And so it continues...

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

guess what we got!?!?

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!!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

swimmin the summer away!!

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

Sunday, July 19, 2009

the quota trip

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

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!

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!!

Monday, July 6, 2009

i NEED comments

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 :)