Pictures from Michael's Birthday

On March 4th we celebrated Michael turning 2. I can't believe he time has gone by so fast already.

Daddy let the boys have some leftover frosting after he decorated the cake.

We had a store bought cake, but Jason put the Blue from Blue's Clues on it.

Snuggle brothers, relaxing before everyone got there.

Playing balloons with Poppy and Grandma

Ethan posing for mom.

Opening presents!

Cousins on the trampoline

Fun with balloons

With Charlotte and Papa Don

Helping Dad build his motorcycle from Ryan and Hilary

Jason's brothers raided Ethan's dress up box...and this pictures came about.

The birthday cake

Sitting with Papa while blowing out the candles.

Michael had a great party and everyone had fun. It was so nice to spend the day with everyone!

26 weeks

I'm 26 weeks pregnant now with our 3rd boy. I still can't believe it, even though I can feel him moving all the time. In 3 short months, our lives are going to change again, but I feel like I will be able to roll with it better this time, since I've done it twice before and know what to expect. Balancing a newborn and a 2 year old will be the hardest thing, but I'm not too worried.

I have been lax in taking pictures of myself this time around because my clothes are uncomfortable and I don't feel like I look good. But I will try to be better at taking my picture.

This time around, I have had a little more back pain than I have in the past and my hip joints hurt more, but overall I feel pretty good.

Michael turned 2!

Well, earlier this evening, I tried to get pictures from Michael's birthday uploaded to my computer from the camera chip and it would not work. Finally Jason got it working for me, but I didn't feel like blogging then. My back started hurting again this evening and all I want to do is lay down and do nothing. Ugh.

Anyways, I did want to say that Michael had a great birthday. I can't believe he's already 2! He had a blast at his party and I can't wait to post pictures because it seemed like everyone had fun. Jason's brothers raided Ethan's costumes and they all ended up with super hero helmets on. It was great.

I'm going to try and soothe my back with the heating pad before falling asleep. I sure hope it feels better tomorrow.

Late Night

It's after midnight and I'm sitting with Ethan in his room, waiting for him to fall back asleep. His nose has been stuffy and it's hard for him to get comfortable, so sometimes Jason or I end up in here with him until he falls back asleep. That's where blogging from my phone comes in handy! Keeps me from falling asleep in his room. :-)

Today I had a pretty good day. Yesterday I was very irritable and cranky. Today I went out with the mindset that I would be in a better mood. I also did all the dishes and tidied up most of the kitchen. I probably did more than I should have because my back hurt at the end of the day. But I feel so much happier and calmer in a clean house. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get some laundry done and organize the office. Also clean out the car. I'm not sure how far I'll get but I'm going to try my hardest.

Aidan is giving me some kicks right now, which is a bit distracting, but I love it. It's the coolest feeling/sensation in the world. :-)

I am looking forward to meeting this new little guy. Will he be as active as his brothers or will he be the calm one? My gut says active. I still can't believe I will have 3 soon. Crazy!

Well, I think Ethan is back asleep, so I'm going to try and sneak out and get some sleep. This mama needs it!

Update on Random Stuff

Today my hormones hit me, along with a sore back. Could be worse, but I hate not being able to function at my full potential. Jason was out of town last night for work and it's hard to sleep without him here anyway. But Ethan kept getting up and I couldn't get comfortable. My boys also rise early in the morning, so I did not sleep well. I got Ethan to school and on the walk back, the hormones started to hit. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep it off and I couldn't I tried to hold back the tears, because I know that it is a silly thing to be upset about. But the tears came. I cried good and hard for about 5 minutes and then I was done. Sometimes that's all you need. I was able to sleep while Michael took a nap, but those days are short lived with a new baby on the way.

Speaking of the baby, we are naming him Aidan. And he's starting to move around and kick me, which I love. It's nice to know he's doing his thing in there. It's surreal to think that soon we will have 3 children. I don't always feel like a mom, and then I think about these boys I have and it's strange and wonderful to think that I am their mother. The one thing I always wanted to be. It's hard, but so rewarding. :-)

Here's hoping I sleep tonight. I also hope my back gets better. It's hard to do all I need to get done when I'm in pain.

I'm sick of being sick!

Actually, I'm fine. Ethan has been fighting a cough and this past weekend he got a high fever, but we got it down. Then Jason came home from teaching in San Diego. He got hit with a 102 fever, sore throat, ear ache, chills, sweats....ugh. So I took him to urgent care. Strep Throat! So he has been passed out for a couple days but is starting to feel better. Now I'm just trying to keep everyone else from getting sick. I'm exhausted. It's not easy taking care of the house and sick people while being 5 months pregnant. But at lease I'm not 8 months pregnant trying to do it. That would suck.

Ultrasound Pictures!

On Feb. 6th Jason got to go with me to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. Tada! It's another boy. Big surprise there! Anyways, I'm just now getting around to posting the ultrasound pics.

Here is the undeniable evidence that it is another boy!

Side view

That's his knee up there by his face.

Front of his face

Anyways, we are excited. We have all the boy stuff so it will be fun to pull it all out again. And, let's get through this pregnancy and a year or so down the line before asking if we are trying for a girl next. Haha.

Halfway

I am about halfway thru my pregnancy. 20 weeks baby. And that means I can get my ultrasound to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. I'm nervous and excited. I feel like there is a lot of pressure on me to have a girl, since we just have boys. It's not bad pressure, heaven knows I would love to have a girl. But I don't want anybody to be disappointed if it's another boy. The running joke is that we make the boys and everyone else makes girls. The only boy cousins are my brother Dean's kids in Idaho. The rest are girls.

The ultrasound is Monday. Jason got the day off so he gets to go with me. My mom will be coming up to watch the boys for us.

I was re-reading my past blogs from my pregnancy with Michael, and was reminded that this was the time when I found out I had placenta previa with him. (It fixed itself before a C-section was needed) But it got me thinking: am I at a higher risk for it again since I had it before? I did some research, and yes I am at a higher risk. I'm mentally preparing myself for it so I won't be shocked if I have it. And it's actually making me worry less about the gender of our child, because really, all we want is a healthy child and pregnancy. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl. Not in the grand scheme of things.

I haven't taken any pregnancy pictures yet because I haven't felt like I look pregnant. Today I did. So maybe I will get some up here soon.

As with all my pregnancies, I lost weight in the first trimester. I started out at 188. Yikes! At my last appointment I was laughing, because the nurse said I gained 2 pounds and I was 180. So that means I lost 10 first and then gained to back. Pregnancy: Best. Diet. Ever. At least for me. I'm glad I don't tend to put a lot of weight on, because I have such a hard time losing it afterwards.

I didn't have much morning sickness with this one either. Slight nausea but no sickness, and it didn't feel as bad as it did with the boys. I've felt pretty good so far, though recently my pelvis has been stretching and moving, so it hurts a little when I try to shift my position. But other than that, it's a very easy pregnancy. If I have cravings, once I feed it, it goes away. Like, I really wanted peaches, which aren't in season, but I bought some canned ones and once I had them I was good. Overall, I've preferred to have healthy, fresh foods over processed or overly rich foods. Double helping of salad please!

Anyways, I hadn't really written any pregnancy stuff down, so I wanted to get it out before I forgot. It was really nice to look back on my previous blogs, so I want to do the same again. Thanks for listening!

Yuck!

Well, I wasn't going to blog about this but sometimes life is gross. And I'm exhausted so I need to post to get it out of my system.

Wednesday Michael awoke from his nap and I discovered he had thrown up. He had been showing no signs of illness, just a slight runny nose. I thought maybe he just gagged. Nope, that night he threw up 2 more times. Great.... The next day my mom came out because I had a doctor appointment. He made it through his nap fine, so we thought he was ok. Nope, threw up again shortly after he went to bed. That was last night. He made it the rest of the night but woke up very sniffly and not wanting to do much. He has only thrown up once today but that was more from gagging on a tortilla chip I made the mistake of giving him. So Ethan has been fine, but this afternoon, he said he had a stomach ache and then threw up all over my bathroom floor. At least clean up was easy. It was mainly juice but it rattled him. He's feeling better now but I'm wary.

On top of this, I've been dealing with this pretty much by myself. Jason has been out of town so I've been single mom. I'm proud of myself that I could deal with this alone, but I'm looking forward to him getting home. I'm so blessed to have someone who will help me clean up the messes of life. But mostly, I hope my boys feel better soon. I hate seeing my babies sick.

Monrovia Canyon Park

Today we were trying to figure out something fun to do as a family. We decided to go on a nature hike. We've been meaning to do one of these for quite awhile but it's either been too cold or too hot. It's been warmer this week but not too bad, so after Michael's nap, we packed up a picnic lunch and headed out on an adventure. Very spur of the moment.

We got to the park and started on our way. It was about a 30 min walk from where we parked the car to the end of the trail, which was a waterfall. The hike up was a bit steep but manageable. We would have stayed longer at the falls but there really wasn't anywhere to sit so we took a couple of pictures and then headed back to have our picnic.

We ended up back at the car at 4:45 only to realize Jason had left is phone where we stopped to picnic. So I stayed in the car with the kids while he made the walk back. He was pretty winded when he got back to the car. But he found his phone! Yay!

We got home around 6, gave the boys some dinner and now they are crashed. We might be calling it an early night too. We need to get out more and be more active! But we had a great time together!

The End of a Year

I make no apologies for the lack of a blog. Our life got pretty busy and I just didn't have the time or energy to update Facebook and this blog.

It's New Year's Eve and I had to write something. So much has happened. First, we are expecting our 3rd child somewhere around June 24th. We are very excited and see this as most likely being our last. Lots of different emotions going on. My brother is also expecting his first child about a month before me. It's neat to be pregnant at the same time.

Some thoughts: This year has had some ups and downs but mostly been a good year. The hardest part was dealing with the firsts of losing my grandma. This past year had all the first holidays without her. We miss her so much and the presence she brought to our family but I know we will see her again. The best parts of the year, for me have been all the togetherness. A new baby was born in January. Lots of fun and laughter has been had. Ethan started school and is thriving! I am so proud of him.

This next year should be great. My cousin is also expecting her second child in March so 3 babies will be born and my other cousin is getting married. Who knows what else might happen? More engagements? You never know. I wish everyone a very happy new year and hope it holds wonderful things for all!

It's been about a week

I've been trying to be better about keeping up on my blog, and being able to do it has been great. However, I miss adding pictures! But when the day is done, I just want to relax with Jason and not have my face buried in the computer. So I have a neglected blog. I think I might try blogging on the phone and then later, go back and edit the posts by adding pictures. We will see how that goes.

Last Saturday we went to the LA Arboretum, which I a huge botanical gardens. It cost 8 bucks for adults, 3 for 5 and up and 5 and under are free. We had never been before and the weather was supposed to be cooler Saturday so off we went. Holy cow, we walked in and about 5 steps later BOOM! Free range peacock right there in front of us. No way. It was just chilling. I can't wait to post the pictures. Ethan was 4 feet from the sucker and would have got closer if I let him. Over the course of the day, we must have run across 20, various sizes and coloration. So cool. Worth the money just for that. This place is very stroller friendly and even. Not hilly at all so you can cover more area without getting winded. I read later that the 3rd Tuesday of every month is free for everyone so check it out.

This past Tuesday, Ethan had his first Back To School night. It actually was more of an informative night, but we did get to see his classroom and some of the crafts he's made. Today I got a letter from his teacher saying that he's getting a special certificate on Monday for all the progress he's made so far! So proud!

Other than that, it's been day to day stuff. I'm looking forward to the fall weather and gearing up for holidays. I'm already thinking of Christmas because I want to try and do some crafting. Hope it goes good!

The Mundane

I'm about to blow your mind with how exciting our week has been. Well...not really. It's mostly been mundane, with a couple of doozies thrown in there.

The biggest one is the water heater. Oy! We came home from running errands Saturday, ready to give the boys a bath, and no hot water. Wha? The pilot light went out on the heater. Only catch was, that after it was lit, it wouldn't catch what it was supposed to and ended up smothering out. Boo! What a blessing to live near Jason's parents because we just loaded up the boys and took them over there for baths. Jason's dad came and looked at it but couldn't fix it. So the rest of the weekend no hot water. We called the gas company Monday and they came and looked, said it needed new parts but that would have to come from the manufacturer. Ugh. Well, Jason's parents just purchased a new one and Jason helped his dad install it Monday afternoon. Thank you! From the bottom of our hearts.

Somehow we lost water pressure in the kitchen sink, which ended up being an easy fix. The filter on the faucet got plugged. We pulled it out and voila! Water! So thank you again to Don and Jeannie for saving our butts.

The other crazy thing, is that my email got hacked. Someone got into it and changed the password on it from the inside. I couldn't check my email for 2 days. Ugh. It's fixed now, but I am going to get a new email and gradually start using it instead.

The rest of the week has been kind of uneventful but I'm grateful for that because it means nothing crazy is happening.

I want to say congrats to my cousin, who just moved into her first house this past weekend. No one deserves it more than her. And one of my dear friends is having a very hard time right now with some personal stuff and I wish her the best and hope everything works out for her. Love ya chica!


Tomorrow is Thursday, which is followed by Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend!

Remembrance

I think it's important to remember as much as we can. It's easy with happy memories. It's harder with the sad ones because all we want to do is forget. I'm posting this tonight so that it can be read tomorrow...and we can remember.

10 years ago, I was oblivious. I had been married for 2 months and just such a naive 20 year old. I woke up, too early for my tastes, but I was scheduled to opened for Admissions at CSUSB. I was tired and didn't want to be there. I walked in and found my coworker listening to the radio. (Ugh. News. I hate the news. Can't we pit on some music) He told me a plane had crashed in New York, right into one of the Twin Towers. So we sat and listened while we got our office ready for the day. As we were listening, we heard them announce another one had just flown right into the second tower. THAT got our attention. The first was an "accident." This second crash made it obvious that we were under attack. The calls started coming in. Would school be in session? We didn't know. Nobody knew if we were targets all across the country or if it was isolated to New York. In-between calls, I tried to contact my husband. At the time, he worked in an office in the parking lot of Angel Stadium. Would that be a target? What about Disneyland? That's just down the street!

He was fine and being sent home. Then we heard the Pentagon had been hit. (Oh My Gosh, this is not happening right now) Another plane went down in Pennsylvania. We didn't know if it was related to the others. We would later find put that brave Americans took over the plane and sacrificed their lives to keep this plane from hitting the White House.

School was cancelled and we were told to go home. I drove to my grandparents because at home I would be alone. When I finally got there, I was able to see the footage of the planes crashing into the towers. Words cannot describe it. But then...we watched as the towers collapsed, one at a time. I cried. I cried out of fear. I cried for the people I didn't know who were caught in those buildings. I cried for their families. I cried for the service men and women who lost their lives, running into the wreckage to save others. I cried for my brother.

My brother, who 4 months before had received his commissioning as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I knew he would be going to war. I didn't know when, but I knew.

He served 4 tours and he is with us today. We are lucky. I am lucky to have such a wonderful brother, who fights for those who cannot, who didn't have a chance that day. God bless him.

My story is not special. I didn't know anyone personally who lost their lives that day. But I will remember them. They never had a chance to fight. If I can, I will fight for them. If I can't do that, then you better be sure I'm keeping their memories alive. Never Forget.

Please, share your story. Whether you leave a comment here, or write it somewhere else, even if it's in a private journal. Share it.

Remember.

Random thoughts

I don't really have a specific thing I want to write about, but it's almost midnight and I can't sleep again. So I thought I would write a couple of my thoughts down. Lately they have been about Ethan and school, because that's the most exciting thing going on with us right now. He's doing really well. Next week is Back To School night and I'm looking forward to seeing all the things he's been doing in class. He also came home with 2 things: the Parent/Teacher handbook and his first permission slip for a field trip. Woohoo!

Handbook: mostly just rules but what I was excited to get was the list of school holidays and breaks. You should see this thing! There are so many things to remember. Minimum days, shortened days, no school, conference week. Whew! He gets a week of for Thansgiving and 2 weeks for Christmas. I need to look again but I think just 1 week for Spring Break.

Field Trip: it's in 3 weeks and to the LA County Fair. I'm going to try and go. Hopefully Mom can watch Michael. I also have to get a TB Test in order to go with. My mom wasn't able to go on many field trips with us when we were little because she was a working single mother. But the few she could go on, I enjoyed. My favorite was when she went with the HS choir to Washington DC. It was fun to experience new things together. So I would like to go on Ethan's 1st. Just to see how he does and be there to take pictures. Hopefully he will enjoy me too. When he heard I had to get a "shot" he said, "Mom, you don't need to go, I'll be brave." He didn't want me to have to get a shot. So sweet!

Anyways, that's about it for now.

Oh! The salon I took pictures for has their website up and running. If you would like to go see the pictures I took, the address is: www.sonnysalondayspa.com.

Go check it out!

A Fabulous Weekend

I haven't written any new posts because we have been pretty busy! Having lots of fun with lots of pictures to come, but I just wanted to sum it up!

It's Labor Day weekend and Ethan came home from school Friday with no homework. Woohoo! So I decided to take the boys to the mall, which I don't ever do by myself. I am trying to get better at things like this. There is a weekend long event happening at the mall because they opened a bunch of new stores and updated their play area. Radio Disney was there with fun stuff and there was face painting, balloon animals, and all kinds of crafts. So we went, did some stuff and had dinner.

The next day we went again, and today we went again. Dad was able to come with us today.

Let me back up to yesterday: one of my friends had her baby! So Jason told me to go have a night to myself. I went and picked up my mom and we went to visit her in the hospital. Cute little baby boy! After that, my mom and I went to have dinner and dessert. It had been forever since just the two of us did something so it was nice. With all the visiting, I didn't end up home until midnight. My husband is the greatest!

This evening we went to my aunt's to celebrate her two youngest daughters' birthdays. It was a lot of fun and nice to visit with the family.

I want to post some pictures, and when I do, I'll elaborate more. Have a happy Labor Day Weekend!

You'd think...

You'd think that at the end of the day, when it's been a cranky day, and I have to wake up at 6:30, that I would be snoozing away at 12:45am. But NOOO! My brain keeps thinking about all the stuff I want to do tomorrow or this weekend or next week or this bill that needs paid or Ethan's back to school night (in 3 weeks) or his first field trip (in 4 weeks...to the county fair!). Ugh! I can't even do anything about these things right now.

I've tried silencing my brain...nope
I've tried focusing on breathing...nope
I've tried visualizing peace and sleep...nope

Hopefully blogging about it will get it off my brain and send me to dreamland!

I'm glad tomorrow is Thursday. Then one more day and maybe I can sleep in. I'm glad there's no school on Monday. It will be a nice break. It's been a little rough adjusting, Ethan gets tired too but he loves school. So worth it!

I don't like minimum days

I'll tell you why I don't like minimum school days: it messes up my schedule! Depending on what time Michael wakes up in the morning, I put him down for a nap between 10 and 11. This works great when Ethan gets out of school at 2:20. He wakes up by 1:30 and we are out the door by 2 to pick up Ethan. On minimum days, Ethan gets out at 12:45. I need to leave the house by 12:30 to go get him. That's not a very long nap if he goes down at 11. And he only takes one nap.

So today he was acting tired at 10. Ok, perfect. Except he never fell asleep. I kept trying to get him to sleep but nope. So I had no choice but to keep him up, which meant cranky baby. He had an afternoon nap today instead and he didn't wake up until 4. Usually he goes to bed between 6-7. That's not very long between sleepy times. Now he's staying up later which means I stay up later.

We ran a couple errands in an attempt of mine to tire the boys out. I first took them to get some dinner, then we went to Sam's to pick up a couple things. I did pretty good by myself and the boys were good.

So in short, I'm ready for bed!

A change for me

I'm so glad Ethan is in school. It's a kick start that I needed on so many levels.

Everyone knows that when you have kids, your house gets messier, your more tired, you don't want to do anything after they're in bed. At least, that's how it's been for me. I got in a rut of only cleaning when Jason got home so the kids wouldn't bug me or after they went to bed. Sometimes I wouldn't even then because I just wanted to relax. Taking care of kids is hard work, especially when you are a stay at home mom like me. It feels like I never get a break.

With Ethan starting school, I'm trying to rechange my way of thinking and doing. I wake up at 6:30, get dressed (he's usually up by then), make him breakfast, get Michael up, get Ethan dressed then it's time to walk to school. (I pack his lunch the night before)

After Michael and I get home, we eat breakfast then I relax for a few minutes. Then I find a chore to do. Today I tidied up the living room then I rearranged some things in Ethan's room and cleaned that. After that it was about time for Michael's nap. Once I put him down, I threw a load of laundry in. Then, depending on how I feel, I'll either keep cleaning or take a nap while Michael sleeps. Today I napped because I knew Jason had to work when he got home and I would still have the boys to myself.

I've been really proud of my changes. I am getting a lot of clutter out of the house and generally making the house look better which makes me feel better.

I forgot, when Ethan gets home, he has a snack and we relax for a bit, then we do his homework. It makes it so much easier than waiting until the last minute.

I'm also glad to be walking twice a day. Hopefully a little movement will help me drop some weight. It's also helping me drink more water. Yay me! It's just the kick in the pants I needed. :-)

End of the week

Today was the end of Ethan's first week of school. I'm tired and glad for the weekend, but I am super proud of my boy. He has shown maturity for his young age. Even when kids were breaking down around him because they were going to miss their moms, he held it together.

He has been having a blast so far in school. Sometimes he talks your ear off about school and other times he's quiet until you ask him specific questions. I know it's been hard for him to have a strict routine like this, but he's doing great. He falls asleep much faster at bedtime.

The teacher did some preliminary testing on Thursday and she said we have a very smart boy. We already knew that, but it's nice to hear a teacher say that. It tells me that I've been doing a good job. And not just me, all his family, reading to him and asking him questions about things around him. All of this has molded him into a great kid.

As a treat for finishing the first week, we drove up to Riverside this evening and went swimming at my grandpa's. It was a nice way to relax as a family and beat the heat. Afterwards we went to dinner with my mom, then headed home. Both boys fell asleep in the car. It's been a long but fulfilling week for us.