Nana in LA

This week my mom came to help out a bit and we loved having her here! She helped with lots of day to day stuff that is harder now with 2 kiddos and gave lots of snuggles an hugs to make sure everybody felt special. 

One of the first things we did was go to the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert last Sunday. It was a blast! They are from LA and wanted to have a old timey circus feel so they set up a big top and had concerts four nights in a row, including a family matinee on Sunday afternoon so kids of all ages could go. Such a great idea! There were contortionists, acrobats, sword swallowers, etc etc etc. 

And of course, the music was awesome. They played on a rotating stage and the concert was in the round. They were so down to earth, walking through the crowd during the concert, opening up the mic if anyone wanted to tell a story,  and Suzy got to meet the lead singer after the concert! She loves their music as much as we do, so it was a success all around. 

under the big top!

Mom also kept the kids one evening so we could go out to dinner and coffee. We ate some delicious Vietnamese food.  

I was so worried about Emory b/c we had never been away from him that long and he doesn't really take a bottle well, but this is how we left him and this is how we found him when we got back:

snoozing all evening with Nana

 Some other random pictures from our week:

thanks for the Papi hat, Nana! 

attempt at a family picture

THanks Nana for everything!!! Come back soon!

pumpkiiiiiiiiiin!

Suzy and i have been experimented with pumpkin recipes this week...different pumpkin cookies (why have i never tried making these before??!), pumpkin muffins, etc. Today we made these healthy pumpkin cookies (really!! they don't have any butter or oil! and little sugar)
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/10/24/healthy-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/

You should definitely check them out. They are so healthy I may have eaten 5.

This blogger has apparently made a ton of batches of pumpkin cookies, looking to perfect her recipe, so I'm trusting her. Here is a page with a ton of pumpkin recipes (cheesecake, bars, etc etc)

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/category/pumpkin-recipes/

Tomorrow I'm making pumpkin frappucino from her recipe! I finished up my homework early this week so that while Suz is at school tomorrow, I can enjoy my frappucino tomorrow while watching the season finale of Project Runway. Anybody else watching? I dreamed the other day that I went to Heidi Klum's beach house. She offered me marijuana flavored sorbet (what?!), and I put E down for a nap there and when he woke up, he was a fully grown Will Ferrell. What?!

Speaking of pumpkin, check out this sweet lil pumpkin who is 3 months old today!

picture update

Don't have time for many words (gotta do homework!) but here is a picture update of the kiddos:

heart breaker smirk!

first pair of shoes! thanks Marcie!

this guy is all smiles these days!

at a Pumpkin Festival...where they ironically ran out of pumpkins!

Festival loot!

PMH

Have we mentioned how much we love where we live? And I don't just mean Pasadena in general. We love our apartments where we live, called Providence Mission Homes. It has been such a blessing- from the fully furnished apartments to the free Trader Joe's and Panera donations each week, but our favorite part is the community of people we live with. It is constantly changing as new missionaries come in for furlough or to transition back to the states or while they raise support getting ready to go somewhere, and so we are surrounding by families from all over the world with really interesting stories to tell. We love that every afternoon there are at least a dozen kiddos right outside our door for Suzy to play with and other moms for me to talk with while we watch the kids play.

Even though we have had to say lots of goodbyes recently to dear friends that have moved away, God brought some good friends of ours to PMH recently. We were already friends through Fuller and Suzy and their little boy Micah did playschool together last year so she was thrilled when he became our neighbor while their family raises support to go to Spain next year! Check out this cuteness:

Two new German families also moved in recently- one serves in Japan and the other in Papua New Guinea. They invited several of us over the other day to learn how to make a traditional German dish "Knodel" with pork stew. The knodel uses old bread and eggs which we get a lot of from the food donations so it was really helpful and fun to cook together.

our Malaysian neighbor learning to roll the knodel balls 

chowing down out on the patio!

givin a lil love to her new German friend

all snazzed up for church

first trip to the beach

Yesterday was Independence Day in El Salvador so after church we drove to Long Beach to eat at Elvis' cousin's Salvadoran restaurant and go to the beach. This beach was called  Mother's Beach because it's perfect for families: there are no waves, there is sand, a big playground on the sand, and a grassy strip behind the sand that is shaded with some lovely trees. Emory and I hung out under the trees while Suz and Elvis played in the sand and water. 

We even felt like we were in ES, especially with these vendors walking around:

and so it begins...

First day of homework!

and here i am, at 30 years old and still doing homework....

narcolepsy

This title could definitely apply to either myself or Emory (Suzy kept reminding me to open my eyes yesterday while we were "playing") but this one dedicated to my little sleepyhead. Emory is just the cuddliest, snuggliest little guy, and if he is in your arms, 90% of the time he is asleep. Same goes with his swing. If he's in the Moby then 100% of the time he is asleep within approximately 5 seconds. 

This morning, I put him on the playmat thing so Suzy and I could eat breakfast. I looked over and saw he had just fallen asleep while playing! 

I wish I could say the same about his bed during naptime, but that's not usually the case (although as I write this, he's having his best snooze ever in his bed!) 

I'm so in love with this snugglebunny sleepyhead =) 

had to do it!

Of course I had to post a picture of my big girl on her first day of real preschool!!

with her teachers Ms Kathy and Ms Amgad

too little sleep to blog...

Sorry folks, but this sleep deprivation mess has been killer this week. All the books I read were right...fussiness certainly does peak at 6 weeks! Our normally super chill little dude went a little berserk this past week, culminating in a couple terrible nights of only about 3 hours of sleep. However, he totally redeemed himself last night by sleeping the best he ever has...meaning only waking up one time between 10pm-6:30am! I would say we are turning over a new leaf, but i don't want to jinx it.

The other cutie pie you see in the picture just had her open house at preschool today! last year we did that preschool co-op for a few months where i was her teacher once a week, but this is her first official real-deal preschool. She starts on monday for 3 mornings a week, and she is pumped! We met her teachers today...one is Egyptian and the other is Armenian I believe. And the great thing is that our friends from UNC Mark and Denise just moved here to Pasadena and our girls are in the same class!

Speaking of cutie pie, we were playing kitchen tonight and Suzy asked me what kind of pie I wanted. I asked what my options were, and she said, "strawberry pie, blueberry pie, or cutie pie!"

I'll take you, cutie pie =)