Afternoon at the beach

While this post is a few days late in coming, the pictures were too cute not to share!  Last week Wednesday the kids and I went for a walk at the beach and to play at the beach park.  And of course how could we not venture down by the water as well?!

Spiderman climbing in his web!

They had the best time walking near the water and then running as the waves crashed on the shore!

While at the beach, Faith was appalled by all the trash that was left in the sand.  She could hardly believe that people would not throw their own trash away!  So, without any prompting, she started picking up the trash claiming it as a "beach clean up day"!  As she made trip after trip to the trash can, she started calling herself "recycle girl"!  And on a side note, Faith has started wanting to wear her hair in pig tails!  It is fun that now that her hair is getting longer we can do more fun things with it!

This was not taken at the beach, but at our Pastor's house.  Our family had dinner at the home of our pastor and his wife Thursday night.  Faith is showing her excitement for the delicious strawberry shortcake that was served for dessert!

Next up...Faith starts soccer camp on Monday!  It should be interesting...!!

Shane's Birthday Party!!

Over the weekend we celebrated Shane's birthday with our family.  Per Shane's request, we had a Buzz Lightyear themed party, and he received many Buzz gifts!  It was a wonderful day of celebrating this very special little guy!

The birthday boy before opening his gifts.

A new talking Buzz!!  Last year he received the same thing, but after playing with it so much it stopped talking!  A new Buzz was high on his list! 

He also was given new Buzz pjs as the ones he was wearing were a few sizes too small!  Naturally, he had to put the new pjs on right away! 

Shane in action - which is what he usually is!  He was off to save the galaxy!

One of the big things about turning three for Shane was that he had to get rid of his paci (pacifier)!  There was much talk leading up to the birthday about throwing away the paci, so he knew it was coming!  On the day of the party, he was fussy in the morning and told us he didn't want to have a party because he didn't want to throw away the paci!  Well, he did it at the party (right before bringing out the cake!  Yes, it may have been a little bribery!)  And this is a picture of him right after!  He looks so happy!!!  And while he has asked for it a few times, he has had no trouble sleeping at night or getting through the day without it!  Praise the Lord!!  As promised, he did get to go to the Disney Store to pick out a new toy as a treat for throwing the paci away, and he chose a talking Woody (other main character from Toy Story)!

Cake is sooooo good!

This was actually from Thursday as Grandpa Poelstra  came over with Shane's gift - a batting tee!  He loves it!  As does Faith!  Here he is playing with it, and also showing why he needed new Buzz pjs!

The kids loved having Grandpa and Grandma Bruinsma come out for the party!  We lost track of how many times Grandpa read Where the Wild Things Are to the kids, but it was enough that he was able to recite it from memory on request of Faith while they were playing outside!!

Shane is Three!!

This is a few days late, but the sentiments are the same - Happy Third Birthday Shane!!  It is hard to believe that this little guy is already three!  We are so thankful for Shane!  He is such a sweet, cuddly, funny, adventurous, crazy, superhero-loving boy!  As he transitions each day to become more "little boy", it is exciting and also sad.  I keep having to remind myself that I need to savor each time he sits on my lap as there will come a day where he wont do that anymore!  His latest sign of growing up is needing to dress himself!  While he can't always do it, which causes great frustration and often tears!, he is insistent on getting his clothes on and off himself, including doing buttons on his shirt! 

We love you so much, Shane, and are grateful for each day with you, and thank God for blessing us with such a wonderful little boy!  Happy Birthday!!

Faith's View of the Zoo

More pictures taken by Faith!  These were taken on our trip to the zoo yesterday!  Once again these are pictures that she selected, and she also told me what to type for each caption! 

Capybara's eat plants

Swans swimming around

The lions are the furriest...I think!

The elephant sprayed water out of his trunk.

The Macaws can walk on the rope with their claws and can talk to each other.

The World According to Faith and Shane

As mentioned yesterday, Faith has been very into documenting life in pictures.  I wonder why she started doing that?!!  She asked to share a few of her pictures on the blog, so here they are!!  I must share that she picked the pictures and came up with the captions for each!

Shane playing well

Everything is all right - from the movie "Curious George"

I was sitting on my bed - Shane took this picture!

Mommy loves me.



Another day at the Zoo

Can you tell we love the zoo?  Even though our last trip was not even two weeks ago, the kids were asking to go again already!  This time, Faith was armed with her camera as she wanted to take pictures of all the animals!  And she did a pretty decent job!  I'll post some of her pictures another day!

Faith is running through the new children's garden at the zoo that was mentioned in the previous zoo post.

They love exploring the garden!

And running on the path!

On our way to see the Lions, we came across three girls sitting on this tree branch and calling it a seesaw.  Naturally once those girls made their exit, Faith and Shane jumped on!  It was a great afternoon outing, and I am sure we will make a return trip in the near future!

Padaro Once Again!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day!  Perfectly sunny, comfortable temperature - all around beautiful!  And since we had a drive right by Padaro Beach Grill on our way home from church in Santa Barbara, how could we not stop for lunch and take advantage of the day?  We weren't the only ones doing so (it was crazy busy!), but it was fun!

Faith stopped playing for a bit to just relax in the sand!

The kids found a new friend who found a snail!  Cool!

So simple and yet so fun! 

The Past Week...

This past week was very eventful in one sense, and not so eventful in the other!  For the first time ever, both kids were able to attend Vacation Bible School together!!  And yes, that means I had five days in which they were both gone for three hours in the morning!  I must admit, it was kind of nice!  And they both had a great time, but were pretty worn out in the afternoons, so we didn't do as many fun things this week!  But here are some snapshots from our week!

This was last Sunday as we were getting ready to head out the door for church.  I just thought he looked so handsome and so grown up!

While we didn't do too much this past week, we did manage to go to the beach grill again with our good friends!  Here Shane is playing, with Faith in the background.

At the end of the last day of VBS, the kids did a little program showing what they learned throughout the week.  And the shocking thing is that Faith, our little singer and performer, did not want to participate!!  So no pictures of her, but Shane did well!

The pictures are never good from these things, but you can get the idea!  Oh, and the red mark on his head...he woke up with it that morning!  It looks like a rug burn or something!  We asked what happened, and he just said he bumped it!  I think he may have been practicing doing somersaults while he was supposed to be going to bed as that is his new thing - somersaults!

Friday afternoon we did go to the park and for a short hike in the hills.  The kids were trying to look for wildlife - specifically Bobcats or Mountain Lions!!  They got that idea from the signs at the start of the trail showing pictures of them and describing what to do if you meet up with one!  Thankfully, we did not see any!

Faith playing her computer games today.  This was taking with my phone, which has a cool app to take pictures with "film" and "lenses" that make them look old!  I have been playing around with it!

This afternoon we went to see a band that we like play at a Fiddle Festival in a park.  The kids loved the popcorn - especially Shane!

He finally did get up to dance!  Here he is doing cymbal crashes, even though there were no cymbals!

"Daddy will you please dance?!"

Kids running and dancing!

A Super Fun Day!

That's what the kids called it - a super fun day!!  And it was!  We started out at the Santa Barbara Zoo and also went to Padaro Beach Grill on the way home!

One of the reasons this day was so fun was that we were able to explore the new children's garden at the zoo!  It was filled with all kinds of plants and flowers with animals in their name (Kangaroo Paw, Birds of Paradise, etc.) as well as dirt paths for walking. The kids loved walking (okay, running!) through this garden!  And I loved sitting in the shade on a bench watching them explore!

Another picture from the garden!

Next to the garden area is the stage where the kids always enjoying giving a performance of some sort!  Today they of course noticed the dinosaur picture on the stage!  And we found out that there was a "How to Train Your Dinosaur" show at 1:00pm.  So while we were not planning on staying that long, we could not miss out on a Dino show!!  Shane was properly attired for it after all! 

Despite the very real looking dinosaur, the kids loved it!!  I was worried they would be scared, but they thought it was so cool!  This was another reason why the day was so fun!!

Here is Faith enjoying the show!  Next to her is Isabella (aka Miles' sister!  We ran into them at the zoo!  What a fun surprise!!)  Driving home and asking the kids what their favorite part of the day was, they both agreed it was the Dino show!

After the zoo, we stopped by the newly renovated and improved Padaro Beach Grill!  The kids refer to it as the "Sandbox Restaurant" as it has a huge sandbox in the middle for them! And it is right on the beach, with just train tracks (and a fence with ivy!) separating the restaurant and the beach.  And we were fortunate enough to have an Amtrak train go by while we were there!  The day could not have been any more beautiful, so it was so great to be able to spend so much of it outside!

And the chocolate milk shake was extremely tasty!!

Beat the Heat!

Over the past few days we have endured a bit of a heat wave!  While it may not have been hotter than the low 80's, that is warm for Ventura!  And combined with humidity and no air conditioning, it seems so much warmer!!  And when the weather turns uncomfortable, it is important to find fun and exciting ways to keep cool!  Wednesday we pulled out the Slip 'n Slide to do just that!

The kids had a blast!!

They each loved playing in the little "pool" area at the end.

Shane running with the boogie board!

Naturally Faith had to help show him how to use it properly!

Even the lawn mower needed a little cooling off!

Pure delight!  They literally spent the entire afternoon on the slip 'n slide!