Sunday, May 17, 2009

Washington trip March 2009


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.

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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.
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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!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

To all you moms out there

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 ...

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

bare with me please

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.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Habbitot

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.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Going for an early afternoon walk

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.


Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Just enjoying the weather

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

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!