Welcome Ilona Grace!

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Tuesday June 26 - Craig and Andrea Heffernan welcomed Ilona Grace to their family, we were all so happy for them! She was 9 pounds 13 ounces and 21 inches long - born around 1am (I think?) early Tuesday morning, which was Craig and Andrea's anniversary and the day before their little angel Elise's birthday. We were all saying lots of prayers for a healthy delivery and baby and are our prayers were answered. Ilona (pronounced E-lone-a) is a beautiful little baby - we can't wait to meet her this weekend!! (pictures from Andrea's instagram :)

Big sister Izzy - very proud!

and big brother Thomas - so sweet

Party of The Decades!

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Last Saturday we had the long awaited "Decades Party" at my parents house... we've been talking about this one for awhile! In 2012 - we had:
Connor turning 20
Jerry turning 30
Emily turning 30
Brian turning 40
Mimi turning 50
Big Jerry turning 60
Uncle Rich turning 70
and my parents house "turning 100" ;)
It was a big bash with everyone's friends and lots of family - a hot afternoon (just like our wedding in my parent's backyard :) and we rocked out to karaoke until 1am. Thanks for a great party Mom and Dad!

Jerry and Gary setting up for karaoke

Maisie immediately finds a Sprite from the bar

John and John (my Dad got credit for being 65 - half a decader)

Uncle Andy and Uncle Bill on the BBQ

Francie with the big girls Molly and Caroline - loving every minute

and showing off a little :)

Beezer was sooo excited when Care-la Marie showed up! She was being shy around the bigger girls and then was back in her element with her buddy Clara there :)

Girls waiting for pizzas - Emmy, Maddie, Kate, Ari and Kate

Emmers and her JJ

JJ loves her Emmers :)

Heff with his "40" badge and Jiller

Sista-sista - ABA and Pat came home for the Decades Party (then Palm Springs the next day)

Jerry the big 30 year old (closest bday - June 6!) and his "third child" buddy Janie

and so it begins... not even dark out yet

the Aptos teens and twenties working up to it

Sweet slippers Maise

Pookie dancing like a rock star while Jerry and Gary perform - we were CRACKING UP!

fun girls still laughing!

It's not a prty until John sings God Bless America and the smoke machine goes on

Cousin Bill and Kris with their oldest Mandy who just graduated from high school - congrats Mandy!!

Mims and Conman

and we got up there for a horrible attempt at "Goodbye Earl"

Aptos guys while Maisie and Clara perform back-up dancers

Me and Em with sweet little J (she fools us sometimes :)

Jannie hard at work making pizzas, only taking a break for some Janie love

Tom Hinga, Big "60" Jerry and Margie

John W, Lisa, Peg, Jill and Georgia looking great!

Sarah, Kate, Maddie and Emmy taking good care of Maisie Moo

cute picture of my dad's brother Uncle Bill and Aunt Tere!

Peek-a-boo JJ... I see you

and it's Disco Ball time

Little Maisie brave enough to sing by herself - couldn't believe it!

Twinkle, Twinkle by Maisie Moo

Clark who just moved back! and Jer

Connor. Jer, Janie and Emmy rocking out late night

she's obsessed with Jerry!

Camping with Cousins

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This weekend Heff took all three girls camping outside of Chico with their cousins and Oma. I stayed home and had a relaxing vacation of my own - I like camping sometimes but not pregnant, he actually told me he'd rather I stayed home and did nothing since I'm more work than the girls to make comfortable while camping :) Brian is awesome to take the girls on adventures like this without blinking an eye and they had SO much fun with their aunts, uncles, Oma and cousins and came home SOO dirty on SUnday afternoon!

Big girl Francie fishing with big cousin Kate - they had three fish on the line but didn't get anybody reeled in

Setting up the tent - JJ wanted to "wie down" and no she refused to sleep in the mini pod tent thing. I hear it was a long night :)

kids ready to fish!

Maureen with baby Molly in the Ergo, Maise and JJ who went in the freezing cold water and still manages a "cheeeese!"

and at 5pm Beezy said "Dad it's ok I have milky and pil-low and binky and lie in the tent?" She put herself in her bag and slept for 1.5 hours

Aunt Sarah with "Claraline" (aka Clara and Caroline :)

hot dogs on the dinner table

too much fun with the cousins

and two of their cousins friends from Chico - big girls Francie and Maisie were enamored with

Maisie and Patrick helping birthday girl Maureen blow out her candles

bedtime for bonzos (see JJ's little feet tormenting her sisters on the right?) both girls tried to sleep WITH Dad on his tiny cot at 1am and woke up J who had fallen asleep under the cot. Not much slep for Dad after that until he finally got up at 6am w Maisie

breakfast of camping champs. Heff bought a pack of pink snowballs and a candle at the Williams gas station in case his sister didn't have a cake. I guess it got dropped on the ground and passed around a few times for breakfast. yum

Heff making egg burritos in the huge lodge pan for breakfast while Oma and Maureen have arms full of babies

Oma and the little oranges

and JJ fell asleep on her Oma which she never does on anyone!

Ellie taking good care of her baby sister Molly :)

JJ helping break down camp!

Driving home with their slurpees from 7-11 - listening to the Cow Songs CD and Raffi the whole way :)

Disney Trip to Cars Land Opening!

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Last week we went to Disneyland for the Cars Land opening at California Adventure - it was so awesome!! The girls are big fans of the Cars movie and the new rides and "land" didn't disappoint. We had been trying to plan a trip for Maisie's belated 3rd birthday (since we went for Francie's 3rd birthday) and this was a great time to come. Even Heff and I have tons of fun at Disney - and we are huge dorks and wear matching Mickey t-shirts, yup we are those people you make fun of and proud of it :)

we arrived Wednesday afternoon in our cheesy Mickey shirts and went straight into the park

Cars Land here we come!

Route 66 - just like the movie

Janie's ready to roll

Best part about CA Adventure - not a dry park :)

We were there early for the opening night "red carpet premier" but we went into the park while all red carpet stuff was going on- good move when the girls discovered the "REAL" McQueen and Tow-mater hiding out waiting for their big entrance... they were flashing their lights and talking to us - asking Francie and Maisie if they were twins ;)

"Who's in there?!"

"What's up 'Mater?!"

JJ can't believe it

Cozy Cone-land

Off to check out some other parts of the park (our first time ever to CA Adventure)

3D glasses for the fun arcade Toy Story ride - JJ just hit the 32 inch mark so she got to go on most of the rides! :)

There's Janie looking pretty excited to be standing next to Brad Paisley! (and some other "celebs" from the movie but I am really bad at knowing who is who)

much more excited about the massive amounts of confetti released

time for rides...

Maisie rode with Mom

Francie, Janie and Dad on Luigi's wild ride

Maisie trying to make the air vents "puff her dress up"

JJ waiting to see if we can catch her sisters on the Racers ride

Day 2 - Thursday we were up bright and early for 8am breakfast at Critters Cafe

first sighting in the park - Pluto

agressive on the polka dots, I know ;)

we were kind of shocked when shy Maisie ran right up to Handy Manny for a quick hug!

Monster's Inc ride - love the glo

Jackpot! Matching Minnie!

lounging break

Maisie ran back to say hi to Minnie again - couldn't resist another hug

the Monster! Sully? Francie knew his name ;)

big sister adoration

she can't believe she gets to go on big girl "wide" either - she would get off and try to run on another car for more

Happy Daddy

on to the next one

I need to zoom in on this one ;)

can't get enough of posting pictures of Heff in a Mickey shirt - Maisie gets sooo happy when he wears it at home

ARIEL! lunch at Ariel's grotto with all the princesses - left a big impression

Cinderella requested we take a picture with sleeping Janie and my belly since the new baby was going to be like HER to the three big sisters (weren't they step-sisters?!) and told the girls they better be nice to the new baby... interesting angle

the Ariel swimsuits I made them wear under real clothes- but made their appearance after lunch (Maisie looks ready for her nap by now)

Back to Cars Land - love this picture

and this one- JJ napped on Heff's back in the Ergo so we didn't miss any daytime action (we went back to the hotel to try and take a rest but girls were too amp-ed up so we went for a quick swim/waterslide, changed by them by the pool and went back into the park - hard core Disney day)

Francie and I on the dropping Jellyfish ride while her sisters took naps on Dad and in the stroller

and they are up! this ride was awesome Mater's Jamboree i think

then the Mad Hatter's T Party - Heff teaching he girls how to play shuffle board but Janie has other ideas

Dancing Queens

break-dancing out of her shell!

after this we did Downtown Disney and had a late dinner at Rainforest Cafe - back to the room at 10:30pm - that was a full day!! (and I wore flip flops - paying for it now)

and catching the last bit of Disney we could Friday morning before we went home... Heff worked from 4:30am-10am before we left so we could make this trip happen - what a good Dad!

Palm Springs

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We are in Palm Springs this week for family vacation with my family! We drove down Sunday - Heff was a good sport to spend 9 hours in the car on Father's Day :) The car said 120 degrees on I-5 at mid-day- even hotter than the 109 degrees down here in Palm Springs. Emmy came too - lots of pool time and shuffle board! Instagram photos so far...

Road Trip. Got all the neccessities.

Pit stop for fruit. We made it with only 2 stops the whole way though!

Francie said "hey Mom I got a message for you - Call Ann." So we did - she was a whimp and flew down with Pat and Jerry :)

Picture out the window of the little stinkers being good sports too. 

Yup that says 120 DEGREES

The first night Maisie and Francie were trying to decide who got to sleep on this cool bed :)

 

Pool time Monday!

 

Glam Baby J

Even Jannie got in the pool!!! First time for everything, Francie was very impressed.

Emmy and Janie - J pretending to sleep so she wouldn't have to go nap after 4 hours of straight swimming.

Francie girl doing a great job swimming now - all the way across the pool and down to the deep end for rings.

Cocktail hour for Jannie and Janie

Jer looking good ;) Sun's Out Guns Out!

Emmy piggy backing Maise on our way to dinner

 

Family Dinner at LG's Steakhouse for a belated Father's Day

Double Trouble 1-2-3 with aunts and uncles

Galapagos in Photos

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more of my favorite photos from the "Galapa-glos" as Maisie calls it :) I think I need to make this trip it's own "book" with all the wildlife pictures for the girls to look at one day - too much to blog even if I break it up by day! It was such an awesome trip we will remember as a family forever, hopefully the little girls can look at the book (yeah the one on my to do list I will get to one of these days!) to remember all the fun.

Hanging out on the lava -cold chocolate milk pick me up break

Family shot next to a male "Friggit Bird" (Maisie's favorite to say all week)

Little bums on the lookout for turtles

Maisie scoping for Blue-footed Boobies

beach combers

Maisie learning to snorkle (even though at this point she would not get her head wet - just put the face of the goggles a half inch below the water) but the flippers helped ;)

Dad in shallow seas with his water babes

Life jackets on ready to tour the islands by tender

a few of the animals we saw along the way






family hike (not the best shot - looking into the hot sun on the equator)

baby in the front - big girl in the back (the hikes on lava rock were pretty intense!)

waiting to snorkel - Maisie took the picture

and this one, little Ansel with a camera all week!

Francie is a wet suit for a cold water snorkel by the rocks

Scruffy vacation beard Daddy :)

Heading into town to check things out with our big girl

Dad and Francie looking for a good shop to "buy stuff with her monies"

Found some handmade turtle bead necklaces for her sisters

cool signage in front of a restaurant - wish we could do this in the US!

and an ice cream shop! It was pretty hot and muggy, the gelato was sooo yummy.

I had coconut - Francie picked bubble gum (possibly the grossest choice of all of them :)

on the dock

Mom and the little girls cleaned up for dinner

Maisie reading to her little sis (shocking JJ sits still long enough for this)

Janie in her board shorts checking out a sea lion

Fur Seal beach (one of a few we saw) the Sea Lions would come right up to you, they are curious about humans since they don't see many and don't have natural predators on land in the Galapagos. (and don't worry- we had a naturalist with us to make sure we were being respectful of the wildlife :)

curious babies!

Janie says "no way Jose!"

Whale bone skeleton - almost totally intact and untouched on the beach

beach sunset with my girls while Dad finished a dive

Unsuccessful attempts at a photo of all three in their glamour swim suits

back to playing - too busy for photos

Cheese!

Loves the shades

Sunset

Silly girl

JJ and I waiting for the tender to go home - kinda sad but what a fun, full 8 days we had in the Galapagos! (another photo by Maisie)

Galapagos Day 2

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We woke up transiting to a new island - from Baltra (the little island we flew in on) and Santa Cruz (the bigger main island where we saw the tortoises) to a new island. Galapagos is really regulated so you have to have a naturalist with you and permits for a 6 hour window to go on any beach or hike! But every time we went on land we saw tons of the animals we had learned about - I think our naturalist was a veteran so he knew all the best hot spots. The girls couldn't get enough...

Heff relaxing while we transit (hasn't opened his laptop yet!)

we saw this awesome pod of dolphins jumping far out of the water on the way to the island of Espanola


Francie up early (and dressed herself) to watch dolphins with us

Cuddled up watching for the next sighting - jumping rays!

this sight makes her dad proud :)

Maisie looking glam

Daily schedule for Boat School

First beach/hike excursion

We found Sally Lightfood Crabs!

and a tiny dried up Portuguese Man of Man and braved holding a crab (kidding it was dead ;)

Maisie's attempt to hold the dead crab- no thanks ;)

Janie's brave - and then proceeded to rip the thing to pieces

and Francie found a giant Pelican

Penguin sightings! the northmost penguins in the world (on the equator)

then we hiked up to check out the lava flow - it erupted in 1888 so it's pretty recent lava)

Alicia practicing animal yoga moves with the girls

JJ on lava

more to upload... getting off the boat to head home now!

The Galapagos Islands!

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We are in the Galapagos Islands this week! It's an amazing place full of unusual birds, fish, sharks, marine life and land animals we've never seen before. The girls are getting up close and personal and learning all about the things they saw on the BBC specials we watched and books we read about the Galapagos before we came.

SO many pictures to blog and I'm only letting myself open my laptop to document this so we don't forget each day full of new experiences...

DAY ONE

We flew through the night Saturday and got to the boat Sunday morning - after unpacking, checking out the scenery around us, breakfast and a power nap we went back on land to see the famous land tortoises at a ranch on the Island of Santa Cruz

Girls in the tender

Maisie styling in her shades

The girls with their "boat school" teacher Alicia who has set up awesome lessons everyday to learn about what we see here!

boarding the bus

Maisie didn't take her eyes off the scenery the whole ride

Janie was more interested in picking Dad's nose

we had to take turns keeping the "rascal" as Maisie calls her content for the 30 minute ride - JJ is CRAZY these days :)

Maisie dresses herself when she wakes up every morning now - as you can tell :) she loves the striped H&M dress Jannie!

Arriving at Rancho Primicias (a farm on the island where the tortoises come to roam)

Ready for the hike

first stop to learn about the tortoise shells/anatomy etc

We found one!

It was lush and green on the ranch inland but most of the islands are dry lava rocks and dessert like plants.

Maisie is a little Ansel this week with the Boat School camera taking pictures of everything in sight (most have at least 1-2 fingers in the shot) - Francie was showing her the inside of a papaya out guide Franklin skinned for us to try

More big tortoises - they are crazy animals! They can live for a year without food or water

Franklin holding Janie back from jumping on the tortoise

Cheese!

little stinkers and a big tortoise

Daddy and JJ hiking in the "rain forest"

Curious J

Silly J :)

After the tortoise ranch we stopped nearby to check out this giant lava tube - it was insane!

spooky spooky

back to the daylight

France ready for the next stop... dinner on the boat and early bedtime! DAY TWO next!

Sandy Bottoms

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a few more pictures form Beach Day with Jannie I didn't post yet - I'm loving my new Mark III camera I got for Mother's Day! It let's me take decent pictures without knowing what the heck I am doing even better than before :) (although should have taken my old one to the beach - still dusting a little sand off the lens) But some pics from a fun day....




happy Maisie

Jannie digging a hole to find water with the girls

living the good life

beach girls

Janie would literally try to dive right in if we didn't hold her back - got hit by one wave and wasn't too happy but usually just bounced right up and wanted to do it again

stripped down to bloomers - JJ get so tan so fast

and she is OBSESSED with Jannie's lip glosses. Jannie has to hide her purse now or JJ finds her makeup pouch and brings it to her "Um! Um! Open!"

amazing Ariel towel my friend Janna gave her - thanks Jan :)

doesn't slow her down from ditch digging with Luke

The girls and their beach-lovin-cousin Luke!

and Jannie and Aunt Kim who brought Oreo cookies when she picked up Luke and wouldn't let us leave until we ate the whole box :) fun day!

24 weeks

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Baby Number 4 is already over half way there! This pregnancy has been good- I think it feels about the same as the girls did so maybe that means another girl :) But my intuition is always wrong and I do feel like it's a girl if i had to guess so maybe that means it will be a boy? Not statistically likely! But I would love to have another girl - it is annoying when people say "I hope you get a boy finally" - a healthy new member of the family is all we hope for.

I've had all the 20 week scans and appointments and the due date is looking like September 17 (the day before Francie turns 5) but I'm pretty sure I will go overdue again (I was 9 and 8 days late with the last two) and this baby is measuring on the small side so we'll see. But I feel great and I love all the little kicks and punches reminding me there is another new personality brewing to join the clan soon.

Emmy took these pictures at the park a few weeks ago - as close as I have to 'belly pics' ;)

Little Maisie always asks if the baby is awake and then if she can feel it kicking. She is very patient putting her hand on my belly and waiting - and still believes the muscle flex "it kicked!" move (Francie not so much). I love that Maisie loves babies so much - it will be fun to see her as a bigger girl when this baby is born.


Sweet Maisie

so for 16+ more weeks we keep soaking up the sun of summer - while I'm sure it will fly by and this baby will be here before we know it

and I can't believe this little one won't be my baby anymore. Sometime in the last few weeks she turned into a kid. We think she looks the most like me (or my sister/my side of the family) but has Brian's personality. She's LOUD and makes herself known when she walks into a room (I mean toddles-like-a-drunken-sailor). She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it throws herself face first on the dirt/floor/sidewalk kicking her right foot, head on her flat hands and cries. The minute you distract her she forgets it :) She loves the binky or Jannie's lip gloss or anything she can chew on and if JJ ain't happy... nobody's happy :)

and Maisie is still walking to her own beat - she cracks us up all day with her non-traditional way of doing things :) She is a tough one to discipline but also such a little love and very sweet. Heff calls her a little imp. Sometimes she doesn't stop talking and whatever story or reenactment comes out of her mouth has just enough of the baby accent and enough of a twist or incorrect retelling it just makes you laugh every time.

and then there is our "oldest child" - who looks the most like a Heff but has my personality through and through (knows how to push my buttons too!) She is an endless stream of questions about life, God, animals and learning about how and why things work. She loves to create things and is a really good caretaker to her little sisters (most of the time ;)

this picture kind of sums them up at this moment - Janie is pissed, Maisie is singing and trying to help JJ and Francie is playing with a cat that has no interest in playing with her:)

just trying to enjoy every day with these stinkers (and cousin Luke in this picture:) since I know I will miss these days in a few years. I can't believe it's already June and "summer vacation"... (not that that means much yet - we still stay up until 11pm and sleep in past 9am everyday and make it to Francie's T/Th preschool about half the time... one more year before REAL SCHOOL hits us like a ton of bricks. Good thing Heff is a morning person!)