Sand Art, Surfing and Stereotypes

In all of our summer travels, we never made it to the beach.  This is very unlike us.  So, today we made a quick day trek to Pismo.  The girls kept saying "we don't want to go"?  What!?!  Who's kids are these?  All we had to do was round the corner and see the water for them to warm up to the idea.  As soon as we hit the beach, they got busy creating this sand man.  Isn't he cute?

Being the good little pirates that they are, they gathered up all sorts of beach "treasures" and buried them here.

Triple "X" marks the spot.  We try our best to keep it "G" rated around here, but when you've got three pirates, three "X's" are only natural.

The waves weren't all that great for surfing, but hey, when you drive all that way and don't get to go all that often, you take what you can get.  So, Rob donned his wetsuit and made a beeline for the surf.

I snapped this picture of him just after a couple of tourists asked if they could take a picture with him.  I watched from a distance as he posed with a lady who wanted a picture with a "real" California surfer, all the while laughing to myself and thinking of all the fun ways I could tease him.  He's such a rock star.  He can't help it.

When I finished said teasing, he told me he asked the lady where they were from expecting her to name some far off, exotic land, but instead her reply was "Bakersfield".  I wonder if they were dissapointed to find out that their "real" California surfer lived in nearby Wasco? 

What a fabulous and funny reminder of one of life's greatest surprises!  People aren't always who we think they are and my stereotypes are often wrong.  We got a great laugh out of it.  I imagine they did too.

Happy Birthday Our Not-So-Little Girls!

Ever since they were...well...little, we have been calling Grace and Sarah the "little girls".  They're growing up fast.  In fact, they just turned 5.  But since I am still my parent's little girl, I am not too worried that they will outgrow the title anytime soon.  No matter how big they get, they will in fact always be our "little girls".

We celebrated their 5th Birthday all day last Saturday as grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins came to share in their excitement.  We ate hot dogs, hamburgers and cupcakes and cooled off in the pool next door.  I think they had a great day.  Here area  few pictures.

Hannah made them special Birthday Girl shirts.  She wrapped them up and snuck them in to the girl's clothes organizer for Friday.  The girls knew they would have a surprise in their organizer and that when they got to "Friday", it would be their birthday.  Whenever someone asked them when their birthday was, they would say, "at the bottom of our oganizer".  They loved their custom birthday shirts.

Gifts!!

Sarah's bending Pizza Papa's ear.  She's probably asking for money for her new wallet.  I swear I didn't teach her that.

Cameron wondering what's with all this girl stuff?

Preparation for the Big 5!

Grace and Sarah are turning 5 tomorrow and we have been busy this morning making all the necessary preparations. First we baked "G" and "S" cookies for them to share with their buddies at pre-school.

Then we baked brownies to take to a friend's house tomorrow night...and while they were baking, we pushed the dining room table and chairs aside, cranked the music up and had a wild dance party!

Look out "So You Think You Can Dance".  You aint seen nothin' yet.  More to come after we celebrate their big day.

Pre-school Funnies

Grace and Sarah's pre-school is about as low tech and old fashioned as they come. I mean that in the best way. I think pre-school should be all about singing, playing, eating snacks, making friends and doing messy crafts and that's exactly what they do at Kiddie Kollege. The best I can tell, they've been doing it that way for a lot of years and the ladies there have a good thing going.

So as Sarah was telling me about her day and how much fun she had singing, she said "Yeah Mom and Mrs. White has these really big CDs". Oh yeah baby...I remember those big black vinyl "CDs". Sooo funny!

1st Day of 1st Grade, 2 little kiddies go to Kiddie Kollege and 1 mom listens to the sound of silence

We've begun a new chapter in life here at the Cobb house. Everyone is officially in school. Hannah went to 1st Grade today and Grace and Sarah started pre-school three mornings a week.

Here they are all ready to go.

I had to get a shot of the hair. They all three wanted the same braids and bows hairstyle...time consuming but very cute.

Hannah was cautiously optimistic about her first day back at school. This is the best I could do at a picture of her at her desk. I thought it was interesting that she had a drawer full of new clothes, but instead she insisted on wearing the same shirt she wore to her first day of pre-school two years ago (I obviously buy her clothes with growing room). Maybe there was comfort in the same shirt that made it through that very first scary day of school.

Grace and Sarah were a little more than cautiously optimistic about their first day...it was more like unbridled enthusiasm. When I picked them up they had some cute little girl sandwiched in between them and they said, "Mom, this is our new friend. Can she come over to play?".

As for me, I came home to a quiet, empty house after everyone was dropped off. I have mixed feelings about my babies growing up so fast, but mostly, I am excited for them and look forward to watching them grow and learn this year.

Rainy Day

We had rain on Saturday! I told the girls in the morning that it was supposed to rain that day and they spent nearly all morning in the front yard waiting and watching, running in every so often to give us a status report on the clouds. When it finally did rain, they were thrilled and so excited to have a reason to use their umbrellas.

Congratulations Uncle Joe and Aunt Sarah!

Last weekend we celebrated the marriage of Rob's brother Joe to his longtime girlfriend Sarah. It was a beautiful ceremony complete with some really cute flower girls and an adorable ring bearer.

All lined up and ready to go.

Ms. Hannah

They still had lots of petals left in their baskets when they sat down, so they spent the ceremony dumping handfuls of them at their feet.

What can I say...they're cute!

 

After the ceremony and a delicious dinner we got our groove on. The girls were dancing machines. Papa Mike even cashed in on the dance Hannah promised him.

 

Which one of this is not like the other? Which one of these just doesn't belong?

Aunt Sarah made being a kid at a wedding really fun (even for big kids like Papa Mike). She had cupcakes especially for the kids and special lockets and goody bags for each of the flower girls. Thanks Aunt Sarah. It was a really beautiful and fun evening!