California: Part 1

So we did a little trip to California recently, to show off Jane and celebrate some important birthdays.

We spent the first half of the trip in Brentwood visiting Stephen's family.

Stephen's sister Michelle came as well with her kids.

With all our kids together, it makes a fun line up,

Avila, 6

Emma, 5

Mae, 4 (soon)

Alice, 3 (soon)

Walker, 2 (soon)

and Baby Jane

Our first day there, Jane was passed around like a football and didn't seem to mind.

She was so happy and content the whole trip because she was always being held!

Meeting Grandma (and the ceiling fan).

Meeting Papa while cousins Mae and Avila wait their turn.  The two of them fought over Jane quite frequently during the trip.

Even Walker wanted a turn.

Next day we went to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum.

Alice was excited about it, well, she was excited about everything because she was seriously loving playing with her cousins.

Back at the house, all the cousins reading Pete the Cat with Auntie Michelle.

The next day we went to the park.

A rare picture of Stephen and I without kids.

Later that day we played bocce ball.

I was surprised to find I wasn't terrible at it like I am all other sports.

The hard part was keeping the kids out of the way.  How do you explain that this strip of sand with a bunch of balls is not for them to play with!

Avila is such a little mom and couldn't get enough of Jane. 

We celebrated Stephen's dad's 75th birthday.

Alice got a little over excited and blew out all the candles herself.

We had to relight the candles so all the kids could blow them out.

 The next day was finally hot enough to go swimming.

Jane slept for like 2-3 hours just like this at the pool.

It was so fun to see Mae and Alice play together during this trip.  So much fun and so much screaming!

We attempted to get a picture of all the cousins but it's really hard to get 6 kids under 6 to stand still, look the same way, and smile.

These were the best we could do.

Then we headed to Napa...

Blueberry Picking

There is a pick-your-own blueberry farm about 25 minutes from us.

Their blueberries are good and only $2 a pound.

So we got up bright and early and went blueberry picking (at 7am, gotta beat that heat)

Here is a picture from when we went last year:

And this year, isn't she getting so big!

Alice loves blueberries and I thought she would have fun picking but she picked like 10 berries then dumped out her bucket and just played with it.

Then she spent the rest of the time hanging onto my bucket eating blueberries as I put them in.

Thankfully I was faster at picking than she was at eating.

Jane was a big help and slept the whole time.

We ended up with 13 pounds of blueberries that I froze or turned into blueberry sauce/jam.

Jane's facial expressions when Alice is holding her always makes me laugh.

Especially in this picture.

PS You may have noticed that Stephen is now sporting a beard.  He had to miss 2 months of his National Guard drills so he took the opportunity to grow a beard.  I really like it.  I'll be sad when he has to shave it off next month.