Disneyland!

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

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

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!

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 ...

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.

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.