Max is One. Sniff, sniff.

I tried. I tried so hard to do some kind of portrait session for Max's one year pictures. However, he moved too much. So much for my sheet backround trick. So, this is what we got. They boy loves to move, I love all of his little faces!

He had his one year Dr appointment today, the poor kid is only 18 lbs 6 oz, 2nd% for weight and 18th% for height. Sigh. I hope he grows up to be taller than 4 feet. I take comfort in the fact that his father is a decent size.

His current loves are balls, books, walking on furniture, trying to climb stairs, and trying to keep up with his brother and sister! We love this baby:)

Sam did say, on Max's birthday morning, "Mom, let's put him on his feet and see if he can walk! Cause he's a toddler now, and a toddler is a baby who walks!" So, I had to explain to him why that would be a bad idea...

Car Cupcakes

Max had his first birthday recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's adorable. You've seen it before. But look at these cupcakes I made him. Now that's something new!

I've had the car mold pan since Sam was 18 months old... yup. After several years of lazy storebought cakes for Sam, I finally dusted it off for the all important first birthday. In all fairness, the pan has been used several times for cornbread. It's super cool.

I used the cake recipie that came with the pan, then glazed them with a dyed doughnut glaze. They looked pretty good, but adding the candy made them simply adorable.



The children all highly approved!

Max plays ball

So much work! Sometimes we have to shake it up and down a few times until it falls out of our hands:)

Max and Jared were so adorable, I had to run and get the camera!

Grandpa

Lest Gary be incensed (again) that I keep complaining about no Dads when he's around doing all their jobs (well, at least the cookie eating and the ball blowing up and the church pottying of the little boy), I just wanted to publicly thank him for fixing my kids' bikes tonight. We really are so lucky to live so close (hopefully he will still feel the same way after the bike fixing and the church pottying...)

Chip Basket

During our vacation to Monterey, we stopped at El Torito to eat. I think that restaurant may be my favorite ever. I love the food, but in Monterey, they have these huge windows that you can stare out at the bay while you eat. We saw seals and boats and all sorts of fun stuff. Max did well, but towards the end he was getting bored, until he found himself a toy...

Hey, what's this?

I know what I can do with it!
Mom, did you see that! Hey, that was fun!
Let's do it again!!!!

The Beach

I. Love. The beach. My whole family does. I think it brings back magical childhood memories of Grandma Rikalo and tide pools. I love it all, the smell, the sound, even that it's always cold. (at least, in northern california:). When I'm there I feel this peace and calm like a weight is lifted. I can't explain it.

Right after the big family reunion but while Lora and John were still here, we decided to take a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We had annual passes that expired in June, and we wanted to squeeze in one more trip. My kids love it there, and with good reason. It's really cool. So, I pricelined a hotel that ended up being a block away from a beach, yahoo!!! It was really cold, but we didn't mind.

Well, at least Sam didn't mind. Aunt Crystal was such a good sport to play with him, though she pretty much failed at keeping his shorts dry. I, being his mother, knew that wet shorts and underwear and shirt and sweatshirt were an inevitability for Sam, and was prepared with spares.
Max loved the sand.
It was pretty cool. I tried to stop him from eating too much of it.
Sammy sam. Will I ever stop thinking he is so cute? Hopefully for his sake, no!
Pearl was COLD, so she settled for sitting on the blanket with her Fun Dip.
Crystal took this one. Pretty awesome, huh!
Lora got these shots of me. I don't really like pictures of my backside, it's depressing, however, I thought it was kind of fun to see myself from another perspective. This is how I live my life lately - up close and personal with a camera in my hand:)
Me and my boys. Yes, I did take a turn in the water with Sam. It was fun:)
This trip was right after Jared left for Korea. Now, a month later, I'm getting around to posting it and he'll be home soon. Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic, but we missed him. It was freezing there. He would have loved it:)

A Lot.

At our recent family reunion, my friend Phani Morgan got this picture of all of us... each child, grandchild, and great grandchild of Bob and MaryHelen Hulbert. There are a lot of us. I still can't believe we fed all those people for 3 days. It was a bit crazy, but it really was fun. I find it fairly amazing that we really were able to get everyone together. Pearl keeps asking when we're going to do it again. Sam keeps asking too, but that's because he wants to do another treasure hunt.

Messy, messy

I have been so slow at getting around to posting family reunion pictures. I'll try to just post little vignettes as I feel like it, and not stress because they're late or not in the right order. The point is to get them in the album, right?

Max had a great time with Maya when she was here. She's a bit younger, (only by a few weeks), and a bit smaller (ok, maybe 3 or 4 pounds, that's a lot in baby weight), but she's a lot tougher and a LOT faster, so they get on just fine.

We had spagetti one night. Well, as you can see, self feeding was again a hit...
just a messy one.
So, off the babies went to the bath. Later on, we were sad Sidon wasn't there, but since he's not self feeding spagetti yet, it wasn't nearly as urgent for him to climb into the tub.


I mean, really, could two babies look any different or be any more adorable? We miss you, Maya-Moo! Come back!

Baby Nikki

I got to go see my sister and her baby tonight, and we did some newborn pictures of baby Nikki (she has a middle name too, I'm just not sure what it is). Since she was born on the 4th of July, Sherry, my mother in law, made this flower for her. Adorable, no?

I sure love having all these neices and nephews around to practice my photography skills with! (I'm pretty sure my sisters don't mind either:)

Surviving.

Right now here on the Ranch, we have two great grandparents, two grandparents, one single auntie, and two mommies with three kids each. What are we missing, you wonder? Daddies. We have a distinct lack of Dads around here at the moment. Don't worry, it's theoretically a good thing, it means they are working hard and providing for us and making a great life and future for their families. It's just that they aren't exactly here doing those things. Sometimes, though, we mommies do what we have to do to survive.

What's the worst time of day? Well, I think, and I think Maryann agrees, it's the end. We're used to the beginnings and middles with no help, it is at the end when the children and the mommies have had enough of each other, and daddies are supposed to intervene. No such luck.

So what do we do? We get them all cleaned and jammied and ride bikes on the basketball court until they're good and tired then we send the little darlings to bed and congratulate ourselves on making it through another day.

This particular evening I had the brilliant idea to bring the walkers into play. So, on went the Robeez (cringe, they're trashed but they sure did the job) and the babies felt like part of the gang!

Helmets. And pants under nightgowns (well, for Maryann's girls). And closed toe shoes. 'Cause nothing ruins some good end of the day down time like an injury. Brian, be proud, your wife is very safety conscious.


I'm not sure what he was singing, but he sure was happy about it!
Well, it's kind of like a train.


Well, at least if we aren't going to have Dads, we have COUSINS!!! Thank heavens!