It's going to rain the rest of the week

Why not take advantage of the upcoming rainstorm and bring out the sidewalk chalk. After putting Reid down for his afternoon nap, we headed outdoors. Sorry Reid.

Ava really enjoyed getting to go outside today. Too bad the clouds are rolling back in tomorrow.

After she was all done drawing she decided she needed to sign her name.

I tried teaching Ava how to play hopscotch. She decided that was boring. But jumping from the step onto the numbers was much more fun. So that's just what she did.

It might be hard to see, but if you look right above Ava's hands you can see what she's smiling about. After she scribbled to her hearts content we brought out the bubble maker. She loves trying to pop all of the bubbles.

Another thing that makes Ava happy is completely showering her parents with bubbles. Lets just say that Josh opened the front door at the wrong time.

Don't mess with Ava when she's got the bubble maker, she has no mercy. Sidenote - I just saw today that Target is now carrying this bubble maker in their stores again. Hurry, go get one for yourself your kids. We play with this thing almost all year long.

When the sun comes out, you've got to go out and play

Well Shelby, you should of stayed an extra week. The weather today was 68 degrees without a cloud in the sky. It was a perfect day to take a trip up to the Berkeley hills to visit the Little Farm.

Upon arriving Ava ran over to the fence, points, screams "Cows Mom, cows!", and then excitedly jumps up and down for a few seconds. I guess it's been awhile since I last took her on an outing to the farm.

Once Ava noticed just how large the cows were she quickly announced that she wanted to see the chickens. So here she is peering at the chickens and geese, who are not as intimidating.

Then she felt brave enough to go peer at the dairy cows, but not brave enough to actually feed them some celery. When I handed her a stalk of celery to feed the cow, she was going to totally do it, until the cow stuck her head through the fence. Then she handed it to me and said, "I want to watch you feed the cow."

Here's Reidy enjoying our little outing in the safety of the bjorn. It was actually quite nice not having to haul the stroller around. I love having little kiddos. Makes my back a lot happier.

On our way back to the car to get some lunch, a bazillion butterflies decided to join us on the trail. They ranged from medium sized bright orange ones to teeny tiny periwinkle ones. Here's Ava watching the butterflies fly by.

Sidenote, notice how Ava is standing on a tree stump. When she saw the stump she proudly announced, "If I saw them cutting down the tree, I would say 'No cut down tree'." We've been living in the bay area for way too long!

After following the butterflies for quite some time we finally made it back to the car to retreive our lunch. Why does food always seem to taste better when you're outside? Ava's showing me what a daddy bite would look like.

Here's the aftermath of the "daddy bite".

Here's my best picture of all of us. Ava says I should finish the post by saying, "I love going to the animal farm." Yep, agreed.

We had a visitor!

And what a fun visitor she was! This past week Josh's Mom Shelby flew out to visit. The weather was cloudy and cold (for CA) for most of the week and both kids developed an ear infection, but I still think we had a grand ol' time.

After a few nights we were sad to discover that our blow up mattress was not living up to its job description. So on Monday morning I made a quick trip to Target to find a replacement. The old mattress quickly found a home in our playroom as a trampoline. Reid and Ava couldn't of been happier. Notice the humongous grin plastered on Reid's face. So Shelby got a mattress that actually holds air longer than an hour and the kids got a trampoline. It was a win win.

Ava has gotten way into playing board games lately. Her favs at the moment are Hi Ho Cherry-o and Memory. Shelby got roped into a few games during the week. If anyone has any game suggestions for an almost 3 year old, I would love to add some more variety to our board game mix.

Once the kids were feeling better we made a trip over to the library and a nearby park. It was nice having Shelby join us in the book searching because she came across a book that she used to read to Josh and his brothers. Ava and Josh have read that book almost every night since. Adorable, right?

I never knew this could be possible, but Reid just might love the swing more than Ava.

At the end of the week we headed over to the Abraham Lincoln Museum? Modern Art Museum? The local thrift store?

This picture should clear it up. By the way, isn't the picture above pretty impressive. There were portraits all throughout the factory made with Jelly Bellys.

They take cleanliness very seriously on the tour. In order to go on the tour (which is above the factory in an enclosed walkway) you had to wear the hat. Personally I think they just wanted to give the employees below a good laugh when they look up and see all these dorks wearing these paper hats. But hey, I didn't care, they gave me loads of free Jelly Bellys :) Looking good guys!

They did make sure to give Reid a hat to wear on the tour, but thankfully they didn't enforce it.

Amazingly we ended the tour right at noon. How lucky were we that there was an In N Out within a few minutes of the factory. It was meant to be.

Any guesses on how many times we ventured over to Nordstroms? Not one, not two, but three times :) One of our favorite little places to go with Shelby is the Nordstroms' Cafe.

I think Ava is a fan too. She gives the mac and cheese two hands up!

On Sat. the clouds parted and the weather warmed up into the mid sixties. And of course it happened to be Shelby's last day visiting. So we made a quick stop by the park so Shelby could soak up some CA rays before heading back to the snow.

It may look like Reid has hardly any hair, but look closely. You can see his very fine hair blowing in the wind. Adorable little guy.

There is no way that I can look at this picture and not laugh. These kiddos of mine are a crack up.

This big, wet kiss is just for Nana from Reid! We loved getting to spend the whole week with you.