Birthday Girl!

We finally got to celebrate Olive's big day! Here are a few highlights.

Two more hours to kill until Jeff comes home

Sometimes the days feel really long. And we run out of things to do.

And I have to think of some way to pass the time.

And my kids aren't always happy with what I come up with.

Back with Birthdays!

I know, I know. It's been forever and I'm a terrible blogger/mother/person. Here are a few highlights from the past couple of months.

The boy turned 3!

And the whole family chipped in to get him his very own bouncer! He had a fun time celebrating with his Westra cousins (Olive, obviously, was not enjoying the photo session).

Then we celebrated Jeff's birthday!




Next, we celebrated the much anticipated arrival of our first Bixby cousin - Sawyer Isaac Scully. LOVE him!!





Finally, our big girl turned 1 last week!


Her birthday party outfit! We'll see if she gets a chance to wear it this Saturday...still hoping the chicken pox make an appearance this week...not counting on it, though.

Even though the official celebration hasn't taken place, we let her open up a couple of presents.

And she and her brother enjoyed some birthday pancakes.

So, I am really going to try to get back on track with blogging. We are just having some issues with children not wanting to nap at the same time, or at all. And more issues with these same children tearing apart our tiny house...

But, I'm really going to try. I promise.

Say "Starbucks!"

Do you think it's bad that my three year old is asking to go to Starbucks? Do you think it's lame that two of my last three posts have been about Starbucks? I'd say yes and yes.

So, I promised Zeke we would go on Sunday morning since Jeff was working. But it was freezing cold. Seriously cold.

So cold that there was snow on the mountains behind our house and ice on our car.

So cold we had to bundle up and one of us had to dress like a pink teddy bear.

She got over it.

See?

Sometimes life kicks you in the rear

Here are some pictures from the past month to prove that we're still alive and kickin' back.

Becoming one of those bloggers I no longer follow because of their wordy posts

Since entering 2011 our family has been in a bit of a fog. I blame it on the smallest Westra, who has decided that sleep is not a huge priority for her. This will explain the lack of blog posts and, for that matter, the lack of motivation to get out of the house or even out of our pajamas, as well as Zeke's steady diet of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Nick Jr. (which resulted in another broken bone, another bout with the flu, and serious meltdowns over strange things - like me not understanding what he means by "not cold ice"). So, have I justified not updating the blog for 2 weeks?

This week we came up with a plan to end this ongoing nightmare and last night was the beginning of our attempt to get O to sleep through the night. I wanted to reward myself with some good coffee this morning so I convinced Z to get in the car (it took apple juice in the Starbucks cup and goldfish crackers). It was a little more challenging to convince him that O should go with us. He insisted we should leave her at home and that "Jesus will take care of her." We all ended up in the car but a wrong turn on my part led us to Starbucks and not the drive-thru Coffee Bean I had intended. So, into Starbucks we all marched in our pajamas and slippers. Z wanted to hang out for awhile so we sat and watched the nicely dressed (not in their pajamas) customers pass through the store. Z had a question about pretty much every person that walked through the door, "What does that lady got?" "Why does that guy have keys?" And then announced to the entire store that he had to use the bathroom. As we waited outside the occupied bathroom for several minutes I began to dread even more the thought of exposing myself and my children to this public restroom, but Zeke insisted that we wait, explaining to me, "I want to be patient." Awesome.

So, this is really why we don't get out much. Because he is almost three and I am always tired and we both prefer to stay in our pajamas all day. But we are working on it. And I hope things will be different in a couple of weeks or months or years. We'll see.

And some pictures. Because I know that's the only reason you check our blog.

Gettin' out of the house

This morning, after two meltdowns involving bunny fruit snacks and chocolate milk, we forced our precious children into their car seats and drove to the El Monte airport to watch the planes take off.

O Joy was looking super cute in a new outfit.



While Z was wearing his usual Buzz Lightyear sunglasses and ketchup mustache. Sigh.

We were super classy and ate our fast food lunch on the small deck outside of the airport restaurant.

She loves him. So much.

I was feeling sad that neither one of my kids wanted to take a picture with me.

But, being a Bixby girl, I was totally willing to pose for a picture alone.

We didn't see any planes take off...but Z was super excited to see a guy riding a bike on the runway, exclaiming "Look! That guy brought his Kazam! It has two wheels!"