{Is Christmas really right around the corner???}

I am really having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit! It has been unusually hot here and I am starting to wish that the cold weather would come. I am tired of wearing my summer clothes and I really want to start getting ready for Christmas! Last year at this time, I had already been listening to Christmas music for almost a month and my decorations had been up for a few weeks! And this year, I haven't listened to one Christmas song yet! It is supposed to get cooler this week, so hopefully we can bring out the jeans and sweaters...but until then, we enjoyed ourselves in this heat!!

Earlier in the week, we went to the beach. This was Zoe's first time at the beach and she HATED everything about it! She was not a fan at all. As soon as we got there, I sat her down in the sand and she started crying right away. Every time she was touching the sand, she would cry. She even cried when I sprinkled sand on her toes!! And I'm sure you can imagine what happened when her little toes touched the cool water...she flipped out!! She wanted nothing to do with the place...hopefully by next summer, she will start to enjoy it a little better because I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time there! Ayden LOVED it!! He has been there quite a few times, but this was the first time that he really wanted to play in the water! I was surprised that he wasn't scared at all. He wanted to hold on to my hand and Grammy's hand as we lifted him up when the waves came crashing! We had a lot of fun and it was so warm that day...85 degrees at the beach!! I don't ever remember a day that nice at the beach when I was younger!!

Jeremiah had to work on Saturday, so on Friday the kids and I went to Grammy & Grandpa's house to spend some time playing and to give Jeremiah's parents a break from having the chaos of 2 little kids running around all over the place! I'm sure they enjoyed their quiet day and a half! We had a lot of fun. Ayden had a blast hanging out with his buddy "Papa Roger". They played trains, watched "Cars", went for rides in Grandpa's golf cart, and played with the turtles. Ayden really loves these turtles! He loves to feed them lettuce and watch them walk around. He learned another new Spanish word...."tortuga, tortuga"!! I love it...he's becoming bilingual!! =) Zoe also enjoyed "petting" the turtles!

And of course we had fun swimming at the pool. This is what Ayden wanted to do the entire time we were there. But the funny thing is that swimming to him just means sitting on the steps and spashing around. I think he is still a little scared of going out in the water. It's funny how fast they forget how to swim...he just had swimming lessons last April and he LOVED being in the water and jumping off the edge! I'm sure he will get better and better the more and more he does it! Zoe on the other hand was a little fish! She loved being in the water and she splashed the whole time! She loves to splash when she is in the bath too! It's so funny!

Ayden had a ton of fun and when he had burned so much energy and was so tired of playing with "Papa Roger", then he was ready to crash in Grammy's arms!

{Fall Family Photos}

Before we moved, we were able to get some fall family pictures done up in AF Canyon by Mallory who did some pics a couple months ago of just Ayden and Zoe. It was so beautiful up there and it was perfect timing with all the pretty fall colors. As we have taken pictures lately, I am realizing how difficult it is to get a good, decent picture of all 4 of us...especially with the 2 kids! Ayden is usually on the run and it's hard to get him to stop moving long enough to say "cheeeese"!! Here are some that we got....is it strange that my favorite one of all 4 of us is of our bums!! Ha!!! I just love this picture for some reason!!

And here are some more of the pictures that we got! Thanks Mallory for doing a great job!! =)





One time to get Ayden to smile, Mallory's husband threw leaves on her head as she took a picture! Ayden thought this was so funny and then he started throwing leaves on everyone's heads!

{the ARMY crawl}

Zoe has finally mastered the army crawl...here she is in action! It is now officially time to baby proof since she can get wherever she wants! She has been doing this for a few weeks now, but lately she has gotten really fast. This video doesn't really show how fast she is, but there are times where we put her down in the middle of the room and she is all the way in the kitchen right behind us! It is crazy!

And this video is so typical of Ayden...he can't handle it when Zoe gets attention, so after she crawled around and we praised her, he had to show us that he could crawl also!

{A "FuN" chaLLenGE!!}

I'm not so sure that the words "fun" and "challenge" can be used at the same time to describe something, but that is how I would describe my kids at this stage in life! It is such a challenge to have two little kids (one that is so young and needy of my time and attention and another that is at the stage of "testing the waters" in everything he does to see what he can get away with...yet not old enough to understand the consequences of things). I sometimes feel guilty as I watch the clock counting down until nap time or as I sit watching the front door for Daddy to walk through so I can FINALLY get a break!! But at the same time (amidst the crazy, challenging days), I am loving this stage that both of my kids are at....

Zoe is getting more and more involved in the world! She is becoming more independent and is capable of entertaining herself for a few minutes here and there so I can get something done throughout my day. She is holding her own bottle, feeding herself finger foods and can also find her own pacifier in the middle of the night...all of these things make life easier for me! She is starting to crawl...not a real crawl on all fours, but she definitely gets where she wants to very quickly by doing the "army" crawl. In my eyes, this is the great stage before they begin walking. Walking is one of my favorite milestones that kids reach. Instead of looking at it as "oh no, now I have to chase them everywhere", I look at it as "yah, now they can walk on their own and get where they want to"!! That's how I felt about Ayden at least...we'll see how I feel about this with Zoe since I will have 2 to chase around at a time! She is also becoming more and more communicative...sometimes I feel like she is so expressive in her actions, that I just know that she can't wait til she can just spit words out so I know exactly what she wants! She is a little firecracker and I now see the difference between boys and girls that everyone talks about! If there ever was a true drama queen, it is Zoe!! She is a little princess and a little Miss Priss! She is so sensitive and if you just look at her the wrong way, she will cry! Because of her newfound independence and curiosity of EVERYTHING around her, she is no longer a cuddler!! It is a sad thing because I always thought that since she was a girl, she would want to be cuddled all the time...but she would rather kick and squirm until you put her down on the ground to explore. But, once she gets to the ground, she keeps an eye on you at all times to make sure that you are still close by! I also love how smiley she is and how excited she gets when I walk into the room. You can tell that she is a very happy baby and loves her world! Anyway, this is one of my favorite "baby" stages and I love to watch and see what kind of little girl Zoe is turning into.

Ayden is also at a great age! I'm starting to feel that he is getting so big and becoming the "easy" one (for the moment at least...it's funny how these two takes turns being the "easy" ones). He is such a snuggler and is such a sweet little boy. Lately, when we are away from him and come home, he gets so excited, jumps into our arms and says, "I missed you Mommy, I missed you Daddy!!" It is the cutest thing ever and could for sure melt your heart! I guess I have told him one too many times that he is cute because lately, everything has been "cute". He will see something and often comment on it's "cuteness". A few days ago, he was downstairs watching TV while I was getting ready upstairs. He starting coming up the stairs asking me for a drink of juice. So I starting walking downstairs with him, holding his hand and he stopped me on the stairs, looked me up and down, and then felt my pants and felt my shirt and said "it's cute Mommy" and we kept on walking. A couple days ago, I was getting him dressed for church and when I put his shirt and sweater on, he asked me if he was handsome! I love this sweet side of him!! He is also very much into the questioning stage right now....he is always asking what people are doing. We will walk by a gardener pulling weeds and says, "whats that guy doing" or a person walking through the grocery store, "what's that guy doing". I think he asks me at least 50 times a day what I'm doing. And he also likes to ask "Mommy, what am I doing?" And then I have to ask him, "Ayden what are you doing?" and he will then tell me what he is doing. It is so funny! He is pretty good at counting to 10 now (even though he skips a few numbers every once in a while) and he is also good with his shapes (he knows square, circle, star, triangle). His colors are a different story....everything to him is GREEN!! Either he is going to be color blind, or green is his favorite color!! =) He is learning new words every day and also knows 5 words in Spanish (Thanks to Dora & Diego)!!! See...I knew that him watching TV wasn't a bad thing!!! =) He knows how to say "up", "down", "to climb", "let's go" and "star" in Spanish...and he learned these ALL BY HIMSELF!!! We didn't even teach him!! He loves his baby sister to death and we talk a lot about how he is the big brother and is in charge of "protecting" her. Sometimes he gets a little carried away with this and if we are at the park and some little kid comes over to look at Zoe, Ayden comes screaming and says, "No....that's my sister!!!" It has been so fun to watch the transformation he has made with her....when she was first born, he was scared to even get close to her and a couple months ago, he was finally able to touch her and get close. Now, he loves to just come up and give her hugs and kisses...and we are trying to work on being gentle!! Once when Ayden was trying to give Zoe something to eat, I told him she couldn't have that because she was too little. And now, everything she does, he tells her she is too little!! When he doesn't want her to have something of his or when she is trying to grab something or get near something, he scolds her and tells her that she is "too little". It is funny! I love that he is getting big and starting to understand emotions and feelings. If a kid pushes him or takes something from him, he says that they are "mean" to him. And if he gets put into time out, he says that whoever put him in time out "scared" him. He is quite the explorer and becoming so adventurous. He is for sure ALL BOY...he can't walk past a puddle without jumping in it and usually putting his hands in it to make his hand prints on the sidewalk, he can't walk past a bug without trying to pick it up or step on it, he can't play in sand or wood chips without being tempted to throw it and if he doesn't end the day without smelling like a little boy and having black hands and feet....then it wasn't a successful day in his mind! Anyway, I love this stage...I know that things will get even more fun as he continues to learn more things and grow into a little man!

Although things are hard sometimes and they test my patience most every day, I am so grateful to have each of them in our lives...I couldn't imagine life without them! I love the little "moments" they give me to remember how special they are and how much they mean to me.

{blessing}

Sunday, October 26th was kind of a strange day. For starters, it was my birthday...it felt nothing like my birthday (which was a good thing because I'm to the point where I just want my birthdays to pass without me knowing...gosh, I feel old)!! It was also Zoe's blessing day and we had all of our family here from California. It was so nice to have everyone here for the special day, but we felt so bad at the same time. When we were planning Zoe's sealing and blessing, we had no idea that we would be moving. So by the time everyone came out, my house was embarrassingly empty. Almost everything was packed up, the walls were bare, rooms were echoing, a moving truck parked outside on the driveway and there wasn't anywhere to comfortably hang out. It was pretty awful circumstances for hosting family for the weekend. We had no other choice though and ended up moving on Monday when most of the family went back. The last thing that made Sunday a strange day was that we spent most of the evening packing up last minute things and preparing to head out to California the next day!

But.....it was a nice break for the 1 hour of church when Zoe got blessed. Jeremiah gave her a blessing and she looked so cute again in her white dress. She was so good and didn't cry at all! It was nice to have all of our friends and family there.

After the blessing, everyone came back to our house where we managed to throw together a lunch in my empty kitchen! We also had birthday cake and a little birthday party for me and my nephew Carter who turned 6! Although it wasn't ideal circumstances to celebrate a birthday, it was so wonderful to have all of my family around! What a crazy weekend!!!

My cute nephew Crew!!



Ayden and Emma...lovers forever!! =)



The birthday boy and girl!! Happy Birthday!!



This was the night before...we went to Carrabas for dinner with all the family after the temple.



Our BESTEST friends...the Trevinos!!

{FaMiLiEs ArE fOrEvEr}

It has taken me FOREVER to post about Zoe's blessing and sealing! It has been about 3 weeks since the big events, but we were waiting to get pictures back. We asked the Trevino's to be our professional photographers for the day since they just got an awesome camera that we knew would out-do any pictures we got on our camera! I'm so glad they were willing because we got some great pictures that will help us remember this special day! Thanks guys!! Anyway, we moved the day after we did this, so that's why it took us a little bit of time to get the pictures up here!

So.....on October 25th, we were finally able to take Zoe into the temple. This is one of my very favorite things about adoption and the thing that I really look forward to the most! It is the greatest feeling walking through the temple doors with your sweet child...and this time we got to walk through with TWO of them! Of course Ayden doesn't remember when we went through with him at 8 months old...and I'm sure he won't remember going through with Zoe at 2 years old. But it was still fun that he was a little older and we could explain to him where we were going! I love all the attention you get when you have your little kids in the temple since they aren't normally allowed there! The only reason they ever get to go this young is to be sealed to their families!

We dropped them off in the nursery for a little bit so they could get dressed in their cute white outfits! We borrowed the cutest little white suit for Ayden from a friend that also adopted (thanks Amanda) and Zoe was so lucky to have a beautiful white dress made by her Grandma Smith. I debated about whether to buy her a dress, or borrow one from a friend, but I am so glad that Jeremiah's mom offered to make her dress so that we can have it as a keepsake and Zoe will be able to have it forever. It was such a cute dress and she looked so precious in it!!

With Ayden's sealing, I started crying before he even came into the sealing room. But with Zoe's, I was able to hold out for a few minutes longer!! When she was carried into the sealing room by the temple worker, she was fast asleep in her arms and looked like a precious little angel! Ayden looked so cute also (even though you could see his blue "Thomas" underwear through his white pants!! They told me to bring white underwear for him (obviously so you wouldn't be able to see them through his pants) and I did, but the ladies in the nursery told me that he REFUSED to let them change his underwear!! I guess we have already taught him well...DON'T take your underwear off in front of strangers!!

Chris took some great pictures outside of the temple for us afterwards. Obviously Ayden is not too embarrassed to take his pants off in front of strangers....he took them off and was streaking across the temple grounds! He thought he was so funny!!

We had a great experience and it's so great to know that our family will be together forever now! I love that in the sealing, they say that from this point on, it's as if Zoe was born of our flesh. What a wonderful blessing! This is one of those special days that you really think about your child's birth parents and the amazing love they had for Zoe to place her for adoption! What an amazing thing adoption is!

Here are some more pictures of Zoe's special day! I realized later that I never got a full length one of her in her dress...so sad because she looked so cute! I will have to hurry and get one of her now before she outgrows this dress since she is growing like a weed!!

{aLL aBOARD}

I am so excited to be back in Cali so my friend Carrie can take pics of my kids!! She is a great photographer and it's nice to have her be so willing to take their pics all the time!! On Tuesday, we went to this old, yellow caboose that is sitting on the side of Yorba Linda Blvd. I have driven by this thing a million times in the 20 years that I lived in Yorba Linda and never once thought, "what a great place to take pics"!! But we went there and they turned out SO SO CUTE...especially with Ayden in his blazer jacket and Zoe in her pink pettiskirt!!! The colors were amazing! Ayden was so excited to play on the train and explore! I had a really hard time picking out my favorites, but this is what I narrowed it down to....and there are about a million of them!!