Fantastic Friday

my monkey girl

need a plumber

Another morning walk another great day.
I do love living here in ventura but I do sometimes complain about the weather
it is too much of one thing
and especially this winter which has just felt like summer
it annoys me, silly I know but really I would like some type of change as moderate as it would be.
Any way today way beautiful beautiful beautiful and i couldn't grumble about it, it was just way too nice and not too hot.
After our walk dakota and I came home and she got right to playing in the backyard totally in her own little world, happy as could be.
Dakota is not a fan of clothes and usually she would have stripped down more but for some reason she has been into just taking off her shirt so there she is in the back yard just having a blast picking grass and making mud and mixing in acorns, getting dirty, how every day should be when you are four.
I love watching her when she is in her zone like that there is something different about it and I am not sure what it is.


Then to make the day even better in the afternoon we met up with some friends at the park. And there were a lot of us there and again it was this beautiful day all the kids were playing and running and having a blast, the parents were chatting, the ease and comfort of it all felt so good and again I feel like a lucky little lady.


she has been really working so hard to do those monkey bars she turned four and watch out her own room, doing monkey bars what next.

Wonderful Wednesdays

We started of the morning with a great walk, which I so needed, because on tuesday I was planning to go but woke up texted aubrei that I was not going to make it and crawled back into my warm bed and proceeded to NOT fall back asleep.
So yes starting off with a morning walk was a great start.
After Marie arrived Maya came over as well before heading off the the clubhouse (an indoor play place) there was ice cream to be made...

the girls were taking turns being the ice cream maker. I just love playdough in all shapes and forms. After some ice cream fun we met up with Sara and Abby and we were off to the clubhouse.
I felt mildly guilty because it was a beautiful day and playing inside didn't make total sense but it was nice to change it up and dakota absolutely loves it and she didn't seem to mind one bit.
That is the end of the slide they would go down holding hands, screaming


Marie is here till 330 on wednesdays so there was no nap, I did put on a movie after lunch for some down time (in hopes they would fall asleep HA) but once the movie was over they were up and adam outside playing peter pan probably one of their favorite games.
One of them pretends to be wendy the other peter and they run away from each other and then rescue each other and they love it.
As usual for wednesday we headed off to my parents for dinner. It was my turn to cook and while I must say I really look forward to the nights it is not my turn, last night I didn't mind so much because I made PIZZA and really it is so easy and yummy I excited when it came to mind.
what appeared to be left but really it was only one of each I couldn't stop eating it

I was going to do a build your own pizza bar but decided to go ahead and throw them together so we could eat sooner, I LOVE EATING. I did some sauteed mushrooms, olives, sun dried tomatoes, pineapple (for d), and yellow bell peppers oh and goat cheese yummy. Then I did three pizza's with different combos of the above and let me just say I was stuffed but the end of dinner.
It didn't help that my mom and dakota made chocolate chip cookies either.

i'll take five please and some milk

Derek got a ukulele for christmas so he has been bringing that with him on wednesdays and dakota loves it almost as much as derek. Then we had this funny/interesting conversation about that started with my dad's jury duty experience, well not jury duty but...his experience with the a government office. Then he and derek started talking about government and cutting the fat from it and how to go about that and then is there corruption in government it was a great night for conversation. I love my family how blessed and loved I am.

Painting with Brushes and Fava Beans

So awhile back I was planting some fava beans to help put nitrogen back into my soil getting it ready for the spring, yay summer garden, anywho dakota was helping and she decided to start planting her own and I was obliged to let her and off she went with the bag. The bag had still maybe twenty to the thirty seeds in it and I told her she could take the bag on the condition she listened and planted only four or five...

So still working on listening and trusting take a good look there are a couple more than five maybe like 20 or so sprouts. Hahaha she came running inside today so excited that her beans were growing, so really take all the seeds you need honey
even as an adult planting something from a seed and seeing it come out of the dirt is pretty darn awesome.
So our second week with marie and we did some painting this morning and I was in a mood so I said that the brushes were the only utensil to be used today no hands.
Which is really lame in hindsight the sensory experience for them is so awesome but I just needed to not have a big clean up. They did great and really didn't seem to mind the one rule.

just getting started

in the thick of it
five minutes later, okay maybe seven

I guess one of the reasons I wanted easy clean up is because I wanted to make it to the 1030 story time at the library, which we did and I think dakota really enjoys it and for the first 15-20 minutes so did marie. I think one of the reasons that dakota enjoys it is because the times we have gone her old patagonia class is there as well and she so badly wants to go to school with them that it makes her feel like she is still part of them. Mind you the last time I did a small stint with patagonia was like 8 months ago for two days, I have not worked there full time since she was one and a half but because we have gone back here and there she absolutely thinks of it as her school, very sweet.
After the library we were off to the park for some good old run around and play time in hopes that good naps would be in our future....