Our family adventures

California Adventures

2009-09-02T15:38:00.001-07:00

Before we moved away...

2009-09-02T15:36:00.001-07:00

(so sorry for they layout issues. I tried my best and just gave up in the end.)

from all of Chloe's friends we decided to throw her a birthday party.My parents were in town to help us move so it was perfect timing as well. I was so glad that it was a nice day, (yes you can have bad days in Vallejo, it is very similar to Washington weather) we ended up having a pizza / pool party for her in our back yard.

This is Alexis and her son London

Annie and her son Dax. Baby Zoe is in the belly

this is Kerry and her son Caleb. (No they are not extra special, just issues with the layout)

And this is Marie with her daughter Cadence.

We had a fun time trying to come up with a cake that everybody could eat. Chloe is allergic to eggs and my dad is allergic to corn. Most box cakes have both ingredients in them . SO we did a box yellow cake and a home made egg free, corn free chocolate cake. Both turned out really good. I made cupcakes so it was easier to deal with, remember we had a bunch of toddlers running around. Since I didn't just want to have a bunch of cupcakes, I made them look like an actual cake. That was a lot of fun. I am so glad that my mom was there to help me with the decorating.

(Chloe and Cadence were attacking the cakes as you can see in the pictures)

Here Chloe is being sung to. She really liked it. Oh and it was too windy for the candles to light, so she just stared at the cake. I was actually kind of happy that she didn't have to figure out the candle thing just yet, plus we get to reuse them.

The kids had a great time eating the cake and candy and playing in the pool.

This was interesting, Chloe started to walk around holding the candy stick in her hand like this and pretending to smoke. She has never been around people who smoke, so I thought this was, well, interesting.

I am so glad that the pool play went so well. You never know how it will turn out with the kids. Dax was smart and waited until all the other kids were out of the pool and got to enjoy it all by himself. Grandma got a chance to snuggle with the birthday girl for a bit while she warmed up. Both really enjoyed it.

Chloe got some great gifts as well. Caleb picked out a princess bathing suit for Chloe. Dax got her the movie BOLT, Cadence got her a gift card to Target ( oh what fun things we will get with that) and London got her a bunch of stuff for the upcoming road trip. So thoughtful. My mom's friend got Chloe this great red and white striped dress. When Chloe saw it she gasped and squealed "dress!!" All she could do for the next few minutes was show it off to people. One of the gifts my mm got her was a puppy in a purse. Man does she know this kid or what? Favorite toy as of late.

Chloe and Dax, the best of buds are giving each other hugs.

So we had a pretty successful birthday party for Chloe. I am sad that we most likely won't be celebrating anymore birthdays with this amazing group of friends.

Six flags with friends

2009-09-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

There is a six flags amusement park in this town that we live in. It is the Discovery Kingdom one. After 2 years of living 15 minutes away, we finally made the trek to the park. It is a great place to take the kids, even the small ones. I don't really like doing roller coasters so I didn't mind not doing the big kid rides.

There is so much to do with the little ones. They have many animals to look at, shows to watch, little rides for the kids under the age of 6ish and a climbing, park, water play area.

I wish we weren't leaving so soon. I would have gotten an annual pass to here.

Chloe loved the rides. She didn't want to get off. They have this Thomas Land area that has the Thomas train, Harold the helicopter, and I forget what the bus' name was, but they have it there too. Oh and if you go at the right time, you will get to meet Sir Topham Hat!

The train is part of the safari area where they also have a tree frog ride that jumps up and down. I even had fun on that one.

We looked at all the animals including elephants, giraffes, whales, tigers, sharks and many more. Some even had their own shows. Unfortunately none of my friends though that their kids could sit through a show, so we never got to see one.

This is the area that the giraffes are kept. You can see 2 of the 4 that they have here. At various times you can feed them for $5. It is our friend Caleb's favorite thing to do here.

Looking at these pictures now I realize that I should have taken more of them. I guess I just liked taking pictures of the kids, not the theme park. Hopefully we will be back another day. Then I will take more.

Prostitution park gets a make over!

2009-09-02T15:34:00.002-07:00

In our neighborhood there is a park, not a great park, but a park. We have never gone there because that is where the drug dealers and prostitutes hang out. Oh and about a month or so ago, they found a guy murdered there. Yeah yeah, I know..."Kristina never leave your house!" I have been told that many times, but I have just learned to look out for people. And it really wasn't THAT bad of a neighborhood. As long as you looked the other way, "those people" would leave you alone. They were just at their job, working. They never once bothered us.

Well the neighborhood wanted to take the park back and make it a place for them and their families to hang out at. While I was in Iowa visiting family, the community got together and built a wonderful park. There were so many who volunteered their time, wisdom and tools to get it done.

Oh what a difference the park made. Now the park is filled, and I mean filled with families, not prostitutes and drug dealers. Kids are out there from morning until dark playing. Families are out with their bar-b-ques and picnic blankets. Kids are playing soccer, baseball and Frisbee. We have never seen this much activity there. NEVER! I am kind of sad that we are leaving it soon, but glad to see that there is a sense of community now.

Baby shower

2009-09-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

My good friend Annie is expecting her little girl in the first part of June. Her son Dax is one of Chloe's best friends. We even joke that they are boyfriend / girlfriend.

Side note:

They both hug and kiss each other when they are around one another, and when they are apart, they are asking for the other one almost constantly. If we watched Dax for Annie and Colin in the evening, Chloe would tuck Dax into bed at night giving him kisses on the forehead and rubbing his head until she though he was asleep. Dax would wake up in the morning asking for Chloe. they are so cute together.

Ok back to the shower.

Since Annie, Dax and her husband are such a big part of my life right now, I really wanted to throw Annie a baby shower. At first it was just going to be a small get together of just us friends. Nothing big, just an "I'm thinking of you" party. Well her mom got word that I was going to do the party and soon enough it got much bigger. Her entire family was invited as well as long time friends. Even though this was now a bigger party with more to do, I really enjoyed it because I knew that it would mean a lot to Annie.

Since she was decorating the nursery in a lady bug theme, I decided to make the shower lady bug themed as well. My sister helped me come up with the "title". I called it the "Lady bug picnic".

And the ideas kept flying in my direction. I loved being in Iowa when trying to come up with ideas for the party. My mom and sis had some great ones. Oh and by the way, if you are planning on doing a ladybug theme, good luck with finding pre made items. I don't think they exist except for online.

So for the party I made lady bug candy on sticks for the kids to eat, and us moms as well.

I made the cake with some idea help from Brett

the flower arrangements for the tables

the drinking glasses, which were canning jars with shelving paper for the labels and raffia around the top for some flare.

cup cakes that looked like flowers (sorry the pictures are sideways)

and I made Annie, or Zoe really, a personalized quilt with help from the guests at the shower.

IF you want to see it close up, just click on the pictures. Oh and this was my first time ever making a quilt. I think it turned out ok.

This is the back of the quilt

my personal square. Thanks mom for the help! And sorry again for the sideways pic.

The front of the quilt

I was up late a few nights before the party just getting everything perfect and ready. It was worth it. Everybody had a great time and I got tons of compliments on the party.

Update:

Annie had Zoe 12 days after we moved. She is 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. We can't wait to meet her.

Off to Iowa again

2009-07-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

~Thank you Eric for making me realize that people really do read this. You inspired me to start posting again. And now it is time to play catch up!~

This year, Chloe and I took off to spend some good quality time with my sister and her family in Iowa. Brett was not able to come this time because of school. Hopefully in a few years he might be able to take some time off to visit again.

We had such a great time. My parents were able to fly out the week before we got there to spend some quality time with the boys before we arrived, and my dad left a few days after we got there and my mom left the day we did. It was nice having the whole family together again (minus Brett).

Chloe and I stayed there for just under two weeks and still it seemed like we had no time what so ever. Like with all visits, we try and accomplish so much while we are there. We like to help out at the farm and it makes us feel good knowing that there is less for Tracy and Phil to do by themselves.

This trips list:

Turn over the garden and plant it.

Sheer the sheep

play with the kids

Take pictures of the kids together (professionally)Ok these aren't them.

Eat at delicious restaurants

( No photos for this one, but believe me, we ate at some great places. The best was Tracy's house)

Help all of the laboring animals: sheep, cat, and chicken eggs ( OK I guess the Chickens were already done with their part)- Oh I was calling their farm "Fertile Farm" because everything seemed to be pregnant...except for us humans!-

Work on down stairs bathroom

make aprons

visit a new place

and most important item we HAD to get done...

spend some much needed quality time together.

We actually got that list done. I know we wanted to do much more, but come on, we needed to have fun as well.

Chloe had found a love for cats. Thankfully Tracy had two of them that were wonderful with the kids. The female cat, Belly, was due to have kittens any day. It just so happens that the day we left she went into labor and delivered 5 healthy baby kittens that night. Oh well, I hope Tracy took pictures of them.

OK so this post has been keeping me from posing for about 4 months now, so I just need to finish it. I will just leave you with that I love Love Love going to Iowa to visit my family. It is one of the most peaceful places you can go, at least in the Midwest. I even catch myself longing to be out there again, maybe it is just the company, or the stillness, or the feeling of serenity, whatever it is, there is a part of me that longs to be there. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do and I hope they can tell you a story that I am just not into writing right now. (There is just so much I want to say and too many pictures I want to post.)

Disneyland!

2009-07-19T15:14:00.001-07:00

While we were visiting Brett's family over Easter, we went to Disneyland.

We all had a wonderful time. Since we had Chloe with us, we were limited to the rides that we could go on. Luckily the lines weren't too long. We took her on Dumbo's ride, went through toon town and unfortunately stood in line for 45 minutes for the Roger Rabbit ride.

On Dumbo's flying adventure

Toon town

Chloe had fallen asleep when we were about to go on the ride and they won't let sleeping kids on the ride. So we tried to wake her up and fortunately she woke up enough for us to get on it, just for it to break down on the ride. So we got the experience of walking through it instead of riding the ride. The picture below is while we were on that walk. We got yelled at for stopping to take the picture. Oh well, I think we deserved it.

Chloe's favorite ride was the merry go round. She did not want to get off of it.

I think we went on this one 4 times.

We spent the morning and into the late afternoon with Chloe there and were able to do a few rides with her. She enjoyed just looking at everything. Lunch was fairly well priced thanks to my discount for being a season pass holder. (just one of the perks I get for it).

Brett's Aunt April was so wonderful, she picked Chloe up at about 4 pm and took her home so Brett and I could play like kids and go on all the rides.

Mind you, we went over Easter weekend and on a Monday, this wasn't a really smart move, but this is what we were able to do. Luckily the lines were not too long for us and they have the fast pass system that we took advantage of. I think we got in every ride at least once if not 2 or 3 times. By the time we left at midnight we were tired and ready for bed.

I think I will enjoy living so close to this wonderful place.

Easter Time

2009-07-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

This year (like last year) we went to southern California to celebrate Easter with Brett's family. We stayed with Brett's Aunt April and Uncle Randy who were so nice to let us stay in their bedroom while they camped out on the couch. Don't worry, they have rally comfy/big couches.

Chloe has fallen in LOVE with their dog Milo. And luckily Milo has a thing for Chloe as well. She can scold him and he listens, she makes sure he is fed and well watered, and she even fell asleeep on, but after he fell asleep on her. I can see them making a great bond in the year to come.

While were were down there, we had a wonderful time catching up with Brett's other relatives.
The day before Easter, we got together with the entire family over at his Uncle Stan's house. They live in a rural ranch community. The town looks like it should be in Texas. I think it is cute. Chloe got to see horses, goats, chickens, dogs and cats.I can tell we will be spending a lot of time over here.

As well as animals, his uncle Stan and Aunt Jodi had a wonderful surprise last year. Brett has a new cousin that is about 8 months old. Chloe LOVED him as well. SHe was so good with him. I can see that she will be such a good big sis when the time comes.

For Easter Sunday, we went with his Grandma Pauline to church and then out to brumch. When we got back to her house, grandma's dog cuddles needed to go for a walk. So Chloe insisted that she walk her and actually did a pretty good job with it. Chloe also felt that Cuddles needed to wear a hat. She likes to put clothing on animals.

After our walk, Brett sat down at the piano and Chloe joined him. She loved it. The fact that it made neat noises when you push on things was so cool to her. Well I guess it is neat to all of us really.

This vacation was different for us this time because we weren't just going down for a nice visit with the family, but we were also going down to look for a place to stay come June. Brett got accepted into the Long Beach rotation for medical school.

This was an eye opening experience. We have a strict budget because I would not be working and we will be living off of student loans in California (not a cheap state). We looked at places near Brett's hospital and realized that we could not afford anything that would be remotely safe for us to stay at. So we headed out farther away from the hospital making Brett have a longer commute than either of us wanted him to have. After 5 days of looking at places and getting really scared for ourselves and daughter, we found a wonderful place that is just 10 minutes away from Brett's Aunt April. Brett will have about a 45 minute commute on average, but it will be totally worth it for us to be in a safe neighborhood and we will be close to family. Another bonus to the new location is that we will be 15 minutes away from Disneyland and I have a season pass. I plan on spending many days there.

While we were down there, we went by Brett's old house that he grew up in, saw Laverne, a longtime family friend who helped raise Brett, went to a few parks and spent some good quality time with Brett's Grandma Pauline.

We can't wait to go live down there.

Washington trip March 2009

2009-05-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

In March, Chloe and I took a trip up to Washington to do our taxes and play with Grandma and Grandpa. I think Chloe is used to traveling now because she knows exactly what to do at the airport, on the plane, and to look for Grandma and Grandpa at the airport where we arrive. Now that she is older, she looks for them as soon as we get off the plane. No longer does she cry when I leave her with one of them to go to the bathroom. I love it.

Besides working on my taxes (which we almost forgot to do), we were able to attend a birthday party for my friend's little boy.Cole had just turned two.

.................................

Side note: On our way home from the airport, my mom and I stopped at a fabric store to look for fabric to make Chloe a dress, or to get some fabric to send to my sister to make her a dress. You would have thought that we brought Chloe into a candy store with the way she reacted to the bolts of fabric. People could hear her squeals throughout the store. She was so excited to be there. She ran up and down the aisles, hugged bolts of fabric, picked out many different patterns (all with babies on them) and just purely loved being there. This was nice for my mom and I for we wanted to spend some time there. While we were there, we found this really cute dress pattern. I also found some really cute fabric. My mom was nice enough to get them all and put them together to make a super cute dress for Chloe to wear to birthday parties.

Back to the story...

So we were going to the birthday party and I was talking to my mom about how cute it would be if Chloe could wear the new dress to the party (mind you it was still just fabric). She looked at me and said "Umm, that is in three days dear!" Ooh I was so happy, she agreed to attempt to make it in three days with having Chloe there and other things that we needed to get done as well. It was a success. She made the dress and I sewed on the buttons on the way to the party. Thankfully it fit. We didn't even try it on until we got to the party. But it looked wonderful!

Besides the fact that we got to see my parents and some friends, we got to see my Aunt Sidney, Uncle Lee and my cousin Geoff (whom I haven't seen in about 4 years). We had a wonderful conversation over dinner which Chloe slept through. Yup, the entire dinner she slumbered away.

......................................

I think that my Aunt loved it because she got to hold a sleeping baby for quite a while. (thank you Chloe for making that possible!) It was nice catching up with my cousin and hearing about his life and what he is doing. I am so glad that he could make it out this time. My aunt and uncle seemed to be doing pretty good as well. I really like getting together with them as often as I can. I love our conversations (especially now that I am older.)

At dinner, my aunt gave Chloe this little fairy dress and a barbie to go along with it. She didn't seem too excited about it at first (mind you she just woke up from a 2 hour nap) , but when we got home, she realized what it was and boy did her eyes light up big time. She immediately asked grandma to help her put it on. She pranced around in that dress for a good hour before I got her into her pajamas.

Have you ever heard of the tooth fairy? Well Chloe came up with a new fairy, the shoe fairy and boy did she play that part well. She went strait into her grandma's closet and started to pull out all of the shoes and wore them around. When she was done wearing all of grandma's shoes, she went over to grandpa's shoes and took them all out for a turn. Boy does she have a fascination with shoes.

Since this trip is now a few months in the past, I don't remember much else that happened. All I do know is that we had some great times and we can't wait to go home again. Oh yeah, we got the taxes done!

To all you moms out there

2009-05-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Mothers Day to all those wonderful and beautiful mothers out there! Thanks for everything that you have done for us in our lives. Just remember, we children would not be who we are today without our mother's influences. Thank you.

My mom sent me the following in an e-card, and I thought I would share it with the rest of you. Hope you enjoy it.

Before I was a Mom,
I never tripped over toys
or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not
my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind
and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child
so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night
watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of
having my heart outside my body..
I didn't know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond
between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom ...

bare with me please

2009-05-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know I haven't posted in a while. My life has been so crazy. We took a week long trip down to Southern California around Easter to find a place to live. We found a wonderful place that we can't wait to move into. After we got home, a week later I flew off to Iowa to visit my sister and see my parents who were back there visiting as well. I stayed a little over a week and now I am finally home. I will hopefully within the next few days get pictures and stories posted on here of our many travels, but I have a baby shower that I am co-hosting coming up on Saturday that I am making pretty much everything for and then I need to start packing for our move. We are to be out by the 30th of this month so our apartment can be cleaned and rented out to the ext tenant. SO many things are going within so little time. So please bare with me while I take my time to upload pictures and stories. I promise they will be coming.

Habbitot

2009-04-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

Habitot is this really neat place for kids to go. It is a place for them to explore, get their hands dirty, and be "big" people for the day. They have a water area, a grocery store / diner, a reading area, an art area, a farm area, a face painting area, and a train station. I love taking Chloe here. She can explore everything and all I have to do is sit back and watch.

Here we are making stuff out of clay. She really liked playing in it except for the fact that her fingers got messy.

Here she is painting. What a masterpiece Chloe. Her friend Samantha is in the background. A few minutes after this photo was taken the girls figured out that they could finger paint as well. The staff will come by every 15 minutes or so and clean the board off so the kids always have a fresh canvas to paint on.

Chloe found the face painting booth, where the kids do the painting. After contemplating what she was going to do, she decided to give herself a mustache, I gave her the flower on her cheek.

Chloe used her muscles to climb through their wall maze.

After her busy morning, she went to the market and stopped by a cafe for some lunch. Did I mention that she worked at the Cafe? Well she did today. She really liked putting money in the cash register.

(this picture wouldn't cooperate, sorry)

Then after her belly was full, it was time to give her baby a bath. So she went to the water area.

Chloe had such a busy day and had so much fun being a big girl ( she was a sheep for a while in the farm area, but the pictures didn't turn out so well). I love how they have places like this for us to take her to.

Going for an early afternoon walk

2009-03-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

With my mom's group we try to get the kids out and often. Last Friday we took the kids to the neighboring city Benicia for a walk along the waterfront. The downtown is really cute and has this old-time feel to it. we stopped at this huge grassy field to let the kids get out and run off some energy for a bit. These are just some of the cute photos from that trip.

On the way back to the cars, Marie and I let the girls walk their babies in their strollers. This was the best idea ever! Chloe took her time walking her baby and Cadence kept running ahead with hers just to abandon it to come and get Chloe. It was so fun to watch them.

Just enjoying the weather

2009-03-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

It is rainy season here in Cali and it reminds me of Washington so much. This was a good and sunny day so I took Chloe to the park with some friends.

Ok so with these pictures, you need to click on each of them so they will get bigger then you can see the adorable pose that Chloe was making for a good 5 minutes. She even got her friend London to do it.

I forget how big she is getting until I look at pictures like these and wonder "Where did the time go?"

Chloe making herself beautiful

2009-03-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

She sees me putting on my makeup every morning so I guess this is where she got the idea...

Oh how I love watching her grow!

My little fairy

2009-02-22T16:18:00.001-08:00

My old neighbor Raquelle dropped off these really pretty wings that she found for Chloe and my mom got her the skirt. Who knew that these would create such a wonderful outfit? (well I guess I did when I put it on her)

Her hair is also long enough to put into two really little pig tails, so for the past 3 days, this is how she has been wearing her hair. It lasts for a few hours which I am totally amazed and loving!

More fun to be had.

2009-02-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Just a group shot of Annie, Dax, Caleb, Chloe and Annie's dog Magoo. (Chloe really likes Magoo)

We had some more fun in the ball pit at Scandia.

This is a picture of Annie and her son Dax. They are our neighbors and Chloe really likes Dax. She will walk around the house just calling out his name. I guess he wakes up in the morning asking for "Co-e". We joke about them being boyfriend and girlfriend.

We always have a snack bar for the kids. They seem to hang out here more than they do in the tubes and balls. Oh well.

We finally decided it was ok to let the kids start riding the rides on the way out to the car. Now we have to do it every time we go, but hey, these are some cheap rides and the kids love them.

Such a big helper

2009-01-30T15:43:00.001-08:00

I keep forgetting that Chloe is growing up, and fast. The other day I was in a hurry and was trying to get the kitchen cleaned up. (don't know why now) Anyways, like usual, when I am in a hurry, something usually goes wrong. This time I had knocked over a cup of coffee, a full cup of coffee and it went all over the kitchen table, down two of our chairs, and onto the floor in a nice splatter pattern. Oh boy, so much for getting stuff done in a hurry. Chloe saw me make this mess and immediately ran to the puddle that was still forming and started to "pat" it. Of course this made the mess even bigger. Now it was on my 1 1/2 year old toddler who puts her hands on EVERYTHING!

So now I was in a hurry to get the mess cleaned up before she could make an even bigger mess. I went into the laundry room which is right off my kitchen and grabbed some towels. Of course, Chloe had to do what I was doing, so she grabbed some towels of her own. However, she grabbed all of the towels and brought them over in the laundry basket. Such a wonderful little helper. And she started to help me clean up.

She was so cute. She kept running back into the laundry room to grab more towels, even though they were no longer needed.

Then she proceeded to do some deep cleaning for me.

She got out one of my travel tooth brushes from my bathroom and started to scrub the floor. I guess she thought that I made a really really big mess.

Then she, like mommy, put her dirty towels ( and her personal wash cloths for bath time) on top of the washing machine to be washed.

What we have been up to lately

2009-01-29T13:39:00.000-08:00

Who knew you could keep not one, but 2 girls occupied with a left over orange box? These have become one of their more favorite hang out spots.

They even read books in them. The girls spent a good 1/2 hour in here.

This is just a picture of her curls. Yup, these are them. All 3 of them.

Since the kids are getting to be much more active now a days, we are taking them to bigger and "better" play sites. These photos were taken at a place called Scandia. It is a big place with miniature golf, batting cages, go carts, an arcade, and an area called the playhouse. It is a sectioned off area that only kids under 2 are allowed into. It has I think 5 ball pits, 4 fun slides and hamster tubes (for the kids but I can get through them). The kids have such a blast there. It is totally secured and the kids have no way of getting out without an adult, and their adult (you have a matching wrist band and they check when you leave that they match up) so you don't have to be totally on top of the kids. They get to have some freedom. I love how places are becoming more secure for us families.

We are still taking the kids to the park every week. This park only had two baby swings, and one of them is usually occupied. Since both London and Chloe wanted to swing, we compromised. They got to share the swing. At first they liked it, but after a few minutes they were not so pleased, but when we offered to take them out, they refused. Oh well.

So I hope you enjoyed my little update of what we have been doing these past few weeks.

It is official

2009-01-25T16:55:00.001-08:00

Brett found out on Friday that he got into the Long Beach hospital rotation. So this means that we get to pack up and move to southern California. His rotations start on June 22nd, so we will probably be moving in the first part of June. Wish us luck on finding an affordable place to live down there. I guess it is fairly expensive. YIKES!

I will update you as we get more information.

I haven't cried this hard in a while...

2009-01-16T01:28:00.000-08:00

(Please bare with me, I am somewhat rambling on. It may not all sound well thought out, but I had to say something)

I don't know if any of you follow the TV show Private Practice, but tonight's episode really got to me. It touched me as a mother and as a child. I don't want to give it all away because it is so much more emotional when you don't know what is going to happen in the episode, but boy did it make me miss my parents and my sister and make me want to hold on to my daughter so tight and to never let her go.

For some reason I had this rush of emotions come over me and I was just bawling on the couch. I am glad that I was all by myself because I probably looked like a blubbering fool.

After the show, I went in to the office where Brett was studying and I told him that we HAVE TO move back to Washington. There was no option. He of course looked at me with streaks of mascara smeared down my cheeks and asked what was wrong. I told him about the show and he, being the loving husband that he is, assured me that in time we would be going back, but it may take a few years. Not the answer that I wanted, but I guess it will have to do. I don't really have a say in the matter...yet.

To my parents- I miss you both so much. You mean the world to me and I love you. I wish that we were able to be up there 100% of the time so you can watch Chloe grow up into the wonderful woman that she is going to become with your own eyes and not through the computer. I want to be there for you through everything. Know what Dr. appointments you are going to and if there was anything I could do to help. Trust me, when the first opportunity comes around, we will be there.

To my sister- I love you and miss you so much it hurts at times. (A lot to be exact) I wish that we lived closer to each other so our kids could grow up together and be the best of friends. I just wish that I could see you more often, to be able to hug you and to go out for lunch and movie dates while mom and dad watch our kids.

I wish that the world worked like this:

You grow up, meet the boy (or girl) next door, fall in love, get married, find a well paying job in the town you live in, the old couple that live in the same neighborhood that you and your spouse grew up in, moved out and you are able to move into their place just in time for you to bring your family into the world. Both sets of grandparents will be retired and will be able to play with the grand kids on a regular basis, cousins would be playing in the streets ( no cars of course ) and we would all be living happily ever after.

Oh how I wish. But reality is nothing close to that. We grow up, move away for various reasons, and every once in a while visit home. We do make the phone calls on a regular basis, but it never seems like it is enough.

To those who are able to see their family members whenever they choose to- enjoy it as much as you can, because one day you may not have this luxury and you will beat yourself up for not taking advantage of the time you could have spent with your family.

Sorry for this emotional post, but the show really got to me tonight.

To everyone who means anything to me- I love you and thank you for being in my life.

OK it is now 2:05 and I MUST go to bed. I have responsibilities.

to watch this episode, go to:
www.abc.com
click on free episodes
click on Private Practice
choose episode 12 "Homeward bound" from season 2

Grab some tissues and enjoy it!

Conversation with my nephew

2009-01-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

ring * ring * ring *

Ryan : "Hello?"
Me: "Hi is this Ryan?"
R: "yah"
M: "HI Ryan, this is your Aunt Krissy"
R: "Hi Aunt Krissy, can I talk to Grandpa?"
M: "Oh I'm sorry honey, grandpa is in Washington."
R: "oh"
M: "Can I talk to your mommy?"
R: "um hold on..."
M: "What are you (as in he and his mom) doing?"
R: "Moppin!" (he is really excited about this)
M: "Really? That's awesome!" "What else have you done today?"
R: "mmmmm"
M: "Have you played with the rabbits yet?"
R: "YEAH! They're outside though. The snow is meltin."
M: "Oh really? is it almost gone?"
R: "yeah, no snowman..it's meltin"
M: "You built a snow man?"
R: "NO, the snow is meltin!"
M: "oh I see. I tried to build one with Chloe but she didn't like being out in the snow."
R: "Why not?"
M: "I think that she was too cold and she just didn't like it"
R: "oh ok."
Tracy in background "Tell aunt Krissy I will call her back"
R: "mom says she will call you later"
M: "Ok Ryan I love you, Bye!"
R: "I love you aunt Krissy....umm can I talk to Brett?"
M: "Sure! hold on let me get him"

They have their own conversation for a few minutes.
then I get the phone back

M: "Ok Ryan I love you and I will talk to you later." "you can hang up the phone now."
R: "Ok love you too, bye!"

Oh how I love talking to Ryan now. He is such a conversationalist.

Happy Birthday January babies!

2009-01-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

January first came and we celebrated my nephew Nolan's 5th birthday. He is getting so big now. He is currently in preschool and is learning so much. He loves superheros and currently he is into the hulk. So grandma Robin made him a HULK cake for his birthday.

It was nice to have another excuse to get together with the family again.

I have no idea what was on the TV (Ryan had control of the remote), but Chloe was standing like this for a good 5 minutes before Brett moved her out of the way.

Happy Birthday Nolan!

------------------------------------------------

My Dad's birthday was on January 2nd. So to celebrate his birthday, we took him out to dinner at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants. Chloe really enjoyed my Shirley temple because it came with cherries and an orange slice.

After dinner we headed back to my parents house and had home made cake and home made ice cream. It was so good and Chloe couldn't get enough of the ice cream.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

This year we spent the evening with Brett's friends down in Seattle. We started the night at Dan's house, went to an Irish pub and ended the night at the space needle.

I had always imagined that it would be extremely crowded at the needle because when I was growing up I would watch the news broadcast at the needle and it would be packed with people and my parents would make comments about the traffic and how scary it might be down there.

So I had my reservations about going, but I went along with the group as usual. It was raining, cold, but surprisingly not crowded. They blocked off the entire center around the needle for the fire line, so we got to stand on a side street next to the EMP building. We got there maybe five minutes before the show and had enough time to find a decent spot, take some pictures and pour the champagne.

It was nice to see the fireworks up close, but I think that next year I will go somewhere where it is warm, dry and I can watch the fire works on TV. Where we were at there was no music so it didn't seem like such a great show to me. Oh well, better luck next year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas!

2009-01-08T13:44:00.001-08:00

Thanks to my parents, we were able to spend Christmas and New years up in Washington. When we first got there, Chloe, Brett, my mom and myself all came down with a stomach bug that put us out of commission for almost a week. So unfortunately we did not get to do as much as we had hoped.

Chloe helping Grandpa Mark decorate the tree

Chloe helping Grandma Lynn in the kitchen

Chloe helping me wrap presents...well more like wrapping herself with the stolen wrapping paper

Once we were feeling better, we celebrated Christmas with my parents. We woke up and opened up our stockings that Santa had left us (Chloe for some reason didn't want to look at her gifts), ate a wonderful breakfast and proceeded to open our Christmas presents. We got such wonderful things.

Chloe enjoyed the piece of candy that Grandpa gave her so much, she had to have more...and helped herself to it. She even ate some of the foil wrapper!

It snowed on Christmas, well it snowed almost every day we were in Washington. Chloe wasn't to fond of being out in the snow. I don't know if she was still feeling sick or if it was the fact that she had to wear lots of clothes, (lately she is into being naked) either way, we didn't go out in the snow as much as I had liked, but we did manage to get some pictures.

Once she figured out that she could eat the snow, she enjoyed it for all of 15 minutes.

A few days after Christmas, Brett's parents arrived from Oregon (they moved there in August). We had our Schweizer family Christmas over at David and Eric's house. It was nice getting together with the whole family.

Stephanie and Ryan and our nephew Nolan

Eric and his girlfriend Brittany David and Chloe

The "original Schweizer family" and Chloe

My cousin Amanda and her husband Nathan were finally able to come visit us and brought along Joshy and the baby to be to play. Well I guess baby to be didn't do a whole lot of playing outside of Amanda's belly.

Joshy and Chloe got along pretty well this visit. Poor Joshy had broken his arm a few weeks back so he was wearing a splint, but that didn't slow him down one bit. The two of them were so fun to watch. When it came time to eat, Joshy had to wear a Ziploc bag over his splint so it wouldn't get wet or dirty. Chloe was fond of this idea. Now every time she sees a Ziploc bag she has to wear it on her hand. Oh she cracks me up.

We were able to see some of our friends as well on our trip. We braved the snow and traffic that we are no longer used to (we don't do a lot of freeway driving here in Cali and when we do, it isn't bad. They have many freeways down here, not just one) and got out of the house leaving Chloe with our parents most of the time. It was nice to be able to do that.

All in all it was a great time. We wish that we could have done more, but that is life. Merry Christmas everyone!

To all those moms out there

2008-12-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.northlandchurch.net/2008/08/11/the-mom-song/

I enjoyed this, I hope you do as well.
Thanks mom for this!

not such a happy visit

2008-12-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Brett and I took the girls to get pictures with Santa. This was the best we could get out of them.

Brett had to sit with Chloe in hers, she wouldn't leave his arms, and poor Cadence had to be held down by Santa.

I figured that this is what we would end up with, but you have to have them right? Brett doesn't want to get pictures with Santa for a while, but hey I enjoy looking at these photos as priceless memories.

I guess this also means that we have to do our own family photos again this year. I doubt that we will be taking Chloe to a professional anytime soon.

Happy Frog

2008-12-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

Today I took the girls to this place down the street called Happy Frog. They are really starting to enjoy it there. Last time I took them, they sat in my lap the entire time.

This is a building filled with 7 inflate able structures including slides of various heights, jumping rooms, obstacle courses and much more.

This place is free until they are 2 so I am really happy about that. Today we spend a good 3 hours here and the girls got to get out a ton of energy.

Tonight we are going to a football game at Touro. It is the first years against the second years, so I can't wait to see who wins! It will be cold, but hopefully a lot of fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T23:27:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.

This year I am thankful for:

(not in any particular order)

-My family, my husband and daughter
-A healthy family...... immediate and extended
-A happy family...... immediate and extended

-A wonderful family.....immediate and extended

-A roof over our head
-Running cars
-Running water
-Electricity
-Somewhat of an income...or less debt piling up
-The wonderful friends we have in our lives
-That we have food on our table at every meal
-That we have technology to keep us in touch with our family and friends when we are far away from each other
-How well my husband is doing in medical school
-Dr Cisslo and her amazing hands and the fact that she is treating Chloe for FREE!
-That we have been fortunate enough to be able to see our family fairly regularly even though we are living out of state
-The fact that we are alive

I know that there are more things that I am thankful for, but I also don't want to spend the entire night on here writing them down. I just hope that everyone who reads this will have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Halloween festivities this year included:

Going to the pumpkin patch in Oregon

Having a Halloween party with all her friends and dressing up for it

Going trick or treating down Georgia Street during the Farmers Market

And the best of all...

Trick or treating with friends in a safe neighborhood and getting lots of candy!!!!

Chloe was a pink poodle, Cadence was a monkey, Zephyr was an angel, Auggie was piglet, Marie was a cat, Rita was a fairy, and Brett and I went as a mom and dad. (Don't Brett and I have the best costumes?)

Once she figured out that these people were giving out candy, she went to every house on the block, or at least tried to. The kids were so cute and they got more candy because of it!

Happy Halloween everyone! hope you had a great one.

Heads up!!!!

2008-11-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

Brett is turning 27 on Monday.

Coffee anyone?

2008-11-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

Don't worry I think she only got a few drops out.

Over the river and through the woods......

2008-11-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

To Grandmother's house we go....

We were able to have a full weeks vacation a few weeks back thanks to Brett's school being Jewish based. ( they get a lot of time off this time of year) With that time off, we headed up to Oregon to visit Brett's parents at their new house in Bandon.

While we were there we went to the beach. When the tide was really low we were able to see tiny little crabs, starfish, sea urchins, muscles, and collected some really neat looking rocks. Chloe got a kick out of the rocks. We stopped in one spot for what must have been 15 minutes picking up every rock in our path. Oh and I was the lucky one who got to hold onto those marvelous things.

We go to take in the sights of Bandon as well. We ate fish and chips and salmon burgers on the boardwalk, had really good ice cream that Chloe totally stole from us, and we got to see the local artwork along the walk as well.

So Chloe has picked up my stance. You can see in the above picture here that she now prefers to stand with both hands on her hips. Oh how she loves to mimic me.

On the weekend, we took ( well I guess they technically took us) to a pumpkin patch so Chloe could pick out her very first pumpkin. She had such a great time looking for that special one. After a while, Brett ended up picking out that perfect pumpkin because Chloe just couldn't make up her mind. Unfortunately we did not have time to carve the pumpkin, we got involved in so many other things.

SO this is Jack. The newest member of the Schweizer family. No not mine and Brett's, but his parent's. They got him at 6 weeks old and he is the sweetest most handsome puppy I have seen in a long time. At first Chloe was scared of him, he likes to play with her and jump on her which she did not like at all. But after a few days she warmed up to him and was instigating the play. It really made em want to get her a pet, but then I remembered the cleanup and food and cost of a pet and I realized how perfect our family was with just the three of us in it.

We had such a great time visiting Grandma and Grandpa Schweizer. We can't wait to see them again.

Sorry for the delay

2008-09-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting anything lately because I feel that nothing has been going on that is worth talking or posting about. My mom has convinced me otherwise and so here we are again.

My mom's group went to this indoor park called the jungle with the kids. They loved it.

Brett and I went to a mustache party that the 1st year students put on. Man there were some good ones, unfortunately my camera battery died so I can't show them to you.

Brett and I left Chloe with Cadence and her parents and we headed up to Clear lake to go camping and wake boarding. However, Brett and I did not partake in the wake boarding this time. Still, it was so much fun and a much needed break from Chloe.

We recently took Chloe to a park in Benicia. It is a really neat park with an amazing wood structure for the kids to play on, but I think that she might have been too young for it. She did have fun none the less playing in the sand, swinging on the swing, going down her slide and watching the bigger kids play tag.

-------------------------------------------

Brett has been doing very well in school. He is in the top 1/4 of his class and is involved in a few different clubs at the school. He is the Secretary of the Sports Medicine club, but lately has been acting like the VP when it comes to getting things done. In the next few weeks he will start taking a prep course for the "big test" or boards that he will be taking in the spring. So all of his extra time will be spent prepping for that test from here on out. Poor guy will never see the light of day.

I am doing great. I have been really involved with my mom's group and that has kept me sane while being down here. We get together at least 2 times a week for park play dates and a walk along the water front. Since it is fall and Halloween is coming up, we are planning on going to a pumpkin patch with the kids, having a carving and costume party a few days later, and possibly even go trick-or-treating with some of the families as well. Oh I am so glad that I found this group.

I have become close with 4 of the moms in the group. We started meeting for coffee every Thursday night at about 8pm after the kids go down. It is so nice being able to get out of the house and just be with the girls and gossip and just be girls, not moms or wives.

Chloe is getting bigger and bigger by the day. Currently she is loving to twirl around until she gets dizzy, color, wear my shoes and walk around in them, play at the park, go down slides, swing, dance to music, read books with us or by herself, and play with her baby dolls and stuffed animals. She still loves to be held and snuggled and kissed. I think that she is the only one in her play group who would rather be in the arms of an adult than off playing with a toy. I am enjoying this while it lasts.

Her and Cadence are such a hand full now but oh so adorable. They are truly interacting with each other now. Yesterday we colored pictures together, read about 40 books, and danced to some music and boy do they like to dance. They act like sisters, best friends, and worst enemies at times. I am so glad that they have each other.

Ok she is waking up from her nap now so I must run. I will try and post more later!

Wow have we done a lot!!!

2008-08-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

My friend was getting married and I was in the wedding, so this gave me another excuse to go home to Washington. For three weeks in August, we were up there visiting friends and family. It was so nice to be home, even if it was only for a short while.

When we got there, Chloe was barely learning how to walk, by the time we left, she was practically running. She also picked up more habits while we were up there. She is now in love with wearing bracelets and watches, still is obsessed with purses, so much so that we had to buy her another one while we were out, and she always had one with her no matter where we went.

(side note: if an object has a way to be carried on the arm, then you can bet it will be carried on her arm. As I am writing this, Chloe is walking around with a hanger hanging off of her arm, because it can be done. "Look mom! another purse like thing!)

She has now learned how much fun it is to put on mommy's, daddy's, grandma's and grandpa's shoes. We had some rough times over this issue. She has also come accustomed to carrying her, well my old baby doll around with her as well. She also loved pushing her in the little stroller that is at grandma Lynn's house as well.

Since my main reason for going to Washington was for my friends wedding, I spend most of my time with her helping out with the preparations for the event. My poor child barely saw me. But in the end, the wedding was beautiful and my child got her mommy back.

We got a chance to see family and friends that we haven't seen in a while. We saw my Aunts and Uncles on both sides of my family, my cousin Amanda and her husband Nathan and their 2 little ones Joshy and yet to be named baby in belly. (Congratulations again!) and we also got to see my cousins Courtney and Kyle. Man are they getting big...and old.

On one of the visits over to my brother and sister in law's place, I tried to get some cute cousin photos for myself and the grandparents. Poor Nolan, now 4 1/2 didn't feel like taking pictures, and good luck getting a one year old to cooperate at all with them either. So with some major bribing and suckers, I got them in the picture together, even though Chloe was drooling like crazy from teething and it seemed like neither of them looked at the camera at the same with with smiles. Oh well, maybe next time.

I was so happy that the Evergreen State Fair was going on while we were up there. My mom and I took Chloe and she loved it! We ate corn on the cob, elephant ears, strawberry shortcake, gyros, kettle corn, fresh squeezed lemonade, and I am sure we had something healthy in there as well. We looked at the crafts, saw my mom's birthday present that won a blue ribbon, looked at all of the home made items, but the best of all were the animals.

We saw cows, sheep, goats, cats, dogs, pigs, birds, chickens (we found some chickens that we thought that Tracy should have too) Chloe really liked the cats, however she didn't really understand the rule of no touching the cats in the cages, this upset her because she really wanted to pet them. When we were in the sheep barn, Chloe was talking right along with them. She was saying "baa" when they would. It was so cute.

We stayed 3 whole weeks and they all flew by very fast. On the flight home, we got the entire row to ourselves. That was a nice surprise and a blessing since this time around, Chloe did not sleep at all and wanted to get up and walk around. So I was able to let her walk within our row. She was such a big girl as well, for when it came time to have our snack, she sat in her own seat and we could both enjoy our snacks alone, yet together.

Such a girlie girl

2008-07-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

SO Chloe has taken up a liking to purses. I find her carrying one around with her all around the house. Either it is in her hand or appropriately over her shoulder. Now this was not my doing or coaxing at all what so ever. One day she found one of my smaller purses and wore it on her shoulder. Now she has two of her own to play with. Brett and I get a kick out of it and he started to put things in them for her. So now she has her set of keys, her cell phone, a squirt gun (provided by her father for protection), and a snack for when she gets hungry. Oh how I love her new stages in life.

Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays

2008-07-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

Well only two birthdays, but it seems like we have been having one every week. Oh wait, we have. I celebrated my 25th Birthday on the 18th of July and Chloe turned 1 on the 26th of July. So our lives have been filled with what seems like party after party.

My birthday:

Even though I spent the evening with some of the friends that I have made down here, it just wasn't the same as when I celebrated it with my family and friends. However, it was a good night. My neighbors took Chloe for the entire night. It was weird not having to go home to my baby or having to wake up 3 times in the night with her. Trust me, I loved that idea, a full nights rest, but it was the first night without my baby. I later came to realize that I was able to handle it and I actually enjoyed the break. Anyways, we dropped her off at 5:00 and took off for dinner. We went to a local Thai restaurant and had such wonderful food. Afterwards we went over to our friends house for some drinks, rock band and Mario kart. Later in the evening we were planning on going to go to a bar in a neighboring city to sing karaoke, but by the time we got there they were no longer doing it for the evening. So we instead danced to some songs on the jukebox and the guys played darts. Oh and I got a full nights sleep and didn't have to pick up Chloe until 3:oo in the afternoon. My neighbor wanted to keep her even longer, but we had to take her and get ready to go camping over the weekend. (More on that later)

And now what you were really wanting to read about...

Chloe's FIRST birthday

It started and ended a crazy day.

8:00am wake up / get ready for the day

9:00am go to farmers market

10:00 am go to grocery store

11:00 am drop myself and Chloe off at the park with all the stuff and set up for the party

11:30 am Brett go to Costco to get cake and pizza for party

12:00 pm party started

So it pretty much went like that, not all entirely smooth, but it went alright. We had people arriving around 12:30ish and ate pizza, salad, fruit and of course for desert, cake and ice cream. My poor baby needed a nap all through her party. But I guess that is typical of first birthday parties. She only wanted to be held and only on a rare occasion she played with the other kids. It was in the high 80's low 90's and just wonderfully hot. We had our own private picnic area over by the duck pond at a local park. It was wonderful. The kids could run freely, the guys could play...well pass the football around, and the moms could chat with ease.

Cake time!

Brett helped her blow out the candle because she had no idea why we were hovering her over the cake.

When we gave her the cake, she just sat there and stared at it. Cadence came up and helped show her what to do.

She preferred to eat the filling of the cake and only with a spoon. Amazingly she didn't get that dirty. I was secretly happy that she didn't just dive into the cake.

After cake, we opened the presents and got some really neat toys. Then we cleaned up and headed home for a nap, then went to Jimmy's place to do some swimming and cooling off. It was a full day for the little girl, but she was a trooper and enjoyed every bit of it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my love!

This speaks for itself!

2008-07-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Please turn up the volume to get the full experience!

We were not able to catch her first few attempts at walking on film because she just did them at random times. So today I sat down with Brett and we played the come to daddy / come to mommy game and she really loved doing it. When I got out the camera to record the event, she was a little tired of walking (she already did 3 laps) and all she wanted to do was look at the camera. But I think that we got some ok footage of her doing her newest trick. Hope you enjoyed this.

Sorry

2008-07-16T10:36:00.001-07:00

for the slow to no posting that my sister and I have been doing. we are aware that we have been slacking and will try our darnedest to do better. But we feel that during nap time we should be cleaning, showering, or napping ourselves. But we promise to try harder to get things up on a more regular basis.

Visitors

2008-07-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Two days after we got back from visiting my sister and her family out in Iowa, my parents came down to visit us. They were able to stay for an entire week. I loved it. I got to spend 2 weeks with my sister and then a week with my parents. They were much needed visits.

While they were here we had a lot of down time. Just spending time together with no major rush to go places or to get things done was really nice. Plus the fact that we had a major heat wave while they were here made us not really want to do much stuff.

We did take them to the Jelly Belly Factory so my dad could check it out. The rest of us have already been there. It really is neat to see how the plant runs. Plus you get free Jelly Bellies!

Another trip that we took them on was a trip to the beach. I love the beaches down here in California. They actually ship sand in so that you are not stepping on any rocks, wood, or well anything but sand. That is unheard of in Washington.

Chloe really loved the beach. She liked to play in the sand as well as eat it occasionally.

Chloe also started to play peek-a-boo with my mom using a sand sifter. It was the cutest thing ever.

My dad was able to get in somewhat of a nap while we were at the beach, but Chloe didn't let him sleep for too long. She wanted to play.

The week went by too fast, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Can't wait to see them again. Sorry I didn't get more pictures than these, but you know how it goes. You are living the moments not photographing them.

Photo time

2008-06-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some bloopers...well i guess they are all bloopers of the kids. We learned that you should not wait until the last night, around bedtime, and when the kids want to nurse to take a group photo of the kids.

I hope you enjoy these.

Boy have we been busy

2008-06-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Since Brett has this summer off, and it might be his last, we took a family trip to Iowa to see Tracy, Phil, Ryan and David. We were able to spend a whole 2 weeks with them, but it still felt like no time at all. I want to go back already.

While we were there we had many... lets just say experiences. It was what I would have to say storm season in Iowa and as most of you have heard, the state pretty much flooded. There were places that were hit pretty badly, but fortunately Tracy and Phil's wasn't really affected by the storms.

At night we had some awesome lightning storms with the occasional thunder rumbling in the background. Luckily for us, the storms usually hit while we were in bed and went away during the day so we could play outside.

This is supposed to be a corn field!

We got the garden turned over for Tracy so she could start to plant her fruits and veggies. (Just to let you know, Iowa dirt is not like Washington dirt. While in WA you have sand/dirt that is really easy to turn even if it is wet, in Iowa you can forget about turning dirt if it has rained within the last 24 hours.) It took Brett, Tracy and myself a good 4 days to turn over their garden. I don't know how big it is, but it was a lot of work. I am really glad that we could help with that. Oh and Tracy....don't move your garden again next year. LEAVE IT!!!

Since it is a widely known fact that toads like moist weather with puddles to play in, and boys like toads, you can imagine the fun Ryan had with the toads around their house. He carried this poor toad around for a good hour and a half jumping over things and rolling around on the ground saying "Isn't this fun toad?" after everything he did. Oh if only that poor toad could talk.

Ok, since I have more things to post while Chloe is sleeping, I will summarize the rest of our trip.

We celebrated Phil's birthday with a trip to the local pool, dinner at Hickory Park and had a surprise cake and ice cream celebration at a friends house. We took a trip to the Amana Colonies and barely made it out before a major storm hit and would have flooded us in. We did some shopping trips, showing Brett that there really is civilization out in Iowa. Ate breakfast with the locals at the Monday community breakfast in a neighboring town.

And the most important thing we did while we were in Iowa....we spent time with our family. Game night pretty much every night and I would like to brag that us girls kicked butt at pinochle. We watched movies, ate wonderful meals, and watched the kids play together.

It was such a wonderful time and I can't wait to go back.

Camping with a baby

2008-05-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

When it is a high of 60 and a low of 40 degrees outside and you are on
the California coast camping in sand dunes you start to think to yourself..."Why did we agree to go camping?"

We have become pretty good friends with Cadence's parents since I have started watching her. And since we are good friends, we do stuff together...like go along with them on a camping trip. We thought "What a great thing to do to kick off our summer vacation!"

side note: Brett finished up his first year of medical school last Friday. We haven't gotten all of his grades yet from the last tests, but we know that he passed with flying colors. So he will be starting his 2nd year of med school in August some time. We are so proud of him!

Now back to my camping story.

We got all of our gear together, packed up enough stuff to last us a week, although we were only gone for 3 days and 2 nights. We stuffed our Jeep to the limit and took off to the beautiful area called Bodega Bay.

Camp was set up on the side of a sand dune, which by the way is not the best place to take babies that are the least bit mobile and like to put things in their mouths. We ate great food, drank a little and had a good time...until

At 8:30 pm our friends thought it would be a great idea to watch the sun set on the beach. Well the sun had pretty much set by this point, but they still wanted to go, so we packed up the sleepy babies into their backpacks and headed for the mile long hike in the sand dunes to look at the water. I took this picture the next day of the hill that we "hiked" up. You can't really see it, but the hill which is made up of all soft sinking under your feet sand is about a 50 - 60 % upgrade. I practically crawled up it and needed to stop at least 5 times to catch my breath and to tell my body that it couldn't quit on me now, it had to wait until I got to the top.

That was the beginning of the mile long hike, the other hills that we had to overcome seemed like mounds of dirt compared to the first one. When we got out to the ocean it was all dark, there was about a 15 foot drop to the water, it was freezing with a strong wind. The babies woke up as soon as we got there and we stayed all of 30 minutes. I was dreading the trip back, not because of the time it would take, but because of that hill we would have to somehow manage to get down without falling head over heel. I voiced my opinion about this and they suggested that we take the LONGER but SAFER route back. It contained more switch backs and took only 5 minutes longer but it was FLAT! No hill no mound nothing! Oh how I wanted to curse them for making us go over the mountain on the way in, but then I thought "Look at what you just did, shut up and be proud of yourself." So I kept quite about my frustrations and enjoyed the rest of the hike back to camp.

That night Brett got sick, we don't know why but he was sick for the rest of the trip. So that slowed the rest of us down. But we still had fun. The following day we drove to another beach near by and let the girls play in the sand. They loved it. Cadence tried with all of her might to eat it, but we were too on top of her for her to succeed. Chloe being the opposite had fun playing the sand but had no desire to eat it. Such a good little baby.

Besides going to the beaches, eating food and Brett getting sick, we enjoyed yummy smores, horse shoes, bad mitten and being scared by the raccoons who were way to brave for their own good. (They really wanted our food whether we were there or not.)

I think that we have a few more trips planned with Marie and Dallas to go camping in other parts of the state. I can't wait to see what other adventures lie ahead.

She is...

2008-05-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

CRAWLING!!!!!!

I hope you enjoy this video of her doing her newest trick.

She also enjoys walking with major assistance and is trying to pull herself up onto everything, but isn't so great at it.

Extra time

2008-05-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

So when you drink a bunch of coffee in the late afternoon, it tends to keep you up fairly late. I have never really had this problem until tonight. It might be that I am staying up with Brett while he studies for his tests that start tomorrow. He is testing all week long. The one nice thing about that is....This is his last block for the year. He is done with his first year of medical school as of this Friday! We will have the entire summer together to take trips, vacations, and just have him be a true part of the family now, not the guy in the other room studying.

Anyways, since I am up, I decided to update you on what has been going on. I am mostly doing this with pictures, just because I love to look at them. Truly not a lot has been going on. Every week I go to the park, on a walk, swimming of some sort, and have picnic lunches with the mom's group and my neighbor. I have been keeping pretty busy with all of that.

This is my last week watching Cadence full time...or at all really. Her mom is done with school on Friday as well so she will finally be able to spend some good quality time with her baby for pretty much the first time in Cadence's life. Scary! And I say that because Cadence is so active now. She is walking like a pro, getting into everything, climbing on couches and falling off of them. She never stops moving. Even though she is so active, she is a doll to be around. I will miss seeing her daily.

Oh my gosh I haven't updated you on Chloe and her bedtime drama. The other week, Chloe was waking up every 30 minutes. I was getting frustrated with it and had had enough of it. So after the 3rd time of her waking up in the night (it was 10 pm) I just let her cry. She cried for about 45 minutes and finally put herself back to sleep. She didn't wake up until 7:30 when I went in to get her. And that was that. She has been sleeping through the night ever since. I guess it was just time for the both of us that she sleep through the night. Now we have to work on nap time. Here is a picture of Chloe during her "nap time". It is safe to say that she did not go down for this nap. But later on that day, both her and Cadence took 3 hour naps. It was great!

So I am going to try and go to bed now. Wish me luck and enjoy the pictures.

the kids

2008-05-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

So I highly doubt that my sister will post these pictures of her kids and mine. Not because she doesn't want to, but simply because she does not have the time. So I am going to do it for her /me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Spring Break part 2

2008-05-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay on this post. Life has been fairly hectic around here. The "twins" have been growing and moving and have changed their sleeping habits on me. I have also been more involved with my mom's group and getting out of the house with my neighbor and her 2 kids. More on that later.

Now to continue with my trip to Washington.

While we were up there we saw my Aunt Sidney, Uncle Lee, and Cousin Manda with her husband Nathan and their adorable little guy Joshua. They came to my parents house for a very delicious turkey dinner. It was really nice being with the whole family again and seeing all of the kids interact with each other.

We also spent a good amount of time with Brett's family. We went to dinner with them, had his mom over to play with Chloe for a few hours before she had to work, we had lunch together...but the best time we had was watching our nephew Nolan's first t-ball game of the season. He was so cute, I mean very cool out there. I like t-ball, everyone gets a turn to bat in every inning and they get to bat until they hit the ball. Nolan even hit a home run! Ok, so he was the last batter up and they always get to run the 4 bases. But it was very fun to watch.

Now when we go to Washington, we always try and see Brett's Great Aunt Gerry and Uncle Jim. Gerry and Jim are like grandparents to Brett and we really enjoy spending time with them. This trip we went to lunch with them and were able to get in a long talk back at their house. I am glad that we were able to see them. And Chloe really enjoyed her visit as well. Sorry there are no pictures of this visit.

Thanks to my parents babysitting for us, Brett and I were able to get some good somewhat quality friend time in. I went to my friend Alison's baby shower. She is due to have her baby boy any day to week now. She looked amazing! It was really nice that she had her bay shower while I was up there not only so I could be there for it, but it was nice that I could see a lot of my friends at one time. I felt like my time was tight because I wanted to see my friends, but I really wanted to see and spend time with my sister that I haven't seen in over a year. Brett as well got to hang out with his friends alone which he needed. I believe that it was a good stress reliever from the life of studying that he has been living lately.

So on Brett's spring break, the first break he has had since winter, he agreed to come up to Washington with me. While he was on HIS break, and not spending time studying, he spent many days helping my dad break up the concrete decking around their pool. He did not get to lounge around a pool, go golfing, watch endless amounts of t.v. or go and sit in a movie theater on his break. He did hard labor. He worked in the sun, the hail and the snow that we had just to try and finish the job for my dad. He is truly a wonderful person, husband and son in law. I wish that I got before and after pictures of his work, but like an idiot, I did not think of that until I was already back here in California.

Since we had our family together, minus Phil (who by the way will not be getting out of it when they come up in late summer) I made us all take some family photos together. The last time we took one was right before Tracy and Phil moved to Iowa and Ryan was David and Chloe's age. So I kind of sprung it on everyone, but they all seemed to tolerate it pretty well. I think we got some great shots.

I think that is all we did, and if I forgot you and or something I am truly sorry about it. It has been a few weeks now and my mind isn't what it used to be (scary!)

Spring Break part one

2008-05-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

This year for Spring Break we headed to Washington. We left our home in California with its 85 degree weather and its ever lasting sunny days and headed to the wonderful spring weather of Washington. While we were there we got snow, hail, rain, sun, and anything the sky wanted to give us on our trip.

So Brett and I are crazy, I will admit to that. We drove 13 hours strait with our baby in the car stopping only 3 times for gas and bathroom breaks. We challenged ourselves to see how long we could go without stopping. Chloe did great in the car. We left late enough in the day that she basically slept the whole trip. Even though she did great on both legs of the journey, I don't think that we will be driving up anytime in the near future.

While we were in Washington, we met our newest (8 month old) nephew David. Let me tell you , the few, and I mean very few photos my sister has put up of him on her blog do not do that boy justice. He is the cutest baby ever!!! I love his little smile. He can light up the room with his big two toothy grin. And Ryan was such a little joy to be around. He is getting so big and so "human like" now. No longer is he that little toddler that I know from way back when. It was such a blast to see him.

I tried really hard to get lots of pictures while we were in Washington, but I failed. I was enjoying the moments too much to run and get my camera out. So sorry, if we saw you and don't have a picture of our visit up there, it was because I was enjoying our visit too much to remember to get a picture of us together. So next time remind me to take some photos.

I really liked seeing how much Chloe and David looked like each other. They seemed to be the same height, weight and oh so cute. He has no hair while Chloe has some. They both have the 2 lower teeth and were both working on getting the upper ones in at the same time. (by the way, Chloe beat David. Her top tooth came in today) They had such a blast playing with each other as well.

Since it is getting late and my baby is asleep ...I should be sleeping too...I will just post these pictures below and hope that you enjoy them . I will write more about my trip another time.

Chloe's thoughts

2008-04-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

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Love Chloe

It says:
"So now that mommy finally got off the computer and let me take over, I can tell you about my day. It started with mommy waking me up at 4:00 am so she could take daddy to the airport for some sports medicine conference in Missouri. We got home around 6:00 am and mommy and I both fell asleep in her bed. I like it there because it it nice and soft. Auntie Tracy woke me up at 7:30 in the morning calling the house wanting to talk with mommy, which was ok by me because I wanted to get up anyways. I was tired of lying in bed and although it is really really fun poking mommy in the eyes, nose and mouth with my fingers, after 1/2 hour of doing it, it gets pretty boring. For breakfast I had some blueberry pancakes which I love to eat. Cadence came over again today, we had lots to talk about, but it is private stuff and you wouldn't understand. After lunch I had to go to the doctor's office to get my 9 month checkup. Yay this month I didn't have to get any shots, but they did take blood from my finger and that really hurt. Cadence was nice, she didn't laugh at me when I cried, she is my best friend. So I have gone down in my weight, now at 75th % and am steady in my height percentile at 90th %. I am going to be a tall girl when I grow up my mommy says. Since daddy is gone, it is pretty quiet around here and after dinner, my mommy and I will watch a movie and then go to bed. It doesn't sound like all that much fun, but I get to have some good cuddling time in. I like to cuddle with my mommy. You should try it sometime....when I am not around of course. Well mommy says it is dinner time so I have to go now. I miss everyone and hope to see you all really soon. Oh and mommy will post some pictures of me really soon she says.

Love Chloe

(Chloe really did write this herself. She loves typing on the keyboard like her mommy so when I let her type, she went to town. Now don't think that she is a genius and wrote this all out in one piece. There were a lot of other random keys that were hit and programs were shut down because of her, but she really really enjoys playing with the keys. )

91 degrees outside!!!

2008-04-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Since it was so incredibly hot on Saturday, a few of the moms in my mom's group got together with our families and had a BBQ. The kids loved the little water park that I got and we liked it too. It was short enough on the sides that the kids could get in the cool water when they wanted to and they could get out when they were done all on their own.

So Chloe had her first kiss this day as well. Caleb went in for the kiss and she liked it. I think by the time we got our cameras out, they had kissed like 5 times. Don't get your hopes up though, Caleb kisses everyone.

While us girls watched the kids play and gossiped, the guys played a game of boccie ball.It was a good way for them to break the ice. They also got out rock band and played that until it was time to go home.

We had a Delicious dinner with chicken, ribs, hamburgers, fruit salad, veggies, pasta salad, and more. Oh it was so nice, it was just what I needed. A group of friends getting together on a hot day to let their kids play in the water, husbands talking about everything under the sun and us girls just hanging out playing with the kids and having a good conversation. I miss my friends up in Washington that used to get together with us and have these fun events. I am so glad that I have found it down here.

Second night

2008-04-09T14:34:00.000-07:00

OK so I am a big sucker when it comes to my baby.

She went to sleep last night while I was watching a movie. It was probably around 8ish. I was able to change her diaper and put her in her crib without her waking up at all what so ever. I was so happy. I thought "man this is easy!"...but I was wrong. Around 9:30 she woke up screaming! not just crying that whimper cry of I am still tired but I just woke up cry. It was a full out screaming cry. I did the "wait 10 minutes" thing that my sister is making me do, but even Brett was feeling bad about her crying like that. So I wimped out and got her up.

The poor thing has been having really hard stools lately, hard enough that she cries when she is going to the bathroom. (yes I am giving her water, prunes, prune juice and cutting back on things like crackers and high iron foods) Well it ends up that she pushed out another really big and hard stool. SO no wonder she was crying like that. Anyways, we let her stay up with us for a little while then Chloe and I went to bed together. She fell asleep in her co-sleeper all by herself. No crying or anything. She just played with her baby doll until she just fell asleep. And the most wonderful part was that she didn't wake up until around 5 to nurse, went back to sleep and woke up for the day at 8:30. Oh it was nice to get some sleep.

So I know I didn't go through with my original plan. I will eventually get there. I took a few steps back and one sideways and now I am on a different path. My goal is to now get her to sleep through the night, no matter what time she goes down officially or where she sleeps. I just want her to sleep for like 5 - 7 hours without nursing which I know she is capable of doing. When we get that down, then we will work on a set bedtime. I think baby steps will work better in our situation.

Texas and Washington

2008-04-08T13:23:00.001-07:00

A few weeks back, Brett went down to Dallas Texas for Convocation. It is a huge conference that is put on by the D.O.'s all over the country. There, the students go to lectures to learn new and exciting things about the specialties of D.O. practices.

Brett learned some new manipulation techniques and was updated on current medical issues. BUT I think the real reason they have this convocation is so that everyone can get together and have fun. It was really good for Brett to go. He made a lot of contacts with other D.O's that already have practices set up. He and the group of friends he went with were taken out every night by Touro Alumni to various upscale bars and night clubs like the Ghost bar at the "W" hotel. Everything was paid for by these doctors, so that was a relief to me when I heard about Brett's nightly events.

But enough about Brett.

Since he left me and went to Texas for a few days, I decided to go up to Washington and see some family. I was trying to make it a relaxing time for Chloe and more importantly, myself, so I didn't really tell anybody that I was coming, and it was also last minute that I decided to go.

But I was barely able to relax. It all started with the flight being delayed 2 hours, so instead of getting in around 9pm, I got in about 11:30pm. I was in the airport for a good 5 hours with just me and my baby. While I was in Washington, I had a doctors appointment, my mom and I went shopping, we had dinner with my parent's friends, my mom and I got much needed massages, did some more shopping, stopped by my father in law's work and surprised him with a visit, saw one of my friends and hung out with her on her birthday, went to my friend's daughter's 4Th birthday party, ate some good food, had to deal with the DMV and getting my tabs renewed while the car was in California, went over to my in-laws house for a few hours so they could play with Chloe,and I am pretty sure there were a few more things that I did while I was there.

Chloe also decided that she didn't want to sleep in the big scary different crib while we were at my parents house. So every night I had her in bed with me, which meant that I barely slept. She kept rolling over towards me and by morning, I was in a weird twisted position on the edge of the bed trying not to roll onto her and trying not to roll off the bed. And yes I did keep pushing her back onto her side of the bed.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip for the both of us. Brett went to a nice and warm sunny state of Texas, and I went to the snowy state of Washington. Oh and I forgot to take many pictures while I was in Washington, and Brett didn't have a camera. So here are the few pictures I ended up with. I hope you enjoy them!

Where does the time go?

2008-04-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

Since I have been watching Cadence I have found that I have very little time to myself to get things done. Like blogging for instance. Right now I am able to post some stuff because for once, both girls are down for their nap and I am avoiding doing chores around the house,showering,eating lunch, those kinds of things. There will be other times to do those.

So here are some updates. Chloe is rolling all over the place. She has even started scooting around on her butt when she is sitting, but won't get very far, or go very fast but she is able to move that way. She is still refusing to crawl. I am trying some baby yoga moves with her on helping her crawl, but she would rather just roll over and play with toys than work on her yoga moves.

I have been told that she is getting her upper teeth. Her upper gums looked swollen and white and she was really fussy...especially at night and at nap time. Tylenol would soothe her, she chewed on everything and drooling picked up a bit more. It has been 6 days now and nothing has shown up. She is no longer fussy, not drooling so much, and not chewing on everything in site so I think that they decided to wait a little longer before coming out. (I am very happy for that decision.)

Chloe is also trying really hard to talk. She has said de dee to Brett. She has said gapa to my dad and laughs every time I say "mama" to her. I doubt that she will be saying that anytime soon. When she is "talking" it seems like she is forming her own little words. It is not longer baby babbles coming out of her mouth. It is very cute and darling to watch and hear.

Clapping her hands is the newest trick that she has learned. She doesn't do it all the time, but when she does do it, you can see that she is so excited that she is clapping. I think she gets a kick out of our reaction to her clapping.

So those are the things that Chloe is up to these days.

Results

2008-04-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

So it went pretty well. Chloe went down around 8:30, woke up at 9:00 and I successfully put her back to sleep within one minute! Then she woke up at around 11:30 to nurse, which was ok because I needed her to nurse so I could get comfortable enough to sleep. She again woke up at 3am and I tried to comfort her but she was awake. So I changed her diaper, sang her a few lullabies again and put her back in her crib and let her play with a stuffed animal. She didn't cry at all! She eventually fell asleep again around 4ish. I of course did not get much sleep, but I am expecting that. She woke up again around 7:00 to nurse and I was not ready to get up since I got little to no sleep last night, so I brought her into my bed, nursed her and we both slept until 9:30. It was very nice.

So we will have to see how tonight goes.

First night

2008-04-07T22:44:00.001-07:00

Ok so I know that a lot of moms have gotten this down already. I used to have it down until the house got cold and we brought baby into our room to sleep. Now the "fight", "retraining", "willpower" must begin again.

What I am talking about is getting my baby to sleep in her own crib in her own room and hopefully through the night, or at least not having her wake up every 2 hours to nurse and having me give into it.

So tonight we did our new bedtime routine, which I have not done since she was 3 months old. (She is now 8 months). We got her into her pj's, brushed her teeth, read 3 bedtime stories, sang 4 lullabies, and I talked softly about our adventures together. And around 8:30 she went to sleep.

The norm for the past few weeks...months, has been I usually watch and see when she gets tired. Sometimes that can be as late as 11:00 at night!!! But I didn't want to have a screaming baby when I put her down, so I went by her schedule. Plus I am a night person anyways so I wasn't hurting at all. Then I would climb into MY bed and have her fall asleep next to me while I sang lullabies to her. After she fell asleep, I would then place her in the co-sleeper next to my bed. Then every 2 -4 hours she would nurse and she would usually return to her co-sleeper. Sometimes she would end up in bed with me.

Lately she has been going down for bed anywhere between 8:30 and 10:00pm. Not too bad I thought. But then she would wake up an hour into it and me being the "not so smart mommy" would pick her up and bring her out to play with me or have her watch me make Brett's lunch or whatever I happened to be doing at that time.

Long story short, I have to be tough now (Tracy and Brett are making me) and I have to leave my baby in her room at night after the initial bedtime routine. No going and getting her up, no turning on the lights, nothing but a soothing "it's nigh night time baby" give her a kiss and soothe her back to sleep. I know this is possible. The question I keep asking myself is, "do I have the strength to have my baby possibly (blood curdling) cry for me for a long period of time at night when I know that all it would take to get her to go back to sleep is to bring her into bed with me and either nurse her or just breathe in her ear holding onto her and she would go to sleep within 5 minutes"? The answer I have been told is YES.

So wish me luck. So far she has only woken up 1/2 hour into bedtime and I got her to go back to sleep with no problems. It has now been 2 hours. I think I should go to sleep myself.

Easter

2008-04-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

For Easter this year we went down to visit Brett's Grandma and his aunts, uncles and cousins. The weather was perfect. I think it was in the high 80's while we were there if not a bit warmer. We were in Laguna Woods, a community, well I guess you can call it a city in Southern California dedicated to those who are 55 and older. (I told Brett that I want to live there some day!)

It was a very short visit, all we had was the weekend because Brett had to go to school on Monday. We took off at 2am and arrived at his grandma's house around 9:30am. We went to brunch at a really good Greek restaurant, and returned home to prepare for the guests. At 2pm the party started. All of the relatives arrived for our Easter party. The kids had an Easter egg hunt, Chloe had her own little one of course. We made her roll around the floor to locate her eggs filled with animal crackers.

It was really nice to see April, Randy, Gretchen, Pauline, and Laverne again. But it was even nicer to meet the other members of Brett's family. All of his mom's other brothers and their boys.

The day was well spent with the family.

Easter Sunday we went to church with his Grandma which was nice. It was a good service about who Jesus was and what he meant. Chloe did a really good job sitting through the service and I only had to leave for the last 20 minutes so I could get her to fall asleep without crying and disturbing the congregation.

After church we went to lunch at the Olive Garden, had wonderful food and conversations. When we got back to his Grandma's house, we left Chloe with his Grandma and took off for a walk along the river by her place. It was really nice and peaceful. I guess Chloe did fine with Grandma. When we got back from our walk, Chloe took her nap and that allowed Brett and I to take a nap as well. I didn't get much sleep this trip so the nap felt really good.

Chloe discovered that she really likes dogs, especially when they lick her.

We headed home after dinner and it was a long 6 hour drive and thankfully, like the ride down, Chloe slept the entire time.

better things to think about

2008-03-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

update

2008-03-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Apparently Lamar Petry and Jonathan Walker enjoyed a wonderful trip on us to Las Vegas from Seattle. It was a one way trip so I don't think we will be seeing them anytime soon. They purchased the tickets online and flew on the 6Th of this month.

I have called both of our credit card companies and have closed both accounts.

Fraud!

2008-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

As a way to protect Brett and my credit card accounts, I have set up an automatic alert that whenever we spend more than $100, the credit card company calls my cell phone and lets me know that a transaction has exceeded the approved amount. Well they called me the other day and I thought it was kind of odd. I didn't remember going shopping recently, or Brett coming home with lots of stuff. So today with my downtime, I went online to look at the recent activity on my credit card. Low and behold, it looked like Brett and I purchased 2 tickets on Southwest airlines for $239.50 each. Now I know Brett and I are traveling soon, but he is flying with American and I am flying with Northwest. So this peaked my interest. I called the credit card company and they told me all they could pull up from that purchase was that it was bought for Dallas. Now Brett is going to Dallas Texas for a school thing. So I told the nice people on the phone that I will call the airline company to see what that was about.

When I called Southwest, they were able to look up the tickets with my credit card number, and they asked me if I knew a Lamar and Jonathan. Too bad I don't know who they are. But I bet they were planning a great trip, at least I hope it was to a nice place, maybe Hawaii, Florida, or maybe it was to see their sick and dying parents. Who knows. All I know is now they won't be taking the trip.

I called the credit card company back and we have now disputed the charges and canceled the account. They were really nice about it. So now we get to be one of those people with that on our report. YAY!

We don't know how they got the information needed to purchase the tickets, we both have our cards still. So we feel really violated. The only thing we can think of is they got a hold of those convenience checks that they mail out. Everything else is done on the Internet for us with the company. So if you are getting those in the mail, you can call the credit card company and have them stop sending them out. I would say do it today as soon as you are done reading this!

This is such a hassle and I don't want anyone else to have to go through this.

thought you might enjoy this

2008-03-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

This was sent to me by a friend:

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes
There is no fast food.
Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.He must also make cookies or cupcakes for asocial function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating hi sown assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings,church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning,feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday,height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song,favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!
After you get done laughing, send this to as many females as you think will get a kick out of it and as many men as you think can handle it. Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed

visitors

2008-03-05T22:18:00.001-08:00

I didn't want our being sick to over shadow our wonderful visitors. I will write about their visit when I am feeling a bit better.

Sick

2008-03-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

So my poor baby has been sick for about 5 weeks now. She first got sick when I started watching Cadence full time. She was getting better until Kaeli came down for her visit. She got sick again and it was worse. More coughing, almost croupy sounding at times, and then she got a little better. I lowered the bed back down so it was no longer at an angle, I put away the humidifier, and I thought I could put that stinking nose sucker away. Then my mom came down and she got sick again! As well as my mom, Roberta and myself. Who knows who gave it away this time.

So today I took Chloe to the doctors for her booster flu shot. Come to find out that she has an ear infection in at least one of her ears, the other had too much wax in it to tell. Her lungs sounded clear though, so all the flemmy cough noises are coming from her nose. Now she is on antibiotics for 10 days and hopefully it will clear everything up.

Throughout her entire 5 weeks of being sick, you wouldn't have even noticed except for the cough and continually runny nose. She is such a happy baby. I am so fortunate to have such a good baby. She has an ear infection, not just red ears, but she has yellow puss in them! She never cried or really ever pulled at them. Poor thing.

So now I am sick with a really bad sore throat, feeling like I am swallowing a mixture of rocks and glass, head congestion and a cough. All I want to do is sleep all day and eat soft foods. Better yet, have my mom take care of me like she used to. But I am a mom of my own now with a sick baby and another baby that I take care of full time. So I get to suck it up, eat whatever food I can force down my throat, get my usual 3 - 4 hour naps in between feedings and nose cleanings and try and not go crazy with two little ones wanting to be held all day long because they are not feeling well as well.

Brett is doing an amazing job helping take care of us. He runs to the store to fill the prescription after a long day at school, and goes back to the store to get the cough drops that he forgot to get while he was getting the prescription. He is putting his studying off until really late at night so he can help with the kids. Then when Cadence leaves, he takes over with making dinner or occupying Chloe while I cook. Usually it is the later of the two. I am so grateful to have him.

I hope we will all be feeling well very soon!

I can hardly wait!

2008-02-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

My mom and her friend Roberta are coming to see us tomorrow and are going to spend a wonderful 6 days with us! I really can't wait. Chloe seems to be permanently attached to my hip for the past few days and I am itching to get her off. This morning she just sat there and stared at me for 20 minutes strait! Totally ignoring her toys that she had been playing with. I love my baby to pieces, but I am so ready for a break. I just hope she will go to grandma.

fun at the beach

2008-02-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

Beach and a hike

2008-02-19T11:15:00.001-08:00

Over this wonderful 3 day weekend, we took advantage of the nice weather that we have been having.

Our friend Marie and her baby Cadence took us to the beach and then for a short hike on Saturday. It was so nice getting out of the house and into the outdoors.

So Chloe loved the beach. She got to dip her feet in the water, which was still really cold. She also had fun watching her feet dissapear in the sand when the water came up over them.

It was warm enough, but not too warm for us to do some sun bathing as well. Don't worry, we all had sunscreen on.

After the beach, we decided to go on a short hike. We thought that we took the path that would run along the edge of the mountains so we could have some neat water views, but we ended up on a different path. It was a really pretty path though. There were many waterfalls and streams that you had to cross over. We really enjoyed it. At the end of the hike, poor Chloe was asleep. It was a long day for her.

Oh so fun!

2008-02-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

The joys of babies

2008-02-14T10:23:00.001-08:00

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So I was in line at the super market the other day and a dad with his daughter who I would say was about 6 years old, looked at Chloe dressed like this and said...."oh honey, look at the cute baby boy!" his daughter replied "no daddy it is a girl!" he then asked me if she was a boy or a girl!!!!!! I politely replied and told him that she was a girl, then turned around and avoided talking to him. His daughter replied "See daddy I told you it was a girl."

Now I know it can be misleading that she was wearing blue pants, but with all the pink I had on her? I hope people don't dress their boys in this much pink!

Kaeli's visit

2008-02-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

So over this past weekend, my long time friend Kaeli came to visit us. She was here for a wonderful 5 days. I am sad that she is gone, but realize that she needed to get back to her own life.

On Friday while she was here, we went to the Jelly Belly factory and took a tour, sampled free jelly beans, bought too much candy, and had lots of fun! There were so many things to look at, I took tons of pictures, but I can't put them all up, you will just have to come out and visit us/it yourselves to see the whole thing.

We also took a tour of the Budweizer factory that is accross the street from the Jelly Belly factory. The tour was not that great, but they did give you two free drinks. Anything that the company makes.

On Saturday, we left Brett and Chloe behind while Kaeli and I took off to San Francisco for the day. It was so much fun. We started down at Fisherman's Wharf and ate a really good lunch, bought mini donuts, salt water taffy, and some souviners.

Then we took off on a walk towards the Golden Gate Bridge, and about 1/3 of the way there realized that it would take us a good hour before we got there let alone crossing it and returning. So we scratched that idea and walked to Ghirardelli Square and ate some really yummy ice cream sundaes.

After that, we headed out to the Hate Ashburry district to do some shopping. Kaeli found some really good buys and presents for people. In one of the stores, I found a pink leather Prada purse that they were selling for $25, and in another store I found a Dooney & Bourke purse for $25 as well. I should have bought them and I have been having dreams about going back and getting them. Oh well. I don't really need more purses anyways nor do I need to be spending the money!

Sunday was such a gorgeous day, well they all were actually, but anyways....on Sunday Kaeli, Chloe and I headed up to Sonoma for some wine tasting. $5 bought you tastings of 5 different wines. I am finding out that I like white wine and don't really care for red wine. We had a good lunch at an Irish pub, ate yummy ice cream (Chloe LOVED the stuff!) and had lots of wine to drink. Don't worry, I was sober before I drove home. Sonoma is such a beautiful and relaxing town. I would love to spend all of my time up there.

This cow is made out of wine corks. Monday came and we had to take Kaeli to the airport. She is already planning her next trip down here.

Spring Fever

2008-02-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

It was so incredibly nice out today. Well actually it has been nice out since last Friday. It has been sunny, high 60's to mid 70's through out the week and just plain gorgeous. So today I got the Spring Fever itch inside of me. While the girls were occupied throughout the day with naps and playing with eachother I was able to get a few things done:

3 loads of laundry
ironed 9 pairs of pants and 8 shirts and 1 table cloth
vaccummed the appartment
gave Chloe a bath
gave myself a shower
made lunch
ate lunch
made dinner
swept the floors
made 2 loaves of banana bread
changed the sheets on both beds (we had a guest over the weekend, more about that later)
cleaned the kitchen
did the dishes
put up the final piece of plastic over the last window so we have no more leakage
fed both babies multiple times
changed many diapers
wiped many runny noses (Chloe is still sick)
tried to teach Chloe how to roll over
Worked with Cadence on crawling
talked to my sister ( a much needed "break")
and I am sure that I did a few other things in there as well.

I love having this energy. In the next few days I will be getting my double stroller delivered and I will add a nice walk to my list as well. I can't wait.

The newest addition

2008-02-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

For the past 2 weeks I have babysitting for one of the girls that goes to school with Brett. You might remember Cadence from our trip to San Francisco earlier in the year.

Chloe and Cadence really enjoy spending time together. They play with eachother's toys, eat together, and Chloe even practices OMM on Cadence every once in a while. She is learning so much from her daddy.

The two also do a lot of teamwork activities. They work together to make the music start on this toy, they both cry together, eat together, and they take naps together. It is all very cute and fun. Although it is just like having twins. The two are only 4 weeks apart.

They really have bonded well with eachother.

6 month check up

2008-02-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Chloe had her 6 month checkup. We took her to her new doctor that we really like. She is a pediatrician D.O. (what brett is going to be minus the pediatrician). So it ends up that my sweet little angel is 19 lbs 3 oz and is 28 1/4 inches long. She is getting to be so big. However she has dropped down to the 90th percentile from the 98th at her 4 month visit. This means that she is slowly but surely slowing her growth. YAY!

Since this was her 6 month checkup, she got her immunizations for this milestone, and she got her tetanus shot and one of her flu shots. So the poor baby has not been feeling very well.

Oh and on top of her not feling well beacuse of the shots, she got a cold from her friend Cadence, who I have been watching this last week. So last night was a fun one. I was waking up every 30 minutes to either suction out her nose, fed her, give her tylenol, or put a pacifier back into her mouth to try and give me a few more minutes of sleep. Hopefully tonight will be better.