Moms Know All

This incredibly heartfelt posthumous letter from a mom to her daughter made me laugh and cry and think all at once. You can totally feel the mom's adoration of both her daughter and life in general, and I love her sass :). I hope to be able to leave Lydia with some quality dying advice one day! Alhough my "tea and biscut" would be a large diet coke, a square of dark chocolate and some good ole Justin Bieber tunes.

Read it here!

Cali Finale

I promise I'm done with the California pics after this! There were just too many good ones not to share.

Practicing our ballet. Hope she's a better dancer than I am, HA! My moves on a scale of 1 to 100 likely fall in the negatives...

Grammy :).

This involved me standing there half petrified and half stoked because I've dreamed of this moment since I was pregnant with Lydia! Daddy daughter skateboarding :).

Cool cats. 

So this happened. Woot woot! The humidity made her little ends curl up!

Temple date!

Of course we had to sneak in a little shopping at Fashion Island.

Sprinkles speak to her heart! Haha.

And my churro-loving husband is just the cutest. 

Independence Day

This was hands down my favorite 4th of July ever! The Christensen crew came in town to Salt Lake and made it a total party. We started with crashing (two!) breakfasts and parades, ate at Cubby's for lunch, swam at the Country Club, and then had a beautiful dinner and fireworks show. So so fun!

Lydia's darling and brilliant great grandma Sue - hence the name Lydia Sue! And we all know I can't talk without using my hands and apparently eyebrows and a very passionate bottom lip?  HA!

Pretty obsessed with her new Converse. First pair of hard sole shoes, big milestone! ;) Gotta celebrate the little things, right?

Cousin William loving life as he lines up for the parade!

- NECESSARY OUTFIT CHANGE - because when you have a cousin roughly the same size you can't not do the matchy-matchy-at-dinner-on-holidays gig.

Mountains! Such a beautiful evening. Utah summer nights are fantastic.

Wait for it....

THOSE MOVES! Go Lydi! Go Lydi! I think she's really nailed that twerk. LOL.

We debated whether or not to stay for fireworks since they can't start till 10pm - it's not dark enough before then. Lydia was exhausted and we were running out of ways to entertain her, but it was all worth it to keep her up and see this little face:

She was in awe! (Okay she looks a little terrified here, but I promise she was loving it!) She sat motionless for the entire fireworks show. At one point she started waving her hands in the sky to try and reach them! It really was adorable. Cranky Lydia the next day, not so adorable, but still worth it. ;) Doubt we will be topping this 4th anytime soon!

Bikes, Beaches, Bananas - BOOM!

CALIFORNIA if you weren't so expensive I'd totally marry you!

We had the best week at the annual Christensen family beach party! And this time I finally had a kid so I could join the cool club! (Sorry Ste, you'll be in it soon! {But not too soon...})

My in-laws rented the most beautiful home in Newport, complete with an upstairs balcony game fortress! These Christensen gatherings def include some major game nights.

Cousin lovin.

(Very dramatic) spikeball tournaments.

And Banzai Bowls! On the beach! In 80 degrees! happyhappyhappy

Just casually admiring the beauty of this door ;).

Cutest duo!!

Paige and her daughter Lucy - William is in the back! Honorable mention to her husband Ben who is likely playing spikeball.

Ladiezzz

The Jennings! Tyler, Kaylee, Abbie, Rachel and Jackson.

Everyone's approach to the desserts varied greatly. Let us deeply and pointlessly analyze...

Above we see the girls jumping straight to it. They know what's up.

Ste Boss presenting the Oreo Balboa Bar somewhere in bewtween awe and eww and slight annoyance that I'm shoving a camera in his face - Sorry again Ste!

Classic cute happy stance! Model Rachel just showin the rest of us how it's done.

OHHHMYGOSH this face! She trumps all.

Michael and I, naturally, nailed it. HAA! I think I'm going for the villainous banana eater here and Michael is... happy for me.

WHEW glad we got those evaluations off our mutual internety-friends chest!

The whole gang - all 15 of us! And most of the kids facing the right way. Miracle. 

And of course, more Cali pics on the way!