GNO for Siobhan's 30th.

This past Friday, Megan and I took our friend Siobhan out for her 30th birthday!  Since she's preggo, we kept it pretty low key.  ;)  

We went to the new Postino in Gilbert for dinner.  It was packed, along with that whole "strip" of restaurants which I love so much.  

It was so bittersweet going back to my old hood.  The drive was a little reminiscent as usual and I think I finally pinpointed my feelings -- the month we moved to Gilbert was the month we got engaged.  Actually, Steve proposed in our new home which we'd been in for all of a month.  Then we got married in Gilbert and really started our "adult" lives out with each other there.  We had our first child in Gilbert and it really felt like a homey town to live in, which I loved.  We had a lot of our major firsts in Gilbert.  It was almost exactly 5 years when we moved back into Phoenix.  We both love it here and will forever live here, but I have a really soft spot in my heart for those 5 years we lived there.  :)

So anyway, we had a lovely dinner at Postino.  The only pic I got was on my way back to my car of the sunset and water tower:

Under this water tower is a splash pad and it was the first one Peyton ever went to.  See how reminiscent I am?  If I still lived there, I wouldn't be saying these things!  

After dinner we went to As You Wish paint on pottery.  Megan brought stuff to make shirley temples.  We sipped on those while we painted our masterpieces...

I made an airplane for Peyton with his name across it, Siobhan made a picture frame with 3 blue birds and 1 pink, and Megan made a dinner plate that they'll use on special occasions:

 After we painted, we had more shirley temples and some chocolate cake!

It was a fun girls night out celebrating Siobhan's 30th!

GNO!

At the end of June I had a much needed Girls Night Out!  We went to dinner at Olive & Ivy and had a delicious meal and some cocktails.  

After, we walked to old town and had some drinks at Geisha A Go Go.  They have flavored sake like cucumber, pomegranate, and pineapple, just to name the ones we had.  ;)  I was excited to check this place out since so many friends have talked about it and these days, it takes awhile for me to hit the newest night life spots.

We ended the night around midnight.  It was such a fun time with this group of girls!  

{Me, Sarah, Lindsey, Julie, a pregnant Genny, & Haydee}

Visiting Grandma Mary at work!

Back in June I took Peyton to visit my mom at work.  He was being a bit shy, but still had fun flirting with all the ladies.  :)

After, we went to Macayo's for lunch.  It was a fun afternoon with Gaga!

Spelling.

Peyton  can say almost all of the letters in the alphabet when I point to them.  He's pretty good about saying, "A" now instead of, "Apple" or "G" instead of "Gaga" like he did a few months back.  It's pretty impressive and he says each letter so clearly.  He's also got all his colors down spat and never gets them confused.  He's actually very confident with them, if he points to something and says, "blue" and I say, "you mean red?" he'll say, "No! Blue!" and then I realize I'm looking at the wrong thing.  Ha!   He knows blue, red, yellow, green, white, black, gray, purple, and orange.

Here's a video of him spelling his name.  :) 

Favorite words.

There's a few words Peyton says that we all love -- purple, helicopter, square, to name a few.  So one night I videotaped it.  He loves watching himself in the camera.  Cool thing about the iPhone is you can turn the camera around on the screen so you can see yourself.  He loves it!  

Also, we were trying on his outfit for Steve's cousins wedding that weekend, that's why he's all dressed up.

Peyton singing his ABC's.

I sing the ABC's to Peyton often.  It was the one song that would calm him down when he was a baby.  Actually, the reason I sang it to him was because it was one of the only songs I knew the words to, haha!  

Anway, one night when we were in Carlsbad, I spent about 5-10 minutes calming him down before bed time singing this to him.  The next day, he was singing it himself!  He starts to sing it on his own now.  He'll sing it saying, "choo choo" or "doggie doggie" or the actual letters themselves (although once he gets past "B", he just says any letter. ;))  *Funny story, the first time he sang it I said, "OMG!  Steve!  Where did he learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star??!!"  Then Steve reminded me it's the same tune as the ABC's.... oh yeah.  ;) 

Here's a video of him spontaneously singing it for the first time.  It was on our way home from Cali:

Carlsbad - Part III.

Man!  Three posts on this trip!  It was a 10 day trip and I loooovee pictures, so I guess it isn't so bad.  :)

Our final leg of this vacay was the last two nights.  After a week at the Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort, we headed over to the Carlsbad Hilton Oceanfront Resort & Spa.  This resort was bran spankin new and had been open only a week.  Score!

First order of business, set up the train track, but of course!

Second order of business, take a nap!

That night we ate dinner at the restaurant there called Chandler's.  Dennis & Joan's work friends also go to Carlsbad in July, so we met them for dinner.

Chillin in bed:

The next few days were b-e-a-utiful!

We had breakfast at Chandler's both mornings.  Pretty view on the patio.

Peyton really started coloring the kids menu on this trip.  Megan, the daughter of D&J's work friends, spent a lot of time at dinner with him coloring that one night and ever since, he's enjoyed doing it and it finally keeps him occupied!

Our last day we spent at the pool.

We ended our trip with a visit to Uncle Ryan at Barro's once we got back into town.  (Ryan left a few days before us).  Which was good because Peyton had been talking about him the moment he left Carlsbad.  :)

It's never easy leaving this vacation and we truly start looking forward to next year, the day we get home.  It was nice having Flagstaff to look forward to that next weekend, which helps take the sting off.  It was a wonderful time and the countdown is on till next year! 

Carlsbad - Part II.

Here's pictures from the rest of our trip!

Uncle Andy won Peyton over by watching Choo Choo on his iPad.  Never fails!

 Beautiful pink sunset on the balcony:

One night we went swimming.  Peyton loved it.  It got cold, so we went into the kiddie spa...

Here we met a group of about 8 girls age 14/15 yrs.  They were all such beautiful girls, which made this a tad bit cuter.  ;)  ... one girl fell in love with Peyton, then the rest got on board and they all spent about 15 minutes swooning over him.  One of the first questions one asked was how old he was.  Peyton said, "TWO!" all cute and matter-of-factly.  The girls giggled and Peyton loved the attention.  SO, from then on, he answered, "TWO!" to every question they asked him.  When Joan decided to take a pic (good thinking!), one girl suggested everyone show the #2 on their fingers in honor of "Mr #2" aka Peyton.  :)

Uncle Ryan and his girlfriend Amber playing in the arcade:

Sharing the love:

One of our many happy hours.  We got the pita & hummus at the local farmer's market that day.  Yum, I'm drooling as I type!

One evening (over some wine, of course) Joan was complaining that we got called Zonies.  None of us had heard of the term.  Out of the 30 years I've been going to Cali in the summers, I've somehow never heard this term!  We are TOTAL zonies!  And this definition cracked me up.  There were about 10 definitions as crude as this that had us all laughing!

The kid still lines cars up everywhere.  Kinda off topic but, one night we crawled into bed and to our surprise, he was still wide awake.  He scared the crap out of us, imagine being super quiet opening the door, only to hear a very jubilant, "Momma!" as soon as you tip-toe in.  So we ignore him, crawl into bed and he's saying a few words as awake as can be.  Finally he says, "Momma? ... Dadda?  HELLO?!"  OMG we were laughing SO hard.  I wish you could've heard the tone, that's what made it so funny!  Seriously, highlight of our trip it was that funny!

Morning walk down the beach:

All dressed up for dinner! (doesn't he look about 10 years old in this shirt? haha)

Morning walk alone this time.  Always a highlight of the trip.  :)

I love how you can see the milk pouring down and Steve telling me, "He's making a mess."  LOL

Beach day!

Video of Peyton playing:

The last beach day I went boogie boarding for the first time in a few years.  No pics of me though.  That's what happens when you're always the one taking the pictures!

Walking to dinner one night w Uncle Andy:

Funny story: (1st, notice the crowd above watching over, ha!)  Ryan signed up for the ping pong tournament.  We teased him prior about beating the 10 year olds.  There ended up being a handful of grown men (lol) and they needed another player, so then Steve joins.  Ryan and Steve ended up playing each other and then Ryan ended up winning the whole tournament!  It was pretty funny.  He won a towel.  :)

The morning we left, we were scurrying around trying to get packed and out of there.  Peyton loved the luggage cart and ended up hanging outside on it while we were inside packing.  Of course the door was open so we kept an eye on him, but suddenly I start hearing him saying , "HI" to everyone who walked by.  Then he'd sometimes tell them, "BYE" too.  The tone of his voice was so serious and clear, you'd think it was an adult saying it!  Everyone said Hi back and it was so stinking cute how friendly he was being.  I assumed he'd learned how to say Hi to strangers by watching us all do that all week long.  :)))

To be continued...

Annual Carlsbad Vacay - Part I.

This was my 11th year going to Carlsbad, CA with Steve's family.  ELEVENTH!  Every time we go, I find myself going down memory lane once we get there.  I can't help but think about where we were at in life each summer we came.  For example, I remember the summer before I started teaching and how nervous I was, the summer before we got married and I had just gotten my hair colored and it was HORRIBLE, the summer we conceived Peyton (heh heh), then the summer when we were a family of 3 for the first time, the summer when I worked at Kid Zone, then Najafi Companies, etc.  It's crazy to think how much things do change every year!!

Anyway, we had a relaxing time as usual.  Our days consisted of the beach, pool, spa, shopping, eating, reading, and drinking!

The night before we left, Peyton took it upon himself to get inside the suit case and shut it.  He'd literally sit in there for a minute before opening it!  It was too funny!

Saturday morning (the 7th) we headed out!  Peyton slept for the last hour or so (how does that always work out?!) and the moment we arrived, we got out and headed to the beach.  Peyton's seen the beach 3 times before, but this was probably the first time he's really enjoyed it:

We then headed to our rooms and got unpacked.  Here's Peyton checking out the ocean from our balcony:

Our first full beach day!

Getting sleepy...

I handed him off to Joan and he napped on her for 1.5 hours.  :)

Up and ready to walk back to our room!

Walked to the end of the balcony and watched the sunset:

Then looked down and saw everyone grilling burgers!

Peyton loved the phone.  He kept picking it up and saying, "Hello?  Hi!" then would mumble stuff. 

One morning I rented a stroller (hence the pink!) and took a long walk down the boardwalk.  He did great for an hour and then I stopped to take a pic and he wanted OUT!

Here's a video of what happened when we stopped!

Here's a different day when Joan, Amber, and I went shopping around the village:

Checking out the beach cruisers when we returned the stroller:

This was a gorgeous beach day!  

I have a bazillion pictures of Peyton with his arms out and what he's really doing is showing me the water sign.  He would look at the ocean and cross his fingers and do it, he knew there was a ton of water!!  He was also concerned about the sand on his hands.  I showed him how to wipe it off on his shirt, so then he was pretty okay with it.  :)

Another (more cloudy) day, we hung out in the courtyard waiting for the spa to clear out.  Ryan took Peyton on the balcony, you can see him almost pulling a Michael Jackson on the 3rd floor.  ;)

You can't tell it's the ocean, but it's just beyond the palm tree...

More on our vacay to come!!!! ......