Sporting a New Haircut at the Beach!

Yesterday Owen finally got a much needed hair cut! Later, we went to the beach with some friends and tired him out before bedtime. Here he is working on a sand castle.Luke, Laith and Owen having fun

Luke eating seaweed : )

Owen having a great time with Daddy!

Here he is flying high! He was laughing so hard

Warm'n up!

Wow, I can't believe it has been a week since my last posting! That sure did go by fast! The weather has slowly but surely been getting warmer so we have been doing a lot outdoors lately (as usual) Here are some pictures to catch up from the week!
First of all, THIS is a good reason to wash all your produce before you eat it! Here is a little brown frog who decided to make the inside of a large basil leaf his temporary home. Thank God I didn't try to pick it while he was on it. That would have been a scream you all would have heard on the EAST coast!

One morning this week, I thought it was too quiet for too long so I went to see what Owen was up to, and I was pleasantly surprised to see him nicely coloring in his drawing book at his table. He brought the paper and markers outside by himself. Only children are so good at entertaining themselves :) Lately he has been wanting to climb into our bed (when we are not in it) and play. He will sometimes just sit and rest for a minute, or point out which side Mommy and Daddy sleep on, or crawl under the covers and pretend he is sleeping. I can't believe that he can even get up to our bed without any help (it's pretty high up).

This morning we went to the pool in our complex and had a lot of fun! We all even got to sit in the hot tub for a bit. I thought Owen would think it was too hot, but he really enjoyed it and floated along in his Daddy's arms completely happy. I think he liked the bubbles the best : )
After Adam went to work, I started working on the garden. However, my little helper was more of a little destroyer. So, after many time outs in a chair, I gave up about half way through and left it for tomorrow. We came inside and read books instead. His favorite book right now is Where The Wild Things are. He says "Max" over and over again, along with "Wild Thing" (in his own way) It's really cute.He found Adam's gardening gloves and thought he would help by putting them on. He found it a little difficult to pick things up needless to say : )
My hydrangeas are starting to come back in full pink force!

Sunday

Today we lucked out and got a picnic table for $10 on Craigslist! Now Owen and his friends can eat, paint, draw, etc.. in the back yard and it's just the right size. He was eating lunch when Adam carried it in the house, which means he was too excited to eat after he got one look at his new table : ) He is so happy, I am hoping it keeps him distracted from picking my tomatoes for now!

Later on I took Owen to the beach to burn off some energy before bed time. Sadly, I think a little finger print touched the camera lens, so the pictures all have a hazy film over them : ( Anyway, we had fun finding rocks once again and throwing them in the water. We did that for nearly 2 hours! Mommy is tired too!
Looking for rocks.

Found one!

Saturday

Our morning started with some light reading by Daddy after breakfast.

Later, I was coloring with him with markers at the kitchen table. I left him for about 90 seconds to use the bathroom. When I came out, this is what I saw! Here he is checking out his art work. And then pointing to it admitting that this is his fine work. Fortunately, his masterpiece was done in washable crayola (bless those people) markers and came right out with one of those magic eraser sponges.

After Adam went to work, we took off to Nanna's house to see my niece Katie, meet her new boyfriend and have dinner. First thing Owen did when we got there was run outside to the garden to pick carrots! He brought them in and helped Nanna clean them up..........

And then stuck them in the juicer................ And gave me a big "Cheers!" when he had is fresh carrot juice in his sippy cup : )
My beautiful niece as happy as can be.

Owen is enjoying his snacks at his brand new kid sized picnic table!

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Adam and I got out for the day yesterday and headed to Los Angeles. Neither of us are big fans of that city, but we got our free tickets to see one of our favorite late night hosts in Hollywood. It was a lot of fun. The show was high energy, we clapped and "woo hooed" a LOT! Ed Helms (Andy Bernard from the Office) was on as well as Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways), they were both great. Ed Helms I thought was really funny. We got to see 311 play about 5 songs at an outdoor concert at the end. It was great! The only down side is that we were supposed to meet our friends for dinner across the street but it got out MUCH later than we had anticipated, so we sadly missed them : ( We ended up sharing an awesome pizza at this fancy Italian restaurant before we headed home. It was a great night!

Oh, and the best part was getting a picture of Elmo so we can show Owen how "cool" we are : ) And here is Big Bird crossing the street. Hilarious. There are characters just walking around all over the place asking for tips for their pictures. I guess we can tell Owen that we went to Sesame Street!

Fairview Gardens

We decided to join a community garden /farm for the summer. We pick up our vegetables and fruits once a week. You never know what you are going to get, each week it's different. This is the first week and we got spinach, lettuce, strawberries, green beans, carrots, squash (yellow and green), and a kholarabi (which I had never had before). We had the most amazing salad with dinner tonight! The kholarabi tastes like a mild radish. It was really good.

Owen has started picking as many green tomatoes as he can get his hands on in OUR garden. He has plucked at least 10 that I know of. Ugh, we get so frustrated. He knows very well not to do this and gets put back in the house EVERY time he does it, but he just keeps on testing us! He looks us in the eye with his hands on the plant and says "no no" as he proceeds to pull on the leaves or tomatoes until we pick him up. He is also picking our lettuce, throwing rocks in our flowers and tackling my rosemary plant. I wonder if Home Depot sells any "kid deterents." Our little garden fence is not working to keep those bigger "animals" out of our plants! And I thought that gophers were the only things we needed to worry about!

Owen's not all bad really, he has been very sweet and cuddly lately when he's not getting into trouble in the backyard! He just likes to help and immitate everything that we do. It's very cute.

Beach Clean-Up!

Saturday was our first monthly Santa Barbara Beach Clean-Up! The Mamas hung back with the kids at the playground while the Dads went out and picked up garbage on the beach. Once they came back with bags full, we all switched jobs and the moms combed the beach for trash while the dads watched the kids. When we were satisfied with a job well done, we all shared Adam's famous Bloody Mary's!!! Adam was even Earth-conscious enough to use reusable plastic cups. It was a great start to our Saturday and can't wait for the next one!

Giving Back

On Friday evening I got to volunteer my time and services to the Transition House downtown http://www.transitionhouse.com/. They help homeless families learn how to budget, help them get employment and get them back on their feet and living on their own again. I was supposed to give chair massages on Mother's Day weekend for some of the women (mothers) who live there, however the Jesusita fires got in the way so we had to reschedule. I was not feeling like I wanted to go, as I had worked a lot this week, was in need of some rest, but once I got there I realized that these women needed a break way more than I did! I was so glad I went. They were all very grateful and sweet women.
It was an eye opening experience. Most of these women had more than one child in tow, in fact I worked on a 21 year old who had FIVE children already. I can't imagine. Her mother, who I also saw, is 39 and has EIGHT grand kids! It really made me realize how lucky I am to have the family I do. It puts life back into perspective.

Blissful Evening

Today we decided to go to the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara. They have a butterfly exhibit right now that was beautifly done. Owen was so good at not touching the butterflies, and staying away from their cut fruit! He had several butterflies that hitched a ride on his back for a bit, but my camera battery died and I didn't pack the spare. Oh well, we will have to go back soon. We missed a lot of great pictures. We hung out at the museum for about an hour until they closed.

Next we took a bottle of wine, some brie, crackers, apple and "Owen snacks" to the rose garden below the Mission. It was absolutely gorgeous outside! Not too cold, not too hot, sunny blue skies and a ton of kids running around playing together. We must have been there for at least 2 hours just watching Owen run around, making friends, and eating to his hearts content. He had a blast and was pretty tuckered out by the time we left.

Wish I had better pics to post. We will definetly do this again! I am thinking every other thursday night I want to do this, it was a fantastic night! Any friends who read this blog, please join us in two weeks!

Memorial Day 2009

Sweet Laith

Darling Gwendolyn.

Cyanne and her Daddy Tom.

After a quick trip to San Francisco Saturday, Adam and I were so happy to see Owen this morning! He was pretty happy and excited to see us too. I just love that complete family feeling. I can feel the love!

After a much needed nap, we took Owen to our friend's house for good times, great friends, fish tacos and margaritas (made by Adam). Owen played hard with his adorable little friends : ) We had a great time! Now it's my turn for my night time nap!