but after looking at it, he wasn't actually getting anything in his mouth from the carrot or the celery so we let him play with them for a while - he really did enjoy them and it was pretty cute!
The other night my middle school girls Bible study started up again and we had our first night just be a game night. We played Apples to Apples (always a good time) and let Bennett play too!. We gave him cards face down and then each turn we randomly took one card out of his hand. He actually won on 6 different rounds! His words were: Smooth, Shy, Chewy, Heartless, Radical and Dignified. (All but heartless seem to fit him rather well!)
Oh and he for some reason became very interested in one of De Anna's card... funny thing was that is was the "delicious" card... maybe he was hungry!
If you noticed Bennett's shirt above it says "I'm new here" with a picture of the earth on it ... but I had to take a picture of the back too because I think it is just too cute! (Thanks Kailey for your cute design)
And then last but not least in our action packed week ... Gunnar came over to play. He was really sweet and gentle with Bennett and was very interested in his little play gym. He even climbed under the rings at one point to be with Bennett!
But after a while he realized Bennett was not super fun so he moved on to the drum and had a lot of fun! He is such a cute boy!
So, there you have it, our week in pictures... hope you aren't as worn out as I am! :)

It's Official...

...it's Summer! 

(and Bennett is 4 months old)One of the first signs of summer is when the Organ Concerts begin! 

Adam and I love to go down to Balboa Park on Monday nights during the summer and listen to the organ concerts. It is such a great time to just enjoy the park, enjoy friends and listen to world class musicians that fly in from all over the world!  

We didn't want Bennett to get cold once the sun went down so we put him in his little bear suit (although he looks more like an ewok)

Here's Bennett "enjoying" the first song of the night:

About 3/4 of the way through the night the person playing the organ said that he was going to play a song from a man that had connections in the Scandinavian contemporary music scene. Then he said that "You don't have to like it, you just have to hear it at least once". That made us kind of nervous, and rightfully so, here's a portion of it:

 

It was a great night and it was so nice to visit with our friends that met us down there! 

YAY for summer being here!

If you are interested, click here to see the schedule for the rest of the summer, it is such a good time!

Bennett and Adam

In honor of Father's Day yesterday I wanted to post a few pictures of Adam and Bennett.

Father's Day was fun - Bennett got his dad "Dan in Real Life". Adam and Bennett both wore sweater vests to church yesterday and we had lunch with Grandpa at the fire station and then dinner with Papa Roger at our house.

The other day I went to run some errands and left Adam with some milk to feed Bennett in case he woke up - well of course he woke up but Adam didn't have to "give" Bennett the bottle, he wanted to hold it on his own! This is what I saw when I walked in the door:

And lastly, here is the all time cutest picture in the history of Father-Son moments:

Can you even stand it?

Breakfast Casserole?

I give this 4 out of 5 stars. Very good but lacks a "wow" factor. Maybe it needs another ingredient? Onions? Mushrooms? Chopped Spinach? Cilantro? Salsa? Jalapenos?

See what ya'll can come up with...

Recipe For Breakfast Casserole

8 oz of Ciabatta Bread, cut into 1"cubes

1 lb of chicken breakfast sausage

1/2 cup chopped green onions

1 1/4 Cup Milk (We used rice milk)

1 Cup of Cheddar Cheese, Grated

6 Large eggs or

2 Large eggs and a carton of egg beaters (8oz)

2 Tbl Chopped Parsley

The Night Before:

Heat oven to 400. Arrange bread cubes in single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 Minutes until bread is toasty. In a medium skillet cook sausage until brown, stirring to crumble. Combine sausage, bread & onions in a large bowl. In another bowl combine milk, cheese and eggs and whisk. Pour egg/milk/cheese mixture over bread and stir to coat. Spoon into 2 quart glass baking dish, pouring excess liquid over the top. Press down with a spoon. Cover and refrigerate over night.

The next morning:

Heat oven to 350, uncover casserole, and bake for 50 minutes. Slice into pieces, sprinkle with parsley and eat it hot! Serves 6-8

People all over the world...

While living in Russia two of my good friends there were Cam and Sonja.

(Deb, Sonja, Cam celebrating Cinco De Mayo in St. Petersburg, Russia)

(Sonja and I at the Red Lion - and "English" pub in St. Petersburg - on Ladies Night! Hence all the cups on cheep champagne they kept bringing that we were not drinking!)

Cam and Sonja fell in love and got married! YAY!

However, Cam is from Australia (not that Sonja lived super close either, she is from the Seattle area) and they are currently living in the land of Oz. Due to visa renewal guidelines Sonja had to come back to the states for a few weeks and then on her way back "down under" she ended up with an 8 hour layover at LAX! Seeing how it is summer and all and we haven't seen Sonja since their wedding we were more than happy to jump in the car and make the drive out to see her.

After a quick stop at LAX to feed Bennett (he slept the whole way but woke up about 30 min out, and he was starving!) we headed to Santa Monica to enjoy the PERFECT weather! We walked the Pier and wondered through 3rd street and just talked about life. It was such a great day!

Sonja and I were having so much fun trying on all the head bands at Anthropologie! We must have tried on 5 to 10 each! These were the last two that we tried on - you can see from the "seriousness" of these pictures the amount of fun we were having with these amazing head bands. These were for sure not the cutest ones we tried on, if you want to see the others click here - we also found the most amazing chair!

We had a great dinner at CPK and Bennett and Sonja really enjoyed playing with one another!
Sonja loved her cuddle time with Bennett! He was fading fast as we were heading back to the car. We changed him and put him in PJ's and he slept the whole way home! (This was Bennett's longest car trip so far and he did really well!)

It was such a fun day! I'm so glad that it worked out for us to meet up! Sonja, so good to see you, come back to California soon and bring Cam next time too!

Bennett's First Trip to PF Changs

Seems like he had a pretty good time!

Visitors from the East and the South!

This last week has been full of visiting relatives! Two of Adam's Aunts came to town this week (Sally and Kathy) and my brother Aaron can to town as well.

Monday night we went up to Adam's parent's place in Canyon Lake to see our visitors from the East! Here's some pictures of Bennett with his great Aunt Sally, he wanted her to see how he could fit his whole fist in his mouth!

On Wednesday, Aunts came to our house and we took a walk around where we live and took a few pictures.

Here are three of the 5 sisters: Sally, Mary Beth and Kathy with Bennett Boy

Here's a fabulous picture of those of us who live in CA: Mary Beth, Me, Baby B and Adam

Oh and here is Adam showing his Aunts the first road he ever designed, it's not on the property we live on but you can see it from where we live.

After having lunch we went to White Lime to show them a good "California Dessert" and they very much enjoyed it! We also happened upon a cute new book store over by White Lime and had a great time looking at books and sitting on fun furniture! Bennett loved it!

That brings us to our visitor from the South - as in Mexico. Aaron is home for just a few days before he takes off again for a trip to northern CA and Wyoming. Here's a quick shot we took of him and his nephew when he stopped by our place.

Oh and this has nothing to do with visitors but look how cute my boy is when he pulls the bears on his bouncy seat onto himself!

He was asleep like normal when I got in the shower...

... but apparently he felt the need to move around a bit!

(Look at his little "Snuggle-saurus" foot sticking through!)

Mr. Talks-A-Lot

So Bennett has been talking a ton lately and this morning before we left the house he has some serious business to go over with Mr. Bear before we left. I captured the last half of the "conversation"

also the other night he was wrestling with the blanket on our bed - pretty cute!