Chalking it up!

It was nice and cool this evening so we decided to break out the chalk.

I did most of the drawing but Zoe helped pick out the colors and made requests.

I tried to get her to sit by her name, but she preferred the kite.

 She's growing up so fast! 

I look at pictures from just a few months ago and can't believe the difference.

I love those curly whispies.

Ryan made pico de gallo tonight to go with our chicken quesadillas.

Mmm, I really think if the whole computer engineering thing doesn't work out, 

culinary school might be an option.

His specialty is Mexican food. 

I wonder how he would do at egg rolls..... or orange chicken, hmm,

 I'm thinking we're having Chinese sometime in the near future.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Dance a little more.

Today we had a great lesson at church, that I really needed to hear.

Our Bishop started out the lesson with this phrase he'd read on a sign recently,

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,

it's about learning to dance in the rain."

This phrase hit me like a freight train. 

As someone who struggles with anxiety, I often find myself waiting for the next thing to come along. 

Be that the next birthday, or crisis, or weekend.

I've heard other phrases with the same type of message, but this one sang to me. 

I think I'll be making this into something for my walls.

I need to remind myself to dance a little more :)

I had some time to scrapbook the other night. 

This layout took most of Friday night and Saturday morning to make. 

mmm...makes me want those biscuits.

journaling reads:" strawberry lemonade in mason jars-homemade b-b-q sauce-kitschy decor-yummy food"

We enjoyed the cooler weather this weekend and wish it was here to stay.

Happy Sunday!

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Currents

Listening: Michael Buble on Pandora

Eating: Oatmeal

Drinking: Diet Coke

Wearing: AE jeans and sweater, despite it being over 100 yesterday and most likely today.

Feeling: Anxious

Weather: Over 100, praying for fall to come quickly

Wanting: To scrapbook, but hard finding the time

Needing: A haircut. Zoe got one yesterday and  I realized how badly I need one too.

Thinking: about the holidays, packing, scrapbook supplies I want but should wait to order.

Enjoying: Zoe and her constant observational chatter, "Door," " Mommy's dress,"" Do you hear that?"

Wondering: if I'll get to sleep in this weekend.





What are your currents?





XOXO,

Holly & CO.

Randomness on a Tuesday

 Nona made Zoe this cute skirt with bloomers and she insisted on me taking a picture this morning.

 Isn't her smile so cute? :)

 yeah that's the best one out of five.

I was finally able to use these pictures on a page. I tried months ago and I hate the way the page turned out.

This is from our first double date with the Stauffer's in January.

 I scanned the original and resized it in Photoshop.

 I used my white gel pen to simulate stitching 

because I was too lazy to get out the sewing machine.

Zoe and I made sock monsters when we got home. 

I'm thinking I need to invest in more googley eyes, 4 was just not enough. 

I'd like to send a big congrats out to one of my best friends, Heather, who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy yesterday and looked gorgeous for her after photos. I wish I looked that good in mine. Congrats Heather & Danny.

The randomness of this post is due to the 104 degree weather we're experiencing today...

sigh...I can't wait for fall.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

First Day of School

This is how excited Zoe was for preschool today.

I tried to take a decent pictureof her first day of school and this is the best I got.

She was upset because I wouldn't put band-aids on her perfectly fine knees.

Technically, she's a little young for preschool, but her daycare offers preschool and her teacher thought she would fit right in, despite the age difference, so we're giving it a shot.

We're back to our routine, earlier bedtimes, school, homework and so much more.

Hopefully I'll have some scrappy pages to share soon.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

A special place

We've been spending a lot of time here this weekend.

This is the place Ryan & I got married.

This is a sacred, spiritual place.

Being here gives me peace and comfort.

If you'd like to read more about this special place, you can go here.







XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Check it out!

The layout I posted yesterday is up on the company Cosmo Cricket Blog.



See it Here!

Hold on Tight

The journaling reads, " Hold on tight...to what you know is right...to true friends and family...to who you are."

I adore this photo that Ryan took of Zoe. 

Although I'm standing in the background and have my hands ready to catch her, 

she is holding on all by herself.

I have a tons of photos from this weekend that I'm dying to scrapbook, so you may see a large influx of scrapbook pages here on the blog. 

I used the paper pack that I had bought to make small scrapbooks for the service auction, however, my package got incorrectly routed to Stockton, so I didn't get it in time and had to use other products.

I'm secretly a little happy, because I'm adoring this paper pack :)

School starts soon, and our summer is winding down, thank goodness.

We've had such a great summer, but we're ready for more down time and cold weather.

I can't wait to take some fall photos of Zoe. I got the cutest little ruffled striped sweater for her to wear.

Maybe this year we'll actually send Christmas cards......mmm, I wouldn't bet on it, but I'll try.

XOXO,

Holly & Co

Visit with Nona and Papa

I told you this week was busy, I had no time to blog. But I'm here now with lots of pictures!



My parents came into town this weekend just for fun! It'd been a long time since they had been out here to visit, so we were excited to show them around.

Day 1: Thursday. My parents didn't get into town until almost 10pm but they came by to say before they went to their hotel.

Day 2: Friday. Ryan had to work, but I took the day off. We got up bright and early and headed to the Sacramento Zoo. Zoe had never been to the zoo and none of us had been to the Sacramento one.

Right as we got into the park, they had the train. It was empty, but we went to ask about rides. They said we could go right then, and have it all to ourselves. It was great!

The little cars are really small, but Zoe had so much fun. After our train ride, we stopped at the picture spot. Here's Zoe on a safari :)

Zoe really enjoyed seeing the monkeys and that's what she's pointing to. The Sac Zoo is a lot smaller than the huge Denver Zoo I grew up visiting, but we were able to get SO much closer to the animals. We were about 5-6 feet from 2 jaguars with nothing but a wire fence in between us. We saw the new tiger cub. We also got to pet a desert turtle. It was nice to get a little bit closer than we would have been able to at a big zoo.

Zoe didn't want to ride in the stroller or walk, she wanted to be carried, but I made her walk and she was less than happy about it. Holding hands with Papa and Nona made it a little better though.

We were going to head over to Fairytale Town, but it looked really busy and lunchtime was nearing, so we decided to head towards home to get some lunch. We stopped at El Torito, so Zoe could have some salsa (her favorite). While Zoe took her nap, my Mom and I headed over to Tayo's fabrics and spent almost 2 hours looking around.

Ryan and my Dad hung out with Zoe for the night while my Mom and I went to our Ward Service Auction. It was so great to have my Mom there to help. We won lots of fun stuff. Jamie's muffins, a sock monster kit, a reed diffuser, it was great.



Day 3: Saturday. My Dad and Ryan got up bright and early to play some golf. Zoe and I went and picked up my Mom at her hotel and we went shopping! Zoe has grown a lot in the past couple months. Her waist is the same, but she's shot up like 2 inches. None of her jeans fit her, and her shorts are beginning to be a bit immodest. So we went to Old Navy and stocked up. We even got her Halloween Costume -

We're not that big into Halloween, but I didn't want her to be without a costume, so she's going as a pretty pink skeleton this year. (and they double as jammies, so win/win!) The hardest part will be keeping them in the package until Halloween.

After shopping and Golf, we headed up to Lucille's BBQ in Rocklin...mmmm....

Best strawberry lemonade ever...and they serve it in a mason jar...double plus!

I love the kitschy decor. This lamp made me smile.

 Papa trying to entertain Zoe while we were waiting for our food.

I love her making this face. 

 After lunch, we had naps. Then headed off to the park.

After the park, we took Mom and Dad to Mix-it Yogurt. They had never been to a yogurt bar before. Needless to say, they loved it!

Day 4: Sunday. Mom and Dad came over this morning to have cinnamon rolls with us before church. They stayed through first hour, and then had to get back home. We all cried and said our good-byes. We had so much fun!

We love you Nona and Papa! Thanks for coming to visit, we had a great time!

I hope you enjoyed are weekend recap.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Srappy Share + Other Stuff

I apologize for the blog absence, I got a package of scrap stuff in the mail 

and couldn't resist playing with my new stuff.

We've all been feeling a little under the weather, so we laid low this weekend. 

I finally got around to scrapping these pictures of Zoe's first carousel ride. I think they were from like April. I'm so far behind. I'm hoping to catch up once the summer is over.



My parents and maybe my, brother are coming into town this week and we're so excited!



We're having our Relief Society service auction this Friday and I'm working on a mini album with this awesome scrapbook collection:

I'm so excited.I hope it turns out as good as I'm hoping.

 I'm totally loving my new camera and being able to catch these little moments.

Zoe and Daddy watching a movie on the floor.

Hope you're all having a great week.





XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Panda Bear

Aww...look at my little panda bear.

I got these jammies on major clearance and I heart them.

They make me smile.



This is a totally random mushy love stuff post, but the other night as I was trying to fall asleep I started thinking about all my memories of when Ryan and I were dating.

Our relationship kind of melded together and didn't really have an official start date. Although, I count July 4th, 2005 as that's the first day I met him, and I knew I liked  him right then and there.

While I was trying to fall asleep, I was thinking about our first kiss. I remembered It was on my couch in my roman gardens apt. in the middle of the day,and that we had been dating almost 2 weeks and I was starting to think he didn't like me, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what Ryan said to me before he kissed me. I had a mini freak out about it. I mean we've been together 5 years and I can't remember all the details about our first kiss, what's wrong with me?!? What am I going to tell me children? I fell asleep worrying about it.

Ryan helped me sort out the memory last night, and here's what he said,

" So are you going to kiss me?"

and I quickly retorted," You first." and then he kissed me!

Romantic huh? Lol. It was....until about .2 seconds later when my roommate Erin came flying in the door. She turned bright red and ran into her room. (She knew it was our first kiss and felt terrible for interrupting) She then ran back out the front door as quickly as she had come in. Ryan and I busted up laughing in embarrassment. Sigh, good times.

Now if I ever forget, I can come back to this blog post and remind myself.



XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Monterey Bay Aquarium - Our Visit

Welcome to our trip to the Aquarium. That's Ryan, in the red hat,  holding Zoe.

This post will be long and with lots of pictures and funny things about Zoe while we were there. The first stop was to this big tank. It's actually the otter tank. We did get to watch the otter feeding although there were only 2 otters, so it didn't last that long.

Zoe loved seeing all the fish. She kept saying, "Good Boy," whenever the sharks would swim by. We left the house at at 6am, and Ryan bought her candy on the drive up, so she was a little wired when we got there. She could have sat in front of that big tank all day. That big tank actually had different panels sectioned off, and she thought every panel was a different tanks and different fish than the ones she had just seen inches away.

Such a pretty view. This is from one of the observation decks outside. It's been a long time since we've seen the ocean. On the drive in, as we passed by the wharf, and saw tons of boats, Zoe said, "I can pick one?" ( A lot of times we give her a choice and tell her to "pick one")



Zoe really enjoyed the kids area where they had a playground and water tables for the kids to play in. She touched several starfish in the little "hands on" area. I didn't know starfish came in every color.

For lunch, we went out to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. While we were waiting in line, Cousin Taylor climbed up onto one of the bar stools and had a little pout. The bartenders thought she was pretty funny.

Also at lunch, seated near us, was a ridiculously hilarious mullet. Short and spikey on the top, long and curly on the bottom. Here's our attempt at a sly picture.

My favorite exhibit was the Jelly Room. They just glow and float. They are so beautiful. It took me until the end of our visit to figure out how to get decent pictures of the exhibits on my new camera. Which is why these are the only fish pictures I'm posting.

Jellyfish always remind me of two movies, 1. Finding Nemo and 2. Sphere. Both movies have filled me with a fear of these creatures but they are quite beautiful, behind glass :)



Zoe had maxed out by the time we reached the seahorses, so we ended up leaving shortly after that. Next time I think we'll try to go down the day before and spend some more time on cannery row and sightseeing Monterey. We had so much fun spending the day with the Humbert side. We don't often get to spend the whole day with the whole family (minus Cole, we missed you!) so it was a nice treat!



Oh and too add, we told Zoe she could pick sometime out of the giftshop to take home, and guess what she picked....

Yep, the hammer-head shark stuffed animal. That's my girl.

I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that we've been watching Shark Week on Discovery Channel.



And I think in a moment of crazy exhaustion, I decided to make bread. No, I'm not super woman, I was just too lazy to get out of my pajamas and drive to the store. Ryan makes sandwiches for lunch and we didn't have any bread. I found the recipe online and it's called Oatmeal Bread, and it is yummy and I highly recommend it!



XOXO,

Holly & Co.

:)

Yeah! I'm back to scrapbooking! I took these pictures of Zoe swinging yesterday and they put me back in the scrapping spirit!

We were planning on going to Santa Cruz this weekend, but me being sick, kinda disrupted the plan. Luckily, I'm feeling much better now, so our plan to go with Ryan's family to the Monterey Bay Aquarium tomorrow is still on :)

I'm so excited. My family went just before we got married, but I wasn't able to go. So I'm excited to go and to watch Zoe and her cousins looking at all the exhibits!





Today, after Zoe's nap we started playing dress-ups. I put her in an old bridesmaid's dress of mine and it was adorable. Although, she kept tripping on it, so I think I'm going to alter it to a more fitting size for a dress up. Has anyone done this before? Tips, tricks? I was thinking of using a running stitch the whole time, so I could always undo it if I needed to.



She also locked herself in her room, so we had to unscrew the lock and switch it around so it's on the outside instead of the inside. I didn't even realize she had a lock on her door, until she was locked in her room. yikes!



Well I'm off to scrap a little more and watch a movie.

Night!

XOXO,

Holly & Co.