McReynolds Memories

We're busy up in here, yo!

2012-01-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

The past 2 weeks have been just so busy, I barely have time to think! Amanda's birthday pizza party was a huge success. Her whole class was so cute and thankful for their pizza lunch. I had fun too, setting up the plates, doling out fruit & pizza slices.

Last week was an emotional roller coaster. We all had MLK day off on Monday, so we headed up to Castaic to drop off the boat for some (what we thought were) minor repairs. The floorboards were feeling a bit soft, so Mike thought a few might need replacing. Well, turns out the whole floor is rotted, along with the supports that keep the floor up. So we're talking thousands of dollars to repair on an already super-old boat (not worth the cost of the repairs). Mike has an emotional attachment to the boat since it originally belonged to his dad, so he was really feeling down about it, and deciding what to do.

Then he found another boat for sale with all the extras in a boat he ever wanted. At a very good price too. But the guy didn't call him back for several days, so we weren't even sure the boat was still for sale. Plus, we weren't sure we could afford it.

Then on Thursday I found out at work that due to a new 'job grading' analysis they did, I would be receiving a fairly large raise, effective immediately! Talk about good luck (or bad luck, if you see it as I was being grossly underpaid for the past several years)! AND, that evening the guy selling the boat called Mike back and the boat is still for sale! He is out of town, so we agreed to come down and see it next Sunday.

Then, upon talking to various family members over the weekend, it became obvious we may not be able to fit the new boat in our backyard. You see, in order to store our current boat, after pulling it into the backyard, we manually swing it around in a 270 degree turn, and back it into a paved spot in our backyard. The new boat has a double-axle trailer (old boat was single) so the pivot point changes and turning it sharply becomes out of the question. So, Mike became depressed & upset again that we may not be able to get the new boat (he refused to even think about storing it somewhere because there are no storage places with roofs in LA for boats). THEN, after discussing with more family members, now he thinks we can just pull off one of the tires (on each side) and still pivot the boat. So then he was happy again.

Talk about the gamut of emotions!

So on a happy note, we celebrated my grandmother's 89th birthday on Sunday at my parent's house. Though her health could be a bit better, she is a pretty spry 89 years young. She is hilarious because they live in a retirement community and my grandmother constantly complains that it's all "old people" so she doesn't participate in any of the activities. Hilarious!

This weekend (Saturday the 28th) is Amanda's birthday party. I have almost everything finished except the food which I'm taking Friday off to do. I am also cleaning our house from top to bottom and making my own balloon arch. Hopefully I will get it all done in time. The balloon arch is a funny story...
So the theme for her party on Saturday is "RockStar" because Amanda loves to sing and pretend she's a rockstar. I bought a Rock Show set from one of those half off deal sites:

and a stage background to put up the day of the party. So then I was looking up ideas for decorations and came upon the idea of a red carpet leading up to a balloon arch. Looked it up on Amazon and a red carpet was like $5 - score! So then I started looking up how much a balloon arch would be. I was seeing prices from $350-$400. Really? For BALLOONS?

Thus began my search for a reasonably priced balloon arch! I love the internet. I found a site that said how to make one yourself, and set to work. I headed to Home Depot and (with Mike's help) for about $5 got some PVC pipe to act as the base on either side. Then I bought some aluminum wire on Amazon for $5 for the arch, and some pink & purple balloons from the 99 cent store. All in all, I think I spent barely over $20. Now it just remains to be seen how this will look! Wish me luck!

Fabulous Five!

2012-01-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

My baby girl is 5 today!

This picture was taken this past weekend at a friends' birthday party at Scooter's Jungle. She was so excited to turn 5 just like all her friends!

She is turning into quite the little lady. She is often shy at first, but (just like me) opens up quickly and likes to make sure everyone is included. I often hear from her teachers that she is the first one to approach a new friend in the class and befriend them. I couldn't be prouder!

She has a quick wit like her dad and will often have us laughing around the dinner table. She can often be super-sensitive and quick to cry, but usually a quick hug and she's back to her mischevious self. She has been an amazing older sister and loves her little brother to peices (most days).

She will start Kindergarten this Fall, although we don't know where yet. That's the fun of living in the city near a school that has horrible API scores. I will keep you posted on what happens with that. But suffice it to say, I don't want her to go to the school down the street!

The 'norm' at our new school is for the parents of the birthday child to provide a pizza lunch for the class. So I will be heading down there at noon today to provide pizza, fruit, juice & cupcakes to all the kids. We also put together 'goody bags' for everyone with a personalized card from Amanda in each one (she is quite the artist lately). Happy Birthday to my litttle (big) girl!

Christmas & after Christmas photos

2012-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

So, for Christmas Day I was asked to bring a pie for dessert. I decided to finally put my apple peeler/corer/slicer to work and make an apple pie! Amanda wanted to help, and being that all you have to do is crank, I said "OK"! So here she is cranking out the apples for our apple pie!

Christmas eve at my sister's house, here's my mom & Kevin.

And Amanda discovered Andrew's Leapster. My mom helped her with some of the games, and they had a good time for at least an hour!

After dinner, it was time to open a present, and Amanda picked one from Aunt Erin & family. She opened it and discovered it was the same present she had just gotten from my best friend! Oops!

Then the kids wanted to take a bath, so we ran a bath thinking the older two would take a bath first, and then the younger two afterwards. Ummm, nope. Everyone wanted to get in the bath together. So that's what they did!

(I have no pics from Christmas Day)

On the Wednesday after Christmas we headed to Travel Town at Griffith Park with our good friends the Mascari's. Here's Amanda & Nick next to a train wheel.

And the whole group walking on the train tracks.

I tried to get all 4 kids in one shot, but didn't get that great of a pic. Mady couldn't see over the top very well, and Amanda was being silly.

Daddy helping Kevin walk on the tracks.

And Kevin's FAVORITE part - riding on the train!

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

I wish I had some punctuating thing to say about 2011 but really it was a pretty benign year for us. Amanda turned 4 and Kevin turned 2. I had LASIK. That's about the extent of the really memorable stuff. I guess that's how you want it to be :)

We are hitting the ground running again this year. We're already booked up for almost every weekend in January and well into February. Amanda's "rockstar" birthday party is the last weekend of January. I dawdled in getting the invites out until mid-December so I decided to delay it a week and do it the 28th (even though her birthday is the 17th). I have the goodie bags bought, decorations purchased and entertainment booked. Just have to figure out the food. And pray the weather is good. It's a crap-shoot in January. Some years it's been cold & rainy, and other years it's warm & sunny. Amanda really wanted to have her party at home with a bouncer, so cross your fingers it stays warm & sunny for us!

New Years was quiet as usual. Kids went to bed at their normal time. I considered letting Amanda stay up until 9pm to watch NY turn to midnight but Mike put the kibash on that. We rented "Captain America", and played a game of Monopoly (I won), kissed at midnight and then I went to bed. Since I won Monopoly, Mike got up with the kids at 6:30, then he went back to bed when I got up at 8. I discovered Target was open at 8am on New Years Day, so we headed to Target and got some shopping done with Mike slept in until about 10:30. The kids were super-good that day as well.

Actually all last week (their school was closed and Mike had the week of) they were on their best behaviour. Sometimes I wonder if school is actually teaching them bad habits, or maybe they don't get enough nap or something... but man all week I came home to glowing reports of how they played nicely together with their new toys and rarely fought! Go kids! I took Wed. off and we headed over to Travel Town at Griffith Park. Kevin is really into trains lately, and he LOVED it, especially riding on the train that goes around the park!

Then I had to work on January 2nd :( First time since 2006, but I had to go in for a half day to get our year-end accruals in to corporate. They insisted they have everything by end of day on the 2nd (even though they take the rest of the week to actually post everything). Turned out to not be that bad of a day. Hardly anyone was in the office, and those that were there showed up with food, food and more food! I had a McDonalds egg McMuffin, a donut and a bagel for breakfast. Then our CFO bought us lunch at The Counter too. Plus the VP of Accounting brought in a hoard of desserts and tequila shots for after lunch! I was done with work by 12:30, but stuck around until 2 eating and playing games. If I had made any sort of resolution to eat less, yesterday would NOT have been good for me!

My only real resolution this year is to be better organized. We're starting with a cleaning lady. I finally broke Mike down and he is allowing me to have her come once a month. It's not as nice as every 2 weeks, but it's better than nothing! We will still have to do the in-between cleaning, but I'm hoping this will help us all stay better organized and less cluttered.

Cheers to the new year!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

Merry late Christmas and a Happy New year to everyone! I took very few pics on Christmas, was too busy opening presents and enjoying family. I will put up what I do have eventually :) In the meantime, these are some photos we took at the beginning of December. We actually got the entire family from my grandparents down to our kids (their great grandkids) together for a big family group shot. They were Christmas presents to both my grandmother and my mom to put up in their respective houses. To the left there is a cute pic we caught of Kevin on Mike's shoulders. I was to the right of them with Amanda on my shoulders, but she didn't feel stable and kept grabbing my neck (not making for a nice picture). The other picture below this is a good shot of the whole family. You can tell we were saying "CHEESE!" Ha ha!

Some Elf Love

2011-12-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

I've seen several blogs and heard several comments about the newest Christmas Craze - the Elf on the Shelf. A lot of people are calling it stalker-ish and annoying. However, we've had a lot of fun, and success with our elf!

Amanda will be 5 in January, and while she is certainly starting to grow out of whining and tantruming, there are times when she falls back into old habits. Elf has been a saving beacon of hope. We just tell her Elf is going to tell Santa she's being naughty, and wallah! she is ready to be good again.

Also, the fun of finding elf every morning is exciting for our young kids. They wake up ready to skim the house looking for their elf. Even Kevin looks forward to finding where he is today!

Yes, I have had several nights where I wake from a dead slumber, realizing I forgot to move elf. In fact, 3 mornings out of 5 our elf hasn't even moved because (you guessed it), I forgot to move him. But fortunately for us, our kids are easily sidetracked with excuses, and move on quickly.

I just wanted to say I really like this new and fun tradition. And although it's not for everyone, we love it's magical and entertaining value.

Potluck fun!

2011-12-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

I have been at my current company now for almost 10 years. And somewhere around 2005-ish I got involved in organizing an annual holiday potluck. At first, it started out as just a fun addition to the holidays. We would have our potluck around the 10th of December to help usher in the holiday season. Many people would sign up to bring their favorite dishes, and then we'd collect some money from those who couldn't/wouldn't cook themselves. We would go out and get some drinks, a couple party trays of sandwiches or fruit platters that would help fill in the gaps of the multitude of other dishes being brought. Then there'd be two more holiday parties throughout the month (thrown by the company and another by the president of our division).

Then in 2008 it all changed. With everything in the financial markets crashing, and the media tearing our parent company apart for having a "party", all holiday parties were banned. Our potluck became the central holiday celebration at work. And we decided to go all out! We started by providing breakfast (donuts, bagels, OJ), then the potluck at noon which was partially financed by the head guys - we added a Honeybaked Ham, a full cooked Turkey, and all the fixin's you can think of. By 2009 we also added Root beer floats in the afternoon, and it officially became an all-day affair.

This year, we outdid ourselves again. From the time I came in at 8am, until I left at 5, I was running around setting up for the next part of the potluck. And this time I remembered my camera, so I was able to document everything! Good thing, because this was the last year for our President. He is leaving to start a new company as of next week. Sad for us, but exciting for him!

So I guess the moral of the story is, if you need a potluck organized, I'm your go-to woman!

Christmas lights

2011-12-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

The weekend after we got back was again super busy. Mike & I participated in the final Habitat for Humanity build through our Church on Saturday. Then we got home and put up Christmas decorations. Here we are putting up the lights outside.

And here is the final product (we finished just as the sun was setting!)

Then we headed inside to decorate our living Christmas Tree!

Christmas is one of the few times during the year that Mike is a scrooge and won't participate much. One good thing about this is, he's willing to take some pictures though, so you finally get to see ME! Although I was seriously grubby and exhausted in these pics after a full day of building a house. Sorry I wasn't at my best!

Thanksgiving recap

2011-12-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

Finally have some time to do this (I think)! It has been a whirlwind since we got back, and even though I've had my Xmas cards done since October, I just barely put them in the mail today! UGH!

We flew into Chicago on Tuesday Nov. 22. Flight was fairly uneventful which was super surprising. Kevin actually took a nap! Then he wanted to sit on Daddy's lap, so I got to relax by myself for a bit before we landed :) Since we lose 2 hours flying out there, the kids went down really late (10pm Chicago time), and actually slept in since we slept in the (finished) basement and there was no sunshine to wake them up!

Wednesday we headed to the Children's museum in Naperville. What fun the kids have here every time we go!
Kevin LOVED this structure you could hang plastic fish from:

And then he discovered this pin table where he could push the fish and see the indent on the other side!

And of course, the water table was a HUGE hit

Followed by the air discovery area. He loved this tube, blowing air on him.

Thursday, the kids were up bright and early. Here's Kevin and Grandpa Mark having their morning "coffee"

Then the family started coming over, and I got this super-cute pic of my newest neice, Hailey

Meanwhile Zach was being the ladies man and loving on all his girl cousins :)

Here are all the older cousins gathered in the basement tv area. Only Hailey wasn't in this pic.

After dinner, the husbands took the kids outside for some football fun to help burn off some of their energy. Kevin had a fun time throwing around a soft football with anyone he could throw to!

It's all fun and games until someone knocks down Daddy!

Amanda brought her stuffed animals out to watch her:

Look at these rosy cheeks!

It was cold, but not tooooooo cold, so the kids were outside for a good hour or so before their fingers started getting too cold.

Friday we headed to BounceTown (I think the name says it all)

On a side note, it is REALLY hard to get a good pic of the kids in this place!! They are constantly running around too fast for me to snap any good pics!

Saturday it started to rain, so we stayed home for most of the day. Mike started pulling out all his old toys. Here's Amanda playing with two of his biggest Star Wars toys.

Sunday we went to the Brunswick Fun Center, but I forgot my camera. Mike took some video on his phone (don't have it uploaded yet). Monday we stayed around the house again packing and hanging out with Mimi & Mark. And Tuesday we left (super early). Again, flight home was a success without much out of Kevin. He was coming down with a cold, so he slept most of the return flight as well!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2011-12-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas!

Meet our Living Christmas Tree! Mike heard about this last year, and we have been deciding if we wanted to do it or not. We normally trade off each year, putting up a live Christmas tree for the years we are here for Christmas, and putting up the fake one for years we'll be in Illinois. This year is a "live" year, so we decided to try the living Christmas Tree. It's potted, so it never dies (unless I kill it), and they take it back to the nursery at the end of the season. We got ours through http://www.livingchristmas.com/ which only serves So. Cal but I have seen articles that there are over 30 places across the country that do it. So google it for your area and see if they have a similar program for you!

Anyway, I have a literal ton of pictures to upload from Thanksgiving. We had so much fun, hanging out with family and doing/seeing so much. I ran the turkey trot as planned, but twisted my ankle just after mile 2. But guess what, I still finished in 34:03! My best time yet! It would have been closer to 33 minutes had not been for that stupid stick in the middle of the road! Grrrrrr!

Hope everyone is having a great start to the Christmas season this year!!

It's the Little Things

2011-11-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the blurriness of the picture, I took it with my phone. Isn't that a beautiful sunset? That is the kids' preschool parking lot. I took the picture as we were just about to leave.

It's days like that day that I just stop and enjoy the little things, like a sunset. We had just gotten over the entire family being sick with a stomach bug, the kids had finally gone back to school and I had finished my first day back at work (and eaten an entire meal!). What a wonderful way to end the day!

It is fast approaching the end of November already, and once again I am amazed at how quickly the year flew by. I started my Xmas 2011 letter that goes with our Christmas Cards and I am having a hard time paring it down to just the essentials. I feel like we came a loooooong way this year, and there's just so much to share!

We are headed to Illinois for Thanksgiving where I will be running my 3rd 5k (turkey trot) with my sister-in-law and her husband. I fully expect them to charge on ahead and leave me behind, especially with this bug that hit me last week. I haven't really trained much in the last week or so, feeling kind of weak and slow right now. I think I'm going to take a small break after this one before I charge on ahead and try a 10k in February or March sometime.

Kevin has been having some major sleep troubles lately, and I still don't know what is/has caused them. 2 weeks ago he suddenly went from easily laying down and putting himself to sleep and sleeping all night to requiring someone to sit with him and waking 2-6 times a night screaming. At first I thought it was teething (2 year molars), but I have yet to see anything breaking through. Finally the last 3 nights he has slept through the night, but still requires someone to sit with him while he falls asleep. Fun times.

Anyway, that is the news at our house, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Ladies Man

2011-11-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

I chose Kevin's costume this year based on the fact that he likes to dance. I saw this 70's 'Disco King' costume and thought it was absolutely adorable, so I got it. Well, it turned out to be even more perfect because as you can see from the picture to the left, he is a total ladies man. That is Lily (left) and Riley (right), his two bestest girlfriends at school. I hear all about "Ri-ey" and "Yi-Yi" every day when I pick him up. And this picture taken by Riley's mom at the Halloween parade at school just sums it up.

Some October fun

2011-10-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed the new picture above. That was from a photo shoot we did with a new photographer for Christmas card photos. At first when I saw the pictures, I was dissappointed. I thought "I could have taken these pictures!" But they've grown on me and I'm liking them more and more. So the above is a sneek peek at what our Christmas Card photos will look like :)

Anyway, it's been busy around here as usual. Not much to report, just the usual busy-ness that comes with the Halloween season. Everyone but Mike has costumes again this year (he refuses to dress up).

I took these pictures of Kevin at my parents house a few weeks ago when we were celebrating Ilene and my grandfather's birthdays. He was sitting on my lap and I snapped a few close-up shots of him after eating a cupcake. I found them pretty funny!

"Don't take a picture of me NOW!"

"Oh, all right if you insist"

We headed to the pumpkin patch this last weekend and I got a few cute shots of the kids with the pumpkins. Yes, Amanda is in her Minnie Mouse costume which she insisted on wearing.

Sibling love

2011-09-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Trying on shoes just like Amanda's!

Kevin idolizes his older sister Amanda. It drives Mike crazy because Amanda is very girly -- into wearing dresses every day and pink princesses...and pretty shoes. We went shopping for Amanda over the weekend to get some shiny black "dress up" shoes to go with her Minnie Mouse costume for Halloween, and another pair of tennis shoes for soccer. When we were at the shoe store, Kevin insisted on trying on the same exact black shiny girly shoes in his size. At first I resisted, trying to distract him with various tennis shoes with "boy" characters on them. After about 2 minutes of him screaming at the top of his lungs (in the middle of the store) though, I gave in and let him try some girlie shoes on (see picture to left). He immediately went to show Amanda and then just stood there staring at them.

I continued with trying on various shoes with Amanda, and after about 15 minutes, I attempted to take the girlie shoes off of Kevin. Seriously. It was as if I was trying to remove his whole foot! He refused to take them off! I finally had to show him Amanda was taking hers off and putting her old shoes back on, and he eventually complied, but not without keeping a death grip on the shoes themselves. Then we took the shoes to the counter (grasped tightly in his hands) where I showed him that the nice lady had to ring them up (telling her slyly on the side that I wasn't really buying them, thankyouverymuch). He finally let go and ran off to play with something else ~~that was probably breakable~~ on display and I was able to have the sales girl ring up an actual 'boy' set of shoes with cars on them.

And guess what happened when we got home? Amanda put on her princess tennis shoes to show Daddy and Kevin put on Amanda's 'dress up' shoes too. I shoulda taken a picture of Mike's face.

Patience

2011-09-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

pa·tience [pey-shuhns]
noun
1. the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3. quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

I have decided I need to work on my patience skills. This week has been extraordinarily hard for me. We had a very busy weekend and I think the kids are still recovering from that. Plus, I think Kevin is finally teething again (still no eye teeth!). Then work has been very busy, with the end of the quarter looming. I have lost it more than once, and I need to learn to take it all in stride.

I attended my mom's club on Monday and we began watching a video series by Rob Bell called Nooma (http://www.nooma.com/). One particular quote really stuck with me:
"And an infinite, massive, kind of invisible God, that’s hard to get our minds around, but truth, love, grace, mercy, justice, compassion – the way that Jesus lived, I can see that."

I've been thinking about putting those 6 words in pretty fonts, framed around our house and just remind eachother every day to use them.

One Week

2011-09-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

I got one week off with the kids this summer. We moved preschools and the new preschool is closed for one week at the end of August each year. They remodel, clean and prepare their classrooms, take development classes, and everyone comes back renewed and refreshed and ready to start the new "school year".

I have to tell you, I was very apprehensive about taking a full week off with just me and the kids. One adult, and two preschoolers seemed a bit overwhelming, especially when half the nights I come home from work and they drive me crazy! But, we had a very, very good time, and I really feel like I got to *know* my kids! We were all actually really upset about going back to work/school after labor day!

Monday, we went to a place called Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach. Awesome little beach. They pump seawater in to it's own secluded area (no waves!) where it never gets too deep. There are fountains spewing water for the kids to play with, a play area, picnic tables, bathrooms, and lots & lots of sand! I actually ended up making friends with several other moms here and the kids had a blast. They each took really long naps this day as well!

Sea Lion swimming by at the Aquarium

Tuesday we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Mike & I took Amanda once before Kevin was born and she didn't seem all that interested. This time, though, she loved watching all the fish, sharks, sea lions, seals, sting rays...and especially the touch tanks! She got to touch baby sharks and sting rays, and loved it! Kevin, on the other hand, preferred playing in the play area, and wouldn't touch anything.

Wednesday we went to the new dinosaur hall at the Natural History Museum (NHM) of LA. Amanda absolutely loved this, and is still asking if she can go back! They not only have a hall showcasing all the bones, but an interactive room where you can actually put the bones of a dinosaur together yourself. They also have a working lab where you can see them excavating bones out of rock! But Amanda's absolute favorite thing was the puppet show with the lifesize t-rex. We saw the show twice!

Thursday we ran a bunch of errands, and Friday we stuck around home as we all felt a little under the weather.

Mike was really apprehensive about the week because he figured we'd spend a lot of money. But even I was surprised how little we spent. The lagoon was $16 (for all of us to get in) + $8 parking. The aquarium was the most expensive at around $34 +$6 parking (only Kevin was free) and the NHM was only $12 (kids were free) + $8 parking. I packed and brought a lunch each day, and we were always home by nap time. So the afternoons we still had time to hang out and do stuff around the house. Less than $100 and a lifetime of memories!

All in all, it was a great week, and although the kids did fight every now and again, we all had a ton of fun. Looking forward to next year when we get to do it again!

The things we can accomplish

2011-08-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

I have never considered myself a "runner". In fact, in high school I played softball for the specific purpose of getting out of PE where they made everyone run a mile every couple of months. I thought my sister was crazy 2 years ago when she accepted a challenge to run the LA Marathon. I mean, only crazy people do that, right?
I even gave it a "go" when Kevin was about 6 months old and everyone around me was convincing me that running was a good exercise to do to lose the baby weight. I ran for about 2 weeks and quit.

Fast forward to beginning of this year, a friend and neighbor of mine was telling me about a program she used to get into running. She had a smartphone and ran the Couch to 5k app. I nodded approvingly, but went home thinking "she's crazy". Then in March, I got my own smartphone and was downloading cool apps when I thought "might as well see what this is about" and downloaded the app.

Around the same time I attended a meeting for the local schools and they mentioned a 5k fundraiser they do every year and my friend mentioned she was going to run it. A few nights later, and I can't remember why, but I thought I'd just try out this app and see what it's all about. I came home feeling accomplished, invigorated, and ready for the next challenge!

6 weeks later, I ran my first 5k - the Race for Success. I was so nervous the morning of the race, but ended up finishing in 36:05 and my husband and kids even came to cheer me on!

3 months later (see picture to left) on August 20, I ran my second 5k - the Jet to Jetty Run/Walk for Health. And I beat my previous time by 90 seconds! With my sister Ilene (to the right of me in picture), we ran it in 34:35.

It's really amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it!

Busy Summer!

2011-08-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

We have had such an incredibly busy summer. And to tell you the truth, I can't even begin to remember why it was so busy! I just feel like we've been on th go nonstop.

So first things first, for Kevin's birthday at the end of July, he received a bike seat that attaches to our bikes. It's called the ibert and has been incredibly fun! Almost every night we have been going out on a bike ride. Kevin in his seat with Daddy, and Amanda & I on our bikes. Eventually we are hoping to head to the beach and ride down there, but for now we're just practicing in our neighorhood. Here are some pics.
First, Amanda riding in front of me as she heads down our street:

And here's Kevin in his seat on Mike's bike:

And here are the kids playing with a new toy Kevin recieved for his birthday. Amanda likes it just as much as Kevin does!

A little bit of Carnival, not so much Paradise

2011-08-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

So Mike & I just got back from a 3 day cruise to Mexico aboard the Carnival funship Paradise. And after having cruised twice before on Royal Caribbean, I much prefer RC. Here's my ~~quick~~ review of the two cruise lines.

To make this more fair, I am not going to include our honeymoon cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. We had a super ship for that 7 day cruise with everything from an ice skating rink to a climbing wall!

So, in 2006 we took the 3 day Mexico cruise on RC to celebrate Mike's 30th birthday. This cruise leaves Friday afternoon, arrives in Ensenada Saturday morning, leaves Ensenada Saturday afternoon and arrives back in Long Beach Monday morning. Back in 2006, both RC and Carnival did the same cruise and we chose RC based on our previous good experience with them. Unfortunately RC doesn't do the cruise anymore, so we were forced to use Carnival this time.

First things first - boarding the ship Friday afternoon. RC required that you check your bags with a porter. The porters were just outside where you enter the boarding station, and there were clear signs based on where your room was, who to check your bags with. I believe you received a checked baggage claim as well. On Carnival, things were very different. Porters were haphazardly placed on the ground floor of the parking garage, next to a randomly placed table with one guy writing room numbers on tags to attach to your luggage. People were milling around trying to figure out who to give their baggage to, porters were running back and forth getting carts to take bags to the ship with, and it took us 3 tries to even find a porter to take our bags from us. Then we prayed they made it on the ship! Mine showed up pretty quickly, but Mike's never did, and we had to end up calling down and have them find it.

Checking in was about the same between both cruise lines, wait in a line, get issued a room key (with credit card attached), move on to get your picture taken before walking up the gangway. My only complaint here was Carnival checked my passport at the door and then checked it again at the desk where the employee didn't look at the amendment to my passport and actually issued my room key in my maiden name! I had to explain it to her, and she had to go get another key made in my married name.

Once on the ship, the differences were huge! Let's start with a similarity. Both ships require you to purchase soda and alcohol seperately. The difference is, RC's unlimited soda card was a bit expensive (I remember it being around $15), but it included your own reusable cup that you could refill at any soda fountain, which were placed in several places around the ship. The dining room also provided soda upon showing your soda card. Carnival's was pretty inexpensive ($6) but you could only get soda at the bar, and they gave you very small glasses. Getting a soda in the dining room was next to impossible.

Both ships had a swimming pool on the top deck. Carnival's was tiny. And not only that, but half of it was used for where the pool slide came out onto. So at any given time you could get like 5 kids in the half swimming pool. The other half of their "pool" deck was a huge stage which they used for various entertainment shows. Also, while both ships had chairs to lay on around the pool, RC had tons more available than Carnival did. Part of the problem is Carnival had one main "buffet" style restaurant and it was right next to the pool area, so the tables & chairs from that area spilled into the pool area and didn't leave a lot of room for the lounge chairs. Thus, as the sun came out on our sea day, we were forced to find lounge chairs on the upper decks, which tend to be much more windy and cold.

Room sizes were about the same. I think all cruise ships are gonna have tiny rooms. Although on Carnival, I paid for a "suite" but the only extra we got was the balcony. I saw lots of inside cabins that looked the exact same size, just no balcony! On RC we had an inside cabin for the 3 day cruise and I feel like we had about the same amount of room for far less money. The Room Stewards were another huge difference. On RC they make a point to come introduce themselves and get to know your name. On Carnival, the guy said hi to us only a handful of times and never introduced himself. And on top of that, he messed up our room accounts on the last day and everyone got the wrong bill for the wrong rooms!!

On RC, the price of your room includes just about everything. Like I said, alcohol & sodas are extra, and there's the choice to eat in the high end restaurant for a bit extra if you would rather do that (reservations are required). On Carnival, the room price seemed to include just the bare minimum. Even in the dining room there were options to pay more for certain foods. Speaking of food, the food on RC is far superior. Their chefs have awesome selections each night to choose from with spices and flavors to wake up even the sleepiest of pallates! Not on Carnival. In fact, they pretty much had the same thing every night. And you have to pay more for a different selection. *sigh*

Also a huge difference when it comes to food on RC is the choice of places to eat. Even on the "smaller" 3-day cruise ship to Mexico there were 2 buffets, dining room, and 2 coffee shops to choose from. On Carnival, one dining room and one buffet. If you didn't like either of them, you were pretty much screwed. As I started to mention before, I felt like the layout on RC ships is much better. They had a bar/lounge that looked out the front/side of the ship so we got to relax with some drinks while we watched the ship pull away from the dock. Carnival used that area for the gym. And the deck to go out and look over the front of the ship was only accessible by walking through the suite's hallway. Convenient for me, but I'm sure a lot of people didn't know about it.

I also did the spa on both ships. They were pretty comparable. Not much to say on that one.

Now, disembarking. Again RC was far superior. Everyone had to put their bags outside their stateroom the night before. People who needed to get off early (for early flights) had to check in with guest services and were allowed off at the earliest disembarking time. Everyone else was assigned a time to get off based on a group number. The group numbers were announced throughout the entire ship, so no matter where you were, you knew when you were called. Not Carnival though.

Carnival had 2 types of disembarking - self service & "relaxed". Then within those types, you disembarked based on where your room was. So being a suite, the self service disembark time was 7am. Um, no thank you. So we chose the relaxed one and put our bags out the night before. We got a letter saying to wait in the library and we'd be called at 9am. So, we got up, went to breakfast and were in the library by 8:15am. Announcements apparently were being made elsewhere in the ship, and no one ever came to get us. And at 9:30 I finally went to ask someone what was going on. At that time they decided to let me know we were part of group #2 and they were up to calling #16-20. So we missed our debarking time by a mile. I know you want my money, but to keep me on the ship w/o letting me know to leave?!?! Come on!!

Oh, and another difference was RC did everything by interactive TV. You could buy your excursions, book spa appointments, check your charge account, etc without setting foot outside your stateroom. Not Carnival. You had to get up and go find one of the desks. I found that a little inconvenient, especially since there were several names for each deck, and it was fairly hard to figure out where you were at any given time. I had to carry a map around with me at all times!

One thing I liked about Carnival is they had a "kids" pool and an "adult" section. RC did not have that and if you are traveling without kids, it would have been nice to have an area to not have to be surrounded by kids.

Definitely the "rumor" that Carnival is the party ship is true. RC is much more relaxed and catered to the "non-party" crowd.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

2011-07-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

Happy 2nd Birthday to my little man Kevin! 2 years ago today I was relaxing in the hospital room, staring at your beautiful face and updating facebook with pictures of you :)

You have been such a joy, always laughing and interested in everything going on around you. You have an intense concentration that I love. I have said you are going to either be an engineer... or a hairdresser. I still marvel at how even at 2 years old you love to run your hands through your or my hair when something upsets you. I love how you scream and run to me when something hurts you, but after just a brief hug, you are right back in the fray. You are one tough cookie, but still have a sensitive side. If someone is crying, you are the first to walk up and give them a hug.

I love you Kevin, and look forward to many more years showing you this wonderful world!

Helping out

2011-07-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

The kids love to help in any way they can whenever Mike and I have things to do. These pics I took while they helped Mike wash the cars. Unfortunately I way over-exposed a bunch of them (apparently I need to change the ISO setting when I move from shade to sun!! duh!!), so these were the best I got.

I snapped this one just before I moved the camera out of the way of Kevin and the hose!

This is the intense concentration Kevin gives to every task he does. I love that little tongue!

Amanda washing my truck

And just this last weekend, Kevin helped clean up the yard with Mike.

funny things kids do

2011-07-19T16:02:00.001-07:00

It's kind of hard to see but that's Kevin holding a computer mouse up to his ear like a telephone. Hilarious !!

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Frustration

2011-07-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those "I wish I did that earlier" moments? That is today. I found out yesterday and this morning that the kids' daycare moved all the kids up to new classrooms this week. All, that is, except my kids. I can kind of get where they are coming from since we are leaving this particular daycare August 1. And truthfully I appreciate the non-move for Kevin who has barely been in this classroom a few short months anyway. But Amanda? Really? She has been stuck in preschool for 18 months at this point and I have tried every which way from Sunday to get her moved up to the pre-K class, and they refused 10 times over (saying they wanted to move the whole class together and there wasn't enough room for them all). So now that I decided to leave, you move everyone up. Nice.

I REALLY wish we had been able to move earlier. But alas, Kevin can't go to the new place until he's 2 which is July 27. So we are stuck at this place for 2 more weeks.

Meanwhile every day Amanda comes home crying because she didn't get to go on the field trips with the pre-K class, and she doesn't want to go to preschool again tomorrow. It is heartbreaking when I remember the first week she was in preschool and would come home smiling and excited about all the new stuff she was learning. I know it's only 2 weeks, but for a preschooler, 2 weeks is like 2 years and her emotions always run into our time at home where she fights more with the rest of us. *sigh* God grand me the patience to get through the next 2 weeks!!!

Sleeping

2011-07-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

So in general I think we got pretty lucky with our kids sleeping habits. Of course there are ups & downs, but overall both kids have been awesome sleepers. One thing I love is how they often fall asleep in the car. Kevin especially seems to love the movement and sound and will often fall asleep within 5 minutes of getting on the freeway. I have taken countless pictures of the kids sleeping in my back seat! This one to the left is from after a fun day at Grandma's. And this next one on the right is from this year's 4th of July, after a long day and then up late to watch fireworks. They were both in almost the exact same position!

I wish I had brought my camera yesterday on the boat, because Kevin actually fell asleep several times in the most odd positions, that you would never think are very comfortable!

Pictures!

2011-06-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, here we go. After some difficulty getting these uploaded to Flickr, I have some pics for your enjoyment!

First series here, is one night we were playing in the backyard and for some reason Kevin wanted the basketball up in the tree. So first Amanda tried to put it up there.

And when that didn't work, I had to do it.

Then, they had to try and climb up and get it!

The next pictures are Kevin in the trampoline. He likes to take some tennis balls in with him and throw them out to you. Then you have to throw them back in!

(pic with the ball on the way back in)

And here is Cali - the kitten we are babysitting. She LOVES Sophie's scratching post!

Here's Kevin trying to get her out of the little 'cabin' below

This kitten gets into everything, including my dishwasher!

And finally, here's a pic of Kevin trying on Daddy's shoes:

Something interesting

2011-06-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

I wish I had something totally interesting to tell you guys. Something earth shattering and oh-so-interesting. But I don't. I feel very uninspired lately. Most days I'm lucky to make it through the day before collapsing into bed, exhausted. I really don't know how people do it with more than 2 kids. I thought one was hard, but not too bad. But two kids has been one challenge after another.

Kevin is at the age where he is not quite able to get across what he wants to tell you, so he gets frustrated. And cries. And cries. Some nights I just want to throw something at the wall I get so tired of all the crying! And he is *not* into cuddles anymore. I miss my Kevin cuddles, he was definitely a cuddler when he was younger. Amanda never really grew out of the cuddles. She still wants to cuddle up to me all.the.time. Most of the time I'm happy to oblige, but some days I just don't have time!

We just went through transitioning Kevin to a "real" sippy cup. He still needs his milk warmed up, and he refused to drink milk for about 2 weeks, but I think finally he might be transitioned. He is the most stubborn kid when it comes to drinking his milk. I couldn't get him off a bottle for the longest time, and we finally just had to go cold turkey. Now comes the fun of trying to get him to take it cold...

Meanwhile, Amanda is trying to transition to no diapers at night. Wow, has this been a disaster. Everyone told me they "get" it after 2-3 nights. Not my stubborn child! We're going on a month now with about 3 nights total that she didn't wet the bed. And two nights ago, she wet it FOUR times!

We are also babysitting my best friend's kitten right now. I thought it would be fun, but really it is a lot of hard work. I forgot how much attention/play time a kitten needs. And poor Sophie does NOT like that another cat is in the house, so it is a job keeping them separated! Amanda has had some issues because being a kitten, she doesn't always know to retract her claws when playing and Amanda has gotten scratched a couple of times. Nothing to make her bleed, but Amanda is a very sensitive child and gets very upset easily. So we've had a few crying fits.

Speaking of Amanda, my little girl somehow has 2 cavities in her molars that need to be filled. She is *petrified* of the dentist so we had to get a referral to a pediatric dentist and they are going to have to put her to sleep in order to fill them. So that whole thing goes down July 6. What fun! I am really at a loss on how she got these cavities in the first place. I followed all the rules on limiting sweets, she never had a bottle in her crib, and has always brushed her teeth. Only thing(s) I can think I did wrong are that she was given juice (starting at about 18 months) and I used the "training" toothpaste too long, perhaps that doesn't clean teeth as much as fluoride toothpaste?

Anyway, that's a smidgen of what is going on at our house right now. I am still running, every other night. I'm up to 3 miles in about 38 minutes if I really push myself (with walking at the beginning & end). I have another 5k coming up in August, in which I'm hoping to do better than my previous 36 minute time.

When I get a chance I have some really cute pics of the kids playing in the backyard and the kitten we are babysitting. Until then!

Whirlwind

2011-06-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a whirlwind of activity around here lately. Our daycare decided to raise tuition by 10% beginning July 1, so we decided to look for a new place. We are moving August 1 after Kevin turns 2.

Kevin's 2nd birthday is coming up as well. I can't believe he's already almost two years old! Time flies! He is finally starting to say more words, though he doesn't really put them into sentences yet. He is definitely a slower learner than Amanda was. But I hear that is to be expected from boys and second children.

I leave you with a cute pic I took of Amanda back in May when we had a warm day and she was splashing around in the wading pool.

Tangerines & Ladybugs!

2011-05-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

I purchased a new zoom lens for my camera recently, and tried it out on the kids. The first was a nice sunny day we were hanging out in the backyard eating tangerines off our tree.

This was the next day, Amanda & I tried to garden, and got disracted by a ladybug!

Update of sorts

2011-05-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

You know you haven't posted in a while when you start to type the address in the address bar and it doesn't automatically fill in because the history has already deleted it. Oh well...

I have been utterly busy with so much going on. We just finished another fundraiser at the kids' daycare. As the President of the parents group, I basically helped run it with the director and we had a less than exciting turnout. It really boggles my mind how NOT involved parents are these days. It also boggles my mind how this has been going on for 2 years at the center, and they haven't raised tuition! Instead, I get lectured about how important fundraisers are. I know that, thankyouverymuch, that is why I am helping out!!!

I also started training for a 5k on May 21. So far, so good. I am using a "Couch to 5k" app on my phone which has been awesome. I train 3 days a week for about 30 minutes. Last night was the last interval training. Starting Thursday, I have full 25 minute runs! Ack! We shall see how I do with that, because last night running just 10 minutes was hard!

We missed signing up Amanda for the next swim lessons at the Y. We missed a week due to an Easter party at Church and when we finally found out what class to sign her up for, all the classes were full. So we are going to have to skip a session and decide if we want to sign her up for the next one, which would be right in the heart of summer.

I have also been researching schools for Amanda and am utterly overwhelmed with choices. What I really need to do is visit a bunch of schools and see which one I like best, because right now it looks like I have about 2 million choices and they all look good on paper!

We are getting the house tented for termites this weekend, which has been another source of stress for me. We decided to go camping, so I have been slowly been working on getting the motorhome ready for the big trip as well as preparing the house for tenting. Fun times!

Easter was fun. Amanda participated in 4 egg hunts. One at school, then a Church party, then on Easter morning and one more at my parents' house that night. Kevin on the other hand, wasn't much interested at all. He found one and just wanted to play "ball" with it. oh well, next year! I leave you with a picture of Kevin, after he found his one egg at the Church party.

Beach day!

2011-04-18T14:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we headed to the beach since we were having such good weather. Kevin (just like Amanda at that age) did NOT like the water so we hung out playing in the sand. I got so many comments from people walking by at how cute he was!

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Hectic

2011-04-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

I do have a bunch of pictures to post, but I haven't gotten around to uploading them. Plus, I really want to do like a collage-type post, and that requires time I don't have. One day.

Amanda is doing great in swim lessons. We go on Saturday mornings to the YMCA with her best friend Nick and they have a blast together.

I got a new zoom lens for my camera and have been perfecting my techniques. I am really starting to get the hang of this thing! Hopefully you will be able to see a difference in my pictures soon.

My birthday was at the beginnig of April. As a gift to myself, my best friend & I went to Glen Ivy Spa in Corona for a few days. 2 nights away from the kids with a good night sleep and relaxing day at the spa, and I was 100% renewed! It was lovely to get away for a bit. I love my kids and I love my family, but sometimes you just need some rejuvination time.

We love ducks!

2011-03-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, life is just really busy lately! These pictures are actually from Mike's birthday - March 4. The kids had the day off for a "staff development day" so I took them to have lunch with Mike at a place near his work called The Water Garden. It's this beautiful complex of buildings that surround an area of ponds with fountains and areas to sit and eat. There are always ducks there as well that the kids love to feed and watch.

Kevin chased the pigeons for quite a long time:

I had to really keep an eye on him so he didn't go in the water!

Amanda enjoyed watching the ducks too, she kept yelling at them to come to her!

We eventually wandered over to one of the buildings and Kevin tried to walk between two planters. He almost got stuck, but made it through.

Finally, before we left, he found a stick and played with it in the water, almost like fly fishing!

I have made fire!

2011-03-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

A couple weekends ago, it was pretty cold (for CA) here, so we actually cleaned up in front of the fireplace (a common place for large kids toys, like tents to reside) and made ourselves a fire to help stave off the chilliness in the house.

Here is the fam hanging out in front of the fireplace

And here are a couple of Kevin with the fire behind him. Can you see a difference in my photography yet? I took a one day class on photography where he supposedly taught us 3 "tricks" to using a DSLR. So far I haven't found it all that helpful, and I find myself tinkering with the camera too long to catch many good shots. *shrug* I may stick with the "auto" setting a while longer where the kids are concerned until I get the hang of this quicker.

Buddies

2011-02-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

Kevin loves to chase Sophie. He is just now learning how to be "gentle", so Sophie often runs away.

Even under the boat.

RIGHT after that picture was taken Kevin ran into the light that sticks out from the trailer of the boat. He cried and ran over to me, and then immediately went back and hit it a couple times, like he was trying to say "Dang light, don't stick out like that!" You can see the tears still on his face in this picture:

Kevin is still at the age where he doesn't "pose" for my pictures so I get some of the cutest pics of him.

The previous set of pictures was taken on Thursday when Kevin was home sick. After we picked up Amanda from Preschool, we went and picked up a chair for Kevin so both kids have their own chair to sit in.

This last pic is of both kids in their chairs.

My little helper

2011-02-18T22:22:00.000-08:00

Kevin loves to help. Here he is helping me change the belt in the vacuum cleaner.

Here he is helping me wash off my kitchen rug

And here he is just being Kevin

My very cat-like husband

2011-02-16T19:30:00.001-08:00

Mike is always telling me to take his picture with the cat, so here he is with Sophie

Bad week and it's only Tuesday

2011-02-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

I am not having a good week at all.

Started with Sunday waking up and not feeling great. But we had plans to go snowboarding, so off we went. Dropped the kids at Grandma & Grandpa’s and Mike & I went snowboarding for the day. When we got there, two people were selling their free lift passes for about half of what the list price for lift passes is. We’ve done this before with no problems, but guess what, one of them was already USED! So we got swindled :(

Then we stopped at Applebee’s for dinner on the way home (aka nice dinner out without the kids!) and our server took FORever, so we ended up getting back to pick up the kids extra late. AND when we picked them up, Kevin felt warm like had a fever (though he did not by the time we got home). Not good. He slept terribly that night, waking up several times and crying until someone came in to give him a pacifier.

Monday (Valentine’s Day) I went to the eye doctor for my one month appointment. My left eye is still blurry. Doc didn’t seem concerned about this at all! Brushed me off and told me to come back in 2 months. *sigh* Also had a dentist appt. to get my permanent crown put in. Discovered I am also due for a cleaning, but guess what, in all of the last 5 appointments I’ve had for this tooth, they failed to mention this, and I have to come back AGAIN to get my teeth cleaned! WTF, you couldn’t combine some of this??

That night sucked too. Kids were in bad moods when I picked them up. Mike got stuck in terrible traffic and made it home extra late. I let him eat dinner and gave Amanda a bath (he usually does it). When it was time to get out she usually pushes the drain, but not last night, she wanted me to do it. So I leaned in to push the button, and my BRAND NEW EXPENSIVE cell phone that was in my pocket dropped out and into the water!!!! UGH. I turned it off and put it in rice which is apparently supposed to help absorb the water, so hopefully it is still useable because I have no insurance. All the advice says to wait 3 days to even turn it on, so I am crossing my fingers

THEN, Kevin was up several times that night crying uncontrollably. After several attempts to put him back down I finally felt in his mouth and discovered not one but TWO molars coming in. One dose of Ibuprofen and orajel later, he finally gave me some sleep, but he was still up again early and I am exhausted today.

I am loathe to find out what the rest of the week has in store for me. Already today at work has not been going well. *double sigh*

Fun with the Fam

2011-02-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

First of all, here is a picture of Mike. This was after the Superbowl. He went to a party with some friends, had a few beers, then came home and passed out on the couch. What I find funny about this picture is his pose. It's like he's praying while he sleeps!!

These next two are of the kids in my truck. They asked to play in the bed of the truck, so I naturally obliged :)

Amanda is my little ham, she will pose for the camera whenever she can

And this shows you how smart Kevin is getting. I got my shipment of diapers from Amazon and had put the box just inside the front door. He very carefully dragged it over to the coffee table, laid it down and set it up for a seat for himself. Then he climbed on and sat! How innovative is that!

Once Amanda saw me take out the camera, she had to join Kevin too.

My (somewhat) disturbing relationship with food

2011-02-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

So as many have seen, I have struggled with my weight for the last several years. I "liked" weight watchers on facebook, and they often have some interesting thing posted about a new recipe or a story or something. Anyway, a few days ago they posted a link to this blog:
http://manmeetsscale.blogspot.com/2011/01/man-and-his-messed-up-relationship-with.html
and the follow up:
http://manmeetsscale.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-i-got-heavy-my-eyes-deceived-me.html
Seriously? It's like looking in a mirror!

If his story is really true (not exaggerated for media sake), it's a bit more extreme than mine. But similar storyline. And I will reiterate here first, I love my parents. They have certainly raised 3 brilliant daughters, and I hold nothing against them. But there were certain mistakes they made in the food department that really have affected the way I think about food!
1) Similar to his post, I rarely was allowed fast food growing up. We ate out more than 5-10 times a year, but not by much. Now? I eat out in a heartbeat whenever I can!
2) Desserts abounded in our house. Both my parents had a sweet tooth, so there was always ice cream or candy lying around. We just weren't allowed to have it. I think after I turned 15 and started complaining, then we got a dessert once a week after dinner. I actually got caught when I was around 12 years old with a cup of raw sugar in my nightstand. RAW sugar people. I was so deprived of it, I had to eat plain sugar to satiate my craving!
3) My lunch was similar to his. A plain sandwich on day-old bread my mom bought in the reduced price aisle, a peice of fruit and usually some sort of extra, like yogurt raisins or cheese & crackers. I never had any treats I could trade. I also always had juicy-juice or Motts 100% juice, not the favored Capri Sun that everyone "cool" had. The difference is I got school lunch 2-3 times a week. When I got to high school you were actually trusted with the money to spend in the cafeteria, and you could buy whatever you wanted. I got $1.50 and I would spend $0.75 on a HUGE chocolate chip cookie and $0.75 on a soda. Oh I loved those days I got away with that!
4) We were encouraged to clear our plates & not waste food. Now that I have kids, I can see why - it's hard to get a toddler to eat! BUT, that led to the need to see my plate empty, and when you eat at places like Claim Jumper, you often end up overeating unnecessarily! It has taken a lot of internal will to change the way I think about food in this way. Similarly, when we eat at home my husband doesn't like to eat leftovers so I find myself trying to finish things the night I make them lest they go to waste.
5) Similarly to him, I put on more than the "freshman 10". I would say I gained around 30-40 pounds my first year. Buffets 3x a day, with huge dessert carts, and sugary cereals I was previously not allowed to have!
6) He doesn't mention soda. Oh the soda! Growing up, we got one soda a day only when we were on vacation. So the other 357 days/year I spent glorifying and drooling over the soda I would one day have. When I got old enough to babysit and have my own money, on our vacations (we drove in our motorhome 99% of the time on our vacations) my sisters & I would buy the enormous BIG GULP when we stopped for gas. Good lord, looking back, that had to be 3 x the size of our stomachs! But it was more than just the one 12 oz. can of soda! We wouldn't even put any ice in the cup, lest we lose room for that soda. Didn't matter if we stopped for gas at 9am! And we spent the rest of the day taking dainty little sips of that soda to make it last as long as we could.

Anyway, let me reiterate my parents were great parents and they have raised three successful, confident daughters. I don't think any parent is perfect and there's going to be something you inflict on your kids that you don't realize with affect them as much as it does. I am probably inflicting terrible things on my kids right now and I don't even know it!

Cutest face ever

2011-01-27T09:17:00.001-08:00

I took this pic a couple weeks ago when we walked to the bakery to order Amanda's b-day cake. Kevin got an Elmo cookie that he devoured.

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My turn to whine

2011-01-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I shoulder all the whining in my house. Amanda whines about almost everything, from food, to toys, to not getting her way. I'm pretty sure that's typical for a 4 year old. Mike whines about a lot too. His arms hurt, his back hurts, this isn't what he wants for dinner... Kevin, well, he can't talk yet, but he sure finds ways to get upset at everything too.

So now it's my turn to whine.
I had LASIK surgery on January 6. In the months leading up to it, I was SO excited. I was going to get to ditch my contacts/glasses for good (which I've been wearing since I was 9!)! Well, we are now 3 weeks out, and my left eye is still blurry. It's progressively getting better, and the doc says it's due to dryness that should clear up, but it is still frustrating. I paid a lot of money to see clearly, and everyone assured me it was worth it, but now I'm starting to doubt that.

I also had a root canal on Monday. Yes, my first root canal. I'm not even sure I really needed it. I had no pain, but a filling fell out and the dentist claimed he couldn't put a new one in without hitting the nerve and getting it infected. So off I went to the root canal specialist. In general it's comparable to getting a filling. They numbed me up and I felt nothing during the procedure. Afterwards my jaw has been sore for 3 days now, but the tooth itself isn't painful at all. Just frustrating not to be able to open my jaw and eat big burgers and sandwiches!

And I have been sleeping terribly lately as well. Kevin has started waking up 2-3 times a night and crying until someone comes in and helps him find a pacifier. I want to ditch the pacifier (he'll be 18 months this week!), but he seems so much more dependent on it than Amanda was, so I am hesitating to do it. He moves up to the Infant III class next week and I think they don't allow pacifiers there (they sleep on mats, instead of in cribs), so hopefully that will help with the transition and we can ditch them in the next month or so.

On the plus side, as you can see from my below post, I got a new phone! A Droid. So much fun! It's amazing how much these things can do. I have spent countless hours downloading apps and playing with everything I can get my hands on. Tons different from my old phone which had the slowest mobile web known to man.

I also got the 'ok' from Mike to get a new zoom lens for my camera. I am actually thinking of waiting for a bit though. I am feeling lately like my photos just aren't great, and like 1 out of every 50 is really what I want it to be. So I'm thinking I might take a photography class first and then invest in some more lenses once I'm more comfortable using my camera the way I want to. The problem is finding one...

testing

2011-01-25T13:18:00.001-08:00

Trying a post from my phone!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

Isn't it Ironic

2011-01-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

So ever since the middle of December or so it has been uncharacteristically chilly here in LA. I was wearing sweaters to work that I hadn't brought out in years. And finding out I didn't have enough to wear one each day of the week. Then I got a catalog that Lands End was having a big sale (with free shipping) and I jumped on the band wagon and decided to get a few more sweaters for my collection. I also ordered some new snow boots since my old ones wore out last year. Mike got a gift certificate to Mountain High for Christmas and we were planning to use it.

I ordered them a little over a week ago. Then late last week it started to warm up. And this weekend, it got even warmer. I took the kids to the zoo on Monday and it was 89 degrees! EIGHTY NINE DEGREES PEOPLE! In the middle of winter!

And guess what decided to show up. That's right, my sweaters. On Monday. When it was 89 degrees.

How's that for irony?

Toys, toys and more toys!

2011-01-12T07:58:00.000-08:00

So one of the ~~curses~~ delights of having a large family is that the kids get a lot of presents for all the holidays. Mike & I each have 2 sisters, 3 of which are married, plus both sets of grandparents and my maternal grandparents (the kids' great grandparents) are still alive as well. So you can imagine Christmas is just full of presents galore.

Here is Kevin playing with his MegaBloks table from Santa:

Amanda received WAY too much little stuff for her new kitchen, so we exchanged one of them at Toys R Us and let her pick something out. She picked out a play-doh ice cream making set.

Kevin doesn't get to play with play-doh yet because he eats it, so he watched from below the table.

Then I took him outside for some play time with his bubble machine :)

Illinois Pictures

2011-01-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

I posted most of our pictures on facebook, but here are some of my favorites from our Illinois trip.

We're back!

2011-01-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well, we survived another trip to Illinois for Christmas. This year there was already snow on the ground when we arrived! I have a ton of pictures, but haven't had time to upload any yet.

Kevin ended up getting very sick. He came down with a cough the week we were leaving, and it elevated to a low-grade fever by Wednesday (we kept him home from daycare). It broke some time Wed. night, and we flew on Thursday. He was the picture of excellence on the plane. Slept through most of it, played nicely with his sister. But didn't sleep a wink that night. It was like having a newborn again! He cried every 1/2 to one hour, and neither of us got any sleep. So Friday (Christmas Eve) I ended up at Urgent Care with him where they told me it was a good thing we brought him in. He was apparently struggling to breathe, and had a double ear infection. So he was on a nebulizer the rest of the time, and taking antibiotics and a steroid. I might have gotten a picture of him with the nebulizer, except he would SCREAM through the entire treatment, and I ended up holding his arms down and preventing him from moving. Fun times!

The rest of the time we played out in the snow, went sledding, went bowling (with SIX kids under 6!), and went to BounceTown. The evenings, Grandma Mimi & Grandpa Mark very very nicely offered to babysit so Mike & I got out with some of our friends as well. All in all, it was a good trip, and so great to see our family & friends that we haven't seen in so long!

Gifts, gifts & more gifts

2010-12-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

So as many of you know, Mike & I attend Church. We go as often as we can, which means most Sunday's with the occasional week off to do something else. I won't lie, some weeks it is especially boring. But we chose this Church (which is like a15 minute drive north of us) because the pastor(s) tend to have more interesting sermons, and the whole Church in general is pretty family-oriented. The Mom's group I attend is also Church-based and I enjoy going to that.

Anyway, every once in a while the sermon hits a chord with me. This Sunday (19th) would be one of them (and incidentally, you can listen to it here once it is up!). The pastor spoke about gift giving at Christmas-time. He started out by recounting an npr story about the perceived worth of a gift vs. what was actually paid for it. His example was some "all-natural" chapstick his mom insists on buying for him every year. It probably costs her $7 but he likes the regular $0.75 chapstick you can buy at the market better, so the "lost cost" of that chapstick is $6.25. If you add this up over every gift given over the Christmas season, we could solve the country's budget crisis!

So then he suggested that why do we feel the need to spend more money? If you look at the life of Jesus, he never gave "things", he always gave his time and talents instead. Why don't we do the same? Give a "coupon" to your spouse offering to watch the kids while they go out and do something for themselves. Give a harried couple an overnight without their kids to give them a chance to reboot and recenter themselves. Offer a picnic in the local park with your neighbor to get to know them better. The best thing you can give people is your time!

So I'm sitting there nodding and thinking these are great ideas! And I'm coming up with some of my own, when I suddenly realize... it's the WEEKEND BEFORE Christmas, and I have all my shopping done already! ARGH. This is something I could have used YESTERDAY!

What's been going on at our house.

2010-12-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Kevin has taken a liking to bubbles similarly to Amanda. Here he is watching intently as the bubbles come out of our bath bubble machine. If you look closely, he's got a bubble stuck to his head and he doesn't even know it!

Having two kids as opposed to the one has had it's share of challenges. Now that Kevin is getting older, he wants to do EVERYthing Amanda does. So we both find ourselves fighting off kids who want all the attention on themselves. This first picture is one night Mike got out the massager to help his sore arms. Both kids wanted to play with it too!

Kevin likes the massager too, it seems to help his sore gums when he's teething

And here are some pics from over the weekend. I made caramel brownies to bring to a christmas party. Just getting stuff out of the cupboard was a challenge!

Amanda helped me make the brownies. She helped unwrap all the caramels, and had so much fun doing it!

And enjoying a brownie straight out of the oven!

Kevin's First Haircut!

2010-12-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

So today was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to Kevin's hair. I took the kids to Target and the checker kept saying "she's so cute" about Kevin. Amanda also needed a haircut, so I called and made an appointment immediately.

Before, these are from Thursday, Kevin wanted to play in the sink. They show you how long his hair was getting.

And here he is in the "chair" getting ready to get his hair cut.

After that it was down hill. He cried and tried to cling to me, so we ended up in a regular chair with him on my lap. Gladys did a wonderful job working with a squirmy toddler though, and his hair came out very cute :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2010-12-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

Anyone else have a scrooge of a husband?
I love holidays. Not only do you get a day off from work, but you get to decorate the house! Christmas is definitely one of my favorite holidays because of this.
And every year I fight my dear, sweet, loving husband because he refuses to help.

I always like to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. It's officially "Christmas season" and we usually have nothing going on. Well this year, we were busy, but we had Saturday afternoon free, so I took out all the boxes and began to decorate. Amanda wanted to help, and I had to call in about 600 favors to get Mike to take a picture of us, so here you go.

I am really not too fond of the fake tree. My family always gets a real tree, which is steeped in family tradition. Always the first week fo December, we go with two other families and traipse out to the "u-cut" Christmas tree farm (which is getting harder to find in the middle of Los Angeles now!) where we spend 2 hours finding the perfect Christmas tree - not too tall, but wide and full, and no holes. And it has to smell deeeeee-liciously of pine. Then we all traipse home and have dinner together and recount our search for the perfect Christmas tree (expect pictures after this weekend!)

Mike on the other hand, always had a fakey-Christmas tree in their house. Our compromise is that years we fly to Illinois for Christmas, we put the fake tree up, and the years we stay home we get a real tree. That way we're both happy, right?

Anyways, I discovered over the past several years that Mike has his way of making the fakey look "perfect". So after I set it up and put the lights on, I let him go to town.

Here he is "teaching" Amanda how to spread the branches to give the appearance of the tree looking full.

And I spent the next hour putting ornaments high on the tree so that the cat and the baby can't get them and break them. Our tree now has the upper half looking awesome, and the bottom half looking bare. I am guessing it will be like that for several more years until the cat stops caring and the kids are old enough to know better.

To be a kid again...

2010-11-29T08:19:00.000-08:00

Mike went on a trip to Vegas in October. While he was there he played at an arcade-type place (kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese) where the games spit out tickets. One of the things he got with the tickets was something called "B'Loonie". You blow into a tube connected to a tube of liquid latex basically, and you end up with "balloons". But the balloons are sticky, so what they ended up doing was sticking them to whatever was around and going on to the next one. Thus, I ended up with "baloons" growing out of my trash can one afternoon.

The next couple of pictures is pretty funny and needs a little explanation. So I was undressing Amanda one evening for her bath (while Mike was in Vegas) and my hand slipped before I got her shirt all the way up over her head. It was still covering up one of her eyes, so I laughed and said something about her being a pirate. Amanda proceeded to say "argh matey" which made me laugh even harder. So I left her shirt partway on and tied the sleeves behind like a bandana and we pranced through the house saying "Argh matey!"

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I am trying to get Kevin undressed for his bath. He is a slippery one who often runs away, which he proceeded to do before I could get his shirt all the way off.

Well, now Amanda wants in on the fun too, so she insisted I do the same to her shirt! Then both kids ran around the house acting like pirates.

I love the Internet

2010-11-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

I remember growing up my mom had a special coupon drawer. Yes, a full drawer dedicated to just coupons. She poured through the Sunday newspaper and clipped them, and whenever they came in the mail, she would throw them in her drawer. Then when it was time to go shopping, she'd take a good 15 minutesto go through her coupons and make sure she wasn't missing anything.
Compare this to today. There are websites like couponclipper.com where you just go, print what you need for that shopping trip, and wallah, instant savings!

People used to buy Christmas gifts for family, then either package & ship them themselves, or carry them in their bags to their destination. Today, shipping is free on most sites (especially around the holidays), and often cheaper than buying in a brick-and-mortar store.
I just purchased all the gifts for my neices and nephews for Christmas. Target.com was having a 4-day sale w/free shipping, and through my work I got an extra $5 off. I sent them all directly to Illinois where they will be waiting when we arrive on the 23rd of Dec. Easy peasy! I love that. No gas used, less time to find things, cheaper than doing it myself, and sooooooooo much easier.

Now comes the hard part. Amanda is at an age where she understands Santa. We're going to be in Illinois for Christmas this year. Do I buy "Santa" gifts for her and ship them out there for her to find Christmas morning? Then try and figure out how to get them home. Or tell her that Santa still comes to our house in CA and she will get them when we get home? I'm thinking a little of both. Maybe some small gifts that can be carried she will get in Illinois, and anything big will be waiting for her at home. Either way, should be an interesting holiday...

15 months

2010-11-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, was able to extract and upload to blogger this picture. Tell me if that is not the cutest face you've ever seen?

I think Kevin is teething. He puts something in his mouth almost constantly. He currently has his two bottom teeth, and it looks like the top two are beginning to cut through. Only took 15 months, but he's finally getting his teeth!

It's amazing how different boys & girls are. Kevin *loves* to make as much noise as he can. He yells, screams, hits two things together, whatever he can to make some noise. Amanda on the other hand, scared of anything that is even slightly loud.

Here are a couple pics from when he discovered he could make a lot of noise hitting the stove with a wooden spoon!

By the way, notice his outfit? That would be what daycare put him in when he soiled his regular clothes. They claimed it was the only thing the could find, but I checked and he had 3 perfectly good outfits there, that were not swim trunks. Oh well, we had a good laugh out of it!

Picture Problems

2010-11-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

My pictures don't seem to work from work anymore. I can't extract the link to the picture on flickr. I have a bunch of pictures to post too, and I can't get them over here! Work is pretty much the only time I can sneak a minute to post on this blog. Home is where the chaos starts!

This last weekend we took the kids and my sister Erin's kids to a local park and had "professional" photos taken to be used as Christmas presents. It was supposed to be of just the kids, but she ended up taking pictures of each of us with the kids too. I'm still waiting for the link to see the results. I wasn't blown away by her technique, and after viewing a friends' session, I'm not expecting anything spectacular. I'm beginning to think I'm jaded. Maybe it's the new camera, but I feel like I have very rarely gotten the caliber of picture that I want. Amanda's 6 month pictures and Kevin's 1 year pictures are the exception. I really liked those pictures. But other than that, I would call everything else "blah". What I really really wish is that I had gotten the name of the photographer who did Amanda's 6 month pictures at JCPenney and then possibly hired her outside of there. Because she had some really amazing ideas and beautiful shots. But alas, it's been 3 years and I have no way of finding out who that was at this point!

Another of my pet peeves - the prices photographers charge! I completely understand a price for their time. Say $200/hour to have them take your picture. You are paying them for their time, just like I am paid for my time at work. However, what I don't understand is ALSO paying an arm and a leg for the photograph. Ok, I am not paid ALSO per spreadsheet that I prepare at work. So the whole "copyright infringement" thing is just assinine in my opinion. If I pay you for your time, I shouldn't also have to pay $500 for a picture that took you a fraction of a second to push the button on the camera for. If I then can't pay for the photograph, I just paid $200 for nothing! Ridiculous.

Home is where the heart is.

2010-11-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

I really hate "wordless wednesday", but these really don't need much of an explanation.

Sophie's favorite spot at night:

Bedtime!

This is Halloween!

2010-11-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Here are a few collages of some Halloween photos.
The two in this of Amanda are from Saturday at our Church Halloween party. The other is of Kevin getting into the candy bowl on Halloween night!

This one is of Halloween night, getting ready to go out, and of Kevin in the stroller (he made it one house and was done)

This is a pic of Amanda's pumpkin (she drew it herself, and then we cut it out), and of trick-or-treating. Amanda did amazingly well and went out for more than an hour!

Caught in between

2010-11-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

I am non-confrontational.

There. I said it.

I hate confrontation. Despise it even. My mind goes blank, my palms get sweaty, and I forget everything I want to bring to the table. This is why I like e-mail so much. I can think about what I want to say, compose it the way I want to say it, re-read, re-write and finally send. Then it's just up to the e-mail gods that the person on the other end reads it the way I intended it to be! But that's a story for another day...

So...
Today I start off the day like any normal day. And at some point I get a phone call asking me to help with what could potentially become a lawsuit against the company I work for. Great. And guess what, I'm the one who knows & understands this stuff more than anyone! So far, all correspondence has been by snail-mail (his choice) or e-mail (my choice). But now they want to have a phone call! Ack! Panic time!

Then...
I get copied on a bunch of e-mails about a conflict that really doesn't even include me, but I got pulled in due to being the head of the parents group at our daycare. Great. I don't really know if I should even respond, but I feel bad for these people all the same. I just don't want to be the next head on the chopping block!

So today I feel stuck in the middle. I am the cream of the oreo, the marshmallow in the s'more. Lovely.

Being Artistic

2010-10-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

My parents have a great yard for nature photos. Here's a few that I think turned out pretty good!

Fun at Grandma's!

2010-10-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Mike wasn't feeling well, so I took the kids and headed up to my parents to give him some time to sleep. While we were there, they needed to do some yard work and Amanda was more than happy to help!
Helping Grandma take the pool cover off:

Getting the broom to sweep up the pine needles around the pool area:

Helping Grandma sweep up pine needles

And dumping them in the trash can

Posing with the broom:

Then it was time to clean the pool! First the spa

Then the pool. But first, a pose for Mommy!

She did it all on her own (one pine needle at a time)

Then Kevin got up from his nap

When we got home, Daddy showed Amanda how to do a somersault on the trampoline!

All in all an exciting day :)

Catching up!

2010-10-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

Amanda LOVES bubbles, and the bath bubble machine that she has makes tons & tons of them. Here she is playing with the mountain of bubbles she got.

Pic of her after I cut her bangs (which were getting so totally long)

Preview for Halloween. Trying on her Cinderella outfit:

Kevin playing with a tennis ball tube

And one of the funniest pics I've taken. I was playing with the monochrome setting and Kevin came right up to the camera lens!

LOVING my new camera

2010-10-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

I decided on the Canon Rebel T1i. It's a DSLR, 15 megapixel camera, and so far I am loving it. I can't believe the quality of pictures it takes. And I've been reading the manual and perfecting my technique. Here's some of my favorite pics I took of Kevin at Lake Nacimiento this weekend.

More to come. I'm also learning how to use our new Adobe Photoshop program to edit images. Fun stuff!

By the way, I get SUPER mom of the year award. Look closely at the pictures (the top two I think show it best), and you'll see a fairly large scrape on Kevin's forehead and nose. Yeah. That's because as I was packing up for the weekend and going in and out of the front door, Kevin climbed out. And fell. Down 2 steps on our front porch. Face first. Again. Yeah... this kid has no fear.

In memorium...

2010-10-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well, apparently that last post is the last pictures my camera will ever take. It died on me this weekend. Now I have to figure out what to buy next. I want a DSLR (I take enough pictures!), but Mike thinks I won't want to lug it around everywhere. So what to do?

Seeing things from a new perspective

2010-10-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

They say kids have a unique perspective on things, and one way of seeing it is to give them a camera. Well, normally Amanda puts her finger in front of the lens 90% of the time and all I get are pictures of her finger! But a few weeks ago, she took my camera and started taking pictures while in the car on the way home from the market. And what she captured is absolutely hilarious! What's even funnier is she seems to have captured a picture with every sentence she said that day, and seeing the pictures makes me remember the entire diatribe (and you'll also get a feeling for what I put up with in the car every day)! So here you go - for your viewing pleasure...

Picture from the backseat of my truck:
"Mom, can I take pictures?"

"Kevin's tired mom"

"Mom, when I get bigger, I'm going to go there"

"Mom, why is my sweater on top of the seat?"

"Smile Mommy!!!!"

"Mom, Kevin's trying to grab the camera"

"Mom, there's a car next to us. I'm going to take a picture of it"

"Mom, Kevin's still trying to grab the camera away from me!"

"Mom, is that Nick's house?"

"Mom, my shoes are coming off. I'm going to take a picture"

(We then got home and I unloaded groceries to the front porch. I told her she could wait on the porch while I parked the car, or come with me. She decided to wait on the porch)
"Bye Mommy!! See you later!"

Here is her view from the front porch:

(Once the truck was parked, she came running out to meet me)

"Mom, Kevin is leaving"

"Mom, I'm going to take a picture of you"

And there you have it. About 20 minutes out of the life of a 3 1/2 year old :)

Feelin' HOT HOT HOT!

2010-09-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

So here in LA, we haven't had much of a 'summer'. In fact, I bought Kevin a bunch of 12 month shorts outfits thinking I would need them, and half of them sit unused in his drawers still! Well, all of a sudden this week (at the end of September!) the weather decided to wake up and pour on the heat. And pour on it did, we hit record highs on Monday, including 113 degrees in downtown LA!

So on Sunday I decided to finally set up the bouncer with the water tube it comes with, thus making it a water slide!

I apologize in advance, I was going to make a smaller collage out of these, but it seems Mike hasn't installed Photoshop on my new laptop yet, so I can't do it. So here are a bunch of pictures of the kids splashing and sliding around in the bouncer-ball-pit-turned-water-slide.

Amanda taking the plunge:

Kevin joined her once he woke up from his nap:

He was a little hesitant at first, and mostly watched Amanda playing in the water, but eventually he started laughing and getting into it:

At the top of the slide

Bullet Points

2010-09-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

I've had a few posts I've been thinking about, but each seems to not be long enough for it's own post, so I'm just going to do a random bullet point-like entry of stuff.

Addiction - I have never thought of myself as having an addictive personality. However, I heard on the radio the other day about someone with a 'food addiction', and it sounded JUST like me. I am *so* addicted to sweets/sugar, it's not even funny. I can't have just one, I need to eat a ton, and even when my belly is full I want to eat more! So now can I say I have a sickness and get disability pay?
'The Grace of Silence' - I heard an interview with Michele Norris about this memoir she wrote (I think it's released this week) and it really made me think. They talked about a particular experience that her dad had in his younger days that he chose not to tell his daughter about. And she was saying how her life would have probably taken a completely different path had he decided to tell her instead. It makes me wonder since my parents are still alive, if there is anything like this in their lives that they have chosen not to tell my sisters & I about. And also, is there anything like this in my life I would never tell my kids about? And what if I did tell them and the path it put them on was not what I would have liked? Weird thought, huh?
Working mom vs. Stay-at-home mom - For me, this wasn't a choice. We live in an expensive city and I need to work if we are going to be able to afford a house and luxuries. But it amazes me how if I mention how hard it is to work AND raise two young kids, everyone jumps all over me and says "then just stay home!" Really? Is that supposed to be easier? Because I don't think so. Work is almost my repreive. I get to talk to adults. I get to eat lunch at my leisure. I get to write in this blog! Yet the 'accepted' norm is still for moms to stay home with the kids. I think we are stuck in the in-between generation where it's still not 100% accepted for moms to work full time. And sometimes it sucks when I know it's necessary for me to do it, but by doing so I'm not making everyone happy.

Best Bath Toy EVER!

2010-09-16T20:36:00.001-07:00

So I get Parent's magazine somehow (I think I was signed up when I ordered something on-line), and in the October issue was an ad for a bath pump by YooKidoo:

I'm thinking wow, that is a cool toy! So I go to order some stuff on Amazon and thought about that toy and decided I would like to order it. I find it, and below it Amazon suggested another toy, a fountain version!

OMG! OMG! This is perfect! Both kids like to play with the faucet, so instead of running water their entire bath, I can turn this on! Awesome, so I ordered it. And it came just a few days ago.

Kevin - LOVED IT!

Amanda - LOVED IT!!

Only problem - getting them OUT of the bathtub!

Why I hate the dealer

2010-09-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've had to enter the GM dealer exactly 3 times now.

One - to buy my truck.
Two - to get a free replacement part that was recalled on the tailgate
Three - Today. I had to get a new driver's side lock & handle

All three times have been nightmares.
Well, the first one wasn't too bad because I left with my truck!

The second, I made an appointment at a dealer by our house. It's across the street from a mall. I go to drop it off, and can't find the person I made the appointment with. Finally they track him down, and he of course tries to sell me on a bunch of other things. I say no and give him my cell phone number and tell him I'll be across the street at the mall, call me when it's done. This is at 4pm in the evening. The garage is only open until 6. I head to the mall, and around 5:30 I head back (no phone call). I actually trip somehow on my way back and my ankle is in serious pain, but I make it and look for my "specialist" who is (yet again) not in his office.
I wait another hour in the waiting room with no phone call, no page, no nothing. Finally I walk up to the window and ask the receptionist about my car. She looks at me puzzled and asks me who my specialist is. I tell her, and she looks at me even more surprised and says "He went home hours ago!"
Great. Ahem.
So she goes to get someone else to help me. A half hour later, I finally get called over and sign some paperwork. She tells me to go wait out front and they will bring me my car. So I go wait. And wait. And wait.
Finally after a long time, someone approaches me and asks which is my car again? So I tell him, he looks at my receipt and disappears again. He comes back second time (still no car!) and this time takes my receipt from me.
FINALLY comes back with my truck and says he's sorry, it was at the very back of the lot. Ya, thanks.
So, 8:30 at night I finally leave.

Fast forward 4 years. My truck looks like someone tried to break in. The lock on the driver's door is now INSIDE the door, preventing my window from rolling down. I'm told by several mechanics that it's only something the dealer can fix. So, I make an appointment on Monday with, we'll call him "R". Why they insist on assigning you a "specialist" is beyond me. This time I had to go to a different dealer farther away because the one by the mall is now closed.
I pull in this morning, and eventually find him. He doesn't even remember why I made the appointment! He tells me they will have an estimate for me fairly quickly, but it shouldn't be more than an hour. I tell him I will be in the waiting lounge, and he says no problem, he'll come get me.
2 hours later. I'm still sitting there. So I go find "R" again (not an easy feat) and ask for an update. He shuffles through some papers, types something into the computer, humms and hahs, and tells me he'll go find out. Comes back to tell me not only does the lock need replacing, but the handle does as well.
Lovely.
"How long is this going to take" (read: it's already been 2 hours, what have you people been doing?)
"Well, since he needs to take apart the whole door, it'll probably be at least an hour & a half, maybe two hours" (read: We got her by the balls, let's see how much longer we can keep her!)
*sigh* "Ok, you know where to find me"
"Oh, and by the way, we recommend about another $1,000 in services to your truck. Do you want to do them now?"
"Um, no thank you. [you blood sucking, money-hungry, POS]"

Meanwhile, people have come and gone in the time I've been waiting there! What kind of service is this!

So, I go back to the waiting room, FINISH the book I started that morning, finish the magazine I brought, watch some soap opera, and finally it's lunch time and Mike picks me up to go get some lunch.

FINALLY, 5 hours after I dropped the car off, he calls my cell phone while I'm at lunch to tell me it's done.

And yet again, they "lost" my car and I had to wait nearly a half hour to get it.

My whole day was wasted. Sitting around waiting for a stupid lock and handle to be replaced.

Stupid dealer. Stupid people trying to break in my car.

Oh, and "R" told me I was "lucky" because if the lock thing doesn't work, usually they break your window to break in to the car. He says someone must have scared them off.

Ya, I'm real lucky I guess.

Growing up fast!

2010-09-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Kevin is growing up way too fast. I can't believe the big strides he's made in the last couple of weeks. He is walking all over the place now, getting more and more confident. He, like Amanda, likes to "help" me sweep the floor:

And taste Daddy's beer:

But he's still small enough to stand under the kitchen table!

Something about Kevin

2010-09-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Kevin LOVES the bath. So much so that as I'm getting it ready, he will push his way between my legs and try to climb in on his own. Here's a shot of him peeking through my legs, trying to get in.

And now that he's walking, he will often run away from me if I turn my back for a second.

I think Kevin associates the boppy with getting milk because he will purposely lay it down on the ground and lay himself down in it.

He has also discovered "driving" and loves it just as much as Amanda does.

At the park this weekend, instead of playing on the equipment, he preferred to chase the birds

Family shot!

And McD's afterwards

Little Blonde Mop

2010-09-02T18:24:00.001-07:00

So being that I had a girl first, and her hair took FORever to grow long enough to cut, we didn't get Amanda's hair cut for the first time until she was nearly 2 1/2. Meanwhile, I'd see pictures of little baby boys with this long shaggy hair and I'd think "Why don't they just get that cut!" I vowed if I ever had a boy, I would cut his hair short and early on.

So now Kevin was born with a LOT of hair. And it has continued to grow. And I keep saying to myself I should get it cut soon.

But those curls are just so damn cute! I can't bring myself to do it!

Future Chef?

2010-08-31T19:44:00.001-07:00

It amazes me on a daily basis how much Kevin likes food. He has 1/2 of one tooth and he will still eat a dinner the same size that Amanda does with no problem. When he likes something he puts one arm up in the air with a peice of the food in his hand and babbles.

It is absolutely hilarious to watch. The above picture, he was loving blueberries!

So tonight I was making pasta (a family favorite) and I had set up a step stool so I could get some spices out of a high cupboard. When I turned around, Kevin had started to climb up! So I spotted him and waited to see what would happen.

He proceeded to pick up the spoon and imitate me stirring the pot!

That would be me trying to hold him and prevent him from touching the hot stove, while still trying to take a picture (Mike wasn't home yet)

Perhaps he is destined to be a chef? Only time will tell...

Saturday morning

2010-08-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I was putting away laundry in Kevin's room when both kids wandered in. Amanda started playing with a monster she got years ago that sings (really loud). She shook her head in tune to the music, and before we knew it, we all were doing it. Here is me, Amanda & Kevin "dancing" to the music.

Weekend fun

2010-08-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

I finally got to visit my 2-week-old neice on Saturday.

Me holding my neice Makenzie:

In a milk-induced coma on her Mommy:

Meanwhile the older kids played with balloons. Check out this shot of Amanda. I don't even know how it made Uncle Jason look like a ghost.

Kevin LOVES balloons:

Loving older brother Andrew holding his sister:

And this was Sunday, I walked in to find Amanda helping Kevin to walk. She was also praising him and telling him "Yay Kev-O!"

Going Bananas

2010-08-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

We have a banana plant in our backyard that was planted by the previous occupants. I can't stand the thing. It needs tons of water, and it is constantly starting up new shoots and taking over more of my backyard. But one thing it does is actually produce bananas. They are small, and kind of seedy, but they are bananas.

Mike just picked like two huge bunches of bananas that were all starting to ripen at the same time. We were all getting sick of eating bananas, so I decided to make a banana creme pie. The recipe I used called for whipped topping to be spread over the top, and that had to be defrosted in the fridge for 4 hours. So after dinner, when it had finally been 4 hours, I go to spread it. It was about Kevin's bedtime, so he was being fussy and wanted to be held. I picked him up, frosted the cake one handed, and then Kevin proceeded to grab the spatula from me and lick it clean.

He was loving the stuff!

Got it all over his face

But at least the pie was good :)

Oh, Snap!

2010-08-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Amanda is suddenly interested in learning how to snap. She concentrates really hard at putting her fingers together,

"Is this how you do it Mommy?"

Then she squeezes hard and waits for the snap...

...which never comes.

One day she will get it and then I will probably hear snapping all the time. But for the moment it's fun to help her learn.

Kevin's 1st birthday

2010-08-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Finally have some time to post some pics of Kevin's 1st birthday party! Kevin turned 1 on the 27th of July, but we had his party on Saturday the 24th so Aunt Erin could make it, since she was due with Cousin Makenzie at the beginning of August.

Back in 2008, since Amanda's 1st birthday party was just a few weeks after the holidays, I had decided to keep it small. Only invited family and close family friends. And I got a lot of slack from people, saying they wanted to be invited! So I decided to do it up big for Kevin - I invited everyone and planned a whole Hawaiian theme, a pool and water play for the kids...

and no one could come. Apparently July is a busy month for people! So we ended up with a small party again. Oh well, so be it.

Before. Amanda wanted to be in the pictures with Kevin.

Great action shot of Amanda on the bouncer, with cousin Andrew in the background.

The day was kind of coolish, so there wasn't much waterplay, but Amanda went swimming anyway.

The food table. I still had hawaiian food, which was delish!

Dessert was Sprinkles cupcakes. I was sick the week before and just couldn't muster up the energy to make them myself.

Here's Kevin testing out his cupcake (black & white, which was just a chocolate cupcake with white frosting)

And after he got a taste

Telling cousin Andrew all about it!

I let Kevin play in the water table for a bit too

Opening presents:

Playing with friend Kylie (just a few months younger than him)

And then he figured out how to climb under the chair!

All in all it was a good day, and Kevin got lots of attention and some great gifts!

Live Well by Eating Well apparently

2010-08-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long day for me. I was informed at about 11am that my sister was in labor at the hospital with her second child (a girl). I left work at noon and headed up to be there with the family for her. I got there as she was getting her epidural, so we went down to the cafeteria for some lunch.

The Panorama City hospital is a remodeled, updated one owned by Kaiser Permanente (http://www.kp.org/). Which, if you've ever seen or heard their commercials, has a tagline of "Live Well". They have little incentives, like on-line programs for managing your health and classes at their locations to help live a healthy lifestyle.

So I go into the cafeteria to get food for lunch and decide to get something from the salad bar. I make a salad and then get some fresh fruit, followed by a drink. I notice they have caffeine free Diet Coke - my favorite! I'm standing in line and the guys behind me start making comments like "I can't believe they don't carry regular Coke", "How can they only have FAT FREE Oreos?". I start looking around and notice it's true. They only have diet and "zero" sodas. Only fat free desserts. Even the chips are healthy - Sun Chips, Baked Chips and Whole Grain crackers. I get back to the table we're at and my family is complaining about the fries. Know why? They are BAKED, not fried!

I was very impressed with Kaiser's ability to follow through with their "live well" theme. I used to candy stripe at the Encino-Tarzana hospital and I remember their cafeteria having the greasiest, fried, cafeteria-like food. I LOVED it as a kid, but was it really that good for you? I think people are used to that kind of food, so the different food offered at this hospital caused people to feel outside of their norm (thus all the comments about the food). As someone who has been very overweight, conquered it and now tries to eat heathly, I appreciate when a place offers wholesome choices where I'm not constantly forced into eating stuff that's not good for you. Thank you Kaiser!

I eat meat, therefore I am smart.

2010-08-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/07/30/128877628/meat-fire-and-the-evolution-of-man

Heard this on NPR yesterday (yes, I listen to NPR a lot).

According to the theory, mammals can have either a large gut or a large brain, but not both. Vegetarian mammals expend all their energy on digesting large quantities of vegetables & fruit. They need a big belly to be able to ingest a lot. Energy is mostly used digesting it all. But meat is easier to digest and packs a lot more calories. So energy can be used to grow a brain instead.

Next time your vegetarian friend tells you to stop eating meat, tell them you're smarter for eating it :)

Musical cards!

2010-07-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

Kevin got this musical card for his birthday. When it starts singing, he starts shaking his head like he's dancing. I tried to capture it, but didn't get a great shot of it. Oh well, enjoy!

I have a coffee name!

2010-07-28T17:57:00.001-07:00

I heard a rather interesting story on NPR today. You can listen here. It's about coffee names. After a quick google search, I found the original blog entry here.

I have a coffee name. I admit it. My name isn't exactly the most common, and no one ever spells it right, that's for sure. So I usually give an alias. When we're in a big group of people going to eat at a restaurant, I will give the easiest person's name. This usually is my husband, Mike. Easy, extraordinarily common, and quick.

At Starbucks I don't even give a name anymore. They just know me as "iced coffee with sweetener". I don't even ask for it anymore. They have it ready by the time I get to the front of the line.

So do you have a coffee name?

My Journey

2010-07-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

This came up when I posted that I had made it a year nursing Kevin on Facebook, so I thought I'd do a blog entry on my nursing journey and what I went through while breastfeeding both kids. I hope it inspires or helps any new (or experienced) moms that may be going through something similar!

Amanda was born after an induction. I went in at 6am and had her at 1:20am the next morning. Mike called her "movie baby" because she came out pink, crying and ready to take on the world! She latched on immediately and had no problem learning the ways of breastfeeding. Apparently I did though, because the hospital's lactation consultant came to see me the next day and told me my nipples were small and I was holding her in all the wrong positions. She pinched me and told me to wear nipple shields to help pull my nipples out. Then she proceeded to tell me I should get the most expensive pump available and exclusively pump because I most likely wouldn't be able to breastfeed. I cried after she left. Maybe it was hormones, maybe it was me, but she crushed me and made me think I was a bad mother.

But, if anyone knows me, you know I saw that as a challenge. I was going to show her! I could breastfeed just fine! And I did. Amanda lost only a few oz. in the hospital, and by our 2 week appointment she had gained back and surpassed her birth weight of 6 lbs, 8 oz. And she continued to thrive. At each appointment the doctor would look at me incredulously and ask if I was really ONLY breastfeeding her?

This did not come without a price. I was a new mom getting used to something completely out of my usual realm of comfortable-ness. My nipples were *so* sore those first 3 weeks, I thought they were going to fall off! It helped that I had a sister & 2 sister-in-laws that told me the same had happened to them. And after those initial 3 weeks, it became much easier. I also have a very modest husband who convinced me I should breastfeed no where else but in my own home. And if we had guests over, I could NOT breastfeed in front of them. No exceptions. This stressed me out big-time. Amanda was ravenous and often ate every 1-2 hours (on the plus side she was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks). I would rush out of the house to get an errand done and rush home so as to not be caught out of the house with a screaming, hungry baby. I became isolated. I longed to go back to work. So I did. I took a 10 week maternity leave and came back to work.

Only going back to work wasn't much easier because then you deal with the guilt of leaving your child in someone else's hands for most of the day. Bygones. Meanwhile, I had increased Amanda's bottle nipple sizes based on the package recommendations. So at 1 month she started on a size 2 and at 3 months a size 3 and at 5 months a size 4. This lead to her having bottle preference and she refused to nurse. I would get home and fruitlessly try to get her to latch on to my engorged boob to no avail. I would end up feeding her a pumped bottle and pumping at the same time. This got old. fast. I also found that I wasn't pumping enough for her at work and ended up supplementing several times with formula, which she took no problem.

So by 6 months when we started rice cereal and baby food, I had had enough. I was done with the stress, done with the exclusive pumping all the time, done. So I weaned. Everyone I knew with babies at the time weaned at 6 months or less as well, so I felt like I had accomplished my goal. Amanda smoothly transitioned over to formula and then again to whole milk at 1 year, no problem.

2 years later I was pregnant with Kevin. During my pregnancy I trolled the baby boards and learned of my mistake in increasing Amanda's nipple size. I decided I would try and breastfeed Kevin longer, though 6 months was still my short-term goal with a year being my long-term. I also decided to deliver at a different hospital so I wouldn't have to face the same mean lactation consultant!

Kevin arrived 10 days early, rather quickly. He was also born in the middle of the night at 1:40am, though you couldn't call him "movie baby". He came out purple and silent and there was that initial "Oh my God" moment, which was quickly followed by a shrill cry and excited happiness. Kevin was almost the complete opposite of Amanda the first day. He was sleepy, lethargic and not at all interested in breastfeeding. I got him to latch a total of 3 times I think, and every time he would almost immediately fall asleep. The nurses at the hospital kept squeezing me to make sure I was making colostrum, and telling me not to worry, that some babies are so traumatized by birth they need a day or two to perk up and figure it out. By day 2 Kevin was doing much better, but still wasn't ravenous like Amanda was. And I avoided the lactation consultant like the plague. Every time they asked if I wanted one, I would vehemently answer "no!"

My milk came in by the time we left the hospital, and I thought for sure Kevin would start eating like Amanda did. But no. He is a very laid back baby and he will only eat when he's ready to! Since this was baby #2 I started a bedtime routine the day he came home, and implemented other things I knew worked with Amanda. This resulted in having to wake him every 3 hours those first 2 weeks until we went to the doctor. He also grew well, surpassing his birth weight of 6 lbs, 2 oz. by his first appt. The doc gave the 'ok' to let him sleep, and that night he slept 5 straight hours! I was in heaven! And to make matters better, my nipples weren't nearly as sore.

But, I still struggled with some of the same issues. Kevin also liked to eat every 2-3 hours and I found myself rushing out and rushing back from errands to make sure I was home in time for the next feeding. After a couple of weeks of this and gaining confidence in myself, I began to seek out nursing rooms, often known as family rooms. I discovered every Babies/Toys 'R Us has them. As well as most malls. I also found myself in several situations where there was none of this, and I had to nurse in public. I even had a situation with Mike yelling at me in front of total strangers for 'showing too much boob'. But I took it all in stride this time and decided f-you all, I am giving Kevin what is best for him!

I also knew my supply would take a dip when I went back to work, so I pumped. I pumped like a madwoman. I built up such a supply in the freezer that I decided to donate a good portion of it. I can now say I helped another infant thrive on my breastmilk! I took a full 17 weeks of maternity leave, and enjoyed every minute of it. I was actually a little sad when I went back to work this time.

At 5 months Kevin started picking up how much he ate. He went from 3-4 oz. per feeding to 5. I was only pumping 4 oz. per session because that's what he had been eating. I nearly panicked. Good thing I had freezer supply to back it up! I also started taking Fenugreek supplements and mother's milk tea. It gave just the little amount of boost I needed to continue to exclusively breastfeed him.

At 6 months we started solids. Again, complete opposite of Amanda. Kevin was not interested at all. Especially from me. I struggled to get him to open his mouth for any food. I purchased the book "Baby Led Weaning" and attempted to give him finger foods. He would have none of it. He would play with it, but nothing went in his mouth. At 7-8 months I was starting to get desperate. He started waking up at night and crying until he was fed. I attempted formula before bed, thinking maybe breastmilk was digesting too fast in his growing body and formula would help him sleep longer. Nope. He wouldn't take it. I mixed the two, but that didn't work either.

Finally at 10 months he suddenly "got" it. He started picking up food and putting it in his mouth. He started eating full meals. Whatever I put in front of him, he ate. He stopped taking any baby food from me at all (he will eat it at daycare though), and I stopped giving it to him. My supply also took a dip around this time (most likely due to lack of sleep & stress about producing enough), AND we had our freezer fail, so I lost the freezer stash I had left. I almost gave up. I almost threw in the towel and said oh well, I made it this far. But for some reason I didn't. I figured we had come this far, why not finish it out!?

So I added another pumping session on my way home from work. This, and the increased solid foods actually allowed me to re-add to my freezer stash. I was able to drop it about 3 weeks later when Kevin finally started sleeping through the night and my supply increased during the day.

I really feel like we cruised through the last 2 months, and it finally got "easy". I still had guilt about taking breaks at work to pump, but I have been very lucky with an understanding boss who never pressured me or made me feel bad for it.

And now I feel like I accomplished a lot, and it was so worth it. We're now at 12 months and I have officially dropped the pumping at work. Kevin still nurses in the morning and when we get home from daycare. I also pump once more before bed, which he gets before bed the next night. I'm still deciding if I want to keep this up for a little bit longer. Kevin seems to really enjoy nursing and sometimes claws at my shirt when we get home until I let him have some, even if he just ate an hour earlier. He took to cow's milk just fine (thank GOD), and our new problem is just getting him to take a sippy cup. The boy refuses any sippy and will only drink from a bottle! But that's another story for another day...

What a difference a year makes!

2010-07-27T06:20:00.001-07:00

Happy 1st Birthday to my little man Kevin today!

Last year I had him at 1:40am (Birth story here). After getting cleaned up and everything they do, it was nearly 4am. Mike went home to get some sleep, and I was too geared up to sleep. I think I took a quick nap from 5-7am, but was up soon after. The adrenaline and excitement were too much! The hospital had wifi, so I pulled out my laptop and started posting pictures of my newborn. He was perfect in every way! I am still in awe that he decided to come so early (10 days before his due date of August 6)

Since then he has grown so much and is becoming such a little person. Here's some stats:
Born: 6 lbs, 2 oz.
12 months: 19 lbs, 3 oz.

Born: 19 inches
12 months: 28 inches

One year ago I had no idea what I was in for with two kids. Double the trouble, but double the love as well. I can't even imagine what we thought was hard about only having one, but I also can't imagine our life without 2 anymore! Every day brings a new blessing, a new adventure.

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

2010-07-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Do you have tiny little things that really shouldn't irritate you but they do anyway?
I do. Here's one of them. Yesterday I used some of my tape at work. When I was finished, the tape dispenser looked like this:

By this morning, it looked like this:

WHY does it collapse like that, and stick to the bottom of the dispenser?? This irritates me. None of my dispensers at home do this. Why only my work one?

Things to ponder...

I went to HS with a bunch of animals!

2010-07-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

This post is inspired by my friend Lyda who posted a bunch of HS pictures on facebook. My title is also the title of her photo album.

No. Really. I attended the North Hollywood High School Biological Sciences/Animal Studies Zoo Magnet. A mouthful right? Apparently they've changed the name to just "Zoo Magnet". Know why it's called that? That's right, it resides in the parking lot of the LA Zoo. Like most people, I have fond and not-so-fond memories of high school. But unlike others, a lot of mine include the animals.

My favorite memory is from a class I took on animal behavior. We actually spent an entire semester studying one animal. We were divided up into groups and each group chose an animal to observe. My group chose the siamang monkeys. In order to get as much class time as possible in one day, our classes were actually double as long, and only met 3 days a week. So Monday, we had all classes. Then we had some of our classes only Tues/Thurs and the other Wed/Fri (or something like that. It may have been Friday we had all classes, I don't remember all the details. This is what happens when you have kids, your memory goes...what was I talking about? Oh ya, siamangs). This gave us time to walk up to the zoo, study, and get back. So we had a good 2 hours we would sit and observe these monkeys and their behavior. We got to know them quite well. So well in fact that the guys in our group figured out how to imitate their distinctive territorial call. It sounds similar to a really LOUD whoop that starts in their throat and comes out like a long "Boo!"

So anyway, on our appointed days we'd head up to the zoo with our writing pads, observe for a while, and when we were getting bored, the guys would start up their calls. You should have seen those monkeys get all riled up! They'd start swinging around, screaming at the top of their lungs, convinced there was another monkey trying to invade their territory! We thought it was hilarious!

Ahhhhhh, the memories :)

By the way, the picture posted at the top is my graduating class of 1996. I am in the bottom row, third from the right. I apparently was not happy to be taking this picture!

Disconnected!

2010-07-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

My laptop crashed. I don't mean "oh well, run an antivirus and it'll be back to normal tomorrow" kind of crash either. We're talking major loud sounds coming from the hard drive followed by "No hard drive detected" kind of crash.

I am devastated.

All my digital pictures were on that laptop. ALL of them. Last time I backed up? April 2007. So Amanda was 3 months old. I have nothing, NOTHING of Kevin. Save what I uploaded to flickr to post on this blog (thank you blog!).

A friend is taking a look at it for me, but I have pretty much given up hope at this point. I drag my sorry butt up to the extraordinarily hot attic (what is up with this weather, one day it's 60, the next it's 90!) every night to check facebook on Mike's computer, and think about all that I have lost.

I feel disconnected.

And what weekend isn't complete without...

2010-07-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

help changing the sheets!

Well, not so much "helping" as much as "playing". But it's worth it to hear the giggles and laughter from such a simple thing :)

Birthday BBQ - July 4

2010-07-07T08:24:00.001-07:00

July 4 is my dad's birthday so every year we have a BBQ for him. This year was Kevin's first time in the pool!

Notice his poor little face. On Friday he scratched himself at daycare. Then Sunday before we went to the bbq, he was standing at the front security gate when Amanda opened the door. He came tumbling out and fell down the front step onto his nose. Got a nosebleed and scratched up his upper lip and his forehead as well. Nice.

Daddy let Kevin play with his root beer can. Kevin kept trying to get a taste.

Randomly a HUGE military plane flew really low over the house. Moments before a helicopter had circled and run a siren (like you would hear if the cops were pulling you over). We surmised they must have been clearing the area for the plane. Something we had never seen before!

Amanda helped Grandpa blow out his candles.

Kids were getting pretty tired as the night wore on. Kevin was falling asleep on Grandma's shoulder.

Amanda helped Grandpa open his gifts.

And then we headed home. No fireworks for us this year. The kids were just exhausted after 2 full days of exciting, new things. We decided it was better they get plenty of sleep than to keep them up for fireworks.

Camping - July 3

2010-07-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

So we sucked it up and finally took the kids camping (overnight) over July 4 weekend. We only went for one night in case we had a *really* bad night. It ended up being a rousing success. Both kids slept like babies (no pun intended), and we will hopefully do it again soon!

We went to Wheeler Gorge, near Ojai so the boys (and Ilene) could do some motorcycle riding. The campsite was beautiful, lots of trees overhanging the area for some shade, and the weather was gorgeous. Here are some pics in no particular order.

Grandpa counting Kevin's toes.

Grandma & Kevin

Daddy teasing Kevin that he won't be able to have beer until 2030

Sitting around the campsite just before lunch.

Kevin hanging out in the pack-n-play

Amanda was fascinated by the rocks, and climbed climbed climbed them all while we were there. Her legs are covered in bruises from all the climbing and falling she did! That's our motorhome in the background.

Gathering rocks to give everyone as "gifts"

Eventually she got the courage to climb the "big" rock in the center of the campsite. She was SO proud of herself for making it to the top on her own!

Stylin'

2010-07-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

I've always been a Payless Shoe Source/99 Cent store/Wal-mart/Ross-type-of-shopper. Growing up my mom stayed home with my 2 sisters & I while my dad worked, so we had to make those dollars stretch. I never had the Guess jeans, Cross-colors, or any other "stylish" brand of clothing. We got $100 to spend on clothes at the beginning of the school year and no way was I going to get one half of a pair of jeans. I was going to get as many outfits as I could at Ross! My parents never gave us money for no reason either. We had chores. I got $1 a month for doing the dishes, emptying the dishwasher, feeding/walking the dog and keeping my room clean. I worked HARD for that $1! When I was old enough, I started babysitting. I got (on average) $20 for watching 1-2 kids for around 4-5 hours. I was RICH! I used to hoard my money and even kept a little journal where I kept track of my spending so I knew exactly how much I had at all times. Eventually my mom opened me a savings account. That was so much easier.

You know how they say you marry someone like your dad. I did. Mike is just like my dad. Doesn't like to spend money. Except for his little indulgences. I remember my dad always clucking and shaking his head when we got new shoes before the old ones wore out. But he'd spend $1,000 in a heartbeat on a custom-sewn cover for his boat. Mike is the same way. He clucks and tsks if I spend money on something he deems unneeded, but he'll drop $300 on comic books in a heartbeat.

But I digress.

So my point is, I don't buy things like Prada shoes and Gucci handbags because I don't think dropping a ton of money so I can advertise a designer's name is worth it. Especially when I can go to Payless and get BOGO free for a fraction of the price! Ha!

But in the last year I somehow ended up with a Coach purse. Now don't get all excited just yet. I bought it at the Camarillo Outlets when they were having a huge sale. I think I spent $80 on it. And even that they had to pry out of my clenched hands while I hyperventilated. But my dear, sweet, loving sister convinced me I was paying for quality and the purse would last. So I took the designer plunge. So far, I love my Coach purse.

So then a few weeks ago a friend mentioned she bought some real Ray-ban sunglasses, and I scoffed. $300 on a pair of sunglasses? Puh-lease. What do they do that other sunglasses don't?
She laughed.
I sighed.
She put them on me.
And low and behold, I saw a polarized world as I had never seen a polarized world before!

I couldn't believe the difference!

So this week, I went out and bought myself a pair of real Ray-bans. Now, don't think I spent $300 on them though! I had gift certificates, and I think I only had to spend $80 of my own money. But still. My world is changing. I'm stylish. I've never been stylish before. I think I might like it. Watch out Mike, I'm about to drain our bank account! HA HA HA HA!

I'm a big kid now!

2010-06-28T06:45:00.001-07:00

So as many of you know, I wear contacts. I think I've worn them since I was 12 or 13. Technically I am legally "blind" without anything to help me see. Anyway, so insurance usually covers an amount off of contacts for a year OR new glasses. Seeing as how I use contacts a lot more and only wear glasses at night, I usually use my amount towards a year's supply of contacts. So, I very rarely get new glasses. The last time I got new glasses was 5 years ago. The lenses were actually starting to crack, and Mike has never really liked the frames I had, so I decided it was time for new ones.

I headed over to LensCrafters one afternoon without the kids and began looking through their cheapest frames. The guy that greeted me at the door was no help. I kept asking what he thought of these frames & these, and like a typical guy, he would just shrug and say they were 'fine'. I was starting to think I was going to end up with another pair of frames that would just 'do' as my nighttime glasses again! My name finally gets called by one of the sales people and I walk over with the 2 frames I have chosen. The lady starts out with figuring out measurements and types of lenses I'll need. Then we get to the frames, and I show her the two I've chosen. She puts them on, takes a look and tells me they are actually a bit too wide, and my eye isn't in the center of the lense.

At this point I am a little frustrated. I had a hard time even finding a frame I liked, and now they don't fit like she thinks they should! But, she has a solution. She asks me if I mind if she picks out a few frames. Yes, please! So then she says she hopes she doesn't offend me... and walks over ot the KID'S section. Yes, the frames for children. I almost burst out laughing! She came back and I tried on I think 6 or 7 frames and finally chose one.

A week later I picked up my kid's glasses and have been wearing them ever since.

Why I don't whip it out

2010-06-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with nursing.

I love that I am able to give my baby nourishment that helps them thrive
I love the bonding and closeness we get

I really hate pumping (a necessity since I work full time)
And I hate nursing in public (NIP as it's known on all the boards)

I really couldn't put my finger on why I don't like NIP though. I know it's a natural thing to do, I know I can't always force baby to adhere to a schedule that works for me. But something about whipping it out in public makes both me and Mike very nervous. Today I stumbled on this:
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/06/breastfeeding-in-church-picture-of.html

Seriously wow. She touched on exactly what it is that makes me nervous. If you have ever breastfed, or know someone who has struggled with this exact issue, it's a good read.

Segway tour!

2010-06-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

So for my birthday (in April) Mike had planned on taking me on a Segway tour as my present. At the time, he was laid off and so I just needed to take a day off. Well, the day I took off, Kevin ended up getting sick, so we had to postpone. Then Mike took a new job, and he doesn't get any paid days off, and it looked like we would just postpone indefinitely. But this week Mike decided f-it, and took an unpaid day off. We went to Santa Monica, rented a Segway and took a tour through Santa Monica to Venice and back (along the beach). It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we had a BLAST!

Mike in the training room, getting used to the Segway:

Me in the training room:

Our first stop overlooking the beach:

On the pier in Venice

Mike chasing a seagull on the pier

Father's Day 2010

2010-06-23T09:14:00.001-07:00

This year we celebrated with a brunch at my sister Erin's house. She is very pregnant (due the beginning of August) and she didn't want to have to go anywhere, so she hosted. Her in-laws & family were also there, so there was a total of 5 kids (and 1 in belly). At one point they were all lined up on the couch watching tv:

Left to right, that's Amanda, Kevin, Jaelen, Jordan & Andrew.

Close up of Amanda & Kevin. Jaelen loved sitting next to the baby :)

And a little later, here's a pic of Daddy & Son on the floor.

Andrew also wanted his time with Kevin, so here they are cuddling

And later in the day (at home), here's Daddy sporting his father's day tie from Kevin and posing with Amanda.

Finished shed!

2010-06-23T09:11:00.001-07:00

Mike has finally finished the shed.

He will be taking bids for his next job throughout the month of July*.

(*Just kidding. Mike actually was pretty frustrated throughout this entire project and will probably never build anything from scratch again!)

Focus on Kevin

2010-06-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Kevin's 1st birthday is coming up, so I had a photo shoot to get a picture for his invitation. I bought these cute baby ties from http://www.babyhalfoff.com/ (and got a matching one for Mike if we eer decide to do a family shoot!) and got him all ready.

At first, he didn't even notice. Too busy standing at the coffee table!

But then I got him on the couch and got a few pics. I didn't end up choosing any of these for various reasons, mostly because you can see the windows behind him!

Then the next day I tried a different approach and gave him some stuff to play with

(I ended up choosing one similar to this last one)

Busy notes

2010-06-18T08:41:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how busy we've been the last couple of weeks. And there is no end in sight! It's going to be a very busy summer. Compounded by the fact that I have a neice on the way, and a good friend is due around the same time, and delivering at the same hospital. What do you think the odds are that they will deliver in the same weekend?

Father's Day is this weekend. I got Mike some really good presents this year that I think he will enjoy. I am looking forward to seeing his face when he opens his presents :) I think I forgot to mention on here what I got for Mother's Day - a necklace with our entire family's birthstones. Hand picked by Mike. I absolutely love it. The only problem is Kevin likes to grab it, so I have to be careful when wearing it!

I have essentially filled up my hard drive on my laptop with pictures. Thus, I haven't been able to download any off my camera until I make room. I burned 4 CD's last weekend and I only freed up 1.2 MB of space. I have a long way to go...

I am still nursing Kevin, which for me is a huge accomplishment. I only made it 6 months with Amanda, but I am enjoying the bond Kevin & I have. He is 10 1/2 months now, and getting so big. He is crawling into everything, and pulling up. It's only a matter of time until he starts taking those first steps! He moved up to the Infant II class at daycare last month. He is the smallest one in there, but there is another move coming July 1 when he should be joined by his smaller friends from the Infant I class.

Amanda will be moving up to Preschool on July 1. Finally. She's only been potty trained for nearly 9 months now... but there hasn't been room for her at the preschool level, so we had to wait. She is excited to be moving to the other side of the center, where all the "big kid" stuff is. She tells me every day when she gets to go visit her friends over there, especially her best friend "Nicky". I can't believe how big she is getting now too. She is going through a very sensitive stage where everything is a huge deal and she cries a lot, so I am trying to be sensitive to her and give her more attention. She is very artistic (like her dad) and loves to draw and use scissors (safe preschool scissors). She can now draw a very good looking happy face, complete with hair, as well as most of the numbers 1-10 (has some trouble with 2 & 5). Too soon she will be ready for Kindergarten and more independent than ever!

The shed (continued)

2010-06-03T06:28:00.001-07:00

Here's some pictures from last week as Mike put up the last wall.

This last weekend he put up the roof and the door. Just working on trim now. I still have to take pictures of that, but now I'm having an issue with space on my computer for all my pictures! I need to put older photos on CD and archive them. Will work on that hopefully soon.

May Update

2010-06-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Things have been hectic to say the least! We've been battling colds and other random sickness, along with birthday parties and activities every weekend! AND, I keep forgetting my camera, so I can't even document most of it :( Here are some of the pictures I took in the last week.

Amanda has taken to playing in the sink. She will fill up any bottle or container within arms reach and then put a spoon in it. As you can see, she COVERS my countertop!

This last weekend I was cleaning out my truck and Amanda wanted to help by cleaning Aunt Ilene's truck (which is parked in front of our house while she is in the Caribbean). So I took out the spray bottle from her house cleaning caddy and gave her a paper towel, and off she went!

Cute pic of Kevin

Kevin started "crawling" in the last couple of weeks. It's not really crawling in the real sense of the word, in that he more "scoots" by pulling himself along on his tummy. We call it the "army crawl". He also started pulling himself up this weekend. Too bad he can't figure out which side of the walker to use!

Crawling in to see what Daddy & Amanda are doing.

And I took this while he was napping on Saturday. Amanda used to sleep like this for a while too and it cracks me up. How do you sleep with your butt up in the air?!?!

The shed

2010-05-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

Mike decided to build a shed in our backyard to store stuff in. Here's what he's got done so far. The floor being built:

The floor built:

Two walls up (with Amanda in her princess outfit)

He is working on the last wall and the roof this weekend.

T-ball

2010-04-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Saturday we attended my nephew Andrew's t-ball game. It's not really a competitive game, just fun for the 4 year olds. 2 innings, each inning each kid gets a turn at-bat and then it's over. Fun!

Here's Aunt Ilene, Amanda & Grandma watching the game:

Getting some pointers from Dad at 1st base.

Playing with his socks in the field.

And watching a runner go by.