Picnic

We have a park in our backyard. Beatrice thinks it's her park and honestly, I do too. We spend almost everyday there playing with friends. Some days we have it all to ourselves and I let the girls take their shoes off, dig in the sand, and crawl in the grass. Our favorite thing to do at our park is to have a picnic.

 

We love our park!

Peaches and Penelope

This conversation occurred in the ladies room at a restaurant last night:

Lady: Oh my, what a pretty little girl you have there.
Me: Why thank you. Beatrice, can you say thank you?
Beatrice: Thank you.
Lady: What's her name?
Me and Beatrice: Beatrice.
Lady: Peaches? What a cute name!
Me: No, not Peaches. Beatrice!
Lady: Beatrice????!??!??! You really named her Beatrice?????
Me: Um, yes?

People are still mispronouncing her name, but twice now someone has questioned me, to my face, if I in fact named her Beatrice. What is the matter with people??? Andplusalso, I love how Peaches was an acceptable name to this lady while Beatrice was absurd... 


In other news, there were 3 Penelopes in the church nursery this morning. At least I named one of my daughters a socially acceptable name.

Happy Sunday from Peaches and Penelope!

 

Just Eat

A few months ago, I bought a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables. I roasted, steamed, mashed, peeled, and pureed them into oblivion. I filled little silicon ice trays and froze hundreds of cubes of baby food. I couldn't wait to introduce Penelope to the wonderful world of solids.

She, on the other hand, could wait. After her first meal (bananas) led to a pretty scary projectile vomiting episode (that lasted 2 hours - it was horrible and really scary), she wanted nothing to do with solids. At all. In fact, she would cry and get very upset when we would try again in the months to follow. 

I tried to feed her pureed baby food about once a week for 2 months. She refused it every time. One day, I offered her some cheese and bread from my sandwich. She gobbled it up. The next day, I gave her bites of my avocado. Then smashed blueberries, cherries, and bananas. As long as it was not pureed, she loved it. 

Since then, we decided that baby led weaning was the way to go. It's been really great and very simple. Whatever we eat, Penelope eats. She loves sweet potato pancakes for breakfast (no syrup). Turkey sandwiches are her favorite lunch (she can eat half a sandwich on her own!). Tonight, we shared a pepper crusted filet mignon and steamed asparagus. It has really encouraged me to be more thoughtful about feeding everybody healthy meals since the littlest of us is eating along side us.

There's not a lot that she won't eat. Thankfully, she's not very picky (yet). Some of her favorites are spaghetti with meat sauce, steamed broccoli, roasted squash, carrots, and onions, quinoa, feta, grilled chicken, rice, beans, quesadillas, avocados, peaches, plums, pineapples, roasted green beans, mashed potatoes, roast beef, hummus, and bread.

The hardest part about baby led weaning is knowing when to stop feeding her. Penelope eats and eats and eats. As long as there is food, sissy devours it. She is a piggy.

The only rules we follow with this approach to feeding our baby are small bites and no honey, nuts, eggs, or strawberries before 1. Other than that, she eats what we eat, when we eat. It's so easy. Oh, and messy. BLW is messy. Very, very messy.

Penelope has 1 tooth (it just popped through a few days ago). Teeth are not a requirement for baby led weaning. She has gotten along fine mashing the food between her gums. Sister goes to town on pizza, scones, and sweet potato fries. She is an eating machine.

I always wanted to try BLW with Beatrice, but I didn't know enough about it. I'm really glad we're doing it with Penelope and am having so much fun feeding my baby.

Just eat!

Cliff Walk

We do a lot of walking here. We walk to meet our friends. We walk to the park. We walk to the post office. We walk to the fishing pier. And since we are on the coast, we always have a nice view when we walk. Earlier this week, we took the mother of all walks and had the mother of all views. We took a cliff walk.

I've heard about this place for awhile now and always wanted to go, but thought it was going to be more treacherous than it really is. Some friends guaranteed it was safe and stroller friendly, so we finally went. 

I'm so glad we did. Even on a cloudy day, it was spectacular. The path was wide, the workout was challenging, and the views were breathtaking. Have I mentioned the views? 

There was definitely some element of danger though. The fencing was easily scalable so curious little bodies stayed strapped into their strollers until we were on safer ground. 

The path trails through a gorgeous luxury resort so in the midst this untouched rugged terrain, there was complete opulence. Welcome to California. 

The best part about the cliff walk is we can go anytime. It's a short drive from our house and is completely free. Hooray!

Yellow

All I ever wanted since the beginning of Spring was a pair of yellow shoes. I searched high and low, but never found a pair I loved under $100. I almost gave up when I stumbled upon the sale pile at Old Navy.

Score!

Not only did I find a pair of yellow wedges, I also found yellow sandals and yellow sunglasses. For cheap too. Each item was around $5. Too much yellow?

Never let go of your dreams of yellow shoe ownership. Also, new items are up in my closet sale. Designer jeans, anyone?

Weekend Adventure: Father's Day

This weekend was full of naps, lounging, and resting. JD was a groggy mess on Saturday after a restless night so he spent the majority of the day unconscious on the couch. Penelope temporarily lost her mind this morning when she woke for the day at 5:45 so I spent the first half of our Sunday sawing logs on the couch. I woke up just in time to begin the Father's Day festivities with coffee, church, and presents.

JD told me all he wanted was a grilling apron for Father's Day. Being the awesome wife that I am, I set out to find the coolest, manliest one in the universe. I succeeded. Check out this bad boy:

I think it's pretty impossible to look any more manly than JD does wearing this apron. He's a stud and he rocked it.

The girls also made him a salt dough handprint thing. JD loved it, obviously.

JD is a great daddy to our girls. We are grateful for all he does for us and enjoyed showing him a little extra love today.

Did you adventure with your dad this weekend?

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Shop My Closet

After selling my beloved Chanel pumps on eBay (yay for an extra $100!), I have finally decided to clean out my closet. I don't know why it is so hard to get rid of my stuff. Actually I do. My stuff cost a small fortune back when I used to visit L.A. and NYC just to shop. Even though I'm not wearing any of it anymore, I can't bear to part with it all unless I know someone else is going to give it a good home! I'm weird like that.

I've seen a few online rummage sales around the blogosphere lately, so I'm totally copying that idea and giving it a shot. For the past week I've been sorting, photographing, pricing, and listing. And praying that someone wants my stuff because now I'm all psyched to get rid of it...

Tons of jewelry and lacy tops are in my sale. I had a thing for dangly earrings and lacy tops back in the day. I still have 596,314 pairs of designer jeans to go through (do people still wear 7 For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and True Religions anymore? I wear $10 F21 jeans these days...) so check back for those.

I'm kind of nervous having all of my earthly possessions out in the open and up for scrutiny. If you think it's all ugly and wonder who in their right mind would buy so many chandelier earrings, kindly just pretend like we never had this conversation. But if you like any of it or know someone that would, spread the word!

If you have any questions about fit or need additional info on anything, please leave me a message in the comments :)

Apple (Tomato) Of My Eye

My container garden isn't going like I planned. What once was a site for so much promise is now a reminder of my failure and disappointment. And an eyesore.

I'm not sure where I went wrong. We water. The plants get plenty of sun. We have mild temperatures. Despite all of this, the branches and leaves are turning yellow and breaking off one by one. Thankfully it is bearing fruit. One lone tomato is growing on my pitiful plant.

She's a beaut, ain't she?! I'm awfully proud of that single tomato. Since there is no sign of this plant yielding any other fruit, I gingerly tend to my one precious tomato, watering her ever so gently and praying that the branch holding her up doesn't give way. She's going to be delicious, I can tell!

Any idea why my plant looks like this?

All Your Dreams Could Come True

Dreams of designer shoe ownership, that is. I'm parting ways with some of my uber expensive designer purchases from my past life (the one where I received a paycheck and shopped regularly). The first to go are these lovely Chanel pumps.

They are a size 7.5, white canvas outer with black trim. If you want to make them yours, go here at once!

Weekend Adventure: The Pool and Some Fish

We did absolutely zero adventuring this weekend. It was really nice. So I'm bringing last weekend's adventuring to you! The neighborhood pool opened and we celebrated with hotdogs and cannonballs.

 

Don't be fooled by the sunshine, it was cold. Thankfully, the pool is heated so as long as you're under the water, it's warm. Sissy and I wanted no part of it though.

The worst part was getting out. Brrrr.

We decided to leave the swimming to the fish and headed to the Aquarium.

The sea lions gave us a great show.

Sissy liked it.

Also, this is good to know in case you find yourself in a shark breeding situation. Or if you're interested in shark anatomy. Or something.

Claspers?

God created a lot of beautiful fish. 110% of them creep me out.

Did you adventure?

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