Uncle Tom's Memorial

My Uncle, Tom Tatom, passed away on March 10th and we put together a memorial at my mom's house on Saturday.

We had about 40+ people show up to share their fond memories of my uncle.

Stephen and Sharon, my cousins, came down from the San Francisco area with their families to be with us and share in the memories and fun times we all had with Uncle Tom.

Here's Sharon's husband, Junie, with Ty. Ty LOVED Junie and wanted all of his attention. Junie was so gracious and humored Ty with games and laughs all afternoon.

We had quite a few children attend the memorial and all of them enjoyed hanging out in the play house. Too bad I couldn't have gotten more pictures.

Here's Tatum with Stephen's son Mathew. They had a great time playing house and hanging out. We spent the last few hours catching up with our family, so grateful to see them. It was an emotional day but I know Uncle Tom would have been proud of the turn out and all the laughs and jokes we enjoyed and remembered, thanks to him.

SeaWorld with Grandma

This was only our second trip to SeaWorld since we bought our passes but we loved it and can't wait to go back. This penguin was right near the entrance and Tatum couldn't wait to get a picture with her. She's come so far from the Disneyland days where she wouldn't get near the characters. Ty was still a bit skeptical and couldn't take his eyes off her.

This time we got over to see the Beluga whales and Ty loved it. He seems to really love animals and is so fascinated with them.

Here's the polar bear sucking on his toes. Ty demonstrated this act later on in the car, so funny.

After Ty had a melt down over lunch, (he wanted a whole jello cup to himself!) we headed over for some fun in the Sesame Street play area.

Ty loved the little kids area where there's a large bouncy mat and lots of soft blocks the kids can stack and knock over.

And Tatum enjoyed the bouncy area for the big kids!

Tatum wanted to climb up and through these bridges high above the rest of the play area. She needed a little assistance to get up there so I helped her and then ran around after her as she explored the bridges and tunnels. We were probably gone almost 10 minutes and Tatum would have loved to stay up there longer but thank goodness we came down when we did. Ty had been screaming and crying since we left! Poor Grandma couldn't do anything to calm him down and when we got back down to them, Ty had 4 mothers surrounding him, trying to offer him toys, food, etc. Anything to make this child stop crying! After that, we called it a day. :)

Baby Boy Connor

My girlfriend Dana is due with her baby on April 11th so we had a little shower for her. Our Wine Night group (there are 6 of us) have been getting together to enjoy wine and share life stories for almost 6 years! And in these 6 years, we have put on 4 showers and each one seems to surpass the one before.

Here's the delicious spread we put out for the brunch. Chocolate croissants, monkey bread, ham and sausage pinwheels, fruit, etc. All of it was delicious.

And yummy cupcakes for dessert!

The Wine Night girls minus our newest member Shauna.

Ty and Tatum loved the party and really got in there to help. We played a clothes line game where each guest needed to hang onesies and socks up on the line while holding a phone to their ear and clutching a baby. After each run, the kids would jump in and help take the clothes off the line.

Ty even got his tappy shoes (or better known as Tatum's fancy shoes) on and did a little dance for us. He's definitely our social butterfly. He loved all the ladies and all the attention.

The game in full swing.

Dana loved all her gifts and the shower was a real success. Now we're all anxiously awaiting Connor's arrival on April 11th!

Some more Irvine fun

We headed up to Irvine to see Uncle Tom and visit with our beloved friends. Grandma put on a fiesta at her house and Mattie wore her most festive fiesta dress. These two are so cute together, such opposites but they compliment one another very well. Definitely life long BFFs.

Ty had a wonderful time laughing with Jane. I'm not too sure what this game was called but it had the two of them laughing up a storm.

And here's our little man Cameron. He's already 6 months, I can't believe it. It's a mini Sadri!

Mary, Bob and Leanne enjoyed the spread at the fiesta. Ole!

Grandma was volunteering at the Irvine Zoo while we were up there so I took the kids and parked by the train but walked to the zoo area. On our way we spotted this board that Tatum couldn't wait to put her head in. She's our little conductor, that's for sure. :)

And we ran into Grandma and her tour group. She was teaching these kindergartners all about the Mountain Lions.

Ty loved the bears the most, one of his favorite animals. He taught us all about what the bear says. "Grrrrrr". :)

After seeing all the animals and enjoying the petting area, we walked back toward the car and rode the train. Ty loved this. He's really into trucks, cars, and trains. Actually any motorized vehicle for that matter. But he loved the train whistle the most that day. He kept pulling his arm down in a whistle pulling motion and tooting the whole ride. It's apparently 12 minutes, that's a lot of tooting. :)

A visit from our Colorado family

My Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom live in Colorado and it isn't often that we see them. They have been staying outside of Yuma for the last 6 weeks trying to get away from the cold of the Rocky Mountains. Before they headed home next week, they came out to visit us in San Diego. Who knew we'd be having record low temps and rainy weather, but we made the best of it. Friday we had a cookout at the house and Saturday we drove around Poway and checked out the Farmers Market at Old Poway Park in between the downpours. Later that afternoon, and after the babysitter arrived, we took them to Bernardo Winery. It's just 10 min. from our house and a beautiful little vineyard. We love their wine and all their shops and decor.

Sunday we hit Mass and then enjoyed a delicious breakfast at The Pancake House, always a treat. After naps, we went downtown to The Field, one of our favorite Irish Pubs, to enjoy appetizers, beers and Irish Clog Dancing.

Erica and Jack joined us, actually it was their idea to check out the show. We felt a little funny about bringing children to a bar, but there were a few different couples with babies there. But it was definitely a bit on the stressful side to deal with children. After Ty threw a toy and broke my beer glass (total party foul) and wanted to run around the people and climb the stairs, we were thankful when the show started and kept his attention.

This isn't a great picture but there were 4 girl dancers and a guy who was tapping, so cool!

Jack and erica enjoyed the show.

Tatum and I stayed back at the booth where we could see from our seat.

But Ty enjoyed the show from Daddy's shoulders and loved it. Grandma loved it too!

On Monday we headed down to Pacific Beach to show off the pacific ocean. Even though it was pretty windy and chilly, Uncle Tom worked with Tatum on her rock skipping skills. :)

Ty just enjoyed rock chucking. :)

After a picnic lunch at the fun zone, Tatum enjoyed a boat ride. They had so many different rides you could pick, it was hard to get Tatum to choose just one! Ty was so upset when she was on this ride because he so wanted to go with her. Poor little man, one day he'll be tall enough. It's hard to have an older sibling and have to watch them have all the fun. Especially for a boy like Ty who has no fear and would love to try anything and everything. These kids couldn't be more opposite.

We collected quite a few shells at the beach, so later that afternoon, everyone pitched in on painting the shells. We have a wood frame that we plan to decorate with the shells.

And since the weather warmed up a bit, the kids enjoyed showing Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom all their toys and the wonderful things they can do outside. Tatum doesn't love to roller skate but she was brave enough to strap on her gear and show everyone her skating skills. She has also recently taken up hula hooping! This is something I could never do and I definitely never signed up for the hula hoop challenge at our grade school Olympics. But Tatum's pretty good, I'm impressed!

We loved having Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom visit us and can't wait to see them again. It might be next year if they stay out here next winter, or maybe if we can get out to Colorado next winter for some skiing! Thanks for the wonderful visit family!

Snowing in Poway!!

Ok, so we're not able to make a snowman or snow angels but wow, look at our snow! We call it snow, it's more like clumped hail, but wow! This picture was taken a week ago when it hailed one morning and I guess the umbrella blew over so it collected a nice pile for us. We almost ran out there and made a snow ball! :)

And here's my car last week when we had such cold temps in the morning that the hail was frozen to the car and stayed well into the morning. I knew I hung on to my windshield scraper from my days in CO for something! :)

And look at our back patio deck! When Tatum saw this she said, "Winter finally came!" since we all know that it's not really winter without snow. Or at least that's what Dora teaches us in the seasons book. :) Winter took it's time but finally came only a month before spring comes.