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.

coming out of the fog...

I'm finally starting to feel a little better.



My dear friend Annalee and her adorable daughter Lilly came over to play on Wed.

Lilly made me laugh so hard, every time I tried to take her picture, this was the face I got. 

I won a spot in this class:

I've been slow at scrapping lately and I have tons of pictures so I'm hoping this class will help a little bit.

Look at my 2 favorite people, aren't they adorable.

I'll be back later with a more interesting update.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

SaturdayFAIL

 Picture taken before the disaster.

So, here's my SaturdayFAIL story.



We'd planned to go to the movies on Saturday morning. Ryan & Brok were going to see Inception (which they said was the best movie ever!) and I was going to take Zoe to Toy Story 3. They started a few minutes apart and they ended at the same time. So we went, all was going well, until the movie started. Zoe was up and down and loud and all over the place. We ended up leaving so as not to disturb the other movie-goers, and headed over to the outlets.



It was hot, and Zoe was in a crabby mood. 3 stores, and each one the experience just got worse and worse. Ripping things off the racks, screaming, trying to get out of the stroller...ugh, it was a headache.

So I headed for the McDonald's to seek some refuge while the boys finished their movie. That didn't help. She tried to play in the playplace, she was too little to climb the stairs up into the slides, which brought on lots of tears.



She tried to eat other people's french fries that had fallen on the floor. Again, more tears from the "No" response I gave her.

As we were leaving she fell and skinned her knee.



When we got to the car, I discovered she had a blowout and there were no diapers in the car... thanks to my girl scout skills I discovered pj pants + burb cloth = diaper replacement for 20 minutes.

Memo to me: Potty Train.

Finally we made it home and put Zoe down for a nap, and I collapsed onto my bed and cried from exhaustion.



Thankfully my husband was wonderful and took charge the rest of the evening and even did the grocery shopping I was too tired to do. 2 points for Mr. Humbert.



I hope you got a chuckle from my SaturdayFAIL, and I hope your Saturday was better than mine.



XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Trend: Yogurt Bar

We've visited a few of these type places before, but I think we've found our favorite. We discovered it while on a dessert run the other night with the Stauffer family.





Tonight our concoctions were as follows:

Peach Mango Tart yogurt + fresh mango + fresh strawberries + granola = Ryan



Red Velvet Cake yogurt + Vanilla yogurt + fresh strawberries + Cap'n Crunch = Holly



Vanilla + Reese's Pieces + chocolate sprinkles = Zoe





Yes, I did let Zoe pick out her own. I was surprised she didn't pick more toppings. I think she was just so excited to get her very own bowl....small bowl...but still all hers.

You can see how happy she is here.

Ryan loves having his picture taken, especially while he's eating.

{Yes, that is a Perry the Platypus t-shirt}



Here's to welcoming the weekend.



XOXO,

Holly & Co.

My letter

I know I said I would be back with my letter yesterday, but the terrible-two-fairy came to our house for a visit. So I'm posting it now.

I don't keep a traditional journal and generally use this blog and my scrapbook pages to document most of the things I want to say. But some things take up more than a 12x12 sheet of paper, so I wrote Zoe a letter and put it in this envelope.

I wrote about how life is with her at age 2. Everything from her curls to her tantrums. I told her about my worries about being a good parent and helping her grow up to be a happy, functioning adult. How I want her to fall in love, but also to guard her heart against boys that clearly are not worth the tears. My desire for us to always be good friends, but also my assurance to her, that if we are not, I will always love her with all my heart, Always and no matter what.

I know at some point in my life, she is not going to like me, and that's ok. But, I'm hoping by writing letters like this, she will find comfort in the fact that when she was 2, I was anticipating that day. Writing letters like this also help me keep life in perspective especially on the hard days. I'm hoping to write something like this every 6 months, maybe more often we'll see.





XOXO,

Holly & Co.

I wanna go to the beach

simply so I have a reason to buy this scrapbooking paper...

and these cards...

I hear waves in our future.

As a kid, my parents used to take us on what we called, "Adventures." We would drive to small moutain towns and go exploring. Sometimes we would go on hikes, or visit the gift shops, or get ice cream.

We'd sing folk songs on the drive, and play the alphabet game. These are some of my most cherished memories

After our jaunt to Tahoe a few weeks ago, I think Ryan and I both agreed we had tons of fun and will be adding more mini vacations into our schedule.

Next on our list is Redding/Mt. Shasta and then, Santa Cruz.

Any suggestions for either of these places? I've never been to either and Ryan has never been to Santa Cruz, so we could use some recommendations.

I am now in the market for a giant floppy sun hat. :)

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Day off

Monday, I had the day off because of the holiday. 

It was nice to finally be able to check things off my to do list.

Packed maternity clothes for my sister...check.

Cut vinyl for mom....check.

Edit pictures....check.

We took our normally Saturday day trip to Roseville, stopped at Noodles & Co. and Costco.

Came home for a nap, then off to cousin Asher's birthday party. 

 Zoe waiting for the cupcakes.

And the smiling birthday boy.

That night, I got an exciting e-mail. Pamela from ScrapStreet.com Magazine, requested to publish one of my scrapbook layouts! I'm not sure which issue it will be in, I'll let you all know. I'm over the moon excited.

I've got some baking/cooking to do tonight for a shower tomorrow, so I should probably get started on that.

Night.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!

We had a delicious dinner over at the Humbert's house tonight.

After dinner, the kids took a little swim.

Zoe got to show off her new bathing suit. {It was a steal! Under $5.00)

She had fun killing ants with cousin Taylor.

Do you see what I mean, her hair is just crazy curly when it's wet!



We had tons of fun tonight. We didn't keep Zoe up for the fireworks, she wouldn't have lasted. But I can hear them now and I'm thinking they are loud enough that she might wake up.



Off to watch the show!



XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Half-Way Done

Well we made it half-way through the year.

I went back today and looked at the goals I blogged about at the end of December, for 2010.

This is what I wrote in December:

For 2010 I want to:

* Be a roll around, on the floor Mom. I want to make sure I'm truly interacting with Zoe every day. It's easy to get lost in our routine and I want to make sure she gets my full attention in the short time we have together in the evenings.

* have weekly Family Home Evening. This has been hard this past few months with Ryan being in school on Monday nights, but after spending FHE with the Stauffers,

I really want to have this a weekly time together.

* Finish projects. I have lots of ideas floating around in my head that I get supplies for, but find it hard to complete these projects. My goal is to do one a week. I've already got my list for the first 20 weeks.

It was a nice reminder to go back and look at these. I've definitely improved in all of them, some more than others. Did you make goals for 2010? I encourage you to go back and look at them. Evaluate them, and change them if you need to.









I've hardly scrapbooked in a week or so...I've been working on other projects. (See goal #3)

This is my little nook/office/craft area. I cut these quote bubble out of chalkboard vinyl to keep to-do lists or funny Zoe quotes, or other notes. (the top right corner is a Zoe quote.)

 

 Ryan isn't a big fan of vinyl to decorate, but he's warmed up to these since I first put them up.

At first, he asking me if they were a joke.

I got my vinyl at Craft Vinyl and cut the shape using my Cricut and my Create-a-Critter cartridge.



This post has taken me forever to write to I'm gonna  wrap it up here.

Hope you're having a safe weekend!



XOXO.

Holly & Co.

Welcome to Summer

The sign at San Juan High School said it was 109° on the way home.

That is way too hot for my snow loving blood.

We headed straight to the pool armed with some cold lemonade.

I grabbed a couple of pictures of Zoe swimming. She's such a water baby.

***********************

I've been scrapping lately. I have lots of pages to share, but I'll do it a little at a time.

***Giveaway is still open until 12 pm tonight***

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

the Piggy bank

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, Zoe got a piggy bank from our trip to Tahoe.

When we got home it was the toddler witching hour (read: 5pm) and I needed an activity to entertain her until dinner.

Lucky for me, we keep a giant jar of pennies.

Piggy all of a sudden got an appetite.

I showed Zoe how to drop the coins in her piggy bank.

Every couple of minutes I'd hear, " I tan't do it!" (I can't do it!)

I'd remind her to turn the penny the other way.

Then I'd hear, " Yeah I did it!"

and then she'd kiss the pig.

I love her little phrases and songs as the background to my days.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Getting out of dodge....

Thanks to a little nudge from a good friend, we decided to get out of town today.

We needed a break from our regular routine. 

So bright and early this morning, we packed the car and headed up to Tahoe for the day.

First stop - miniature golf . 

We chose the Storybook course which had everything from nursery rhymes to Stonehenge.

We didn't keep track of strokes but Ryan had 3 hole-in-ones.

Next stop - Lunch.

We were excited to try someplace new, but ended up at Chevy's.

I guess we were both a little afraid of the unknown.

{BTW - Chevy's deep fried ice cream is delicious and humongous!}

Last Stop - Shopping

We walked around a few shopping centers and the car show. 

Zoe ended up with a small pink piggy bank that says "Lake Tahoe" on the side.

Her choice.

We also got to stop into a gallery that had a Dr. Suess exhibit. 

Apparently, Theodore Geisel was quite an artist and had a much larger career than just writing Dr. Suess books.

Who knew?

Then back home we came.

It was great to spend some time up in the mountains.

It made me feel like I was back in Colorado again.

It also got me out a a little funk I was in, so back to crafting I go.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Signs of Summer

I have a sun-kissed toddler who smells like sunscreen and chlorine on my lap

....it's officially summer.

{Zoe last summer}

We did quite the bathing suit search this year.

We finally found one for mommy (lime ricki) & two for Zoe (target).

Lime Ricki

 Target

I see lots of trips to the pool and popsicles in our future.

Thankfully, it's been relatively cool this summer.

Zoe asks practically every day to go to the pool. I wasn't going to look into swimming lessons until next year, but she's pretty fearless when it comes to swimming, so we might be starting a round or two this summer instead.

I bought some red plastic hamburger baskets from the $1 bin at target the other day. I don't know what I have in store for them yet, but they were too cute to pass up. Any Ideas or links to share?

We're getting close to 300 posts, so that means, another giveaway very, very soon!

Have a great weekend everyone!

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

First Carousel Ride

We spent the evening at the mall with the Stauffers. 

Zoe LOVED the carousel. She kept saying, "Beautiful horses." She cried when her ride was over. We'll have to plan on riding the carousel every time we go to the mall.

We came home and went straight to bed.

That's exactly where I'm headed.

Just wanted to share a picture of my little lady.

More tomorrow.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

Anniversary Curse

So I thought it was just bad luck, but I guess bad things always happen in three's anyways.

Our Anniversary seems to be a spoiled day every year. 

The actual day we got married though, was wonderful. Perfect Day.

However, June 2nd for the past 3 years, has been less than awesome.

Year One: I was very pregnant. I was so swollen I could even sit up. I had to lie down the whole night. My water broke less than 24 hours later.

Year Two: I made dinner at home. Ryan was about 2 hours late. Then I got food poisoning.

and .....

Year Three: Things were great until we came home from dinner. Then Zoe started puking. { and the worst part is, she kept saying," I'm so sorry mommy, I'm so sorry." ::breaks my heart::}

I'm intrigued to see what next year has in store....

But Ryan and I have accepted this fate and just roll with the punches that the anniversary curse brings us.

I'm hopefully going to have some fun news to share with you soon. So look for that coming soon. 

{No, I'm not pregnant.}

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

3 years

3 years ago today, I married my sweetheart for time and all eternity.

Don't we look so young? 

It was only 3 years ago. My how time flies.

Ryan doesn't read this blog, at least that's what he tells me, but I love him anyway. 

He is my favorite and always has been. 

I knew he was the one, after he broke up with me.

I didn't want to imagine my life without him.

He came to his senses, eventually.

He endures my over-emotional moments and my crazy moments. 

He knows me well enough to sense when I need him to bring me home a coke. 

He works unbelievably hard for me and for our family.

He is my soulmate.

I love you Ryan.

You were worth the wait.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

In Love

with this...

{and she makes any state or country}

I lived in Oklahoma, less time than I lived anywhere else. Just 8 months.

It was a very long 8 months.

Ryan and I were almost 2,000 apart, and working with a 2 hour time difference.

It made for lonely days and nights spent falling asleep on the phone.

But it only made us stronger.

I made lifelong friends in Oklahoma.

Kindred spirits. People who have made such an impact on my life.

The summer I spent there, was one of my favorites ever.

Full of days at the pool and nightly visits to Taco Bueno.

My first visit to a Piggly-Wiggly.

Since my parents moved, I haven't been back and don't know when/if I will ever make it back there.

But I still love Oklahoma. I miss it all the time.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.

ten on tuesday

1. The rain makes me happy. It was raining when I left work today. It made me lots of happy. For most people, rain is depressing. I love it!



2. Zoe is deathly afraid of windshield wipers. Because of this, she screamed all the way home. To get her to stop screaming, I promised her she could play in the puddles.

3. I love snuggling. I found this picture on my camera from days ago.

4. I'm totally craving chili and cornbread right now. It's May 25th. yeah, weird.



5. 6 years ago today, I graduated high school.

thanks for the photo, Heather

6. I'm really, really excited for Studio Calico's new scrapbooking line, Documentary. I love the scooters.

7.  We're going to start serious potty training this weekend. We've had some success already this week.

8.  Of all the movies Zoe owns, Finding Nemo gets on my nerves the most. I think it's Marlin, the helicopter parent, that makes it so bad. I can only handle this one in rotation like once every couple weeks. I would much rather watch Dora the Explorer for 2 hours. 

9. Zoe's new phrase is, "So Cute!" Whenever she gets dressed, puts on shoes, gets her hair done...it's hysterical. I love it.

10. I love that Zoe got my cheeks.

have a wonderful evening.

XOXO,

Holly & Co.