Maxie Boy :)

just around 9 months.. oh how we love him so

precious right? he's like our adorable little bull dog.. just so cute :)

pumpkin time :)

I don't actually love the holiday Halloween (I know, I'm just no fun). But I love everything that has to do with pumpkins! So the other night I agreed to go to our local Haunted House, only if afterwards, we could go get pumpkins to carve. The Haunted House, not my favorite (as Jen would say), but they had some fun games and delicious carmel apples, AND Martin won that silly little eye patch that he wore throughout the rest of our Halloween activities. I think he's cute :)

Oh, and I hope you notice all the bunny ear action going on. Yes, that's Jennifer, and it pains her to take a picture without giving bunny ears :)

For cute pumpkin ideas, check out this post from last year. I have a bad habit of collecting pictures from all over; but luckily for you, I have all these great ideas in one spot.

This one is my fav..

I hope you're enjoying all the Halloweeny happenings this week.

I may have a few more ideas up tomorrow :)

My first day of... school :/

This whole school thing is a very up and down issue for me. I actually love school. I like taking classes in interesting subjects and learning new things, and feeling smart, and knowing that I'm furthering an education that in the long run will be a great thing.. yes, all that stuff I like, but I still have the jitters! I feel like I'm a teenager all over again, except, without braces, acne, frizzy hair, and being boyfriend-less. The start of school years were hard for me for every reason except "school." It's the social intricacies, and the waking up early, and the bad hair days, and now that I'm in college, it's the paper work, and transcripts, and prereqs, and parking tickets, and all of that. Ugh. But I'm doing a good thing, and once I get past the first week, I'll be great I'm sure (I hope). Also, good news, next quarter I will most likely get to go to school with my sweetheart, at Cal State East Bay. Soooo, it will only be one tough quarter. I have a lot of good things to look forward to. Wish me luck!

Oh, and these little numbers are first day of school gems :)

I'm not sure, but I think this was the first day of kindergarten. Awesome, right? I had potential when I was younger, but a tomboy mom and four older brothers kind of killed it, until I hit 16 or so.

There are no words to explain this one. I think this was jana's first day of kindergarten, therefore it was my first day of 3rd grade. Look at those legs!? If only the tan and the leanness could've stuck around for ever. And I'm sure Jana loves this one too. You can't see it, because of the back pack, but the shirt is definitely tucked in and the shorts are riding high :) And of course we both had weird partly wavy, partly curly, partly straight hair. Good times.

{sorry for the poor quality of pictures, they're old, and I was too lazy to scan then}

A Star Wars Cake for Jack :)

Cakes are usually my gift at family birthdays. Especially when the lego set to decorate that cake costs so darn much! Anyways, I love to create cakes for the nieces and nephews of the fam. I obviously don't make cakes for myself on a regular basis, so it keeps me in practice. Also, when I'm doing a family birthday cake, I get to use my mama's kitchen, which is really the only way I can make a cake. She has a kitchen table that is larger than all of my counter space put together and a plethora of addition kitchen space, and an extra fridge that is usually fully able to store my creation for the day, with out being touched.

Well, here's the cake.. Yellow cake (from a box, and not overcooked) with my chocolate buttercream frosting, chocolate ganache, and chocolate sprinkles!

And of course, the birthday boy, licking the buttercream off the legos. Which by the way, made martin's day, getting to set up that whole lego scene. I felt like I was married to a 12 year old for about an hour and a half :) I think he'll like when he has a little one around so he doesn't have to pretend he doesn't love toys as much as he does :)

Summer Fun

I thought I would give a brief run down on what we have been up to this summer; pretty much, just having fun. We are both in school in the fall and we are taking advantage of the great weather and all the family we have near by. One of our favorite pass times of the summer has been S'mores night (which we've had a few of). We bulked the campfire and s'mores night with the campout one of the nights, which was a lot of fun. The point of this, other than the fun, was to try out the brand new tent! Another night we had a campfire and then played hide and go seek in the dark out in the park, and when you're with 3 year olds, that is just a whole lot of fun. Martin, Jen, and I have made a few trips out to the beach and the boardwalk. And the pool is of course a favorite stop this summer.

Week after next we will be going on vacation with Martin's family to the Russian river. Martin's grandparents rent out two lovely and large houses right on the river and all the aunts uncles and cousins make it out for the week; where we kayak, canoe, swim, lounge, eat, lounge, eat some more, golf, miniature golf, rock jump, read, watch movies, and occasionally sing :) It is a week we look forward to all year round, we just love it.

This weekend, for Martin's birthday we will be kayaking in the monterey bay (lets hope the sharks all went south for the summer, yikes).

Just a few photos from this summer's fun..

the campout/S'mores night (one of them)

the new tent :) we love deals at R.E.I.

yes, we believe there were complications with Todd at birth

beautiful Heidi and Liz

Ry and Mels family were unfortunately only involved on the non picture night, but we love them just the same:)

yes Jennifer still cannot keep from doing bunny ears in every 1st shot

my favorite little man to lounge by the pool with

the awesome Boardwalk

some of us love rollercoasters :)

My suggestions to have fun with your family this summer...

• Buy a fire pit, they sell them at walmart and target, and I think they are fabulous! It allows you to have a small contained fire in your own backyard. Make S'mores! Have a campout!


• Go to your neighborhood pool! Make friends with a family that has a pool!


• Go to the beach! If you have a beach. (California is just so wonderful, Santa Cruz is our favorite place).


• BBQ more often. Everyone has one, so get outside and make some hot dogs and hamburgers.


• Have movie nights! Make popcorn!


• Go to the drive ins!


• Have picnics, eat outside!

All in all, I just hope you're having such a great summer.

xoxo

Kristin Ann :)

The Bee-Day Cake :)

Lizzie had a honey bee themed birthday party!

The cake was a vanilla cake with apricot filling and my vanilla buttercream frosting with a touch of honey and coloring added to the mix.

For the cake I use a basic white cake mix and add a little bit of vanilla flavoring. Make sure not to over cook the cake!

For the frosting I used my vanilla buttercream frosting, added a few tablespoons of honey, and a little bit of food coloring to give it the pastel yellow that I was looking for.

As little party favors we bottled our homegrown honey. Cute Heidi had some great ideas :) And isn't Lizzie the cutest birthday girl ever!

Little Lizzie turns 3!

Everyone's favorite 3 year old had a birthday this week, and was lucky enough to get to celebrate with her! I love my family and I love that we're all so close.
The adorable cake is a yellow cake with chocolate ganache frosting, delish. This Friday Liz is having a for reals birthday party that we're all excited for!

Our very first harvest!!!

This past week I have noticed the green beans growing wonderfully in our garden, and today I decided we had enough for serving! This may not seem very exciting to you, but we have been working so hard to get our garden going. After weeks of just yard work and clean up came the weeks of digging and tilling and buying new dirt, and more digging and ughh, it's been rough. But then came the planning and planting and now the watering, and finally.. something for all of our efforts. Oh how I love gardening.

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{My grandma beck used to always have me help her in the garden. I don't talk about my grandma much, because just thinking about her makes me tear up (like now). She was my best friend for a majority of my childhood and I miss her so much. I owe my love of gardening to her (and my dad, but obviously we know where my dad got it, so we both owe it to her).}

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With this, I give you.. our dinner.

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The next post :)

My 2 favorite people..

{This picture was taken at an A's game a few weeks ago. Jen had just mentioned that week how much she wanted to go to an A's game, and we were lucky enough to get last minute free tickets from Martin's boss, and so with out any hesitation we surprised her at school and took her out for the rest of the day and went to the A's game! At first I didn't think she was having much fun because it's hard to follow baseball games and I don't know how much she soaks in, but after singing "take me out to the ballgame" she exclaimed that it was "the best day ever." Martin has a way with making things more fun than they really should be, and he does his best work around Jen. We just love her.}

My husband and sister are my 2 favorite people in the whole wide world. And lucky for me, no one can argue or feel bad because they're not one of the top two, because there is just no argument here. My husband and my sister, the two people who I see most.
I have more confidence and love in my life than I have ever had before thanks to my sweetheart. I'm not the absolute easiest to work with day in and day out, this I know. Often times, I let myself become overly stressed and this can just turn me into a different person. The tone and sass that comes out of me is more than I would wish upon anyone and martin takes it in stride and somehow still has the desire to make me feel better. He never quits, and I adore him for that, among a million other reasons. Even though it doesn't seem fair, I feel as if he makes it his daily and weekly goal to keep me happy, and he does a very very good job. For what reason I deserve this, I have no idea, but I am thankful non the less. My heart swells with the thought of how good my husband is to me. I'm a lucky girl :)
Jennifer is the light in my life. I spend every day with her, literally every day. I pick her up from school and most of the time spend the rest of the day with her, with my husband as well (one more reason why I think he's amazing). Jen is my shopping/errand partner, kitchen helper, snuggle buddy, back scratcher, hair brusher, movie companion, and best friend. Unfortunately because I spend so much time in Jen's life I have filled a Mom-type role, and so that's often times how I am treated. And although it would be great to be loved the way she loves new members of the family (new sister-in-laws, or cousin-in-laws) I still know that she loves me, and in a way different from all the rest. She asks me to sleep over every night, which lately has been sad for me to turn down (since I got married), but it means a lot to me that she still wants me with her. Even though I make her straighten her room, and help do dishes, and brush her hair and teeth more than she would like to, and change her clothes when I don't think she matches, she still loves me. Growing up Jen always slept by me. I sleep like a rock and so her moving and kicking doesn't wake me up, and even when we were in different rooms and all the boys were gone so we all had our own space, Jen would still sleep in my room by me. We call her the heater because she keeps you so warm at night, and during the winter at our house, that is a wonderful thing. I miss sleeping by her, but I love that I see her every day. I love that Martin is now best friends with Jennifer and would do just about anything for her. Hopefully one day she'll get to live with us when we have our own house, and we won't ever have to go too many days with out having her in our life.

{This late night ramble is due to the fact that my husband is at work, and I miss him dearly, Jen fell asleep early while I was over, so I went to my own home earlier than normal, and my poor head is just having major issues tonight; the tmj/neck/face/head problems are on and off, but tonight, very very on, it's horrible, and I can't sleep. My late night ramblings don't have much purpose, except maybe to make more aware the special things in our life. I try very hard not to forget, even after a long frustrating or uneventful day, I try to let my husband and sister know how much I love them}

Lisa's Bridal Shower!!

Again, congratulations Lisa, you're such a beautiful girl.