Indoor Play Day - The COOP

Mila had a day off from school this week so I thought I would take her back to the COOP in Studio City. It was definitely a trek from the West side, but so worth it when Mila arrived and screamed in excitement after seeing the slide and ball pit.  The COOP is a cute little indoor play space with modern touches and a cute little coffee bar and outside patio. The place was packed... many kids had the day off but Mila still had a great time. And we learned they are opening another one on the Westside sometime next year...yeah!
http://www.thecoop-la.com/

Baby Favorites

We've got babies on our minds lately. With our good friend just delivering her son this past weekend and the baby in my belly, Mila's daily conversations usually include something about a baby or her brother or sister on the way. I thought it would be fun to revisit our favorite gifts and baby items that we've used for Mila and some new ones we've found along the way

Little Giraffe Blankie

Best Baby Shampoo

Best Smelling Body Wash

Amazing Onesies

Baby Whoozit is all you need

Hooded Towel that will add color to your bathroom

Great Art Gift

The Perfect Monogram Gift

Perfect for Mom and Baby

Personalized Gift

My New Favorite for ANYTHING sensitive on our skin

Another Great Personalized Gift

Week One Preschool - We survived!

Mila in her Cassidy school shirt

First Day photo before leaving for school

Waiting outside to go into the classroom

Saying Hello to one of her teachers

Day Two and no tears yet

Waiting to go in with her GoGo (Grandma)

Mila is now officially a Cassidy Preschooler and "Blueberry" as they call the kids classroom.

Getty

View of the Getty

LA View from the Getty

The amazing gardens 

Mila enjoying the outdoors 

Running through the gardens

Mila taking in the views of the gardens

Mila rolling down the hill on the grassy area

We've been dying to take Mila to the Getty Museum but haven't found a day that would work with our schedules. I haven't been to the museum in years and it's one of my favorite places in LA to go and hang out. It's peaceful, relaxing and such a nice place to see some art and spend time with your family for an afternoon. It's extremely child friendly and it has some amazing views of Los Angeles. And I've heard it has some of the best rice krispie treats in LA, even though we didn't get a chance to sample one. Yesterday was an unusual hot hot day so we weren't able to spend as much time there as we wanted, but Mila had so much fun running around and being outdoors, regardless of the heat. We look forward to taking Mila to the Getty and having her grow up spending time at this beautiful place in LA.

Preparing for PreSchool

Oliver's Labels are the best for clothes and shoes

Shoe Labels

Clothing Labels

Mila in her new school shirt... she's so big!

Today is Mila's big day, her first day of preschool. We are both equally excited and counting down the hours until we walk into her school. I'm excited for her to meet some new friends and to spend time in a social environment... I think she's ready to be with some of her peers after a summer of just hanging out with adults. In preparation for school, I spent the weekend labeling all her clothes and shoes. Wow, what a chore! However, I discovered some amazing labels about a year ago and this weekend realized how great they are. Rather than using a sharpee pen to label all of Mila's stuff, these cute labels can either stick right or iron onto the tag or inside of the shirt or clothing.  I realized the stick on labels that I bought were much easier to use, however there were some items that the iron on worked better.  What's great about this option of labeling clothes is that when we donate these clothes or give them away, we can just take the label off and they come in really cute prints and colors! Here is a link to these labels, http://www.oliverslabels.com/

I recommend the stick-eez labels, shoe labels and original and mini labels.

Books - The Best Gift

A friend of ours is getting geared up for her first baby and through conversation she had mentioned she didn't really receive any books for her baby shower except the books we've given her. Before Mila was born I've had the house stacked with books, two book shelves of amazing children's books and have made a point that every night we read before bed and have quiet time during the day to read.  For my baby shower I didn't really want gifts but told my girlfriend who was hosting that if people asked what I needed, I would love a book. What I ended up with was a great library of books my friends read to their own children. The best part of my shower was I didn't get one duplicate book and have now  favorites we give as gifts.  Recently I learned of an amazing children's book store here in LA and today we finally found time to check it out.  At first we were overwhelmed by all the books but once Mila and I started shopping, it's this great gem that is extremely organized and has some of the best books we haven't seen elsewhere.  Go check it out... http://www.childrensbookworld.com/

The Sillies

Mustache Party

Dance Party, wedgie party!

Mila's always been a happy, smiley baby but lately she's become this funny little person. I love seeing the world through her eyes and listening to the things that come out of her mouth... she's hysterical these days.  The other night I had these lululemon pants on that were sort of MC Hammer mets Bobby Brown, loose, baggy and lots of fabric. As we were dancing around her room, I decided to pull them up to my shirt and give myself a wedgie. Mila thought this was hilarious and wanted to do the same...check out the photo. It's been fun to have these moments with her and it reminds me to not take life or motherhood so serious. The best are some of the quotes from Mila that I've started to collect.  Here is my favorite thus far. Mila looking at me with all seriousness in her outfit for the day and said "Mom, does this outfit look gangster??" She is her fathers daughter.

Best Friends

3rd Grade Best Friends Forever

Still friends through middle school... look at our hair!

and college

and after college

28 years and going strong

Mila and Wyatt... future BFF's 

As Mila's first day of preschool is approaching, I've been thinking a lot about who she will become friends with and if she will have a best friend in her lifetime. When we lived in NYC, I envisioned Mila running around with all the kids of the mommy's I befriended and how they would be best friends forever. Jump to two years later and all my NYC friends are sending their kids to different preschools which means the little ones will all make new friends. I've been fortunate to have a best friend and we've been friends for 28 years. We met in 3rd grade and have been inseparable since. We chat on the phone at least 3 to 4 times a week, to the point that our husbands can't believe we still have hours worth of conversation left by the end of the week, but we always have something to talk about. She's been my rock, my third sister, my sounding board and the person I can go to for anything. I feel so blessed to have her in my life.  I know Mila will have many people, friends and acquaintances come in and out of her life, but I'm hoping she's as lucky as I have been and will find a friend who will be with her forever.

Yoga for Kids (at home)

The past two mornings Mila's decided to wake up at 5am! It's not the normal wake up, crawl into our bed, relax and go back to sleep, rather it's the wake up Mom, Sweet Pie, I'm ready to get up. This morning she stole my phone at 6am and started playing Madonna/FUN songs and singing in my bed in between crawling on my head and trying to open my eyes. Who knows what goes through her little brain but I do know that at 5 1/2 months pregnant waking up at 5am is not fun, even though this mornings jam session was pretty funny. After being up for 3 hours which felt like 8 hours, I decided we should try some yoga.  We had already exhausted all our usual morning routine activities and I realized this could be something enjoyable we could both do. I found yoga for kids on you tube and through the tv was able to give Mila a little bit of yoga.  Here is Mila trying out cobra and child's pose... oh how I wish this lasted more than 20 minutes.

Back to School Shoes

Now that Mila is entering Preschool we have been on a mad search to find her shoes that are appropriate for school. Since moving to LA, Mila has taken to only wearing flip flops and Crocs.  If up to her, she would prefer to go barefoot. She's truly a West Coast child! Even though Mila's school says they allow flip flops or Crocs, they advise against it. The past two weeks we've been trying to convince Mila to put on any kind of shoes.... boy has it been tough. It took us two trips to the shoe store to get her to try on the Natives and a few candy bribs to see if the converse fit.  I've also promised her I would buy her a pair of sparkly shoes like the ones she previously owned, however I'm afraid she won't wear those either.  Here are some we've purchased thus far and 3 out of the 5 we've been able to get her to try on. I think the black high tops are going back, so sad because they are so cool!

Malibu Picnic

One weekend we were down visiting our friends and stumbled on the most amazing place in Malibu to have a picnic. We originally wanted to go to the Malibu Wines vineyard but arrived to find out no kids are allowed. So with our picnic and wine we purchased at the vineyard we arrived at the Malibu Bluffs park across from Pepperdine University. It's such a hidden gem and great place to take kids for a picnic. They have a little playground area, huge grassy space and amazing views. We've gone back a few times for a picnic this summer and decided it would be great thing to do this weekend. We picked up delicious sandwiches at Bay Cities in Santa Monica, well worth the wait (45 minutes to be exact, however we learned to place our order online an hour ahead of time to by pass the wait) and headed to Malibu. The weather was perfect, the traffic getting there wasn't too bad and we enjoyed the afternoon in the sun. After hanging out and relaxing at the park we headed over to the Malibu County Mart for some ice cream... another wonderful place to just hang out! Mila was so happy to be with her friend Kona the dog.