The Littlejohns Family

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Laugh, live, love!

February is almost over, but I wanted to make sure I posted something in Feb. since it was my goal to get something up on our blog monthly. This month has been full of it's ups and downs. Everybody in our family got sick, starting with Drew, then the baby, and me getting bronchitis for about a week and half. Needless to say, we survived the bug and are feeling better again. Here's to hoping and praying that the Spring will bring us back to 100% health:)

Drew turned 29 at the end of Janaury and to celebrate, we ate at his favorite local restaurant in SLO called Novo. It was simple, but nice. I bought him a veggie/fruit juicer for his birthday (something HE wanted!) and he's been acitvily using it... making all kinds of drinks in the morning and chugging them down. He says it gives him a clear mind and massive energy, so I'm proud of him for keeping up the healthy life style!

Lily celebrated her first Valentine's this month and Drew and I celebrated 5 years of marriage. We basically celebrated for three days straight since Valentine's was on the 14th and our anniversary was on the 16th. We received lots of well wishes, cards, and even flowers from Drew's mom! Our best present however was Lily decided to sleep through the night that entire week! :) She's growing up so much and is full blown walking now! She has two bottom teeth sprouting and love to "chat" about the dog, Daddy's green house outside, and her books. Drew made blueberry pancakes for Lily's first Valentine's day breakfast and bought me some beautiful roses. We spent our anniversary day at Sycamore Hot Springs where we enjoyed wine, cheese, crackers, and chocolate. What a way to unwind from a crazy few weeks of being sick! At our wedding reception in 2008, we had guests fill out a sheet I created called the "Predictions of the Life and Times of Kasey and Drew Littlejohns" to be opened on their 5th wedding anniversary. It was hilarious to open and read what people thought would be our jobs, how many kids we'd have, where we'd be living, how much gas would be, what we still loved/hated about each other after 5 years, etc. We ended the night with going to the drive-ins. I thought the listing for the theater said "Argo" which we had both been wanting to see, but I was quite shocked to get there and have the new movie "Die Hard" rolling. To Drew's delight, we stayed and watched Bruce Willis in action. A memorable anniversary for sure!

We look forward to the Spring which will include Lily's first birthday, her baby dedication, Easter festivities, a Mt. Whitney climb for Drew, and Kasey's younger brother's college graduation in New Mexico.
Blessing and love from our family to yours... Don't forget to find time to laugh, live, and love a little more today that you did yesterday:)

Our sweet heart!

Daddy reading one of Lily's favorite books!

Training for her first 1/2 marathon. (just kidding!)

11 months old and quite the character:)

Where we spent our anniversary evening...Avila Beach (about 8 mi from our house!)

After 5 years, we are still crazy...crazy in love!

Monday, January 7, 2013

It's a New Year! Happy 2013!

Exactly one year ago, I created this blog with the intention of posting something every month about the Littlejohns Family. It was mainly to give me an excuse to put up darling pictures of our little Lily and let friends and family know how we were doing. I would give myself a 70% on blog up-keep in 2012. Hopefully 2013 will bring more updates and as always, lots of pictures.

For the Littlejohns Family, three out of the four weeks in December were spent in Hawaii! Drew loved it so much, he wanted to extend our trip an extra week. He had to pull some teeth on my end (how could I possibly get our Christmas tree up in time for my parents arrival?) but it was a wonderful extended stay on the islands. We landed on Dec 2nd and left on the 20th. Lily did excellent on the airplane rides ( 5 1/2 hour flight from San Jose to Maui and then a hopper to Kauai) Our first week was in Maui and we finished off the trip in Kauai. Both islands were gorgeous! We had been to the Big Island together in 2010, but we hadn't seen Maui or Kaui together. Lily absolutely LOVED the pool! We would put sun screen on her and load up the stroller with floaties, snacks, and drinks a head for the pool everyday after morning nap. She made friends wherever she went. We even ran into a couple we had seen in Maui at our resort in Kauai and they remember her!! Not trying to brag or anything, but she MUST be cute if strangers can remember her:) Drew had a nice day of climbing and hiking the Haleakala crater in Maui with a friend from high school and Kasey's friend from Sacramento came to help baby sit so we could enjoy a day to ourselves. We drove the road to Hana, which was breathtaking. We even got to swim under a water fall! Our last day in Maui, we went to the Maui Ocean Center and then ate at the world acclaimed MaMa's Fish House which had unbelievable food. We finally got our breath taking sunset on the last night there. Our stay on Kauai included two different resorts/timeshares and two days of "camping" at an authentic Hawaiian plantation. There were several rain storms and high winds, but it was so green and beautiful. We did a lot of sight seeing, visted a blow hole and a restored light house... lots of beach combing, snorkeling and enjoyed cooking meals with fresh fruits and veggies back at our timeshare. The whole trip allowed us some well needed family time after a busy Fall for Drew and his work. Some pictures are below of our fabulous time in the Aloha state!

This year, we hosted Christmas at our condo in SLO and had my parents and brother here for a week. It was a wonderful time of catching up and just hanging out. We showed them around, visiting Pismo Beach and Morro Bay. We attended a nice Christmas Eve candle lit service at our church and then came back to our place for our Christmas family tradition which includes watching "Elf", eating pumpkin pie, and opening one gift. Christmas morning was low key... had a tree, with all the trimmings - gifts galore (mostly for me and Lily!) and a signature breakfast by my Dad - eggs, bacon, and pancakes! Lily's 1st Christmas was so fun. She loved playing with all the gift wrap and seeing the new toys she got. We all can't wait until she's about 3 or 4, so she can really "tear" into the gifts!!

New Year's Eve was spent hanging out with friends and ringing in the New Year playing board games and drinking carmel apple martinis! We have a wonderful new baby sitter who was willing to come watch Lily for the night so we could have some time together. We look forward to traveling less and settling in for at least the first half of 2013! Lily will turn 10 months old on January 9th. She's getting so big and we are excited to keep you all up to date on her milestones including the ever so soon 1st birthday!

We love you all and hope to keep in touch with you through out the coming year. May God's richest blessings be upon you and yours!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Fall is here!

I'm so embarrassed that it's been since the early summer from when I posted last. I know you're supposed to keep up on these things, but I guess having a baby does take up a lot of your time! :) Better late than never! Happy Fall everybody! The leaves are slowly changing their color, and there is a crispness in the air. Even though this part of CA usually stays in the 70's year round, we do get a cooler day or two which does remind me that it's fall. We turned our clocks back this weekend, so it gets darker sooner, but we are looking forward to the holidays, where the lights twinkle in the midnight sky (how do you like that for blogging vernacular? :)

If you know our family, you know that we are always traveling. It doesn't seem like that has stopped since having Lily! Drew has been a mountaineering machine the past few months - climbing Mount Olympus in Washington, the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, and most recently, a 10 day trip to summit Pico De Orazaba in Mexico. All of these mountains are thousands of feet above sea level and he has guided them all with several of his close guy friends. Way to go Drew! We are so proud of him and look forward to him climbing Mt. McKinley in the summer of 2014.

I have acquired 7 piano students over the past few months, and have been teaching out of our condo on our baby grand piano. I absolutely love my students ( 3 adults, 4 kids!) and enjoy seeing them progress in their music. I'm currently assigning Christmas music, which I cannot wait to pull out my own stash of tunes and play/sing! This weekend, I'm traveling to the Bay Area to play piano for a friend's church. I'm glad I get to still play piano while staying at home with the baby.

Lily is growing like crazy and is getting cuter by the day! Her most recent accomplishment is learning to pull herself up and stand...only to fall on her bottom and then crawl over to the next thing that interests her:) She'll be 8 months old this week. It blows my mind that she'll be 1 in just a few short months. We are so blessed to have her in our lives. She makes us laugh every day! Her favorite word is "da-da" although we're not sure if she's associated Drew yet with this word. She just likes saying it over and over! Hudson is so good with her, and I think they are becoming friends. Every morning, Lily will crawl toward the dog, who sleeps on our bed, and tries to grab his tail. It used to bother him, but now he just licks her face! How cute:)

Below are a bunch of pictures! Most recently, we celebrated fall by carving pumpkins and going out trick or treating on Halloween night. Lily was a lady bug! It was so much fun. This will be a big couple of months for us - celebrating Lily's 1st Thanksgiving (we'll be in Senora with Drew's dad) and then her 1st Christmas where my parents will be visiting here from Arizona!

I promise to not wait as long to post more entries. Be looking for another entry as we are going to Hawaii for our 1st big family vacation December 2-12th...Aloha!