Playing in Nature

Last week, to take a break from packing and moving, I took the kids to Fairy Tale Town and to play at the duck pond. It's one of my favorite spots to go. It's just so serene and pretty. I just love all of the pretty flowers and the kids love to play with the ducks and geese. (Plus this is around the corner from the Japanese bakery, so we always go there to pick food up and have a picnic)

(Chloe's playing in the empty toy bin, and for some reason this is her "cheese" face. She saw the camera and kept saying "cheese!" but would scrunch up her face)

Elijah and Chloe had a blast at Fairy Tale Town, but were all over the place so it was hard to take pictures. Elijah's favorite thing was still the pirate ship. He's been really into pirates right now, so he had fun pretending to captain the ship and kept yelling "Aye Aye Captain!" and "Ahoy Matey's!"... if you asked him though he was the captain lol. Chloe loved the crooked mile. She would just take off around it and even try to run past some of the other kids on the "road". Then as soon as she came out, she'd try to run back in the opposite direction. She kept creating traffic jams.

Jed joined us for our picnic. There were so many geese trying to be fed down at the pond. Elijah had so much fun throwing bits of bread to them and Chloe just took off trying to chase them. It was really funny to watch her chase them because some of them were bigger than her. When she couldn't pet one, she started to chase the squirrels.

Here are a few flowers in the garden.

This little guy stopped by and both of the kids were fascinated with him.

I love little places like this in big cities. It's just so nice to have a quiet place to go so nearby. Jed and I also went to San Fransisco to drop my mom off at her hotel because she was flying to Paris the next day. On our way out, we stopped by the Golden Gate Park. It was almost dark, so we only had a few minutes of sunlight left, but we were able to get out and walk around the rose park and a little bit in the woods. I really wish we had the kids with us, so now we're planning a trip so we can bring them along, so you'll be seeing more pictures later after that trip :)

Roses aren't my favorite flowers, but I always love seeing rose gardens. I think it's because it reminds me of my grandma's house and her rose gardens. Plus, they are Jed's favorite flower so he always buys them for me.

I love the woods! There's something so romantic about just walking hand in hand secluded from everyone and everything else amongst tall trees. I told Jed that I want to retire somewhere in the woods. We can just build a house and then take walks through them everyday. It's one of the things that I'm going to miss moving to Utah. Trees! I love living around trees and in Utah, it's all flat and very tree deficient. But I guess, I can go visit them.

I don't know why, but I love the look of bark. I know I might be weird, but oh well.

 Wouldn't you just love to take a walk here everyday?

On our way out of the city, we stopped by the overlook next to the Golden Gate Bridge. I had originally hoped to get there for the sunset, but it was way too late. Sorry these pictures might not be that great. This is my first time trying to take pictures in the dark, and I still need to read my camera book for all of my settings.
But here are a few of my favorite pictures.

(I liked this one, because of the gigantic cloud overhead of this huge city, and it makes the city seem to small and insignificant.)

(This is Elijah's favorite picture because of the train, which I didn't even notice until he pointed it out to me lol)

(This is Jed's favorite picture of me, even though I look deranged in it. And the only reason I'm putting it up is because Jed complains that I always delete pictures of me that I don't like, so this is for him)

Jed Graduated!!

This past week has been exhausting but really exciting. The kids have been getting ready to move all of our belongings to Utah and so we spent the week packing. It was kind of hard to actually motivate myself to pack just because this time we were leaving California. I'm up for change and am excited to start new, but with the move it also means that Jed's closer to leaving for 3 months. So it's been a little bit of an emotional time for everyone.
Elijah has been so excited to move. He has been trying to pack his own things (he would put all of his various toys and things into ziploc bags to pack them on his own). He didn't realize that we would still be around for another month, so when Jed's brother, Nelson, took our moving truck to Utah, Elijah was so sad and started crying because he wanted to go with it. He only was comforted with the fact he gets to spend time with his uncles and aunts here before we move.
(I just wanted to also add a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who helped us pack and move throughout the week! You all are so wonderful and we're so blessed to have such amazing family and friends!)

But the main event that took place this hectic weekend was Jed graduating! He has been working so hard towards this goal and it finally happened. He has put in so much time and effort and late nights and early mornings and work and frustration to get to this point. I am so extremely proud of him and everything he has achieved. Jed's main thing that he wants to teach our kids is to always finish the job no matter what it takes. I know that Elijah looks up to Jed so much (Elijah always wants to "go to school like daddy" or "needs to do homework like daddy") and that this was such a great achievement for Jed and for our kids. Even though he graduated, Jed is onto bigger things. He's already trying to see if he can get his Masters and talking about getting his PhD right after his Masters. He is such an amazing person and I am so fortunate to be married to him. He is an incredible father and husband and works so hard to achieve everything that he wants in life.

Jed's parents and brother came for his graduation (and were also kind enough to take all of our belongings back to Utah with them). I know it meant a lot to him to have the love and support of his family (and we missed those who weren't able to come). Nelson took pictures of his graduation since I was blind and couldn't see anything because my glasses got packed without my glasses case...oops! But he was able to get great pictures of Jed graduating.

 This was Sunday before Jed's parents left:

After his graduation, we had a BBQ with friends and family to celebrate and as a farewell. It was so much fun to be able to see our friends (and I know Elijah also really had fun being with his friends for a last few times). Thank you everyone who came! We love you all and will miss you guys terribly! (On the happy side, we'll be back to visit and if anyone wants to go to Utah and needs a place to crash call us up : D )

A Few Dresses, A Shotgun, Forks, And A Happy Mother's Day

Sorry this post might seem a little scrambled, because I'm sort of updating over the past few weeks.

 A couple of weeks ago, the week after Easter, the kids were really sick. It's always a bummer when they are. Although, they seem to have more energy and go crazy when they're sick versus when they are well. (This could just be cabin fever though) But with the kids sporting colds and fevers, we had to stay in for the week. I took the time to finish some of the projects I wanted to do (and was supposed to be done with by that point to begin packing). I seriously have a ton of fabric so I wanted to make Chloe a few more dresses and, of course, headbands to go along with them. That, and I've been having a lot of fun making them. (If you want the tutorials for these you can go to my other blog)
Here are the ones I made during the week (sorry if these aren't that great of pics, she's constantly running away so it's hard to get a good one):
This one is her flapper ruffle dress (I used the curtain left over from the photo booth from Jed's party)


This dress is a play dress for her

 (She loves to pick up sticks and she always has to have whatever she's holding in both hands)

This last dress was made from the left over fabric from her first birthday. I made this one up on my own, so it didn't turn out quite how I was hoping it would. Sadly, I think this was a wear once dress, and unintentionally kind of a fairy meets Barbie pink dress (I didn't make the headband.) You can't really tell from these pictures but there's flowers inside the top of her dress too.

 (front view)

(back view)

This skirt is what I wish I made for her for Valentine's Day. It's big on her right now, but she'll have time to grow into it, so maybe next Valentine's Day? : )

For my birthday my brother, James, wanted to take me shooting because I have never been. It wasn't until that Saturday that both of our schedules finally worked out. Elijah was also feeling better by the weekend, so we decided to take him so he could at least enjoy being outside. We had a lot of fun too. Elijah was a little hesitant in the beginning because of how loud the guns were. We made him wear ear protection, but after the first shot he didn't want to be near the guns anymore. Luckily, there was a river down below which he enjoyed playing in. Jed also was able to shoot his gun for the first time. Jed had re barreled the gun himself, so I never let him shoot the gun before. I only let him this time but it was after my brother tested it out weeks before to make sure it was safe. Elijah, in the end, decided he wanted to shoot the rifle. After he went through his first round, he wanted to keep going. Unfortunately, we only had enough bullets for him to shoot 3 rounds. But he had so much fun, and now is really excited to go camping next month so he can shoot some more.

Chloe has been learning to feed herself (you might remember that she used a fork for the first time at her birthday party) and these past few weeks she's really mastered it. She is so cute to watch! She loves to feed herself using a fork. She makes sure to fork all of her food, and tries so hard to get everything onto the fork, even if she has to stick the food on using her other hand. She also learned to drink from cups. We still can't trust her to walk around the house with an open cup because she still spills it all over the place as she tries to run, but with every meal she now drinks from an open cup. (I know these might seem like small achievements, but I just love watching her do them) Even with using the fork, she still ends up messier than if she picked everything up with her hands and shoveled into her mouth. lol

(she even wipes her face after she's finished eating)

I also wanted to add a Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful and amazing mothers (and future mothers) I know. I am so grateful for all of you and the great examples you are to me and just wanted you to know that I admire all of you and have learned a lot from each one of you. I hope you guys enjoyed this day.

I also wanted to show off my kid's gifts. Jed had them paint pictures for me. This is Chloe's first painting.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!