And so it continues...

its almost that time!

2011-05-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

k so even tho it is mid-may in bakersfield, we have yet to have any real sign of summer yet. today is supposed to be a perfect sunny and 78 degrees! maybe the hot weather is waiting until we finish our pool! that's right we are putting in a pool :) its going to be a big (20ft by 40ft) rectangle so nothing cool and fancy. we are also going to have a spa attached and a fun little gas fire pit to hang out around too. i am soo very excited about this because my family LOVES to swim! and up til now we have always had to load up everyone and drive somewhere (either riverlakes or a friend/family member that has a pool). it will be sooo nice to just throw on our suit and grab a towel. the idea of being able to swim while kids are napping or just me and joe after the kids have gone to bed sounds sooo nice! but that does mean i need more than one swim suit! i havent ordered from this site yet but they look like that have a TON of super cute and modest swim suits!!

http://www.hapari.com/modest-tankinis/

going kinda out of order here

2011-03-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

i know that these posts are totally out of order but its better than nothing. im sure whoever out in cyber world is reading this will enjoy the pictures even out of order :) i decided not to do a 3d ultrasound with this pregnancy because i didnt want to know the gender so i debated doing maternity pictures instead. then i decided i didnt want to have a bunch of pictures of myself with a belly LOL. so we did a super fun newborn photo shoot instead. i looked on the internet for different fun poses of sleepy naked babies and gave them to brooke as ideas id like to try. the shoot ended up taking like two hours because he just didnt want to fall asleep. but when he finally did knock out it was soo fun moving him around into cute poses! here they are!!

the cloth bum!

2011-03-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

so as some of you know i switched taylor into cloth diapers when she was about 4 months old. many of you probably thought i was crazy or a weird tree hugger or something, and i am proud to say that i am still using cloth diapers. i think for one they are soo dang cute compared to a white diaper with mickey mouse on the front that feels like paper. i sure wouldnt want to wear paper underwear every day! but really, i do enjoy doing cloth diapers so much on both the kids (hoping taylor potty trains soon). it really isnt like it was back in the old days. i use the Gro-Via diapers for both kids. its a one size fits almost all that you can adjust to fit all sizes of kids. nathan wears it on the smallest setting and taylor on the largest. i have a sink in my laundry room so after i take off a dirty diaper i spray it off and then leave it til i do laundry that night. i have tried to get friends to try them out and make the switch as well because its sooo nice not having to buy diapers all the time! i couldnt imagine how much i would be spending on paper diapers right now with the two still in them! here's a few pictures to show off our fluff!
this was him at one month old. i try to do pictures every month for the first year since they change soo much soo fast
look how much he is growing! this is his two month photo shoot. how can you not think this diaper is soo dang cute!

time to do some catching up!!

2011-03-10T07:15:00.001-08:00

yes i realize that the baby is no longer a tiny newborn in the NICU. but i DID finally update my family picture so that should count for something right!?!? i will try to do a few more posts today while landen is at school. for now enjoy a couple recent pics of my THREE kids
I cannot believe what a handsome boy he is becoming. he will be five years old in another couple weeks. he has really dont a great job being a big brother as well. he is sooo proud that he finally has a little brother. he asks to hold him all the time!
taylor and her crazy red hair! who would have thought that my family with all blondes would have this little girl! i have never been a fan of redheads but i couldnt imagine her any other way. she just turned two this past weekend (ill do a separate post) and she is such a fun little girl. she loves being a big sister to her baby and wants to help me do EVERYTHING!
and of course the newest guy who just turned three months old yesterday. he is not very little anymore tho as you can see. he is just the happiest guy ever and smiles all day long. he has been sleeping thru the night for a few weeks now and i just moved him into the crib in his own bedroom. i am hoping that when he gets older that the boys can share a bedroom and we will still have a guest room for when family/friends come to visit.

new family pic coming soon

2011-01-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

yes i know we have now been a family of five for four whole weeks now. my profile picture on here is very old and outdated, but we have already taken new family pictures and are waiting for them to be edited and sent to us. i also am very much looking forward to nathans newborn pictures. i had my best friend take those sleepy pose newborn pics that you always see that are soooo adorable. i cant wait to get them back and post them for everyone to see :)
update on baby-he is doing good eating every 3 hours (half formula and half breastmilk). he has his one month appt on monday and i expect the dr to say he is lookin good. i have no idea how much weight he has gained but i know he is growing. he is starting to get a little chubby cheek action going on! he still fits into the newborn size clothes tho, so im guessing in the 8-9lb range. i will definitely update on here after his appt. i have taken pics with my cell phone and joe's as well so ill do some random around the house pictures on here as well.

Little man is here!

2010-12-17T11:58:00.000-08:00

So everyone always likes to hear the story leading up to the birth of a baby so here goes our story:

I had a regular OB appt on thursday the 9th at 940am. Dr checked me out and said I was 3cm. He noticed while we were there that I was having pretty regular contractions. They werent hurting me at all, just my belly getting really tight and hard and then relaxing. He told me to come back later that afternoon to get checked again, he sounded pretty sure that baby was going to be arriving very soon. **keep in mind that my entire family all jumped on an airplane and left for texas this very same morning, so if baby did come anytime between then and sunday we would be flyin solo. So i went back home and did the dishes and waited to pick Landen up from preschool. Swung by McDonalds and got the kids some lunch then put Tay down for a nap. Dropped both kids off at my friend Kendra's house for a while and headed back to the dr's office. Checked me again and this time I was 5cm, this was about 3pm. He decided to call the hospital and see if they could get me checked in, they had a bed open, so I was sent over.

Got me all hooked up with monitors and IV fluids (had to get a couple antibiotics for a heart issue I have, but nothing serious). I continued to have contractions all afternoon. My girlfriend kept the other kids overnight and we figured we were in for a long night. One of my really good friends, Carianne, was invited to watch the delivery so i was really really hoping that she would get to the hospital in time! My contractions continued to be nearly painless but they were still progressing my body right along. At 6cm , which was around 7pm, i went ahead and got an epidural even though i wasnt dyin yet, i was just worried that id wait to long and then have to go natural and be in a ton of pain. Carianne got there about 830 and my dr came in to check me about 1015pm. He said i was fully dialated and ready to start pushin. He broke my water and after a couple pushes little Nathan was here!

I stayed in Labor and Delivery for about four hours and was then transferred down to recovery. everyone appeared to be doin good. baby was making a whole bunch of little wimpering cooing noises that we all thought were just soo cute! the nurse in recovery said she was concerned with the noises that he might be having trouble breathing tho. she ran a couple tests and checked all his vitals but everything came back normal. she was still sure that there was a problem so they took him down to the NICU to have him "evaluated". four hours later i call down there to see whats going on and i get a slew of info: baby is having trouble keeping himself warm so he's under a heater, baby is breathing shallow and quick, they have him on IV fluids and started on antibiotics (just in case he has any sort of infection) and they have sent off some blood cultures to check for infections. oh and did i mention they were keeping him for AT LEAST THREE DAYS!?!?!?

ya so we are in the hospital with no family in town, other kids are excited to come meet their brother but now they wont get to for at least three days cause kids arent allowed in the NICU. so i cant nurse him until we get dr orders that its ok for him to eat (apparently he will get everything he needs thru his IV). and we cant hold him cause he has to stay warm underneath the heater! ya so u can probably imagine how happy i was right about now!

so we hung out at the hospital for the three days (i got to stay for two of the three) and joe took the kids home and got sleep while he still could. i stayed the last night across the parking lot at the ronald mcdonald house which was great! sunday afternoon we got the call that he had finally been discharged after getting back all good test results!!

so we are all finally home and together and the big brother and sister love their new sibling. landen is soooo proud that he has a little brother because that is just what he wanted! we have had several follow-up appts with our dr and they are just keepin an eye on his weight. most babies love 5-10% of their body weight within the first few days and then start putting it back on, and he lost a bit more than that (started at 7lb1oz and is now down to 6lb6oz) and hasnt gained anything back yet. so they are having me supplement him with extra concentrated formula at every other feeding and hopefully that will help him get some meat on his skinny little body. our next appt is monday for a weight check and if all looks good then we go back wednesday for his very unpleasant boy snip snip experience.

thats all for now and i will try to get some more pictures and updates on here as time goes by. no guarentee's about how often we will have updates now that i am a mom of three kids! holy cow!

im still alive!!

2010-10-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

k so my good friend made me aware that i am way beyond officially slacking on my blog. its been oh like five MONTHS since i made a post so here i am. today is not the day for catch up because that is gunna take a very long time and it's already been a long day. but just thought id give a quick shout out to anyone who reads this whats goin on in my life. landen just started his second year of preschool with his old nursery teacher Heather Ball. he doesnt seem quite as eager to work on homework or get dropped off as last year but once he's there and im gone he loves it. taylor is getting huge and has really become a little girl with a big personality instead of a little baby. she definitely knows what she wants and makes sure u know what she's askin for. for the most part the kids play great together but landen is, well landen, and he likes to push her buttons. let's just say she is going to be a very tough little girl when he's done with her LOL
i am hitting 31 weeks pregnant with #3. i didnt check back on my previous blog posts but im pretty sure i already made the announcement that our family was growing. my doctor has my due date set for december 25 but that is sooo not gunna happen!! not gunna be pushin out a baby on christmas day no thank you! the other two both came exactly two weeks early and that has worked great for me up til now so no point messin up that routine :) one bummer bein prego right now is that my brother buddy who lives in texas is tying the knot in december. which means that we dont get to go cause ill be right around popping time. but me and the kids decided to take a week long trip this past month to texas to go visit instead. it was so much fun!
maybe i need to make myself a list of posts that i need to do updates for. ill have to write em down on paper and look back over the last half a year and see what might be worth sharing.
so until then :)
oh and we're going to disneyland this next weekend so there's hopefully some fun pictures of info to look forward to

free living scriptures dvd

2010-05-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

for all those members who follow my blog check this out
u can get a free living scriptures dvd for linking to their facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/livingscriptures

im just now trying it so i cant vouch for sure that it works, but what do i have to loose right?

anyone with kids want some free money??

2010-04-12T16:15:00.001-07:00

k so as many of you know i have become addicted to finding and entering any cloth diaper giveaway i can find. i have been lucky enough to actually win a few things too, so its not a waste of time! well today i found another contest but its for some free gymboree bucks and the contest is only running for 24 hours! so im sure not a ton of ppl will have time to notice the contest, which just increases out chances of winning! just follow the link below and enter to win! good luck to us!

http://www.faithfullyfrugal-and-free.com/2010/04/gymboree-gymbucks-24-hour-giveaway.html?showComment=1271113997483_AIe9_BGdXm8jgGQ6AkLKsFie1rdQQwKFgk1hSyGkM3Jww9lccM_yD-JmYIylOusGpsbwW629RqhcGW2Iw7eKVMvBjKMTheycWjkvIkV1sD8-JuOIVyEjUTtLCxrh6MgTe_aZGg0avvbYqA8jCOExdX0ZVy4YmZpqLkzpN6fXZs-OW404WZ6838ZKRWXe8OyKAs2e1wZKml3Zhmv5HvUzs3M9B_ZIC7l4CEJVAcVKMq0PkpHkqW2NHTu-aOWRRTpsl4tJHAVaPk3y#c5370166728311843753

cloth as easy as huggies!

2010-04-07T21:26:00.000-07:00

k so i know most of my mom friends think cloth is gross and old school and hard. but i have recently been introduced to a new diaper system that i promise is just as easy as disposables. its called the grobaby. its a one size fits all diaper shell that has a snap in absorber inside and mesh where to two layers meet. u just reuse the shell all day long and replace the soaker at each diaper change. the outside comes in cute prints and bold colors and attached around the baby with velcro. the velcro wont last forever but its much better than tossing away every single diaper after one bathroom episode. you can buy these daipers online at http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=1378 or come hang out with me for a day and see them in action on taylor :)

so many giveaways!

2010-04-06T23:31:00.001-07:00

k so i have been doing cloth diapering for over six months now but i have just recently started finding a large cloth diapering community on facebook. not only has it been awesome to "meet" other cloth diapering momma's but i have found that there are constantly different stores doing giveaways. some do it as often as every friday! u usually have to do something in order to get a chance to win, but its a matter of leaving a comment on their blog, becoming a fan on facebook, writing a review of a product they sell that you've used or putting a button on your blog to promote their store/blog. this one im trying to win now is giving away a TON of stuff. im not even sure what the dollar value is, but its awesome! one of the stores "kellys closet" is celebrating nine years of operation and is doing this awesome giveaway for it. if you plan to have another baby, currently have a baby in diapers, know someone who will, i suggest u check our their store. they sell tons of different products, mostly cloth diaper related, but not all of them. you might even wanna try to enter the contest yourself and try to win the same products im trying to win :)
here's the link for all the information

http://www.theclothdiaperwhisperer.com/2010/04/networking-nine-giveaway-in-celebration.html

and yet another contest!

2010-03-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

this one if for all the mommies of little ones or for anyone who has a friend that has a little one or is expecting a little one soon! check out the blog and enter to win a hotsling of your choice! and there are some really cute prints too!!

http://www.nickisdiapers.com/

my new addiction

2010-03-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

k so since christmas i have started this thing that if there's a new movie in the theater that i want to see i have to read the book first. it started with the book "my sisters keeper". loved the book, liked the movie except for the ending. since then i have read "dear john" which i absolutely loved but have yet to see the movie. now i am reading "the last song". i am not quite half way done with it, but am really enjoying it alot. found the trailer for the movie and it just makes me want to hurry up and finish the book so i can go see the movie! anyone up for a girls movie night??

2010-03-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

its a new week and a new chance to win! drawings are held every friday

another cloth diaper contest

2010-03-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

tryin to win somethin!

2010-03-16T22:40:00.001-07:00

can it please be june yet??

2010-03-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

hope this link works

2010-03-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

im counting the days!

2010-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Make your Stick Figure Family at FreeFlashToys.com

nice day at the park

2010-01-17T23:35:00.001-08:00

a couple days before christmas all the big people's decided to go snow boarding. i couldnt go cause at the moment i was still technically pregnant. man if i had known that i could have gone without messing anything up (it was already done for) i sooo would have loved to go! but anyways.....i stayed home with my kiddos and decided we needed to do somethin fun too. we ran a couple errands doing some very very last minute christmas present shoppin then decided to grab some mcdonalds and do a picnic at the park. taylor got pooped out shopping so she stayed with nana and took a nap. uncle mike even rode his bike to the park and hung out with us.
we like this park cause its just around the corner from my moms house and its hardly ever crowded. it has lots of clean safe fun toys for landen and lots of benches for me to sit and watch him from.
he managed to make a little friend and enjoyed running around with him. we had a fun day together :)

and finally CHIRSTMAS!!!!

2010-01-17T22:45:00.001-08:00

christmas with our families is always a few days worth of events. this year we went down to joe's family a week before christmas so we could be back home to visit bud as long as possible. we went and saw christmas lights together and had a nice family dinner for uncle nicks birthday too. but of course the highlight of the visit was exchanging gifts. christmas is so fun with small kids that are soo innocent and excited to open toys.
landens latest toy favorites have been the toy story characters. he loves loves loves buzz lightyear and enjoys woody too. so alot of his gifts were the toy story theme this year. who knows what next years requests will be :)
taylor was easy to please with a baby doll and some cute outfits and a few other baby toys. most of the time she just wants to be involved in whatever her big brother is doing.
poor joe didnt get to unwrap any of his own gifts cause landen wanted to "help". joe LOVES to open presents and to get suprises, but he was a great sport and let landen open nearly ever one of his gifts.
after christmas with the brooks side of the family we were headed home to do christmas morning at our own house. we put out cookies and water (landen didnt want to give him milk) and some baby carrots out on the lawn for the reindeer too.
christmas morning was soo much fun with the two kids. landen was so excited for taylor to get her gifts and he would just talk to her about how fun her things were going to be.
no clue who's present this is being upwrapped, but not superised at all to see that landen is the one doing the unwrapping!
taylor knows how to close all these little doors, but still hasnt figured out how to do all the different knobs to open em back up. guess it'll take a while :)
santa brought taylor some cheerios in her stocking. landen had to open em up for taylor and let her have her treat. gee thanx landen :) gotta love the mess huh!

after christmas at home we still had three more houses to go to! we were in for a very long but fun day!
first up was Nana's house (my mom). we had a ton of people crammed in her not so big living room. and with presents and wrapping paper goin everywhere it was a miracle we all made it out alive.
next up was my grandmas house. she lives on the total opposite side of town as everyone else so thats about a half hour drive. everyone went back to their houses from nana's house and the babies took naps and the grown ups took showers and got dressed. all landen wanted to do was play with this new toys.
he wanted to ride in uncle buds truck to get to grandma's house and suprise suprise he fell asleep on the way over there. took him a while to wake back up to do more presents.
the babies were tryin to be so helpful and open out stocking box of household goodies.
we had a big huge christmas dinner at grandma's house and had a great time with family. after her house we all went back home to let the babies take another nap and then off to grandpa's house (my dads)
the big boys all got these cool indoor remote control hellicopters and landen got a spider man helicopter toy too. he totally felt like he was one of the big kids!
as you can tell we had a huge and tiring and exciting and wonderful christmas. every year our families do way too much for us and we are so grateful for everything they do. we try to teach landen the true meaning of christmas but it sure is fun watching his open all his gifts. its cute tho, cause if you ask him about christmas he knows to tell you that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday. :)

landens first REAL beach trip

2010-01-17T22:32:00.000-08:00

so landen has gone to the beach several times but he always refuses to touch the water. he will want to put on his swim suit and take his sand toys and he plops down in the sand and never budges. so we didnt think anything of it when grandpa watched taylor at the house while she was napping and we hopped in his little electric car (that has no windows and no doors, more like a street legal golf cart) and headed down the road to check out the beach, we didnt even pack extra clothes or towels.
landen stepped foot onto the sand and as expected plopped down. joe decided to walk around the rocks and look for giant star fish while i watched landen dig. landen wanted to join dad and walked over towards the edge of the water where the rocks shoot up. landen actually touched the wet sand with his feet and just got braver and braver.
he has NEVER let the waves his his ankles ever until then! we werent there very long, but he somehow managed to get soaking wet from his toes all the way to his ears.
luckily grandpa's car had some extra beach towels in the little trunk compartment for emergencies. we wrapped landen up and buckled him into his carseat and headed home. poor guy was freezing cold covered in sand and tired but he sure had fun!

Legoland and the aquarium

2010-01-17T22:07:00.000-08:00

While we were down celebrating christmas with joes family we decided to stop by legoland and the little aquarium next door to it. this past summer we bought season passes to go but this is actually the first time we were all able to go together. landen had a great time riding the rides and visiting with his cousins and auntie april and grandpa. i was rather suprised at how many little rides they actually have there. i know they are just about as expensive as disneyland but never knew if it was close to as fun. id say if you have a small kid thats at least 3yrs old then they would love it. anything younger and they cant really ride much. anything older than maybe 13-14 and id say it might be too babyish for them. they dont really have alot of bigger kid rides.
this is the smaller cars ride they have. there is one for older kids where the track is huge and its like a little town with stop signs and intersections and the whole bit. but for landen this was awesome. kinda like the disneyland autopia ride but without the thing between the tires so you dont crash and the kid actually gets to be the driver all by themself!! he rode this one a few times in a row!
grandpa was even a good sport to ride a few rides with landen.
this is like a kiddie version of freefall at magic mountain. it pulls the row of seats up pretty high and then lets it freefall for a second and then bounces you back up and drops you a few more times. i totally thought landen would be scared but he absolutely loved it! he just laughed and laughed the entire time!
this one you drive this jetski lookin thing and it actually goes over water. i think its supposed to be a water ride where other people get you wet, but the boys were lucky and stayed dry.
this was by far his favorite ride of the day. just one of those big huge slides where you sit on a mat to go down. we were there during mid week so it was pretty empty so he would just slide down and turn around and climb right back up and do it over and over again. legoland is only about 5 minutes from the in-laws so i figure we will keep the season passes and go back lots of times!
this is how long of a day we had! for those of you who know taylor the idea of her falling asleep and cuddling you at the same time just isnt in the picture. but i was so happy to be able to capture it on camera with her falling asleep for the very first time cuddling her daddy. he loved it too!
the aquarium is nothing fancy just lookin thru glass at fish but landen enjoyed it. he knew some of them from our fish tank and most of the ones from Finding Nemo.
it is nice cause all the viewing windows are pretty low so the kids get a perfect view. i think inside this one was some sea horses. he recognized them from pinocchio.
he was especially excited to get to touch a starfish. the two starfish we have in our tank hide pretty much all the time, so we're just lucky to get to see them!
and my happy little girl cruisin in the double stroller daddy is pushin. she is soo much more content that landen was at this age. i totally remember carrying him and pushing around an empty stroller when he was a baby. and she just takes her seat and enjoys the view!

christmas cookies

2010-01-17T22:01:00.001-08:00

it is pretty often around here that we make cookies. landen loves to put colored frosting and sprinkles on sugar cookies. this time we had our neighbor friend Lacey and her mom come over and help us decorate some. they even brought over a bunch of christmas shaped cookie cutters. we made a big huge mess but had a big amount of fun!
they each had to have their own knife to spread the frosting because it is IMPOSSIBLE for a three year old to frost a cookie without licking the knife. we nearly made it through the whole adventure without spreading germs but of course the wrong knives got licked and put back into the frosting. oh well, no one was sick and we all love each other :)
didnt they do a great job!!

a little of this, a little of that

2010-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

one of the joys of christmas with a three year old is they have no concept of the dollar value of gifts. that doesnt mean you get him something expensive and expect them to love it soo much more, but it means they can get something that costs $2.50 and it can be their very best favorite gift! one of his favorites this year was his shaving kit. he actually got two of them, but i have the second one packed away to bust out in a few months for a new exciting thing to do. he thinks he needs to shave every day just like his dad. joe showed him what to do, and he was hooked. he actually does a pretty good job. of course ive never tried to shave my face before, but he looks like he'll do good when the time comes. by then the razor will be a blade rather than just rubber tho.

i totally dont remember them having shaving kits to teach my how to shave my legs way back in the day. might have saved me some pain!even tho today is actually the day im doing all these blog updates, most of the pictures and stories go back over the last couple months. rather than trying to rack my brain about which event came first and puttin em all in that order, im just postin em as they come. today was one of those lazy sundays and we didnt go to my dads for dinner cause they are all outta town. the boys watched football after church then played a little wii. taylor was major messy eating dinner so i just took her shirt off and let her play while i made dinner for the grownups and attempted to clean my never ending mess of a kitchen. but to sum our day up after church. this is pretty much what we all did:
taylor discovered that a few of the cupboards dont have those annoying baby latches on them and she can actually open them and play. this one on the bottom is fairly safe, mostly just bendy straws.
the critters all laid around and enjoyed being warm and dry. today was the first day of what the weather channel says will be lots and lots of rain. thats all it shows for the next ten days at least!
the boys sat on the couch and played the wiil. since landen got indiana jones and batman lego for christmas thats ALL he ever wants to do. we limit him and only allow him to play when one of us can play with him which means taylor has to either be down for the night or taking a nap.
taylor also discovered that its fun to climb around on upside down things. like landens little lightning mcqueen chair for example
and cosmo just had to look cute :)

santa barbara cont.

2010-01-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

i didnt realize that i had some other great stories and pictures to talk about during our santa barbara trip. and i have no idea if its possible to go back and edit an entry after ive already posted it. so we'll just add another one on top :)
while we were walking around on the pier some of the guys noticed a lonely pelican hanging out on the fence. now my brother and his friends are not the brightest bulbs around, but they do tend to bring a good time wherever they are. they all thought it would be a good idea to go introduce themselves to the bird. not sure if they gave him a name or not, but here he is meeting the gang.
i dont remember who's idea this was or which of the guys got close first, but it was scary! they totally were petting him and he was just chillin there. PS- do not attempt this at home!
we found this super cute hat while we were out walking thru the shops. landen just had to put it on and test it out and to my suprise he actually let me take a picture of it. soo cute huh!?!another kinda funny thing we saw was these blankets laid out off the edge of the pier. i guess bums would make these up and people walking by are supposed to throw coins into their buckets, and then at the end of the day they come collect their winnings. doesnt sound like a bad idea to me. maybe ill bring a sign and blanket next time we go. set it up in the morning, go play in the sand and waves, walk around the shops then come collect my money before the ride home LOL this first one says "Just plain hungry" and has it all set up like a dining place.

you cant tell from this picture, but all the other blankets are huge. like at least bigger than the size of a beach towel. this poor guy has this tiny little hand towel laid out. it was soo hard to even read the sign. but it does say "I know those other guys have bigger blankets, but im new at this". guess he was hoping to earn some sympathy points and get extra cash.

December catch up

2010-01-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

during the month of december joe had quite a bit of vacation saved up from the year. and with his company you cant carry it over to the next year so you either use it or loose it. so we got to spend alot of time together as a family during the holidays. after the rush of christmas and visiting lots of family, we decided to take landen to play his first game of mini golf. i wasnt sure if landen holding a golf club would be dangerous or not, but he did really well!
we had to show him how to stand and how to slowly put the ball, but he had it down in no time. the course was really wet and had lots of puddles from a previous rain. but good thing he wore his rainboots!
he was kinda sad when he realized that his body wouldnt fit into the little mini buildings. we tried to explain to him that the ball would go in one hole and come out down below, but he just didnt grasp that concept. lol
we were also lucky enough for the month of december to have my brother Buddy and his girlfriend Chelsea stay with us for three weeks. Bud is in the air force and has been living in Texas for the last three and a half years. he tries to come home and visit about every six months and some visits are longer than others. but this was by far the best visit for us! they got to stay at our house so we got to see them and hang out all the time. landen hasnt spent much time with his uncle bud, but he LOVES playing with him.
while they were in town we did lots of fun stuff. of course they were also here for christmas, but i think that needs a blog entry all to itself. one great day while they were here, we all got in the car and drove down to santa barbara to enjoy some NICE california weather. the guys all built a really cool lookin sand castle, the babies played in the sand (taylor tried to eat it lots of times) and the girls enjoyed walking around all the shops when the tide started comin in. it was crazy to think we were all wearin shorts at the beach while back in texas it was snowing cats and dogs!
not exactly sure what compelled her to continuously eat the sand, but apparently it tasted very good. if i turned my back on her for one second she would have a mouthful. she was even lucky enough to find the primo of all hidden treasures in the sand beach, a USED CIGARETTE! yeah thats right, had to pull that one out of her mouth too!! EWWWWyou can kinda see the beginning of the mondo sand castle in the back on this picture. but i was just trying to capture dad and landen playin in the sand with the buckets. the water was waaaay to cold for landen to play in, but he still wanted to wear his water clothes and played in the sand and chased birds.

totally random, but better late than never

2010-01-17T19:34:00.000-08:00

k so i finally got taylor to bed (she was having a very not normal meltdown tonight when i put her to bed. and now the boys are playing indiana jones lego on the wii so i thought id try to do a couple quick blog updates. i am FINALLY uploading some pictures from our TWO cameras (yeah i found the one that i nearly swore the carpet guys stole). i dont even know how far back some of these pictures will be, and guarantee they will be in no order what-so-ever, but at least they will be on here right :)
first up i found some super cute pics of my sisters baby Austin. i guess a while back i babysat him and he's the type of baby that always wants to be carried around. so i think at the time taylor was sleeping so i stuck him in the sling and just went about doing my stuff. he looks waaay different now cause these are like 4 months ago, but he was soo cute and bald!
he also loves to play in the bouncy chair. you just stick him in and he goes to town forever! his little legs are gunna be soo buff!!!
and do avoid too much craziness, ill do separate blog entries for the different types of pics i find on the new camera. gotta upload them now :)

lisa finds the best clips ever yet again!!

2010-01-16T22:41:00.001-08:00

quick update (lots of info)

2010-01-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

k so not sure when i did my last update of the new family photo if i explained much. in september we found out we were pregnant again and were crazy excited. yes taylor was only 6 months old at the time, and no it was not an accident. went in for the first appt and got an all clear that everything was looking good. a couple weeks later i got a really painful cramp and then some bleeding and went back to the dr right away. he checked me out and determined that i was carrying TWINS but that it looked like one was miscarrying. not much he could do about preventing the lose of the one baby, but we were grateful that the other baby was looking good moving around and showing a strong fast heartbeat. went back a week later and the miscarriage was confirmed as the sac was shrinking and empty. the other baby was still growing big and looking strong. i never had anymore cramping or bleeding, but the dr said sometimes it just reabsorbs back into your body and never causes a problem. well i went back for my monthly appt on tuesday and discovered that the remaining baby no longer had a heartbeat. he checked me with two different types of ultrasound machines and neither showed a heartbeat or any blood flow thru the baby. he had me come back today to double confirm just to make sure tuesday wasnt just a freak occurrence but we got the same results today. since then i have started bleeding but still no cramping at all. we decided to go ahead and schedule a D&C procedure for tomorrow. if you dont know what that involves look it up on google. this will be our second pregnancy loss, but this time it feels like two separate all in one just since the two babies were lost a month apart. my dr is fairly confident i dont have any fertility issues since i have two healthy kids, but he said he can check my hormone levels should we try again later. we are doing ok emotionally because we know its nothing that we caused and its all part of the big plan. nothing we can explain so there's not really any point freaking out about it. we are very sad to not be adding another member to our family this summer, but it really makes me appreciate the two kids i already have. even landen when he's being a monster beast! i think this will make me sit back and try to enjoy my kids more and not let them get me frustrated as much. we arent sure when we want to start trying again but we do still feel like there are more little babies waiting to join our family.
oh also on a side note, we found out missing camera. guess the carpet guys didnt steal it after all LOL. and we took lots of pics over the holidays so i promise to catch up majorly. i just might be outta commission for the next few days. maybe ill do it while im resting tomorrow and saturday. give me something positive to do and keep my mind off other issues. so until then
ADIOS

HUSBAND

2009-12-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

Husband.....

1. Where did you meet your husband?
he moved here for his job and started going to the singles branch. BUT if you ask him he will tell you we met online! he sent an email to the institute director who forwarded it on to all the YSA. joe was looking for an apartment or a roommate, so i decided to call him before he moved here and introduce myself and let him know the weekend he was coming here to apartment shop happened to be a valentines dance. told him he should come along and get to know some of the ppl at the branch. no i was not hitting on him! i had no idea what he looked like or anything about him, i was just tryin to be nice to someone who was moving into a town where he wouldn't know anyone :)

2. How long did you date?
we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend for about a year and a half before he finally gave in and married me haha

3. How long have you been married?
a little over 5 years

4. What does he do that surprises you?
he is sooo helpful with the kids! he will get up early with them or even get up in the middle of the night to help out. and he NEVER complains about the house if it's messy

5. What is your favorite feature of his?
physically? his smile
otherwise, that he is soo smart and doesn't do anything without thinking it over first, even tho sometimes id rather him not take so much time to think it through

6. What is his best quality?
that he is such an awesome hard worker and a great dad

7. Does he have a nick name for you?
not that i know of :)

8. What is his favorite food?
cookies with milk!

9. What is his favorite sport?
baseball

10. When and where was your first kiss?
i think that was when we were on his first quota trip at coronado island (mother's day)

11. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple?
i enjoy when we just rent a movie at home and take turns getting and giving back massages

12. Do you have children?
number 3 on the way!

13. Does he have hidden talents?
he plays a mean game of skip-bo

14. How old is he?
32!!!!!

15. Who said I love you first?
im pretty sure that was me

16. His favorite music?
he likes the newer stuff, as long as it's not country, and dont expect him to know the words or to EVER sing along

17. What do you admire most about him?
just that he is such a great role model for landen to grow up and be a great worker, and dad and husband

18. What is his favorite color?
blue

19. Will he read this? doubt it, he knows i have a blog, but i dont think he's ever looked at it

new family drawing yet again! LOL

2009-12-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

Make your Stick Figure Family at FreeFlashToys.com

yup that's correct....we are expecting baby #3!!! yes you are also correct that taylor is only 9 months old, and no this was not a big huge accident. we are really that crazy! LOL taylor has been such a wonderful easy going baby we figured we would not avoid anything and just let the next one come whenever it was ready. honestly i did not expect it to happen the very next month but guess life is full of suprises. we are due the end of june and taylor will be 15-6 months old. landen will be a few months past 4 yrs. we are not going to find out the gender of this one since we already have boy and girl stuff on hand. guess that means we will need two names going with us to the hospital, so any suggestions that sound good with landen and taylor would be greatly appreciated. hope you all enjoy this ride that is about to get very crazy!!!

we look forward to the new adventure in our lives and cant wait for the little thing to get here!

2009 family pictures

2009-12-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

have i mentioned before how much i love the fact that one of my best friends happens to be a professional photographer?? it's soo nice being able to get awesome quality pictures done and know the person doing them and her knowing me enough to know exactly what moments i want her to capture on film! well last month we had family pictures done since we hadnt done them since taylor was 2 months old. its sooo much nicer to have them done by an actual photographer compared to just going to the mall and paying JCPenney's to click the camera (not complaining about them, especially since my sister works there now, but its just different). so here are a few of my favorites from the one hour photo shoot. and feel free to contact me for info for the photographer. im sure she would love some extra business!!
temporarily on hold with the pics, they are too big so i gotta shrink em down.

we are still alive!

2009-12-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

so the past month has been kinda hectic around here. and with the decent camera still MIA, i havent been taking many pictures. on a good note, i have my laptop back up and running. my wonderful step-dad had a laptop that died and just so happened his screen would fit on my laptop so he gave it to me. so now i am mobile! i do have super cute pics of the kids in their halloween costumes to put up, but they're on the other computer. so i guess this is just a quick one to let everyone out there that reads this, that im still alive. i will try to get up to date in the next couple days. and with pictures as soon as my new memory card comes in the mail!

we are moving now!

2009-11-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

taylor is offically 8 months old today and she is so much fun. recently she has learned to do the army crawl and is very much enjoying her new found independence. she loves to follow the cat around and pet on his and tug on him. and maxx is so good with her and tolerates her torture.
how do kids manage to grow up soo fast?? it seems impossible that this little girl is already 8 months old! didn't i just have her like two months ago?? it's not fair! she's going to be a year old in no time at all! someone please make it stop, or at least slow down.

i had to run upstairs the other day and asked landen if he could keep an eye on taylor for me. he was more than happy to help out and was so careful to make sure she didnt fall off the couch. how cute is this!!
taylor wasn't so sure what exactly was going on here. but how cute is this pic? this is why woman are crazy enough to go through pregnancy and child birth more than once!

just hanging out around the house

2009-11-05T10:51:00.001-08:00

my little sister is my idol when it comes to taking pictures of just random nothingness. not that she takes bad pictures, but she ALWAYS has her camera handly and gets adorable pictures of stuff from just hanging out. since i lost my nice camera (more like got stolen!!) a while ago, i have been using out old crusty 3.2 mega pixal one from forever ago. but i have been keeping it downstairs and trying to take pictures more often. poor taylor is going to think we didnt embrace technology cause we only have her professional pictures. so here i am trying to capture some cute moments.
it has been amazing to see how much landen has grown to love his little sister. he is a very rough and tumble little boy, so when we were pregnant we were really worried about him being too rough with the baby and hurting her. but he is sooo gently and protective of taylor! he always wants to check on her when he hears her cry and always tries to entertain her with toys when im busy doing something. they are soo much fun!
one of his favorite things to do is blow raspberries on her little tummy. he always is asking to blow bubbles on her especially if he catches sight on some flesh. taylor doesnt really love the idea, but she doesnt complain either. i know he would really love doing it to her if it made her crack up. maybe later down the road she will start to get more ticklish.
just a random pic of landen watching a movie. now that we dont have cable we watch movies all the time. always cartoon ones or disney ones, but a movie none the less. luckily he has grown out of the phase where he wants to watch the same one over and over again. he still has his favorites of course, but at least we get to see a little variety.

they'll hate me when they're older

2009-11-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

So one night last week my sister called me up and asked if i'd be willing to babysit AJ for her while her and her hubby went out to dinner for a little date night. of course i was more than happy to watch him. they left me food for him and said if he gets cranky usually a bath will calm him down. well he didn't get cranky at all, but the idea of TWO naked babies in the bath was just too much for me to handle.
isn't he just the cutest little guy you've ever seen? it was so cute cause he kept pushing the water faucet over to taylors side of the sink. he was just having a great time!taylor looks kinda drunk in the picture, but she was having a great time as well. just remember not to add any baby soap to the water as it's running cause it makes for very slippery baby butts.
landen thought the idea of taking a bath in the kitchen sick was awesome. he kept asking if he could get in there with the babies. we told him he was too big and that there's wasnt enough room for him to fit in with them. lately we have been having the hardest time to get him to eat his meals so joe told him if he finished his dinner before the babies were done with their bath that he could get in there too. we KNEW he wouldnt get done in time, but he had some serious motivation!!
i swear i do my dishes on a daily basis, but i didn't get much time after cooking and eating dinner before landen was naked and attempting to climb into the sink. i quickly got one side emptied out and he was set!
he thought this was sooo much fun! luckily he has forgotten about the bathing in the sink issue, cause i was soo sure he was going to want to start taking his bath here on a regular basis. ill just be sure not to show him the picture reminders!

my little california surfer girl

2009-10-21T20:05:00.001-07:00

the post is a little late (like a month and a half) but the pictures are from when she was six months old. sine it was right in middle of the summer, we felt it was appropriate to do a beach them photo session. and what's the fun of a beach if you cant bare it all right!?!?

i seriously am in love with all my pictures that brooke does for me! she is so patient with trying to get taylor to smile and work with all the cute poses. im sure it helps that she has a super expensive camera and all the lighting and stuff too, but id like to think it helps that i have cute kids to start off with. i love how perfect her complexion is in the picture!

she wasn't at all interested in smiling during this photo session, but at least she wasn't making scary funky faces either. guess you gotta take what you can get when you're working with a baby.

and finally a crack of a smile! i love the faded colors in this one! i really like the color ones best where you can see her bright blue eyes, but these always look so neat too! for her seven months pictures brooke was sick, along with her kids too i think. so we had to go to JCPenny's instead. but i think they did a good job, and will be anxious to pick em up in a couple weeks and post em on here too!

i swear she didn't feed herself!

2009-10-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

k so this is taylor this evening after my attempts to feed her vegetable beef. i dont know what it is about baby food that has carrots as the #1 ingregient, but this is what it does to my poor childs face. i have to read the jard every day to make sure im not giving her too many carrots, cause we dont want her to turn orange. poor landen went through a little orange phase before i realized that all the baby dinners are made with carrots! LOL
you cant really see much of her bib or body but she wasnt that messy at all. its just her face :). she is such a good little eater and never complains no matter what i give her. she's up to eating three times a day of real baby food (fruit in the morning, veggie at lunch and a dinner type meal at obviously dinner) plus she still takes a 6oz bottle every 4 hrs during the day. any my little angel is sleeping 12 hours straight at night for almost a month now!! a few nights ago was my first experience with going to bed at bedtime and not waking up til it was morning. i seriously hadnt done that in YEARS and it felt soo good! a girlfriend of mine commented today and taylor has suddenly really started growing more hair. im not sure its growing fast yet, but its definitely getting more than just fuzz. when she wears a headband it actually lays over the band now and when we take it off she gets crazy action all over. she has been such a fun baby so far and im really enjoying her alot! hopefully more pictures to come soon! and blog updates, since ive been slacking lately :)

our trip to CALM

2009-10-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

some of my friends in the neighborhood put together this little co-op preschool thing. the moms all take turns having the kids at their homes and attempt to teach the kids something fun and educational for two hours. i didnt join the group, but they were all nice enough to allow us to tag along on their field trip today to CALM.

There's definitely nothing fancy about this little attempt of a zoo, but its local and fairly cheap and the little kids love it. landen and sadie (my little daycare munckin) ran all over the place checkin out the animals native to california. we were able to keep the kids outdoors and having a good time for nearly three hours and the weather was perfect! then we all stayed and had a fun little picnic together.

i think their next field trip is in another couple months and im sure we will try to tag along for that one too. i hear that have a few fun ones planned out throughout the year. we loved spending the day with our friends!

baby butts drive me nuts!!!

2009-10-21T19:33:00.001-07:00

so i might sound crazy but taylor and I have made a big change in our lives (and poor joe too). we have decided to switch to cloth diapers!!! no she was not having an allergic reaction to disposable diapers, and no we are not crazy wacko tree huggers. i had thought about trying cloth back when i was pregnant with her, but then i got a zillion packs of diapers at my shower and didn't want them to go to waste. plus when they are newborns, they seriously poop every hour and its always nasty poop. so i decided id wait until she wasn't pooping so often and it wasnt so runny. she's now just over seven months, and to be honest i kinda forgot about the whole cloth diaper idea. but i saw someone selling some on craigslist the other day and it totally got me thinkin again. so here we are!!

for those of you who have never done any research on the matter, there are tons of options out there. and they are waaay better than back when we were babies. so far i don't like ones that secure about the baby with velcro, but totally like the snaps instead. i thought id like ones that were all one solid piece but quickly decided those were too bulky. so now i use these cute little oens that are known as pocket diapers. they are waterproof on the outside and with all the layers of snaps you dont have to continually buy bigger sizes. they are supposed to fit until the kid is potty trained! we will see about that one though :)
the diaper has a pocket throught the middle where you slide in something absorbent and there you go. for night time you can add an extra layer or whatever you need. so far we are loving them! yes cleaning off the poop is not the most glamorous thing in the world, but im fine with it and its soo nice not throwing away 10 diapers a day just wasting all that money!!! not to mention these are soo much cuter than pampers or huggies or whatever brand of disposable you can think of. much thanx to my great cousin marguerite for loaning me all her fuzzy bunz and for all her advice in the cloth diaper dept.

oh the joys of being a mom!

2009-10-05T13:21:00.001-07:00

ok so i haven't taken any pictures with my real camera lately (just my cell phone) so i don't have anything cute to show off this week. but i want to stay up to date with my postings, just i thought i'd fill ya in on some of my recent funny experiences. landen has FINALLY accomplished daytime potty training. he still wears a pull-up to sleep, but he doesn't have to be reminded a zillion times to go potty during the day. he will actually come tell me when he needs to go, and takes care of it himself. of course he yells for me to come help with clean up duty when it's #2, but its soooo much better when its not smeared all over his bum and in his clothes!!! sorry if this is TMI, but most of you who read this are moms, so you understand :) landen is really enjoying his preschool so far (he goes twice a week) and i can already tell he's learning things. his teacher has such cute ideas for how to teach them things. he comes home and tells me what he learned and i always wonder why i didn't think of that idea! taylor is seven months old now and she is actually sleeping 12 hours straight at night! i dont think landen EVER did that as a baby, and its sooo nice! i put her down about 7 and she wakes up about 7 the next morning. no more middle of the night feedings!!!!! she is getting close to crawling as well. if you put her down on her belly is she get up on her hands and knees and kinda rock back and forth for a while and it's soo cute. we are starting to have nicer weather here in good ol bakersfield and we are really loving playing outside more often. not to mention getting to bust out the cool weather wardrobe that i totally love.
of course my own kids arent the only ones around my house getting into funny things. the other day i was watching my friends boys and the potty trained one forgot to flush the toilet. i didn't realize that was a problem until his two younger brothers decided to go splash around in it while i wasn't looking! the little girl sadie that i babysit has learned how to climb out of the playpen i put her in for naps. so the poor thing just gets locked in the bedroom and hammers on the door until she finally passes out and sleeps on the floor. today while i had my back to her she found a jar of glue and decided to finger paint herself with it! we quickly cleaned up the mess, but boy was it a shocker when i first turned around.
well that's all for now. as soon as i get some pictures from our recent fair trip ill make a post about it. adios for now!

dont forget to breathe!!

2009-09-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

any else excited about this!?!?

2009-09-03T10:34:00.001-07:00

taylors most recent photo shoot

2009-09-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

i like to have pictures taken of my kids every month for the first year of their lives. then i have this super cute frame that i put up on the wall that shows each month up until their first birthday. it's so crazy how fast they grow each month when they are so young. with landen i just took him to JCPennys each month. but with taylor my great friend brooke has offered to take her pictures for me instead. i still pay her for her time, but it is soo much better to going to the mall and waiting over an hour because they are ALWAYS running late and then taylor either being hungry or tired or asleep once they finally get around to taking our pictures. so this last month (i cannot believe that my little girl is already almost six months old!) we went and had some pictures taken of taylor at brookes house and attempted to throw some little props in the change things around. here are a few of my favorites!
she liked holding herself up on the basket alot!
she is starting to be able to sit up on her own, but only for short periods of time. we kept trying to prop her up and then jump back and get a picture of it before she would tip over
she just loved playing with the thule stuff we put in the basket with her. we couldnt get her to look away from it long enough to get a shot of her actually in the basket and looking at the camera at this same time though. i think in this one she was actually looking over at brookes little girl alaura who was being a great little helper trying to make faces and funny noises at taylor to get her to smile
no idea what program brooke uses but i LOVE how this turned out with the colors all faded. you can still kinda see the colors in her outfit and her bow and then a little pink to her cheecks and the blue in her eyes. i just LOVE LOVE it!

fun night at the park

2009-09-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

so last night as we were finishing dinner i mentioned to joe that maybe we should go for a little walk around the neighborhood. the weather was nice and we still had about an hour before we needed to get the kids ready for bed. just as we were finishing up my friend from down the street mentioned that she was loading her kids into the car taking them to the park. it sounded like a great idea, so we decided to go with them instead of going for a walk. the kids ran around like crazy and got all hot and tired, which us parents LOVED. carianne was smart enough to bring her awesome camera along and took tons of cute pics of everyone.
landen has decided that he likes to make this cute little pose when he smiles for the camera
i remember when him climbing this wall would scare the poop outta me. now i just let him go for it :)
taylor has officially learned how to kiss people and she is definitely NOT shy about going for the kill. she was showin one of her boyfriends here how it's done!
i KNOW landen and issac will be very embarassed about this picture in another five years or so, but in the mean time it's soo dang cute! landen loves his friend isaac and gets soo excited when they get to play together. here we were attempting to get them to do a "bro-hug" where they just put an arm around each others neck, but we got this romance instead LOL
taylor has really decided to be a happy baby. now that she is on a good eating and sleeping schedule she hardly ever cries. unless she's stuck in the car and it's past her bedtime or something like that. but if she's awake after a good nap and she's been fed then she is sooo happy to be around.
before we left carianne wanted to get a cute shot of all the kids laying in the grass. i thought she only was referring to her family of kids, but she was nice enough to even let my little kiddos in on the action.
they are arranged from oldest to youngest here (i wonder if the twins are in order of who was born first??)
of course the photo wasn't complete til we threw taylor down there too. she refused to look at the camera though. she just couldnt take her eyes off the cute boy laying next to her
landen had so much fun playing and he was soo tired and itchy by the time we got back in the car to go home. he decided it would be fun to roll around in the grass with isaac after the little photo shoot and was scratching all over all the way home.
and just one last happy picture of taylor. i think she was talking and giggling with lexi one of the perry girls here. she loves getting attention!

my boy is all grown-up now!

2009-09-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

last week landen started a new phase in his life: PRESCHOOL!! he goes on tuesday and thursday every week from 9am-noon. he goes to Heather's House Preschool which is only a few minutes away from our house. the lady who runs the program goes to our church, and is actually landen's nursery teacher. so he already knows her and she already knows him. his first day was very exciting for him and i was so proud that i didn't cry when i dropped him off. honestly i think it was all because i knew landen wouldn't be scared with his teacher. plus 5 of the 6 kids all go to our church so he already knew most of them as well. even his really good friend alaura is in his class! but i honestly just cant believe he is already old enough to be in school. where did the time go? every day i look at taylor and i remember how recently landen was reaching the same exact milestones. it doesnt seem like its been that long!! but so far he's having a great time at school. he tells me all about his day as soon as he gets in the car and so far has been pretty excited about the idea of doing homework and learning new things. this week he is starting to learn to write his name which makes him feel very proud :) and makes me proud too!

guess what we got!?!?

2009-08-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

k so it's totally been killin me not to blog about this for the past almost month now, but we wanted to keep this a secret until we went down to san diego for joe's sisters wedding. we wanted to pull up in the drive way and say "suprise we got a new car!" no one seemed quite as excited about it as we were of course, but it was fun none the less. so anyways heres the whole story:
a few moths before taylor was born i finally got around to looking for our next car. the 4runner was still running great and was almost at 100,000 miles but with two kids in car seats and the occiasinal babyistting kid, that left me stuck at home. i couldn't fit all three carseats in the back seat :( so i went and looked for something a little bit bigger and fell in love with the honda pilot. they had just come out with the 09 model which offered the rear hatch window to actually pop open without opening the whole entire hatch door. the earlier models didnt offer that feature so i knew i wanted to wait and get a new one rather than getting something used. the pilot was longer than the 4runner with seating for 8 (the pop up third row is awesome) and wide enough to put all three carseats in the middle row and still have seating for more! we didn't want to be stuck with a crazy $500 car payment each month, so we decided to wait a while longer and keep saving.
so about a month ago we see this commercial advertising that honda was doing some cool trade-in program where they will give you blue book value if you had a honda, nissan or toyota. so we went down to check it out and see what kind of deal we could get. my mom told us good luck which was funny. cause to me that meant i hope you come home with a new car, but to joe that meant i hope you dont get stuck buying a new car today LOL but anyways we go down to honda and they check out the 4runner and tell us what they will give us for it. we check out all the pilots they had on the lot and narrow it down to a few that have the features we wanted. joe really wanted to get 4wheel drive just in case we move somewhere that has snow (he's hoping utah, but im hoping NOT). so joe is taking to the salesguy and throws out an offer on the pilot they had in the show room. the guy comes back with a counter offer and joe sticks to his original offer plus requests a few upgrades get thrown in too (not going in the direction the sales guy had hoped for im sure). then joe does the unthinkable! he tells the guy if he gets the car with the upgrades he wants at that offer, then he's got himself a deal! i couldn't believe my ears! did he seriously just say that?! so the guy comes back and they shake on it and HOLY CRAP we just bought a brand new car!!
so here is the beautiful new addition! it is an 09 honda pilot. it's the EX model i think and it's 4wheel drive.it's not leather interior, but the fabric is really nice! they even put in a dvd player that pops down for landen to watch movies for our road trips and let me say it is awesome! it even came with two sets of wireless headphones so he can watch his movie and we dont have to listen to it upfront. it only had 245 miles on it when we drove off, but it's got quite a few more now after a trip down to san diego. i am so in love with it aleady and its beautiful and awesome in every way. i am so lucky to have so many blessings in my life to be able to get this car when we did! thanx hunny you're the best!!

swimmin the summer away!!

2009-08-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

so this summer we decided to enroll landen in swim lessons at greenacres park. he loves to be in the water so we figured it would be good exercise for him (so he would maybe even take a nap for me) and would be fun too. the classes only last two weeks so we put him in the beginning toddler class and then right into the advanced toddler class. so he got four weeks full of swimming 5 days a week! im not sure how much he actually learned in the beginning toddler class, but he has really come soo far in the advanced class. he has two teachers and they do an awesome job with the little kids. landen is the youngest in his class of 5 (the other kids are between 4-5) but i think he's doing just as good as they are (even better maybe). tomorrow is actually his last day of lessons and i think we will both be sad to say goodbye. i wasn't planning to put him in lessons next summer because the next level is for kids at least 5 yrs old. he will only be 4.5 by then, so i wasn't going to make him repeat the advanced toddler class again. today his swim teacher actually informed me that she thinks he is advanced enough to move up to the level 1 class next year even though he wont be old enough!! i wasn't totally excited and super proud of him! so hopefully next summer he will get to go to swim lessons again and learn even more!! these are a couple videos from my dad's house. he was having so much fun and i was attempting to catch it on film :) enjoy

i cant believe he has actually figured out how to come up for air and keep swimming without being able to reach the bottom! i didn't know kids his age could swim this good already. maybe i just haven't been around enough small kids with pools but i think ive got one skilled swimmer myself :P

of course we can't go swimming without taylor joining us. and it seems like she already likes the water as well. she hasn't figured out how to swim to the bottom yet LOL or how to do flips off the diving board but she's making progress. this was the first time i attempted to dunk her under. please ignore my annoying voice in the background (or even better put your computer on mute before you play the video clip). her face was way better in person but i was just happy that she didn't scream and cry

and a cute pic of dad and his little girl enjoy the cool water on a HOT day in bakersfield

the quota trip

2009-07-19T23:04:00.001-07:00

ok so here's the post on the details of our recent quota trip. last year joe's entire team made it to 100% of their expected quotas so they were rewarded with this quota trip. so as a team they all decided to go to laguna beach for 4 days. they are allowed to go anywhere in the US, but the more it costs to get there, the less spending money you get to spend during your free time. so we went to laguna beach which is fairly close, only a few team members had to fly, the rest of us drove. we stayed at the Ritz Carlton and all got ocean view rooms. the rooms normally cost about 1500 per night!!! no way will we ever spend our own money to stay at a place like that, so it was fun to be a little out of our comfort zone.

each employee was allowed to bring a spouse or whatever, but no kids. we got to bring taylor along cause im nursing her. all the other moms were so jealous that she was with us, and just loved making her smile. but anyways, we were given as a couple $1600 spending money to use on food and entertainment. we were not allowed to actually buy anything, just spend it on having a good time. if we didn't spend it all we didn't get to keep it, it was strictly use it or loose it. so we decided to go to legoland one day and also went to the little aquarium that is next door to there. then we checked into the hotel which was crazy fancy. that night we had a little team dinner get-together thing at the hotel. all the employees and their spouses got little gifts from their manager. the next day we went to disneyland and had fun riding a few of the rides taylor was allowed to go on.
while we were at disneyland i thought it would be cute to try some funny hats on taylor. of course they dont make them in newborn size, so most of them were way too big. this first one was by far my favorite. she was having soo much fun! these are the other two that were pretty dang cute too

the little princess minnie mouse hat with the veil and crown and everything :)you cant really tell, but this hat did have mickey ears on it
she really liked riding it's a small world. there were so many colorful things for her to look at. not sure why the camera didn't take a very good picture, cause she's looking kinda orange. i think it just had something to do with the flash
and of course the standard end of the day picture. i dont think it matters what age your kid is when you take em to disneyland. this is what they ALL look like when it's time to go home. we had a blast on our trip and are anxious to take landen to disneyland next month after auntie jenna's wedding. i plan to spend a little time down in san diego with joe's other sister april and take landen to legoland. so more fun pictures to come soon!!!

we both got really nice hour long massages at the spa there at the hotel as well. that was my first experience getting a massage, and i really really hope it's not my last. we also went and saw the medieval times dinner and show thing which was pretty fun.

this is us checking out the big horses before the show
i looked like a total retard wearing the crown, but i think taylor was able to pull it off :)
taylor was such a good sport not being on her normal routine of 2hr long naps three times a day. she would just take little half hour power naps here and there and stayed fairly happy the entire trip. we had her sleep in a crib at night and put the crib inside the bathroom so it was quiet and dark for her. i tried to call and check on landen at least once a day, but he didn't really want to talk to me. he was having too much fun staying at his friend isaacs house one night, then my moms house for two nights, then at his friend alaura's house for the final night. this was his first experience getting to stay the night at a friend's house and i think he really enjoyed it.

one night we just stayed at the hotel and ordered room service for dinner and then decided to watch a movie. they offered this "movie package" thing so we said what the heck. it included this little spread of movie treats along with a voucher for a free in-room movie. so we watched the wolverine begins movie and it was pretty good. all for the price of $43 LOL

4th of july party

2009-07-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

well this year the 4th of july was tons of fun. a couple neighbors and I decided to throw a 1st annual block party. we made up cute little flyers and passed them out to every single house in the neighborhood (there's only about 30 of us) and put some flyers up on the community mail boxes too. we invited friends and family and all had a great time getting to know each other. we had soo much food, and the kids played with water balloons and jumped themselves silly in a bounce house we rented. of course had to do some fireworks too. one neighbor even brought some of those cool illegal ones that shoot up high in the air and explode all the pretty colors!!! this year landen really really loved watching the firework show. it was soo cute just watching his face as each one would go off. he kept telling me "mommy fireworks make me soo happy!". he had a rough time when the show was over and we had to go back home. and he still doesn't really understand why we cant do fireworks every night. we did save a few boxes of sparklers, so maybe some night this week we'll suprise him and let him light a couple :)

taylor didnt stay awake to watch the firework show, but after it was over and nearing time to clean up she came out and visited. landen was so excited to show her fireworks and tell her all about the 4th of july. earlier she was wearing a cute patriotic bow and little blue jean shorts, but by the time this picture was taken she was down to only the stripey onsie. it's just too dang hot in bakersfield to wear much more than that!

carianne holding one of her babies (she'll have to tell me which one it is). neither of the boys were very happy about the fireworks, so they spent most of the night on someone's lap. getting the whole party set up was alot of work (thank you carianne for doing so much of it) but it was soo worth it!

i've got to say this is a pretty dang good picture when you figure i took it myself and it was pitch dark outside so i had no idea if i was pointing it in the right direction. my sister is seriously the best at those self portraits, but ive always managed to chot half my face off most of the time. i cant believe how big landen has gotten lately. maybe's its just that i notice how big he is compared to taylor, but man he's growing up too fast for me!

here's a few of the kids all lined up to watch the firework show. notice that none of them were wearing shoes, which is not a smart thing on the 4th of july! as soon as the big stuff was done, the kids were all excited about doing sparklers, and of course there was an injury of poor isaac burning his foot. next year will definitely be safer :)

one of our awesome neighbors brought this out to the party for all the kids to play on. they just loved bouncing each other up and down. this is bubba and his little sister quinn. notice that he is standing up on his feet while launching her poor little body way up in the air. she wasn't even scared though! their mom was the saleslady in our community back when there was a model home. we invited her to the party and everyone enjoyed catching up with her since she sold us most of our homes.

i thought it would be fun to have both kids wear red, white and blue for the holiday. i found this super cute t-shirt at target for like $4. can't beat that huh!?!

quinn defintely liked the cupcakes...not that she tasted much of it though!

this is lacey and isaac with landen. these three are all so close in age, it's just perfect for them to have someone to play with. lacey is actually in swim lessons with landen this summer. so they get to swim together, while her mom and i (and both our baby girls, who are 2 months apart) sit in the heat and visit.

my two handsome boys and issac making some crazy face. the kids were all soo good about staying in their seats to watch the fireworks. and everyone who knows landen knows what a miracle it must have been for him to stay in one spot for more than five minutes. i swear that boy is allergic to sitting still LOL

summertime fun!

2009-07-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

First off, thanx to all my loving friends who encourage me to continue blogging. im going to try to start doing an update at least once a week. its soo crazy how fast time flies by when you're home all day with two kids. even now that im done babysitting for a while i find that there's still never enough hours in the day to get all that i want accomplished done. but this summer has been alot of fun so far living in a neighborhood with lots of kids, going to swimming lessons, visiting family at the beach and watching landen and taylor play together. and of course landen constantly chasing the poor kitty around the house!what makes summer fun without a few trips to balch park? there's lots of dirt for landen to eat...i mean play in! he even managed to kinda catch his first fish on this trip.

these two are going to grow up and be best friends. i can't wait til they can actually play together!!! i have got to upload a video of them talking to each other and reaching for each other cause its soo dang cute. it's soo fun having these cousins so close in age (only three weeks apart).

this was the ONLY picture from our trip that we took on my camera. this is the sunset deck at our hotel overlooking the beach. more pictures from the trip will be posted as soon as joe pulls them off his camera phone for me. we had a great time but i really missed landen. we were only allowed to bring the baby since she was nursing. we stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point and went to legoland, disneyland, california adventures, the little aquarium next to legoland, medieval times dinner and show, got fancy nice massages at the spa at the hotel and ordered crazy expensive room service. all of which was paid for as a reward for joe's whole team doing really well last year! hope this isn't the last one of these trips!!!

living in bakersfield isn't possible unless you are in the pool. we are soo grateful that grandpa lets us come over whenever we want to enjoy his pool! landen is also taking swimming lessons this summer and is doing really well. he can go under the water and swim a small distance. he has to wear goggles though or else his poor eyes get soo red and dried out.

my younger brother buddy came home for a very short visit from the air force where he is stationed in texas this past week. it was the first time he had met taylor and austin. it was great visiting with him and his girlfriend chelsea who got to come too. we sure miss him when he is gone and wish that he could live closer. luckily he's able to come home a couple times a year and hang out and play with the ever expanding family. landen just loves his uncle buddy!!

i NEED comments

2009-07-06T22:26:00.001-07:00

k so i know there are ppl out there who read this
but it seems that no one ever leaves comments
please do!
it makes me think that ppl actually care what i write :)

Candle Giveaway

2009-07-02T20:44:00.001-07:00

Scentsy July Giveaway

~July Give Away~

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A FREE Warmer

The Warmer is Craftsman(Discontinued but Very Cute!)

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A Room Spray and Car Candle

The Scent is "Bubblegum"

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A Scentsy Bar

The Scent is "Bubblegum"

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we LOVE chocolate milk!!

2009-06-23T10:04:00.001-07:00

at our house we are big fans of ovaltine. took this cute picture a couple days ago after he took a big swig and just loved it. so this entry isn't a big eventful post, just loved the pic and thought id share it with my fellow bloggers :) hope u enjoy

welcome to the family MAX!

2009-06-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

after several months of my cat Mace being missing in action i decided to tell joe that i wanted a new kitty. honestly i expected him to say absolutely no that we dont need another pet. we already have two dogs. he said he was suprised that i had waited this long to ask for one in the first place. i decided to check the prices of the local spca as well as the animal shelter. the spca was kinda pricey at $55 for a kitty but i was suprised to find out that the shelter was promoting "cat adoption month" and the price was only $15! the kitty comes with its first set of shots, spayed or neutered, a voucher for a free vet exam, a bag of kitten food and its first dose of flea treatment. i guess joe figured $15 was worth the gamble of getting a new kitty so that same day we went down to the shelter and let landen pick himself out a kitten. our only rules was it had to be male, and still a kitten rather than an adult cat. he picked one out that was scheduled to be neutered the next day, so we had to wait a couple days to pick him up. over the few days of waiting landen decided to name the kitty Max and couldn't stop talking about him. every time we would walk to the front door or mention we were going somewhere he would ask if we were going to get his favorite friend kitty max yet. we have had max for nearly a week now and landen is soo in love with him! he carries him around the house all day long and runs to play with him as soon as we get home from anywhere! here's a few pics of the new best friends together

landen just loves to sit on the couch with max on his lap watching movies
the kitty cannot do anything without landens supervision including getting a drink of water
he is so proud of his favorite friend kitty max
and the kitty is soo tolerant to just let landen drag him around and take him everywhere

taylors first photoshoot

2009-06-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

one of my bet friends Brooke has started up her own photography business. she had a baby girl back in january and i helped watch her older daughter Alaura quite a bit. so in return she offered to do a little photo shoot of taylor for me. ive already posted these pics on my facebook and myspace but im on a hick to do some blog updates so here ya go:i can't believe she is strong enough to hold herself up like this already!

who doesn't love a little baby naked bum!?!?
shortly after this shot she decided to kick her legs out and literally jumped out of the camera shot
i think this one is my favorite. she just looks so innocent and perfect
showing off her pretty blessing dress :)

I HATE PLUBMERS!!!

2009-06-23T07:39:00.001-07:00

its not the occupation of being a plumber that i hate, or the dirty work they sometimes have to do. its the fact that i am awake at 7am for the second day in a row waiting for the plumber to arrive to fix the awful pipe hammering in my walls and he's still not here. apparently yesterday he had a family emergency (yeah right!) but the company failed to call and let me know he wouldn't be stopping by. i had to sit there and wait for 45 minutes until i finally picked up the phone to see what was going on. so they apologized and rescheduled for today at 7am. it is now exactly 7:41am and still no plumber. joe is out of town at week in seattle for a work meeting and im home with the two kiddos. i have to schedule these plumbing appts early cause dominic (my day care kiddo) sleeps downstairs for his naps and i dont want the workers waking him up.
**UPDATE** the plumber just called and will be here in about half an hour. what the heck is so hard about being on a job site ON TIME!?!? seriously i woke up at 630 this morning to be up and ready for him and he's not gunna be here until after 8am. i soo could have slept in and really need my sleep these days. i think im gunna call the company and speak with the manager and make a complaint cause this is ridiculous! i guess one good thing did come of it though, im up and awake and both kids are asleep so im updating my blog. but grrrr i much rather would have liked to sleep til after 8 since both my kids are sleeping!

when the boys are away.........the girls will play :)

2009-05-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

well joe and landen went camping for a church activity friday night, so that left just me and taylor home alone. so of course i felt we needed to get outta the house and do something. a friend of mine from church who also lives down the street had her three older children gone for the night as well, so we decided to go out with just us and the babies (she has twin boys).
so we got ourselves all glammed up (i put on makeup for maybe the third time this year) and went out to dinner with my friend and her boys. we always joke around that taylor is going to grow up and date the boys so of course she had to look her best too. we ended up just going to que pasa at the marketplace for a yummy dinner then walked around and laughed at all the teeny boppers wearing some crazy outfits. my friends bro-in-law was also dj
i swear she knows how to do the biggest smile, but she refuses to do it on camera. she will just be sitting there smiling like crazy and making the cutest cooing sounds and i bring out the camera and she gives me the stone face! but of course the boys still thought she looked great. but she needs our opinion, she just cant seem to decide which one to go for first. they are both adorable (they are twins remember) and are both in love with her, and of course are both great at making her laugh. so what do you think?
should she go for him:
or him:

enjoying the warm weather!

2009-05-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

so when landen isnt feeling under the weather we have been trying to spend alot of time outside enjoying the warm, but not too hot, weather while we can. its been soo much fun having lots of young kids on our block to be able to come over and play. landen got a cute little slip and slide for his birthday from his friend avery that we have been using nearly every day. then my friend carianne gave me a great idea to put the slip and slide underneath the slide and have them go down the slide ONTO the slip and slide. what a great idea!!! obviously the kids loved it and now landen wants to do this every single day as soon as he wakes up. i have a hard time getting him to even eat breakfast before he's wanting to go outside and "slip slide". and he prefers not to do this alone but requests to have his friends alaura, isaac, alyssa and alexis all come over and play with him.
im not quite brave enough to watch ALL the kids at the same time, but a couple of them at a time seems to work out great. luckily everyone plays well together and they are soo cute to listen to them talk to each other like little adults! we are soo grateful for living in this new ward and this new great neighborhood. there are so many wonderful young couples that we have become friends with and landen loves all his new friends.

grandbaby pictures

2009-05-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

so we figured since there are four grandkids now on my side of the family, that it was due time to get em all together and get their pictures taken. little did we know just how hard it would be to get two newborns and two toddler boys all to cooperate for pictures at the same time! landen was a little bit too helpful trying to help get the other kids attention by tickling them or talking to them or whatever the photographer was trying to do, he copied her. it was quite a challenge to say the least. but we managed to get at least one good pose of all four kids not crying and at least sorta looking in the direction of the camera. so to celebrate we let the big boys ride on a couple rides at the mall while we waited for the pictures to process. landen and bradyn did so good taking turns driving the rides even!
so we go back to pick out the pictures and leave the dads in charge of the kids while monica and i pick out which pictures to order. poor bradyn had been at JCPennys for long enough and almost fell asleep watching the movie. he was a tired little boy! but he sure looked cute with his little mohawk hair even with his fussy face!!
And this is cute little AJ being such a good tropper waiting for pictures to process. both babies were soo good while we moved them around in all the different poses. we even managed to get pictures of the babies with both of their brothers together plus the two families managed to get little family pics too. not bad for a day's work huh. now we just cant wait to get the pictures back in a couple more days!! (sorry the pic is crooked, i couldnt figure out how to rotate it)

everybodys sick

2009-05-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

well for the last week or so both kids have been under the weather. landen has HUGE swollen glands but the dr said its just a reaction to having a bug. they said nothing was contagious but he's just not the playful happy guy like he normally is. he gets soo upset when he cant break out his nose too and tells me his nose "it's working". and i think his throat hurts a little bit too cause he refuses to swallow his spit and just has been drooling all over the place!
poor little taylor has a stuffy nose and has a hard time breathing especially when she tries to nurse. i try shooting saline drops up there and sucking everything out with one of those blue bulb things but she HATES that too. last night was better for her breathing cause my friend loaned me this cute little green frog humidifier and i think it helped. she fed at 1030pm and then didnt wake up to eat again until 630am! yeah so i think that's officially her first time sleeping through the night. not that im expecting it to happen again tonight, but it was nice! im looking forward to both of them feeling 100% again though so we can have more fun outside playing in the warm weather!
up til now taylor has been so great about sleeping anywhere, especially on the kitchen bar in her little bouncy chair. but lately she hasnt been sleeping as good downstairs or being held so i have been putting her in her bassinet upstairs and she will sleep soo much better. but after falling down the stairs TWICE in the last couple days ive really been trying to get her to stay downstairs with me. so slept like this on her changing table for like half an hour then got ticked off. but it sure was cute with her little butt up in the air while it lasted huh!?!?

pet lovers unite!

2009-05-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

for all those doggie lovers out there check out this photographers website. she belongs to a chat board that i visit quit often and not only does she do great work with pictures, but she's doing this fun contest this week. you just visit this etsy site and pick out your favorite fabric andt hen leave your fabric choice as a comment to her, and she'll pick one winner to get that collar free! so im posting it on here then plan to send out a bulliten on myspace as well, so i can have more than once chance to win a cute collar for cosmo! here is the photographers site:

http://www.aprilziegler.com/

i hope i win, but if not i hope one of my friends who read this will win :)

Our first girls day out!!

2009-05-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

as some of you know we have two dogs both of which are male, we have a cat who is a male, and i wouldnt be suprised if every one of our fish were male too! LOL but now that taylor is here im finally not the only girl in the house.a couple weekends ago i didn't have anything going on and thought it would be fun to drive up to the tulare outlets and do some shopping. i didnt want to go alone, so my great friend carianne agreed to go with me. she got another friend of hers to watch her two girls, joe agreed to stay home and watch her son isaac as well as landen. so with taylor and the twins in tow, away we went to spent money :) the drive there was a bit long since taylor decided to cry nearly the entire one hour drive. but then she slept nearly the entire time we were shopping to redeem herself.
i cant wait until she's big enough to really "shop" with me. but until then at least i have someone to bring along while i shop that doesnt complain. oh and dont you all agree how fabulous she looks in the glasses LOL!

taylors blessing

2009-04-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

not only was this weekend landens birthday party, but it was also easter, and it was also taylors blessing at church. it made for a fun filled and busy weekend, but it was so nice to have all the family together for all the important events. joe's parents and sister and her crew all came down from san diego and stayed with us for a couple nights so they got to be part of all the excitement. but taylor was a great little sport for her blessing and slept through the whole thing. some people might think it would be better for her to be awake through it, but when a baby is asleep that means a baby is quiet!! and she was dressed soo pretty in this awesome white dress that i found for her that my grandma actually bought for her. and my great friend that lives down the street also made her a cute little headband and a pretty little bow for her bald little head. she also made her other little colorful bows that can slip onto the headband to match other random outfits.but the blessing went great and we had a few family members and a few close friends in the circle. joe gave her a great little blessing and i cant wait for her to grow up and fulfill everything this life has in store for her!

Happy Easter!!

2009-04-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

easter was very busy and soo much fun this year. we had joe's parents and sister and then her hubby and two boys down to celebrate the holiday this year. everyone stayed at our house so we all got to do the typical easter activities together. landens cousin caleb is a few months older than him so they got to color easter eggs together the night before. they did a great job with the eggs and dye and didnt even spill anything on the table. before church easter morning some of my family came over as well for a strawberry waffle breakfast and to watch the kids hunt for eggs. the kids all had fun hunting for candy filled eggs around the house and landen was sad that the actual easter bunny wasnt still there for him to see and talk to. at church we also were able to get taylor blessed, so of course thats the next post. see ya there!!

all about landen

2009-04-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

with the arrival of taylor, it seems like all of the recent posts have been about her. and i dont want anyone to think that life with just landen has gotten any less exciting. he continues to keep me on my toes and makes me smile (and sometimes cry) daily. with his third birthday being on my scheduled due date for taylor, we didnt want to schedule anything too close. so he got to take his good friend Isaac with him to john's incredible pizza and we had a great time eating and playing games and getting fun prizes. we did do a birthday party for him, but that will be in another post. he really has been doing a great job being a new big brother. he's had a bit of relapse in the potty training area, but just the last two days he is starting to show signs of getting back on track. we have all really enjoyed the start of spring weather in bakersfield, and i dont think a day goes by that he's not outside doing something. he has enjoyed using grandpa's bounce house and riding on his quad. if taylor cries he's the first one to instruct me in what to do to get her to quiet down. usually he tells me that she's hungry and that i need to feed her. he loves being my helper with anything that involves taylor handing me diapers or throwing something away for me or answering the phone when i cant reach it. i love him so much even though he makes me want to pull out all my hair sometimes and i cant wait to watch him continue to grow and learn.

another couple weeks

2009-03-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

well taylor is officially three weeks old now and she's still going strong. last night was kinda rough as she was crying alot dealing with some gas bubbles, but all in all she's such a happy content baby. but luckily i have an awesome hubby who just took her and a bottle downstairs and let me get some much needed sleep. i havent exactly got her on a schedule yet but for the most part i can tell what she wants when she fusses. i am trying really hard not to make the same mistakes i made with landen again. i remember i nursed him every time he cried, cause thats what i thought he wanted when he cried. and he slept in our bed ooooh for the first 3 years of his life practically. i am trying really hard not to hold her too much and not to get her into any nasty habits. but its so fun to just sit and hold her when she falls asleep on my chest. but landen is good at keeping me on my feet, so i dont get too much time of just sitting and holding her. nursing is going good and i am pretty sure she's gaining weight. she's still in the newborn size of clothes but after washing them, they are starting to get a bit snug. as much as i love her being so tiny im anxious for her to grow into her other adorable outfits! girl clothes are so fun!!

taylors new best bud Austin James

2009-03-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

well my sister and I were pregnant together this whole time, so it was only a matter of three weeks until we both had new little babies. my sister monica gave birth to little Austin James on wednesday march 25 a couple minutes after 6am. he weighed in at 7lb4oz and was 19 inches long. so he had a couple ounces on taylor but was also a couple inches shorter. he has the cutest big cheecks you've ever seen and a head full of dark hair. she had him at san joaquin hospital which was the same place i had taylor. so when i was there visiting her i stopped by and said hello to my delivery nurse and showed her how taylor had grown over the three weeks. monica did really good with labor even having to push for over an hour. her hubby was a great coach and even cut the cord. hospital policy is to let three people in the room when you deliver, but they actually let four of us stay in so i got to watch her actually deliver him. it was soo awesome to actually watch that happen!! i mean ive had two kids of my own (one of which monica got to watch be born) but its different when you're not the one pushing and can actually see whats going on. we are both sooo anxious for the kids to grow up together and watch them learn all the fun little stuff so close together. im sure we'll be spending alot of time together with the kids!

we survived the first week!!

2009-03-16T13:53:00.001-07:00

well taylor is officially ten days old and so far she's been a dream! she eats about every four hours which makes for me actually getting some sleep at night. landen is starting to wonder when this babysitting kid is gunna every go home LOL today he told me he was ready for her to go home. so i informed him that this is her home. he corrected me that this is HIS home. i guess growing up with babysitting kids around all the time, it makes sense that he assumes taylor is just a babysitting kid that has been here for a really long time. i really am enjoying having her here and cant believe that the transition to having two kids from one has gone soo smoothly so far. true i havent attempted to take both kids anywhere by myself yet, but ive managed to keep the house picked up and not had a meltdown yet so i think im doing pretty good. its been really nice having joe home all week and the next two weeks he's just working half days to be able to still help me at night. im anxious for the week to go by cause i heard that the weather is supposed to be real warm and nice later this week. landen does so much better when he's not stuck in the house all day every day. plus i have soo many cute summer type outfits to put taylor in and im anxious to start dressing her up. well both kids are sleeping at the moment so im going to go upstairs and fold some laundry and maybe make my bed for the first time all week :)

new family sticker :)

2009-03-11T07:38:00.001-07:00

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

figured i needed to post a new family sticker since our family is soo different now :). by the way taylor has continued to be a wonderful baby even allowing me to get 4 hours of sleep between feedings!!!

taylor is here!!!

2009-03-09T21:40:00.001-07:00

taylor decided she'd been cooking long enough and has officially joined the brooks family :). for those who are curious here is the whole story. i had a drs appt on thursday at 1130. the dr said everything looked good but that i had slowly been getting some calcium buildup on my placenta that he was a little concerned about. he said it wasnt to the point of needing emergency delivery, but that he felt comfortable suggesting i get induced at this point. i was already nearly 3cm dialated and 90% effaced so my body was already starting the labor process by then. so he made a call to san joaquin hospital and sent me home to wait for them to call me in. about 230pm the hospital called and said they had a room ready for me so we took off. got me in and about 530 my dr came by and broke my water. that got my contractions going pretty strong and about 8pm i decided i was ready for an epidural. besides having a person in training person mess up doing it the first time and having to get it done again once it was finally working we were in good shape! the dr came back to check on my about 1030 and said i was at 7cm dialated and wanted to get me on a stronger dose of medicine to get my contractions to come stronger and closer together. the nurse told me the remaining part of labor could go pretty quick for me to just let her know when i felt any sort of "pressure". about fifteen minutes later i called her back in cause i could tell i felt something different goin on. sure enough after only fifteen minutes it was time to start pushing!! got the bed all set up and the dr ready to do his thing and at 1103 taylor jean brooks was born. she weighed 6lb15oz and was 20.5 inches long. we are now home and trying to adjust to live with our very active three year old and a new baby. we've had tons of family come to visit and some great friends as well. we've taken some more pics of her since we've been home but im still kinda sore to go and get the camera and upload everything at this moment. but hey at least im updating my blog right!? please feel free to come visit as i wont be getting outta the house much the next month or so. taylor is doing good and is super cute, oh and i forgot to mention that she's kidna bald with a little bit of what looks like might be strawberry blonde hair!!!

2009-03-03T09:00:00.001-08:00

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

36 weeks and counting

2009-02-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

k so this picture is a few weeks old, but as you can see I am still getting rounder (and so is my little sister). today i am officially 36 weeks and losing all motivation to keep the house clean or cook meals. im feeling pretty good for the most part, but keeping up with Landen all day long is sooo exhausting. he's currently down for a nap and i should be doing laundry, but am playing on the computer instead. besides still being pregnant, our cat has been missing for two weeks now. i had joe put up some signs today so im hoping someone calls saying they have been keeping him out of the nasty weather. he's been gone this long once before and then magically came home one day, so im thinking someone in the neighborhood just likes keeping him at their place from time to time. our salt water fish tank is starting to come along nicely. we still only have 2 turbo snails, 1 cleaner shrimp and 4 random fish in there but we just added about 30 pounds of live rock so its starting to look pretty cool. im anxious to add some more fish but we only add one at a time about every month so we dont shock the system and kill everything :) i had a GREAT baby shower a couple weeks ago here in town with lots of friends and family showing their excitement for baby taylor to arrive. i have another small one this coming weekend down in san diego with joe's family so im super excited for that too. my sister took lots of pics at my shower but i havent got her memory card from her yet to upload them. my good friend brooke had a baby about a month ago so her three yr old daughter Alaura has been spending alot of time over here playing with landen and they just love each other. its so fun watching them play but man i am soo glad i didn't have twins!!! i seriously dont understand how young parents survive the day when they have 4 or 5 kids running around the house. k well guess thats about as good of an update as you're gunna get today. im not even sure who reads this thing, if anyone. but i go to the dr every week now so ill be sure and keep anyone in blog land updated on being pregnant. hopefully we'll have new baby pictures to post on here in another few weeks!!!

3-4d ultrasound

2009-01-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

k so i havent had luck uploading the video of the 3-4d ultrasound but at least we have a few pictures on here now of her. sorry for those of you who read this and dont want to see girly pics to prove the gender. i figure most of the people who read this are girls and some are even pregnant themselves, so i dont think anyone will mind. but we had the 3d ultrasound on friday originally, but her face was turned the other way so we didnt get ANY good shots besides her ear. so they let me come back again on tuesday and try it again and she was a bit more cooperative. she still had her hand in her face the entire time so we didnt get any totally complete face shots, but you can at least see her for the most part. im now a few days past 30 weeks so its the downward slope of being pregnant. i start going to the dr every two weeks which is think its wayy to often to go to the dr, but no complaints. everything looks good and i think ive gained around 25 pounds so far. the only part of me that looks pregnant is my round belly (well maybe my boobs a bit larger now too). but from the backside you'd never even know i was pregnant. its also been really fun being pregnant at the same time as my sister monica who is only due three weeks after me. we both are gaining a belly and both are having dr appts and ultrasounds close, so its fun to compare everything. but besides that things are going good. landen is starting to get the idea of me having a baby in my belly and he refers to her by name sometimes even. i think since ive babysat so much that he'll adjust well to having her around when she's born. he already loves babies and always wants to be a helper. ill try to do another update post later today about christmas.

k so im not sure if the video on here is gunna work or not, but at least we have a few pictures

2008-11-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

well at least thats what it looks like we're having. we've had two ultrasounds done since the baby has been big enough to determine the gender, and from the looks of it, there's nothing between the legs. my next appointment is the 25th and my dr does ultrasounds at every visit, so im hoping to get a third and final confirmation. but we're pretty sure that things will stay pink. of course ive already bought a couple little pink flowery outfits just cause ive never got to before but thats all we've done. i havent picked out bedding or anything big yet. we do have a name though, and i guess that's a big one. her name will be Taylor Jean Brooks. Taylor is joe's moms maiden name and Jean is my grandmas first name. but we both like the name even if it didnt relate to our families at all. i know ive lived in the new house for a couple months now but i still havent got the computer set up with the scanner yet, so still no pictures. maybe i'll try to put that on my to-do list for this week. i dont watch any kids full time anymore, just two little part timers. so maybe later this week when its just me and landen ill be able to get something accomplished while he's napping. then i can post some belly pictures for everyone to laugh at. really im not that huge yet, but i do for sure have a belly and i think as of two weeks ago ive gained like 11 pounds. but my little sister is pregnant too right now so its been really fun getting big together. we found out two days apart the genders (she's having a boy and this will be her first natural child). her hubby has a little guy from a previous relationship. she's naming her little dude Austin James and he's due three weeks after our little girl is due. so it'll be interesting to see who gains the most weight, and who is closest to their due dates and who delivers first. guess thats all for now :)

today is the day!

2008-10-31T07:57:00.001-07:00

we're going solar today!

2008-10-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

no joe and i are not glorified tree huggers, and we really dont stress about what type of earth we are leaving for our great great grandchildren. but we ARE interested in saving money that we fork out every month for electricity. for those of you who do not live in bakersfield during the summer, it might be hard to imagine $300 a month bill just to keep the house cool, but those of you who are local know exactly what im talking about!! so before we bought this house we played with the idea of getting solar panels put on our next house. we contacted a couple solar companies and had them come out and give us their sales pitch and tell us what everything would cost and how much it would save us. so we decided to go with REC Solar to install 30 solar panels on our new house. rather than forking out the full $30k for the system they offer this third party company called SunRun where you pay half the price up front and then basically lease the equipment from them and buy the solar energy back from them at a discounted fixed rate. plus then that company is responsible for maintaining the equipment for 18 years. after the 18 years we pay $4k to buy the equipment from SunRun and just use our own energy. So once we're all up and running our house will be producing about 700kwh of electricity each month to help offset our bills. if we use less than that, we get a credit (kinda like cingular with the rollover minutes) and if we use more then we just pay the difference. the whole thing should pay for itself within 5-7 years too. so its a totally good investment not to mention it totally increases the value of our house too!! they're putting up the panels today so i'll take some pics of the final product tomorrow. but just had a few minutes and thought i should put a post out there for ya all. oh and next week we should find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!!

i'm still alive!!!

2008-09-18T14:15:00.001-07:00

for those of you who read this, im sure you're beyond amazed that im finally writing again. it's only been like 4-5 months :) i know i know im a slacker at the cyber blogging thing. but we've been so busy the last few months and i never get around to uploading the millions of pictures that i promise i DO take. landen is down for a nap and the daycare kid is being well behaved so i thought id write a quick update so everyone knows im still breathing. we've moved into the new house and are totally loving it! we have been here a month now and we actually are getting out first neighbors today! up til now its just been us and the model home on our entire street. i wanna try to be a nice new welcoming neighbor and make them cookies or something or have them over for dinner. hopefully they're nice people and we enjoy having them live across the street. i promise over the weekend i'll post pictures of the house for all to see. along with posting 5 months worth of blog updates so everyone knows what the brooks have been doing all summer long. oh and if you didn't already notice the little ticker thing on the side of my blog.........we're pregnant! i guess this is me officially announcing it to everyone. we wanted to wait until we were out of the high risk first trimester since we've already had one miscarriage. but im officially 14 weeks now and dr says everything is looking great. at my next appt on oct. 31 we get to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. im soo anxious to find out it's all i can do to not count down the hours til my appt! well the babysitting kiddo is starting to get cranky so i guess that's my que to get off the computer. hope this was at least a little bit of excitment to hear from us after soo long :)

our first disneyland trip!!!

2008-05-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

well we survived our first trip with landen to disneyland. it was soo fun for me and joe to watch landen go on all those rides. he did really well and seemed to have a good time. a few rides he wasnt too thrilled about (matterhorn, snow white, pirates of the Caribbean). and there were a few rides he wasnt big enough to ride yet (space mountain, splash mountain, big thunder mountain, star tours, indiana jones). but everything else he had to be ripped away from at the end of his turn. he didnt quite understand the concept of getting off the ride and giving someone else a turn. he did really well riding in his stroller around the park for me since joe was in a wheelchair and couldnt help chase him down. we rode all the rides that we could at least once. the lines weren't bad at all, not to mention since joe was in the wheelchair we got to go in the exits and go straight to the front of ALL the rides :) we all had a great time and can't wait to go again. we plan to go another couple times this summer!!! so here's the pics that im sure you'll all waiting for

belated pictures

2008-04-22T20:57:00.001-07:00

just his random cuteness with his new flashlight firetruck from auntie april

sleeping in his own bed for his nap all by himself like a BIG BOY!!!

enjoying the nice spring weather we had (that is now GONE)

updated pic of our house thats all framed!

he had been sick and decided this was the comfortable way to sleep on the couch that night :)

he's such a big boy!

2008-04-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

well now that landen is TWO i figured i need to really get firm and teach him to take his naps in his own bed and get him to go to sleep at night without me or joe having to lay in there with him for half an hour. so yesterday i started being a mean mom and sticking him in his bed and taking him back there a zillion times after he keeps getting up. so he ended up not taking a nap at all yesterday. and then bedtime was over two hours worth of getting up and me putting him back. today for nap i put him in there and hid in his room behind his desk. so id put him back in the bed as soon as he'd hit the ground. i think he started to realize i was over there (even though he couldnt see me) and after only half an hour he actually stayed in his bed and took a nap!!!!! he's been in there asleep for about an hour now too! i even took pics to prove it :)
besides that things are going good here. im only babysitting three kids now instead of six. those extra three older kids were just too much for me so i told the parents i couldnt do it anymore. i really enjoy only havin a couple extra kids around rather than a full blown daycare. the house is coming along good, got it all framed and are starting the plumbing and electrical stuff. joe's knee is healing well and he's doing physical therapy three times a week now too. he actually drove himself to therapy yesterday and made it all the way to blockbuster today!
well thats about all i have to report here. pics to come shortly (the site wouldnt let me add them at the moment)

just some random updatedness

2008-03-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

well landen is officially 2 yrs old and his party was a huge success. he hadn't been feeling better so no luck getting good pictures of him eating cake and making a mess, cause he didn't want to have a cupcake. he got lots of adorable clothes and tons of awesome toys. like he needs anymore toys huh!?!? but he had a blast and grandma and grandpa brooks came all the way from san diego too! they even spent the night with us to be able to spend Easter morning with landen. it was so cute watching landen walk around the house (in his diaper cause he had a fever) hunting for candy and plastic eggs. we also went by our "house" yesterday and there's almost the entire first floor framed. we can't wait until it looks like a real house!!!

our new house!!

2008-03-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

well it is official, we are having a house built here in bakersfield
we know we'd really rather live in san diego area, but the job market isnt moving very quickly for joe to get transferred down there
so we figure if we're going to be living here for a while we might as well take advantage of the booming housing market and jump in while to deals are still good
we have been looking for a few weeks and found this new development with a floorplan that we absolutely loved, it was soo perfect for us!
we found out all the details and after a few days of bouncing back and forth with different offers, the house is ours!
they just poured the foundation on monday and started on the framework today
they said it takes about five months, so we should be moving in sometime around august
the house will end up being a 2 story, 3000 sq ft, 5 bedroom, 3 bath, bonus room above the garage, den and formal dining
its a gigantic house in a really nice part of town in a fancy new gated community
i cant wait til its done and we get to move in!
until then just expect lots of pictures of the work in progress

my new job :)

2008-03-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

well i have managed to survive nearly two years as a stay at home mom. its always nice to make money, but daycare is super expensive typically and i really enjoy being able to stay home with landen rather than sending him somewhere else and have someone else raise him. but landen is enjoying having friends come over every day and its nice for me too. i still am watching Joey who is about the same age as landen, and just this week ive added another little kiddo. his name is Jackson and he just turned 7 weeks old. his mom had to go back to work after her maternity leave so he's here hanging out with me all day. so far he's been a really good baby and landen loves helping with him. anyone who wants to know the secret to not going bonkers being home with two two year olds and a newborn.........get em all to take a nap at the same time!
the proof is in the pudding :)

Easter 2008

2008-03-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

Got a couple pics of landen for Easter. isnt he the cutest thing in the world!!!

my newest foster maggie

2008-03-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

thought i would introduce everyone to my newest foster dog Maggie. I picked her up this morning at the kern county animal control. she is a sweetheart and wants to give lots of kisses, she just doesnt have real good manners. she thinks she needs to be in your lap and comes full force right into you. poor landen has been knocked over a couple times already :(
took her to the vet this afternoon and she got a clean bill of health. She weighs almost 22 pounds so she's a pretty solid girl. anyways, she'll be up for adoption through the rescue anytime now, check her and the other bostons out at www.bostonbuddies.org

my youtube account

2008-02-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

well while i was waiting to remember my password info for my blog
i decided to set up a youtube account so that i could post video's of landen
ive also got a few of my most recent foster doggie Lexi as she was recovering for a horrendous cause of mange and general neglect.
for those of you who'd like to check out my video's along with reading this blog the link is:

http://youtube.com/user/rmanduh313

landen's first stitches :(

2008-02-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

well landen isn't yet two and he's already gotten his first set of stitches. on his head even
he was playin with his trainset and all his matchbox cars and tripped and fell backwards
he hit the back of his head on the corner of the trundle drawer and split it open
took him to the dr and they said he needed stitches
he wasn't even crying and it had pretty much stopped bleeding, but they said if we didnt close it up there would be a spot on that area where hair wouldnt grow back EVER
so they strapped him down to a board and i laid over the top of him while the nurse held his head in position. landen cried and screamed and it was awful!
towards the end i almost passed out when i was watching the dr stitch him up
but he did fine and recovered without any hitches
took him back 10 days later to remove the 4 stitches and only one was left
they said its pretty common for the wound to shrink when it heals and for some of the stitches to just fall out
let's hope we dont have another experience like that one again for a very long time!

the new fishie tank

2008-02-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

so here is the new and FINAL fish tank. for those of you who don't already know, we got landen a small ten gallon tank to put up in his playroom back around october. we decided we wanted something bigger so we could have more fish. so i looked online and found a used 37 gallon tank for 20 bucks. figured it was a great deal, but then realized it would cost over $100 for all the accessories that weren't included. that same day i bought that tank, i found another used tank on craigslist that was 45 gallons but came with all the accessories. so i called up that guy and bought his tank as well. we set up that tank and had it goin for about a month when we realized that although it was a good size, since it was soo tall we couldnt get in there to clean it or add any new decorations. so we decided to start looking for a new one and planned to sell that 45 gallon tank asap. so now we have this tank. its 100 gallons and its here to stay. it came with the really nice wood stand as well and for a pretty decent price. i ended up selling the 45 gallon tank to my good friend Jennifer who is loving it in her apartment :). so we currently have 25 fish which include: 7 tiger barbs (2 of which are green, 1 albino, and 4 standard tiger), 3 giant danios, 3 bala sharks, 3 redtail tinfoil barbs (2 of which are golden, 1 silver), 6 cory catfish (3 albino, 3 peppered), 1 pleco (aka suckerfish), 1 dwarf gourami and 1 opaline gourami. if you dont know what any of these fish look like and you'd like to know just google it. its crazy hard to get a good picture of a fish as its racing around a 100 gallon tank!
and to this day we've only had 1 big accident with the water :)

Valentines day

2008-02-24T22:36:00.001-08:00

k so i guess im just catching up on the holidays that have occurred since my old entry. i wanted to suprise joe with something totally outta the ordinary. i was looking online and happened across this really nice foosball table for sale. so i bought it and got it home without him even knowing. of course then he had to help me unload it and put it back together too. but its totally fun when company comes over and we can all play on it. we havent got to enjoy it much with just the two of us, cause the bars are perfect level to poke landen in the eye and he cant stand to stay away from it when we try to play.
joe got me a really nice black jacket to wear when its cold but not cold enough for my big poofy one. its really thin and lightweight, but still keeps you really warm. and its nice enough to wear it with church clothes and stuff like that. rather than lookin like im about to go build a snow man :)
oh and of course he got me roses too!
i got landen a couple cute little heart balloons and some books
he LOVES to punch the balloons all over the house

Christmas re-cap

2008-02-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

K so these next few posts will be majorly delayed, but i figure its better late than never. we had a nice christmas this year spending christmas morning in san diego with joe's side of the family. they really enjoyed watching landen open his gifts. his first present to open was some hot wheels cars and he was set. he refused to put them down or open anything else. who knew christmas could be so affordable!?! he also got this really cute power wheels thing for toddlers. its the perfect size for him and he's finally figuring out how to steer it. it goes like 2mph and can go forward or reverse.
joe and i decided rather than buying individual gifts for each other to just get one combo gift. so we got a Nintendo Wii. we were super lucky to find one cause EVERYONE was sold out of them. we got up to go shopping on black friday and found a video store that had 4 of them available, and we got the third one!!!! so we bought games and accessories for it and called it done.
we cant wait for next christmas when landen might actually sit on santa's lap. for now he's still terrified of him. which is cute in itself too! so we just stuck with the generic family christmas pics and did one with the pooches too. how cute huh!

IM FINALLY BACK!

2008-02-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

upfront apologies for those of you who are patiently waiting for prego pictures. i would have posted something sooner but i had forgotten my password for this dang blog, so i havent been able to log-in. which also meant i could comment to anyone about their blogs either. so lets see, the last time i posted was at thanksgiving. so from then to now:
-we had a miscarriage at 10 weeks along- i started spotting some brown stuff so we called the dr. but it was a saturday so they said either wait til monday or go to the urgent care. we went to urget care and sat in the waiting room for like 4 hours until they FINALLY called us back. the dr did an internal ultrasound and said he couldnt find a heartbeat. he said it might have just been really weak, but to go see my normal OB dr first thing monday. so let me tell ya! that was a LONG weekend of waiting. by sunday the spotting had changed into pretty heavy bleeding and clotting, so i pretty much knew what was going on. by monday the fetus had already passed, but they still wanted to go in and do a D&C to clean everything out. i recovered wonderfully and have been doing good since then.
-christmas was great-ill have to post another update just on all that stuff
-got a season pass to san diego zoo & the san diego wild animal park. we've been to the zoo twice so far and landen really loves the animals. havent gone to the wild animal park yet cause that just seems like too much walking and i figure since the enclosures are so big, landen might not get a good look at the animals there.
-valentines day was also nice-ill post another entry just on that
-finally got to buy ourselves something big and expensive and totally unnecessary. joe's been wanting a huge tv forever, but we've always had other things we needed to pay off first (my old car, and my student loans) so we've finally got that all done. joe's been comparing stores and brands and styles of big tv's for a while now and decided on the one he wanted. it happened to be on sale this month at costco for $300 off, so i told him to just get it. he wanted to wait a while and see if the prices drop more, but i told him we better just get it now while we have the money or something will come up and he'll never get it. so we now have a 52" Sony Bravia LCD High Def. television. its gigatic and beautiful!!! anyone who wants to come check it out is invited :)
-landen had his first big accident- ill post a separate entry about this one too, but sorry no pics
-preparing for landen's upcoming birthday- can you believe he's already gunna be 2 yrs old!!
-we got a HUGE fishtank!! its 100 gallons and looks soo cool, ill post pics soon!
k well thats it for the general update stuff, so now i gotta do separate ones for the big stuff to include pictures

and turkey day makes 4

2007-11-22T15:54:00.001-08:00

well just letting anyone who reads this know
we are expecting another little one
just found out yesterday via home prego test
so we'll have to get an official blood test when we get back in town
we will keep you posted on anything new we find out

we sold our house!!!

2007-10-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

guess you fello bloggers were too slow, cause we officially sold our house today
escrow starts tomorrow and ends Nov. 30
wish us luck that the buyers dont fall out or anything crazy like that
we'll need lots of help packing and moving :)
also if anyone knows someone with a cute house for rent let me know
gracias

AM I NUTS?!?!?!?

2007-08-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

im not sure if im going to survive today or not, so i should probably leave this one last blog for everyone to remember me by. not only am i babysitting my friend jennifers two boys (tyler i 7 and joey i 14 months) which i have been doing for about a month and a half now, but starting today im also babysitting my friend tara' kid too (averi who is 7 weeks)!!! also keep in mind that i also have landen ontop of these three extra kids. and our house is on the market so i have to keep it perfectly clean at all times. sound impossible huh!? yeah thats pretty much what i was thinking too.
but hey this will be a good test to see if we are ready for another baby in the house. ive already learned how very grateful i am that we didnt have twins, so maybe this will be a good birth control. actually she probably wont be any bother at all, since she still has her days and nights confused. more than likely ill have her all day today and she'll just wake up to eat and poop. her poor mother though! hopefully i can keep her awake today so her mom can get some sleep tonight. if i dont write back after this, you might want to call and make sure im still alive!!

House anyone?

2007-07-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

k so our house is officially on the market. we dont know where we are moving or how soon we are leaving, but we're selling the house. we spent this last weekend painting the interior so its looks really nice. i already pulled a million weeds and planted some cute flowers and shrubs so the front walk looks really cute too. we are using watson realty and so far they are doing a great job. they came out yesterday and put some flyers in the box attached to the for sale sign and we've already had a couple people just in the neighborhood stop and grab one. one family actually called our realtor and came by today to look at it. they really liked it alot (want to move into something bigger) and they are in the process of putting their house on the market (pricing it low so it sells quick) so they can maybe buy our house. they havent made an official offer, but at least they liked it enough to try to sell their house. ill be sure to keep you posted. you can go on the realtors website and see pics they took of the house. its watson realty in bakersfield. our realtor is karen farr. you can see all of her listing and our house is the one for sale for $249,950. wish us luck!!!

bud came home!

2007-05-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

well my brother buddy who is serving in the air force came home this past week. he took a two week leave to come back to visit. he drove a full 20 hours straight all by himself and showed up at my moms door to suprise her. my sister monica and I both knew he was coming, but it was a big suprise to all the rest of the family. we have had a good time visiting so far. this is a pic from lunch at carls jr with all the siblings together. we dont do stuff with just the four of us very often so it was really nice.

landens birthday

2007-05-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

well yeah landens birthday was only in March, and its already may and im just now posting stuff, but hey its better late than never right. and im not even sure anyone reads this thing, so its just for me anyways. as you can see he had alot of fun with the chocolate cupcake. it looked like he got shot in the head and was bleeding chocolate!
we had a great party turnout! so many of our wonderful friends came and shared in the celebration. i cant believe that he is already a year old! i know everyone says time flies, but it really does when you watch a little person grow up right before your eyes. i hope that the remaining years have just as many wonderful moments and smiles and giggles as the first!

the new mutt

2007-05-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

well after about a month of doing internet research about different breeds of dogs we finally got ourselves Cosmo. he joined the family after we had to put one of our dogs Carmen to sleep. she was showing alot of signs of being aggressive towards landen, and we couldnt risk her biting him. she had been abused by the people before we owned her, so she had every reason to be scared. but she just couldnt forget to abuse, and learn to love and trust again. so cosmo joined us about two weeks ago and we're totally loving him. he is only 7 months old but already really smart. he knows how to play fetch and listens when you call his name really well. he still runs away when landen comes after him, but landen is bigger than him so he is smart to run! he's been alot of fun and its good for dodger to have a buddy to play with while im away at school and joe is at work. he's really fitting into the family well.