Calendar Shoot

Nonnie is in California for Christmas, and we are working on another calendar of the girls.  This is just a preview of what's to come!

We Just Love the Sea Center

One really nice thing about living in Camarillo is being halfway between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.  Other than that, there are lots of other nice things to do, as long as you have no desire to do them after 10pm, which is when our entire town shuts down -- a fact that bothered us a lot more before we had kids, now, however, it's comforting to know we're not missing a thing.

Because of our proximity -- and the fact that we have our sweet Smith cousins in Santa Barbara -- we make it up there at least once a week.  Last week, we managed to make it to the Sea Center with our good friends, the Fraziers.

 Nola has been to the Sea Center often enough to guide a tour...

 One critical stop on her tour would, of course, be the puppet theater.

 Payton and Nola's best buddy, Nate, think Nola's puppeteering skills are whaley cool
(okay, that was a reach...)

Little Miss Payton just being precious & delighted to get to hang out with the big kids, instead of lugged around by mommy.

The Second Child

Very recently Nola discovered "her website," which is a fair nickname for our family's blog, especially since I have been neglectful -- to say the least. When I take a picture of the girls that I want to share with someone, I now have the ability to just text it to Nick, my mom, and my sisters -- generally, people who I know won't mind being texted in the middle of the day with giggly videos (apologies to Aunt Jaimee, who always seems to get these on days when she has to work with her boss.)

Honestly, until Nola rediscovered the blog, I kind of thought of it as a relic of the past.  Yet another online social media outlet that had been bowled over by Facebook & company.  Yet another new mommy novelty pushed to the back burner for the sake of just getting through another day. However, it is kind of a really cool multi-media baby book.  Nola loved finding her videos and pictures in the same place that she finds Dora, which is why I've decided to not shelf the blog entirely.  Payton deserves her moment in the sun, and she's just as funny and charming... and even if it is only my girls watching their videos and pictures, that should be all that matters.

I will do some patchwork catch-up sort of blogging -- to make things appear more filled in than they are, so bear with us over here at Nola's website as we make room for Payton.

Here, Nola took it on herself to feed Payton -- as "Payton finishing her snack," was the last thing that we had to do before we could decorate the Christmas tree.