Kimmy's Walking Everywhere!

So, our little baby girl is finally walking. Kim actually started walking several weeks ago, but she is finally stable enough to catch on camera. She is so good that she is not scared of walking out on our new patio which is made of pebbled concrete, so it's not the softest.

She even goes so fast that I had a hard time getting far enough in front of her to get a picture of her face. She is always smiling and laughing so big because she is so proud of what she is doing!

I love this one because you can see her mid step, even if it is from behind.

This is what our new patio looks like. Mom and Dad, doesn't it look so much better? As you can tell the kids LOVE it because they can ride their bikes all around now, and I have a place to sit and read while I watch them, or while I watch Jared barbecue! YUM!

This is Dana with our little neighbor boy, Lulu. He is Native American and has the most beautiful features!

I love this picture. Nate decided to take Kimmy on a ride on the little blue truck that used to belong to him when he was her age. I have a picture of Nate riding this with Dana when they were both in diapers! (I can't find it though, or I would post it here).

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but Kimmy is actually LOVING playing with Nate right here. They get along so good! It makes me so happy!

See how Nate has grown. The distance from his hips to his knees is long enough for his knees to drag on the ground when scooting on the blue truck.

This is Dana and her sweet little friend next door, Sylvanna. She is almost exactly one year older than Dana, but they get along really good and love to play together.
Here they are riding the bikes while Lulu is getting into mischief on the stairs.
We love our new patio! Thanks to Felicia who made it happen, you are awesome!

Oh, I wish I were an Ocsar Meyer Weiner!

So, I was out and about the other day, and what did I run into but the Oscar Meyer Weiner-Moblie! I thought the kids would find it funny, so I took a few pictures.

Nate seriously laughed for almost 5 minutes when he saw the picture of me looking like a hot dog! They were so jealous they didn't get to see it too! Maybe next time....

My Current Favorite Picture of Jared

This picture was taken by Dana. Enough said.

So, since our 4th of July outing was so successful, I decided to take the kids the next night up to Monte Rio, a little town in the Redwoods a few miles from the beach, the next night. It's right on the Russian River, and they were having their annual celebration on the 5th. It consisted of a "River Parade," which was a parade done at night on the river where the boats are decorated like parade floats and are decked out with all kinds of lights. After the parade, which was kind of more like a flotilla, they did a water curtain from the bridge, where they showed all kinds of patriotic images to music. Then they had a small fireworks show to cap it all of. It was cool because the picture above is of the hotel on the opposite bank of the river from where we were sitting. I tried to take the pictures of it at night, but they turned out terrible, so we went back on Monday, when Jared didn't have to work, on our way to the beach. Anyway, right there where they do the "river parade" the river is really calm and shallow and on the beach there is a concession stand, some other flea market/craft fair type of stands, and a place to rent canoes or kayaks or rafts for the afternoon. We are definitely going back next year and spending the day it was so much fun!
This is Kim feeling patriotic in the car on the way up.
One of our favorite things to do as a family since we moved to California is go to the beach together. We totally lucked out when we went on Monday because we found this little secluded beach that was down the cliff in a cove that was only occupied by 2 couples at each end of the beach. Since it was sort of in a cove, we were protected from the wind and it was actually pretty warm for once! Jared took Nate and Dana out to chase the waves while I held Kimmy in the Snuggli and we looked for treasures in the sand.

Nate and Dana both loved the seaweed that was washed up on the beach because it has these huge bulbs that are like full of air that enable it to float on the surface of the water. They love to squish them. Plus, since Nate got his Indiana Jones Legos video game, he loved to pretend it was a whip.
Dana was busy digging for treasures too. She found several half shells she liked, plus a penny.
Dad to a break from all the wave chasing to snuggle with Kimmy, and it was the highlight of her afternoon.
I don't know what is up with the kids doing all kinds of weird poses when I try to take pictures of them together...I think they think it is cute.
It was an awesome day!

Fun on the 4th

So, since the 4th of July is my FAVORITE holiday, it was a little depressing that Jared had to work. I love Santa Rosa, but what's up with their 4th celebration. The town is over 160 thousand people and they can't have a parade? Ashland has one for just 30 thousand (even if it is a bunch of liberal granola-eating, tree-hugging, alternative lifestyle-loving thespians)! So because there is not much of a celebration here during the day, I decided that I should take a chance and take the kids to the fireworks display in Petaluma that night. Here we are at the gate: I tried so hard to get a good picture of Kimmy but since it was so dark, the flash kept bugging her eyes!
Sad to say, I was actually surprised at what a great time the four of us had. The kids were really on their best behavior and we had hot dogs and cotton candy to eat while we were waiting for the show. They didn't fight with each other, or act disobediently once! Hurray for us and our small victory!

I think that the red, white and blue glow sticks that we purchased at Target before hand had something to do with the good behavior.
I don't know what was up with Nate, but he is trying to look like he is eating someone in every picture! What a goof!
Dana had a great time dancing and singing along to the classic rock songs they had playing over the PA system. It didn't bother her that she didn't know the lyrics. The way she is so passionate about singing (whether she can sing the tune or not) is one of my very favorite things about her!
The fireworks were pretty good, and we even had the best luck leaving the fairgrounds, it only took us about four minutes to get out.

We had a great time and I am very encouraged by it, I might just try taking them out by myself again sometime!

Dana's Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family pedigree - Free printable family tree chart

Kimberly's Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology

Nate's Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph