our miracle mile: Weekly Update Part I

It's almost a joke now right?

We've been up to a lot. I know I say it all the time, but I've got to update this blog more often. Poor sweet baby W has little record of his life and miss L's was very detailed! I just need my niece to get on my case every week (that's you Kaylea!) :o)

I'm going to do my best to keep this brief and get you up to date! I'll do it in two parts.

I left off way back in July. Right after my last post I got my hair cut (which I already need to do again) and then Brad and I took a little trip.

My mom came to stay with miss L. They've gotten very close (spending 5 months with a person will do that to you!) and so they had some alone time together. Sweet baby W is nursing so he had to come with us. He wasn't too much of a distraction from our together time though. :o)

Brad had a conference in Los Angeles though we stayed in Manhattan Beach. It was gorgeous. On the first day we checked into the hotel and decided to check out the beach and the pier. The time change is wonderful for sightseeing. :o)

I've been to lots of beaches in my adult life. We've been up and down the east coast it seems. So if I'm an expert (I'm not.) then I have to say that the Pacific Coast wins it for looking at every time. I've never tried to actually get in the Pacific Ocean, so I can't speak to that, but my goodness it's beautiful. Someday I imagine a life of easy retirement on the west coast. We'll see...

We sat on the pier for a long time just enjoying the cool breezes and the sunshine. When it was about time for miss L's nap to be over we called to talk to her. I was actually really surprised how much I missed her. I mean, I knew I would, but I was so excited for the trip and I thought I would sort of miss her and have a good time at the same time. It turns out I was so homesick for her. We had a wonderful time, but next time, we'll go away for a short weekend, I think.

Sweet baby W is so very very different from his sister. Sweet baby L went to bed at 5:30 every night when she was two months old and continued until she was nearly a year old. Sweet baby W, on the other hand, enjoyed taking a little nap sometime during around 7:00 and then staying up until 10:00 or 11:00 at night. We found that this was sort of perfect for the west coast. Sweet baby W would sleep in our bed after we went to sleep, but during those wonderful evening hours that Brad and I were able to spend some time alone, he'd sleep on this pallet on the floor. I just thought it was too funny.

Wednesday we went to the Grove which is a fun open air shopping mall. We didn't stay too long, it was getting dark and we were having a hard time making a decision about where to eat (we ate at in and out burger, which sadly, we did almost everyday we were there, mmmm....) but we got some cute photos while we were there.

Thursday we walked to the beach from our hotel stopping for some drunken noodles on the way. I don't remember the name of the restaurant but I remember those noodles! We spent the evening on the beach and decided that we needed to go to target to get poor baby W some clothes when the poor boy started turning a little blue from being so cold! He seems happy enough, though!

Friday was our touristy day. We drove into Hollywood to take some photos and to walk on the walk of fame.

I wanted to get W's picture on a star, though I didn't want it to be in too much traffic so that he'd get run over. Judge Joseph Wapner seemed like a good enough choice. :o)

That day we also took a drive through Beverly Hills. We didn't even end up getting out of the car, but it was fun to look around. Sweet baby W HATED his carseat. We're not even sure what it was. We thought it might be the fact that since he was in a car he could see out the back window above him, or maybe something was poking him? What we did know is that he would SCREAM from the moment he got in the seat until he got out. When we were driving through Beverly Hills, he'd finally fallen asleep and was quiet. There was no way we were waking that boy.

Saturday was our last day there and we decided to spend the day in Santa Monica at the Farmer's Market and then driving to Malibu sort of just driving and hanging out. It was by far my favorite day in California.

We ate lunch at FIG in the Fairmont Miramar Hotel. It was lovely. They serve hot bread before the meal and sweet baby W really wanted to try one. We let him go for it.

I don't think he actually ingested much, but he enjoyed sucking on that bread for sure.

We stopped for some photos by a giant tree out front. I think that Brad said that this is the actual fig tree that the restaurant is named after, but I can't quite remember.

We walked along the cliffs before driving up the coast to Malibu. It was a blast! We stopped at a fancy grocery store for a soda and a bathroom stop and headed back to Manhattan Beach to get ready to go.

Shortly after we got home I started thinking about trying to do something more exciting with miss L's hair and to keep it in a style that would avoid us going through the daily process of detangling her lovely curls. I decided to finally take her to a salon and have her hair braided hoping to either find someone who could take care of this task for me, or to show me how to do it myself. I found both!

Miss L's hair was cornrowed in the front and in simple box braids in the back. The woman who braided her hair didn't want to bead it for me, so I took the plunge and did that part myself. We took some photos of her first salon hairstyle.

The girl is impossibly in love with her flip flops. She wears them whenever she can though mostly I say, no flip flops, L and she replies, just try it? :o)

She is also really into collecting seeds, rocks and anything else she finds outside. Here she's showing one to her daddy.

I learned a lot from the salon about braiding and I gained some confidence to try it myself. I plan to take her back to the salon soon though, theirs just look so much better!

So, miss L seems to love shoes. I already told you about the flip flops but this day it was boots. I couldn't help but take her photo walking around in these.

I'm not sure what she's telling her daddy here, but I bet it has something to do with the band aid in her hand. Look how cute that girl is.

There were three important days that I missed during my most recent blog hiatus. The first was my birthday. I just wanted to stay at home this year and have tacos and cake, so that's what we did. Miss L and her daddy made my cake and then we sort of decorated it together.

It was a lovely day!

Miss L loves holding her baby brother. She is so very in love with him and I am in love with that!

Of course, we also took sweet baby W's six month elephant photos. As usual they are very cute!

At six months my buddy W eats two meals a day of solids and nurses 6 or 7 times, waking twice a night. He goes to bed around 10:00 or so and takes random naps during the day sometimes for as long as an hour but usually for around 30 minutes. He can sit unassisted and loves to sit and watch his sister run around and be crazy. He now
grabs for anything he can reach and he's getting big! At his six month visit he weighed in at 17 lbs 8 ounces. Woohoo!

His sister got in on the photos too. I love this photo.

One of the best parts of having two kids is that I'm not the only one doing the entertaining around here. Miss L and baby W often will play on the floor. He'll sit and she'll bring him stuff. This day she was trying to get him to roll the ball back and forth with her.

She also likes to make him things in her kitchen and then feed them to him. He doesn't quite get the pretend part.

What a happy boy!

...and a sweet girl! I love these photos that just capture some random playtime.

She loves those beads. She loves making them click and clack.

This was apparently the month for random playtime photos. These were taken a different day. Miss L got these puzzles for her 2nd birthday and she loves them. This day she decided she needed to do each of them and then lined them up just like this. She did NOT want me to touch them or take them apart. It just struck me how much she's growing up.

Sweet baby W was having a good time too.

L is very much into taking photos lately. She took this one of sweet baby W. I was just very pleased that she got him in the actual photo!

Then I helped her get this shot. Maybe we have a budding photographer. She's certainly got it around her all the time.

This is not really a tradition except that the weather tends to be nice, this park is located conveniently for us and we go there a lot, but I have photos of miss L each year at this park in August. It's lovely to sort of see how she's grown. I can't believe how big she is, how much she is talking and doing. It is absolutely amazing. When we pull up to the park she asks if there are kids there and as soon as she goes in she seems to find someone about her age and they play together. She often finds someone to play some kind of pretend game, often involving her needing help from this friend. It's really cute!