Stratford Family

When Greg’s Dad said he wanted to go to LACMA for his birthday celebration we were all excited for the adventure. Yes we love museums, and were once good about making the rounds to a few each year when the girls were littler. These days with busy schedules we haven’t been enough. We went to specifically see the Metropolis II exhibit (don’t watch the video, I say see it live and it will be more fun) but the California Design: Living in a Modern Way exhibit was right up my alley too. We saw just a bit of the permanent collection and were off to Canter’s for an early dinner. I bought several of the Chocolate Danishes which were some of my favorite treats from childhood. My Mom grew up in LA and each time we would come down as a kids would would make a stop at one of the iconic Jewish delis for her to load up on some of her favorite baked goods (sadly Canter’s is one of the few left). It was a fun day and left me wanting more museum trips. Although I must say there is a certain terror that runs through me when I see my child dashing towards a Warhol, Rothko or Koons. I’m sure some damage has been done to some uber famous piece of art in one of these spaces – please don’t let that ever be my kid!!

LACMA runs a Nexgen Art program offering free membership for kids and we will sign up on our next trip.

Watching the cars start going is pretty cool – notice the blur below:

It got pretty crowded close to go time, you can watch from above and at ground level. In true LA fashion we had a star sighting – Jack Black was there taking photos with his iphone just like the rest of us.

Learning from Mr. Walt Disney

Really interested in learning about the Barbie dream house.

If you follow along with our travels and adventures you know how much we love our visits to Idaho to see Greg’s grandmother, connect with nature and  get some seriously clean air flowing through us. It is refreshing in many ways, a true vacation – we are so spoiled to be able to take these trips and are truly thankful for the time we get to spend there. This was our second winter trip and we did many of the same things as last year; sledding, some time up at Schweitzer mountain resort, watching the eagles and relaxing. My favorite activity we did this year was go on a sleigh ride. A two horse open sleigh with jingle bells, picturesque snowy landscape and it was as idyllic as it sounds (oh other than C asking every 2 seconds how fast do you think we are going now? how many miles per hour?) In fact the whole trip could only be improved by the decrease in the number of slightly annoying questions like when are we going to BE THERE??? I’m sure this is some serious karma coming back at me as we only travelled by car growing up and spent lots of time on the road to various swim meets through out California.

The girls are both great plane travelers and thankfully P conquered her fear of the airplane bathroom! It is hard to narrow down such a great trip into a blog post, so here are some highlights.

One of my favorite activities is watching for the eagles. There is a tree just out in front of the large windows in Gigi’s house that overlooks the lake and the eagles like to perch there as they hunt for breakfast. Unfortunately it was pretty windy for several days, so there wasn’t as many eagles in this spot as last year. It’s pretty ridiculous but I actually strained my neck the first day we were there from too much eagle searching.

Both girls got into the sledding fun this year.

Somehow P ended up under her sled above!

Charlotte the adventure climbing the rocks that are usually at the waters edge, it was pretty cool to climb down from the dock and explore the snowy rocks.

Onto the Sleigh Ride! We went to a great ranch between Hope and Sandpoint, called the Western Pleasure Ranch, so awesome! And if you too would like to experience the beauty that is northern Idaho I would recommend this spot. They have cabins and a few rooms above the lodge. We took our sleigh ride with Raley our driver, Buster the dog and led by horses Bud and Velvet.

After the ride we went into the lodge for popcorn and cocoa. This place was a great little slice of American goodness, it made me want to don some cowgirls boots and a hat and stay awhile.

And up to the mountain. Both girls did two days of ski school and one day with Dad. Charlotte is completely fearless, to the point that drives massive fear into her Mother. She ended up going on the lift and skiing a little tree lined course with bumps and little jumps called the Enchanted Forest. Pfeiffer also did great on the little bunny hill.

It was a great trip, thanks for stopping by the blog to check out our adventures. We hope you 2012 is off to a great start!

After several days of thinking I accidentally deleted these photos I found a stray memory card this morning – hooray! Last weekend we went to the Holiday How-down with Santa at the Rancho Los Alamitos. I had told several people earlier in the week how great the events at the Rancho had been and we were excited about the brunch with Santa. Overall it was a fun morning, but the Brunch part was a total bust! Greg literally waited in line for us for 2 hours to get 2 sub-par pancakes and sausage. Thankfully we spent the morning with some friends and they had lots of great crafts, games and activities to keep the kiddos entertained. The Santa experience was ok, but why on earth did Mrs. Claus have to be there with her sunglasses and slightly creepy lace gloves? The speckled light in which they had Santa in did not make for the best photo op, but my girls asked modestly for a dolly and jump rope and we avoided the drive to The Grove for a trip to Santa.

We are getting some use out of these dresses as seen on My Photo Site for our Christmas card pics.

Side note, in my head I read HOLIDAY how-down and for some reason decided to wear read suede wedges, I can’t believe I traipsed around that place for nearly four hours in heels and I didn’t even get one photo with me in it.

It’s a little ironic that I wanted to get some pics posted today about our fun time cutting down our Christmas tree this afternoon and now both of my girls are in separate rooms having a quite time because they cant seem to get along. This is an insanely busy week with me editing a ton of photos and getting ready for a rather large gathering this weekend, along with all the day to day busy-ness we are all a bit on edge. We are all a bit sick which makes us more on edge and makes getting the things we need to get done even harder. Enough whining! I am truly grateful for the work I have and the families I get to photograph and document moments of their lives. And we are so lucky we get to party with our friends to kick off the holiday season as well.

P had a little Thanksgiving show, really there is nothing better than pre-schoolers on stage!

Post Thanksgiving we made some super cool headdresses. You know they need them to go in the tipi!

Now onto the tree cutting. Growing up in Ojai close to all sorts of nature we would cut down our tree every year, so I thought driving home after Thanksgiving was the perfect time for us to repeat this nostalgia. It wasn’t quite and quaint as we drove to Thousand Oaks to cut down on some of the driving with the tree strapped to the car, it is a Christmas tree farm under the power lines. But we still had fun roaming through the tress and picking ours out – we found a beautiful one and it smells great!

Heading out to find our tree:

I love the ones of the girls in the trees!

I wish I had a photo of our tree all decorated and looking fabulous in our home, but alas it has only a few random balls on it, we haven’t found the time yet. Maybe the elves will come help!

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving with your family and cheers to a fun and hopefully not so hectic holiday season!

The Kindergarteners had a Thanksgiving feast today at school. Some dressed as pilgrams and others as Indians (I asked if the teacher said Native American and C said she called them Indians, so hopefully that is not un-PC). We spent some time yesterday preparing the Thanksgiving (aka veggie) stew, and they made cornbread and got to have a little picnic on the playground. It was all very cute and of course the kids loved it.

The got to choose their Native American name.

Her class:

SIX!

It’s hard to believe Miss C is 6, but it is true! She had a great day at school on her birthday and wore this crown that they made in kids club for her all day without taking it off to prompt her sis to ask “is that crown stuck on your head?”

She reveled in the attention as she should! We went to yogurt for a small celebration with some of her girlfriends.

Huge thanks to Ali for these pics, since I failed to bring my camera!

Can her smile get any bigger?

We have a big celebration with friends every other year, so this was the year for a small family party. We still did it up with fun decorations and treats and picked up some yummy mexican food.

The girls big gift from us was a tipi – I have been wanting to get one for awhile so we went for it and it is so fantastic! I love it decorated for the party. With nicer weather it will become the outdoor playhouse, but for now it is project Occupy Living Room.

I am fully in love with Pinterest these days so it was fun to try to diy some of the cool stuff I’ve seen on there.

P is FOUR!

Certainly not always so demure, this is more of her regular state:

This was the year of the Barbie – lots of fun new stuff for the girlies!

It was a sweet celebration – cheers to my big girls!

You could call me a Halloween scrooge, it just isn’t my favorite holiday. I don’t have a moral stand against it or anything, but I don’t get all that excited about it either. I generally avoid the local Pa’s Pumpkin patch (aka the money pit) and just don’t drive that way this time of year. We haven’t been since Charlotte was about to turn 1, but when several of our friends planned a trip this week I conceded my despise for the place and took the girls. And you know what it wasn’t that bad, the missing tooth carney’s were at a minimum and if I go along with my short term memory woes and forget the money I spent for the tickets it was actually quite fun. We generally go down to Tanaka Farms for some more traditional and less commercialized Halloween fun on a true pumpkin patch and we still may make the trek down to Irvine if we can fit it in. Here are some pics from last year. As Ali said the light at Pa’s is pretty great, so if nothing else it may be worth the trip for some photos with the pumpkins.

After P was saddled up I realized this was her first pony ride.

Above our attempt at the ever elusive group photo!

Below one of my favorite photography subjects:

I haven’t had a chance to share all of our highlights from the last month, so I thought I would do one catch-up post to get up to date.

We celebrated my niece Ava’s first birthday with a sweet Aloha party:

While my brother John, his wife Pam and adorable Libby were here we had a family get together in Ojai. This was the first time my mom had all of her family together in a long time! 5 granddaughters – she was in heaven. We tried hard to get some good family photos, and although the cousins all together is documented we didn’t really get that perfect shot.

 We may have overdone the sugar a bit too much before the shot above!

We had lots of fun at Libbey park.

These pics of the girls putting on a show in Libbey bowl are my fav – such fun cousin time!

There was a photo of C running during her soccer game with her tongue out and here it is again- lovely!

Phew, now I feel a litte more caught up, and we can move on to October soon.

Fall is in full swing and both girls are loving their new classes. They both have amazing teachers and each has good friends in their classes. This week Charlotte was chosen to be the first star of the week for her class. She got to bring in a special thing each day and tell her class about it. She chose a new scarf and hat with minnie mouse ears that Aunt Katie had just brought back from Hong Kong, her trophy from the pine wood derby, a pillow pet, and yesterday she brought in her sister. It was so cute to watch them in front of a the class. She shared that her sister is special to her because we are family and they share a bunk bed. Today she brought her blankie that she has snuggled with every day of her life!

Here are some pics of them in class:

In other fall news the star of the week in the kitchen is Pumpkin whoopie pies from Baked

AMAZING!!

I got the fancy pumpkin shaped pan at Crate & Barrel

Soccer season is in full swing and although I was a little reluctant to embrace it, Charlotte loves it and we are all having fun cheering her on.

My brother John, his wife Pam and my neice Libby are in town! It is very exciting since they live in Belize and we never get to see them. They run a restaurant Rumfish y vino in Placencia Belize, such an amazing undertaking and they have done great. Last Friday Pfeiffer and I got to spend a day at the LA zoo with them and will get to spend some time in Ojai this weekend as well.

Cousins!

Love this guys dreads!

Such a fun day – we love you John, Pam and Libby.