Aunt Ah-bee

This week we were lucky enough to have Aubrey stay with us. Dublin just loves his aunt Aubrey or Ah-bee as he calls her. I think he loves her so much because they act like they're the same age! And she lets him do whatever he wants!

She plays so well with both the kids! Although she really prefers not to hold Tessa, but that's okay because Dublin loves to hold his baby sister :)

She gave Dublin some chocolate...
and she gave some to Tessa, without me knowing. She must have known what I would do if I saw her do it ha ha.

I just love this picture! They just love each other so much :)

Poor Aubrey never had more than 5 minutes to herself! Dublin always wanted her attention! I think she's gonna go home and sleep for a whole day just to finally get some rest ha ha.

We made brownies that went horribly wrong and unfortunately weren't very good :(

We played outside and it was so nice! I spent about 30 minutes filling up water balloons then went to lay Tessa down for her nap and by the time I came back outside all the balloons were gone!! What the heck?!?!

The whole frog pool was filled when I left and it looked like this when I got back :( Notice all the balloons on the ground. After we finished up outside we went to the library to cool down and get some new books. Dublin loves the library! But I think Aubrey loves it more!! I couldn't get her to leave ha ha. Anyways we've had a really nice visit with Aubrey and Dublin along with Steve and I are gonna be so sad to see her go home.

Sweet little Tessa...

About two weeks ago I went and got Tessa's ear's pierced. They just turned out sooo adorable!!
Here she was getting ready to have them done. She was so well behaved and only cried for a about thirty seconds after they pierced them.

Just when I thought she couldn't get any cuter she went and proved me wrong!

Just keep fishing...

This is how you will find Dublin these days.
He's too funny! He drops the line and reels it back in over and over and over again. Too funny.

Whatever makes him happy right?!?!

my garden...

My little garden helper :) Don't mind his dirt mustache ha ha. He loves to play out in the dirt and help us water, it's so nice that our garden has turned into a family project and we all look forward to go out there every night to take care of it.
Part of the garden. Our pumpkin plants have a mind of their own and I think in a few short days the vines will loop around the whole back yard ha!

I know this looks like a watermelon but it's actually a pumpkin! We didn't realize how many pumpkins will grow off of one plant so now I'm thinking we're gonna have a ton of pumpkins in July ha ha.

Another plant we didn't realize produced a lot was squash a zucchini! Um holy moly we're gonna have a lot!! We have two whole rows of them!! Looks like squash is for breakfast, lunch and dinner ha.

Oh and our tomatoes...well I hate tomatoes unless I'm preggo, then I crave them. Anyways when we planted two rows of them I was still on a tomato kick...now I'm not. Needless to say we're canning them up into salsa and big chunks for pasta and chili.

I just love when I need something for dinner and I run into the back yard and can grab it! It's worth all the work we've put into it :)

Our broccoli is looking better and better every day!

And the bell peppers are still small but going strong!

It's a gamble...

So having a two year old is a lot of work! Even as well behaved as Dublin is he still causes chaos every once in awhile :) He has those days were leaving him alone is a gamble and you never know if you're gonna win or lose. Well today I took the gamble and poor George suffered the consequences :)

Ha ha this is what I saw when I went into the kids bathroom...poor George had been given a bath. I'll definitely take this as a win for me, no damage done and George is cleaner than he was yesterday ;)
He was so proud to show him off to us :)

Lucky me...

This is what our whole week has looked like...

Yup I got to hang out with these adorable kids all day everyday!
We didn't do anything exciting or blog worthy but it was perfect! I love seeing their adorable faces all day :)

Our weekend recap...

This past week and a half has been so crazy busy! I'm not sure what we've been doing but it seems like we don't have any free time! So here are a few of my favorite moments from the past week :)

• Tessa got her ears pierced and she handled it very well!
• Grandma and Grandpa Challman came down to visit.
• We got to spend time my parents and Grandparents.
• Dublin's Great Grandpa Challman came to visit and helped him put his train track together without the directions of course. Dublin pulled them out of the drawer and Grandpa said "oh no guys don't use those" ha ha and then when they were done he told him "see it helps having a Grandpa that designed bridges isn't it?" ha ha oh man that made my week :)
• We celebrated Father's Day as a family and then my parents and Aubrey came over that night to visit.
• Steve surprised me by taking me to buy and new Dyson vacuum and we got a free Dyson handheld vac!! It's amazing and I'm starting to wonder how we ever lived without it ha. I told Steve I've never been so excited to vacuum in my life ha ha.
• With the warmer weather (not to hot) we've been spending a lot of time outdoors as a family...this includes lots of water balloons!
• We got new flowers planted in the front yard.
• The garden is just exploding with all sorts of goodies :)
• I even got to go to a few garage sales and got some amazing deals.

All in all I think I've had an amazing last few days! Hopefully soon I'll have time (and motivation) to blog more...but until then :)

Aquarium of the Pacific

This past weekend we went to The Aquarium of the Pacific and it was really cool! Not cool enough to pay $25 per person to get in but we bought our tickets when we went to the L.A. Zoo and we got them for like $10. So definitely worth $10 to get in, $8 to park and like $100 for food ha ha...no seriously.

So we finally got a double stroller for occasions like this one, and the thing is huge! We call it Mac as in a Mac truck ha ha. But it gets the job done and that's all that matters.
It really doesn't look big from the outside but it's a pretty good size.

As soon as Dublin saw the water and the boats we had to take a quick walk around and let him see everything. He just loves the outdoors.

Tessa was more worried about eating her Bitty Bug and not taking in the view :)

It's so cute they have all these tour boats and for a few bucks you get a tour of the area, I just don't think two kids and a huge stroller would work to well on a boat. Maybe next time :)

As soon as we walked in Dublin saw all the fish and took off! He loved it.

It was so hard for him to sit still long enough for me to get a decent picture of him in front of the tank.

Kissing a shark! What an odd ball.

Tessa was still trying to kill her toy, she was so determined it was really cute!

Steven had never pet one of these before (I think they were little stingrays), it was funny to watch him touch it and think it was gross.

Dublin did not think it was gross he loved touching them!

They look like they're smiling :)

I wanted Tessa to touch one but her arms were to short, oh well there's always next time.

They have this huge whale hanging from the ceiling and Dublin thought it was a shark ha ha. When he sees something that he thinks is a shark he screams "ssshhhaaarrrkkk!!!!". It so funny!

Rockin' his new Chucks! Makes me so proud :)

It was almost impossible to get a good picture with him that day :(

Umm that's a big shark mouth!

They had so many different kinds of cool looking jelly fish.

These two were play fighting, it was so fun to watch!

Then we found the turtle...

and he was in heaven...

and we finally got some cute pictures of him!!! :)

Daddy and Dublin.

Mommy and Tessa.

She was so happy to have her picture taken :)

What a stinkin' cutie!

Daddy and Tessa.

He loved petting these little sharks, obviously they're little and harmless but nonetheless sharks.

A HUGE stingray!

Then we saw that kind of shark you don't want to pet...or ever see unless it's in a tank!

This poor shark was bumping into everything! I kinda felt bad for him.

This shark was super creepy and then he like charged at me! Creepy I never wanna see something like this again!

Look at those teeth!

Oh man Dublin was in love when he saw this squid squirter! Some poor girl just happend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a face full of water! I felt bad but he loved it.

While the boys played in water Tessa and I checked out another shark! She thought it was so funny and just smiled the whole time :)

And then I saw this...I must be getting old because I thought this was the coolest thing there. It's a dyson hand dryer! Seriously I want one...I washed my hand a few times just so I could keep using it ha! Playing at the tidepool.

These little garden eels are so cool looking! Dublin was using the magnifying glass to get a better look.

Crazy huh?

He didn't want to leave the magnifying glass ha.

The star fish was huge! It's hard to tell in the picture but it was big!

FYI a Puffin is the hardest thing to ever get a picture of! I spent about ten minutes trying and this was the best I could get...grrrr. One the plus side look at the cute kid in the reflection

Sea otter that I thought was playing with another one until Steve pointed out he was just cleaning himself. Eww I know.

Huge crabs!

NEMO!! Haha every kid would scream Nemo when walking by this tank and some old lady asked her son why they called it Nemo and he explained to her about the movie haha. It was so funny.

Dublin didn't wanna leave Memo (Nemo) haha.

This has to be one of the ugliest fish ever! I don't care if it's trying to blend into its environment it's fugly!

Dublin: yellow fwog oooo! oh blue fwog!! He loves them :)

This was so cool! I've always wanted to go to one that's glass all the way around but this is a good spot to start :)

He loves turtles.

Great another creepy shark that wouldn't leave me alone.

He was lovin' it!

Kinda gross but if these fish get stressed out or whatever they change sex's...weird.

Maybe it's just me but I don't think snakes shoulf be able to live in water! It's just not right!

3 week old baby seahorses.

Anyways it was a really fun time. I think Dublin and even Tessa really enjoyed it and all the animals.