Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary. (Congrats to Jen on the birth of her daughter!! Read about it here.)

My youngest sister J.D. is visiting us for almost two weeks. We hired her to help me with the kids while I got my spring cleaning and some other projects done. It has been so nice having her around! Not just because the kids adore her and she’s so good with them but i love spending time with her. I miss my sisters!

Speaking of missing sisters, My sis EL mentioned in her Quick Takes that she plans to travel from VA to CA to visit the family. Unfortunately that weekend we have another obligation at Andrew’s school so we can’t make the 400 mile trip to So Calif while they are here. I’m so bummed! Although in the back of my mind I’m trying to figure out if I could still make it happen…if I could get out of the obligation, have Bella and Andrew play hooky, get Brian to take a couple days off work and drive…hmmm, I don’t know. We’ll see what I can figure out.

This week I have been working on cleaning, organizing and purging all the unused items out of our house. During one of my breaks I was browsing Colleen’s Green Grass Blog blog. Her post about a messy house was just what I needed to hear. She also mentioned a book that I was thinking of getting – Smart Martha’s Catholic Guide for Busy Moms by Tami Kiser. I have to make an Amazon order tonight so I think I’ll get a copy and check it out. I’ll let you know what I think.

In our kitchen there are always big bowls of fresh fruit ready to be eaten. Unfortunately we had way too many bananas and they were getting pretty ripe. (I mean like “I’m starting to see gnats” ripe) so I made a batch of chocolate chip banana oatmeal cookies for the kids. (Yes, the kids. And no, that is not chocolate you see on my face.) I still had more bananas to finish so my sister tried a recipe we just saw on Mexican Made Easy for Mexican chocolate banana muffins. The recipe was super easy and instead of using chocolate chips you used crushed Mexican chocolate. They were so good and would taste great with a cup of Mexican chocolate. (if you haven’t had Mex choc, it’s like regular hot chocolate but with a cinnamony flavor.)

It’s probably a little futile talking about hot chocolate when people are sweating in the heat of summer. I forget about that since Carmel has reverted to it’s foggy, cold summer days. My poor sister (who lives in the high dessert) is used to the heat and she’s shivering at our house. We crack up that we are in shorts and she’s in a long sleeve tee and vest jacket. 🙂

On Wednesday it was gorgeous and sunny outside at 10 AM so we decided to hit the beach. An hour later we had our picnic lunch packed and the kids were standing by the door in their shorts and sunglasses. Before leaving I looked out the kitchen window and saw the dreaded fog rolling in over the ocean. Oh no! We ran out the door, jumped in the van and I felt like John Cusack on that mediocre 2012 movie trying to race against impending doom. Well you can’t beat Mother Nature and by the time we set up camp there wasn’t a spot of blue sky, just thick gray. Oh well, we still had fun and truth be told, I’d prefer the fog over blistering heat.

Lastly, Brian and I got a special treat since he won a complimentary lunch at Pebble Beach. The last time we were there John Paul was a baby and we took him with us. This time Matthew is the baby but Jacinta offered to watch all four kids so we could eat alone. (I love that girl!) So we enjoyed our lunch child free – although we were happy when we received texta with pics of the kids having fun with their aunt. We could eat without worry. Here’s a pic I took of us that day. Brian doesn’t like it because he’s squinting but I still think he looks great.

That’s it for today. Have a wonderful weekend!!