Fall is finally upon us...

A lot has happened since we last updated this blog. For starters, we have an up and running sprinkler system and a beautiful new lawn. Of course, now that it's started raining, it has been slightly more difficult to show off our spiffy new sprinklers, but that's ok. All in good time!

The kids are doing great. Taylor is continuing to enjoy her pre-k class and loves meeting new "girlies" anywhere she goes. She said the funniest thing the other day. I suspect it had been a long and tiring day for her because she couldn't stop bumping her head on things. I could see the frustration on her face and asked why she thought she was bumping her head so much. She replied with, "Because God made me with too big of a head and I need to exchange it for a smaller one." We had a good long laugh over that one..even AJ chimed in and thought it was funny. I love that girl. She really is her own little person. One other thing I've noticed with her is the sweetness she is finally showing toward her Brother. She now will give him good night kisses all on her own and she includes him in lots of play. I can tell AJ loves the attention from her.

AJ is such an inquisitive little kid. Any little noise that presents itself, he stands as still as a statue and just listens with his mouth wide open. His new fascination is the rear windshield wiper. I also have been letting him get into a bad habit! I let him "drive" my car in the garage pretty much every day. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, before he even eats breakfast, he asks to go drive the car. At first, I let him have the real key, but found that he could start up the car in no time so then I started giving him other keys. He loves turning on the lights and messing up the visors. One day he left on the fog lights...oops. Jumper cables!!

At 22 months, AJ is speaking in complete sentences with quite a varied vocabulary. He talks just as much as his Sister, which is really hard to pull off. Sometimes I get dizzy trying to figure out which conversation to follow as we are driving in the car. Like Taylor, AJ also loves the pool and jumping into the pool all by himself. He has no fear whatsoever. His poor little toes get all scuffed up and bloody from climbing out of the pool over and over and over. He also enjoys turning on the buckets that fill up with water and turn upside down. This is probably right up there with driving the car! Oh, one more thing...we just signed AJ up for Tricks and he is loving it!

My wonderful Chris has taken a new job with Verizon. He's a consultant of sales operations now, which is presenting him with new and fun challenges. It's so nice to see him happy at work again. It's been a long time. His new job is considered temporary right now and so he is making less money. Enter pizza delivery guy! Chris is making up some of his losses by delivering pizza. We have been eating lots and lots of pizza lately. I'm sad that he is gone a few nights a week, but I appreciate his dedication to our family and I look forward to him getting to be home most nights in the near future.

Started up a wellness blog and Ghosts of Christmas Future

Two big events:
I've started up a wellness blog, with the idea of sharing fitness ideas and health tips.  I encourage anyone who reads this blog to check it out (All 3 of you).  I want to see if I can be a resource and help people lose weight or get in shape or whatever.  So far I've helped Nichole, Dave, Dave's wife Hope, and a co-worker.  It's only 4, but maybe I can really help some people who just need a virtual partner for workouts.  Check it out at Wellbodywellmind.blogspot.com

Also, I had an interesting weekend.  Nicky and the kids went down to visit family and friends and I was home alone.  Spent some time with a buddy from work, and it really made me appreciate what I have.  Sometimes, you don't know what you got till it's gone..

The front yard continues, and Taylor and AJ are awesome.  AJ comes to greet me at the door when I get home from work.  He's so lovable and hugable.. I really enjoy his time.  Tay is like an all or nothing proposition.  Sometimes she's totally awesome and fun, other times UGH!!!  But I guess that's how kids work.  Oh, we went out on the boat with the kids, and Tay loved riding on the tube.  At one point she and Nicky and Meme fell over backwards and flipped the tube... it was all Tay could talk about on the way home "How silly! we flipped the tube!"

I have been having lots of fun playing Starcraft 2, and I murdered a guy today who was playing terran with high temps... feedback + storm owns terran ground.  Rick has kidney stones so I've been forced to play 1v1s, and it's not actually that bad.

No pics today, have to find the camera, but hope to have the sprinklers done in a week or two, and then have sod laid.  I'll post some final pics plus whatever else I have.

Taylor's Birthday party at Funderland!

Had a great time, Taylor's party was at Funderland.  Lots of good rides and had great fun, Linda and Taylor are such cute little friends!

Week one of yard work done, Thoughts.. and of course.. pics

So let's see... I had an interesting day with Taylor today.  When I got up this morning, I came out to the living room with her and said "Good morning Taylor!"  She responded with a "No! Go away!" and used her purple marker to write on my hand.  I took her marker away and put her in her room for a few minutes while I ate my cereal.  I got to thinking, and while I was at work, I realized that she's acting out because she likes the attention.  I know, child psych 101, but I hadn't thought of it before.  She doesn't really understand that by acting poorly she makes people not want to be around her... she just knows that if she does chaotic things, people respond and pay attention to her.  Soo... armed with this new information, when I went home for lunch, I asked Tay to sit down next to me while we ate.  Then I asked her if she would go swimming with me after work.  We went to the gym and swam in the pool.  Then we got AJ ready for bed together, and I did her bedtime stuff too.  It was great, and one of the best parts is that she went to sleep easily and without any fighting.  It really was a great bedtime.

In other news, AJ was really cute yesterday, we hung out around the house and just played around.  Today at the pool he was standing on the side making dinosaur voices and jumping into the pool.  He's really a lot of fun, and I find him a lot easier to understand than his sister.  He reads the Caterpillar book with me, says all the noun words... My favorites are CA-Coooon and POP! when the caterpillar comes out of his egg.  Cherrie pah and pickle are cute too.

We are working on the front yard now..my list of things to do is huge, but we're making progress.  We recently painted the side of the garage coat 1 and also tilled the entire yard.  The list is long but it'll get done.  Lot of work tilling the yard, but neat to see the fruits of our labors.

Trip to Carmel! Family Vacation with Meme and Pops

So we took our first real family vacation.  We stayed in a cabin called the Tradewinds.  We were about a block from the beach, and the weather was great.  We arrived Monday, I took the kids to the beach with Pops while Nicky and Meme went to Safeway to fill the kitchen.  Tuesday we went to Point Lobos, which is an amazing state park just outside Carmel.  The nature pics you're going to see are from there.  In the evening we swam at the pool which was nice and warm.  On Weds, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Taylor, and she LOVED IT!  We looked everywhere to find a Nemo and a Dory fish.  Thursday, Nicky and I took the kids to the beach again.  It was very windy but the kids still had fun.  Thursday night, Nicky and I had a great dinner at El Torrito and then an AMAZING sundae at the Ghiardelli (sp?) place.

Mostly this will be a picture dump but a couple updates on the kids.  Taylor is still getting up at 5am, and she loves to go swimming.  She's started jumping off the side of the pool into the water and she's not shy about getting her face wet.  She likes to stay up late now, and we've finally moved her bedtime back to 8.  Her favorite way to answer is "Sure!"... which is very cute.  Aj responds with "ah" which is just yeah without the y in front.  He's started to learn to do timeouts, and it's hard to send him to one cause he's so cute to watch.

Visited the Woods, Mommy is away for a few days

So Nicky is away at High Sierra and I'm home with the kids for 5 days.  The kids have been great so far, and are doing fun things.  Taylor loves to call food scrumptous.  She played in the Jacuzzi today at Grandma Evelyn's house and did lots of eating and playing.  AJ likes to torture his sister and figured out how to push the buttons on the Jacuzzi to make her yell at him.

Also, when we got home, decided to "celebrate our independence" by setting off fireworks with Tay.  She LOVED IT!

Really short update today, Nicky has the Camera!

Apologies, Play-doh and a visit from the Fam!

We got a visit from the family on Sunday.  We ate lunch together and went to Butterfly park.  Butterfly park has a great water area, where the kids can run around and get wet, as well as a shaded playground.  I've always thought playgrounds needed more shade, and this one has that.

Also, a few days ago, I wanted to take the kids out, so we went to the local hobby toystore, and found Play-doh.  I remember losing all the pieces as a kid, and just playing with the doh itself... so far tho, we haven't lost a piece.  Tay loves to squish it around and make dolphins and things.

Today, AJ made a BIG mistake! He threw one of his books at Mommy.  So we decided to have him apologize.  He pretended like he didn't know what we wanted, and refused to say he was sorry.  I tried using Gummies "Oh Mommy, since you're being so polite you can have a gummi.  If only AJ would say sorry, he would get one too"... I tried being firm "Aj, we're not going anywhere until you apologize"... NOTHING!  Stubborn kid, finally, Mommy started to leave the room sadly, and he cried out... Mommy stopped "Yes AJ?"  Aj looked down at his feet and said "Sowwy".  SOOOOO cute!

Taylor got to wear Grandma Evelyn's shiny hat!

Also, we recently got Taylor a play-doh set, which she loves to play with and make Spaghetti

And as always, AJ is eating a lot... like all the time

Facebook and Taylor doing Yoga in the park

So it's been a while since I've updated this blog, and hopefully I'll get back into the habit.  I've started playing on Facebook, and I'll admit I'm a bit converted.  After hating on it a long time, it has some pretty cool stuff and it's really simple to use.  I know...


















Anyway, a couple of weekends ago, we were at the park and Taylor decided to do some Yoga with these older Indian ladies.  They welcomed her and she is a born Yogi!

The past few weeks...

We're tired tonight. You get a list this time.
1)Taylor did yoga in the park with a group of adults and actually stuck with it for about forty mins.
2)AJ has been saying tons of phrases: "I'll get it! I can do it! Let's go!" etc etc
3)AJ can count to ten in Spanish.
4)Taylor has started swimming lessons with Miss Becca and loves them!
5)We went to conference for Taylor at her school. She is excelling in math and doing great in everything else. The teachers are working with her on self-control and adapting to unfamiliar people and situations. Taylor is very focused and loves reading time.
6)Taylor has been doing little building projects at Lowe's.
z z z Maybe we'll think of more things later...

Easter and stuff

The family, excluding Chris, went down with Meme' and Pops to Mill Valley for Easter at Tia's. We were sad to not have Chris with us. Unfortunately, he had to work and go to the dentist on Monday. Boo! We had a great time. Tia lives in an awesome area surrounded completely by trees and a public walking trail. It kind of reminds me of the Santa Cruz Mountains with the dense foliage and beautiful tall trees everywhere you look. I loved being in the Bay Area with the moist air. Aaaahhhh! Anyway, we got to see Ed and the kiddos (Ben and Lily). Tay and AJ had a great time swinging on their indoor swing and running amok. Their place kind of reminds me of a cabin..very rustic, but comfortable. Lily laid out eggs everywhere in the house. It was more like a pickup than a hunt. Everything was in plain view, but the kids loved it! They both ate way too much candy, but who cares!

As far as day to day stuff goes, AJ has mastered using a couple of pronouns (I and me). I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, and me, me, me!!! When he's hungry, he just barks out commands. It's pretty funny to be around. He's just like Taylor was. He hears something once, and he's using it himself. It's great. He's only 16 months, but it's going by so quickly.

Taylor is 3 1/2 and she's really starting to show interest in learning to read. I bought a couple of books on Amazon that will hopefully help out with learning. I'll probably start putting up labels on everything in the house so she can learn to site read. Fun stuff. She's still loving her preschool and has recently shown interest in learning how to play chess online. She and Daddy have been working on that a little bit together. Tay's a great  kid. That's all for now!

Shiny, clean teeth for Taylor!

Today, Taylor had her first dentist appointment. I set it up for her about two months ago and since then, she had been asking when she would get to go to the dentist almost every day. Then, last week, Taylor's school had a special visitor. Sure enough, it was a dentist who told the class all about visiting and getting their teeth cleaned. Since then, that's all Taylor has talked about. So okay, I don't know who this dentist was, but I was so thankful for all of the prepping they must have done. Taylor was absolutely perfect from the time we arrived to the time we left. This is a little girl who hardly ever sits still, but we walked in and she greeted everyone so nicely and then sat patiently in her chair until she was called into the room. She walked in and noticed the reclining chairs and she  told the hygienist that they had the same chairs at the gym out by the swimming pool. Taylor was so cute and shy pretty much the whole time we were there. She sat still for x-rays, cleaning, and even flossing. Then came the fun part: picking out a prize! Towards the end of her appointment, she asked when she would get to come back again. Yay! The dentist was a success!

Things are happening!

Lots of little changes have taken place with the kids in the last couple of weeks. Taylor thoroughly enjoys helping out Mommy and Daddy with the AJ duties. She wants to be the first one to greet AJ in the morning and if she doesn't open the door first, she's all upset. If AJ is doing something wrong, she'll carry him away and say "How sad, AJ!" It's pretty cute to watch. She's just like a little Mommy now.

We recently moved Taylor's bedtime to 8:00. We figured since the time is changing, why not change her bedtime and hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll sleep in a little bit later. So far, so good. Taylor is also doing great in school. She's interested in writing letters now and she likes to do lots of coloring. She also has an amazing memory that works in her favor especially against her parents. She's a clever kid for sure.

AJ is an active little guy. He climbs anything he can manage at the playground and climbs everything at home as well. He gets hurt sometimes, but it doesn't seem to phase him. He is a huge talker. Every morning usually starts with a flurry of words like this: "Mammy, Eeyore, Clougy (Cloudy), raining, rainbow, dryer, no, no, no, eat, eat and hi Daddy." He and Taylor both wake up with tons of energy. Other words he loves to say are lawnmower, mantis, moon, butterfly, and gummies. We are really enjoying the stage he's at right now.

Bought a new Fridge

yeah, the old one was leaking and didn't have an ice maker or fresh water.  Very frustrating so we bought a new fridge.  Then our washing machine started acting weird, and I had to fix that, then the fridge started leaking, fixed that.  I've learned 2 things about owning a home: I'm learning a lot about how to make minor repairs, and stuff breaks a lot.

Also, AJ loves to point out the birds and anything he sees.  The other day, after working out at the Gym, I picked him up and he laid his head on my shoulder for a long time just cuddling.. It was so cute, highlight of the day.  He's so cute, when he walks his little arms swing back and forth so strongly, like he's trying to show just how big and tough he's getting.

Taylor is turning into a sweet girl lately too.  I got home from work the other day and she was in the garage, and as soon as the car stopped, arms up and yelling DADDEEE!  So great, I know I'm going to miss these times, infact just thinking about it makes me miss it :)  Taylor absolutely loves eating my cadbury eggs, and it's fun to share them with her, she gets such a kick out of them.

Nicky just got over being sick and not feeling well.  She's loving having our new house.  We went to Ikea yesterday and bought new bookshelves, I put them together, I was all proud of myself for doing all the pieces correctly, the shelf looks very pro.

This morning the kids clogged the toilet with toilet paper.  No poop, just paper, and I couldn't get it unclogged.  Apparently when i went to work, Nicky did it first try... wtf is that!?

Holy cow!

So it's been like 2 weeks since I've posted.  We've been over our heads with moving, and me with school on top of that.  We're in our new house, finally got both cars parked in the garage.  We bought a new fridge, I got a PS3, and I'm going to get a bunch of dental stuff done tomorrow.

AJ is saying all kinds of things.  Saturday Nicky went to work for her mom and I was home with the kids for the day.  AJ turned to me and said "nana".. I didn't realize he knew how to say that.  Other words I didn't know he knew.. Ear, Nose, Eye.  He's going through a phase right now where he wants to be held every moment, and if you set him down, he cries and arches his back.  It's a pain but I know he'll grow out of it quickly.  Other than being very needy and saying lots of new things, he isn't doing a whole lot physically.  We went to Home Depot tonight and he was staring up at the lights, his head was straight back at a 90 degree angle and he was so entranced.

Taylor had a play date with Linda today.  She went and saw the Princess and the Frog.  Yesterday we went to Castle Park for the first time (on foot) and she had a good time.  It was hard though, because AJ wanted to be held and Tay wanted me to climb with her on the structure...impossible to do both.  It used to be at Taylor's bedtime she would hide under the sheets, now she likes to just take a nice sweet kiss and go to sleep.  She's handled the move fairly well and is enjoying her new room.  When we were at Home Depot she wanted to get a light switch plate that was pink.  We bought it and she helped me install it, using a screwdriver for her first time!

Nicky and I are exhausted but making progress on the house.  We keep talking about all the neat things we'd like to do with the yard and the inside... having a house is so cool, but so expensive.  We've replaced door knobs, shower heads, fans, and as of today, the fridge.  I didn't realize how much I liked having an in-door ice maker/water filter, but since we've been here Nicky and I have both been feeling dehydrated since there's no easily accessible cold water.  The new fridge comes Tuesday!

I'm about to finish up my first Phoenix class, I've learned a fair amount but it's taking up a lot of my evening times.  I suppose it's worth it, but I wish I knew that I was going to be putting it to good use.  I'm not certain I want to do CPA exam or what, but either way a master's degree can't be a bad thing.

Anxious to move!

Well, as it turns out, Dad is probably right: Closing escrow dates are about as reliable as baby due dates. It wouldn't be such a big deal if we were closing later than anticipated, but now we have to reschedule our kid-helpers and that could prove to be a problem. Guess we'll have to update you later on how it all turns out. Now for the kids..


Taylor has picked up a new and annoying habit. She loves to play the blame game. Unfortunately, her little brother is usually the target for any mishaps she happens to cause on her own. If she dropped something on the floor, AJ made her do it. If she got in trouble and needed to go into time-out, it was all AJ's fault. Poor AJ! Usually, he's at least ten feet away when this scapegoating occurs. It will be fun to see what he comes up with to get her back...eventually!  

AJ is going through all sorts of changes and developments right now. For one thing, he has been sleeping in super late! Super late to us is anytime between 7 and 8:30am. I have embraced this change with much gratitude and hope that the trend can continue. AJ is also very into shapes right now, especially crescents and squares. When we visit the gym, AJ loves to point out all of the red squares on the floor. He bends down and touches each one and tries to say square. It's very cute, but we take a long time to enter or exit the gym these days! He's also trying to copy everything we do and trying to say everything we say. We're having lots of fun.

So another week down

I'm exhausted.  I've been doing lots of things, working out, working on the house purchase, dentist, physical therapy.. and I'm exhausted.

House update:
We got approval for the loan and are completing final additional documentation.  Things are moving along smoothly and we got our section 1 work completed.  One strange thing - we noticed some possible dry-rot around the chimney that the inspectors missed.  When we pointed it out to them, they told us that we needed to have it fixed or they couldn't sign off on the section 1 report to the lender.  In a sense, they had us over a barrel and we had to pony up and have it fixed.  It was ok sortof, because we would have had it fixed anyway, but their approach sucked.

School update:
I've started my first class on my path to doing my Masters, and I am learning a lot already.  We'll see how it goes in the long run, but it's more work than I thought it would be.  I underestimated what it would take.

Workout update:
We took this week off from lifting at the gym, to give our muscles a chance to recover a bit, then we're back to it on Friday for another 6 weeks.  I'm slowly gaining weight, on pace with what I was aiming to do.  Nicky is basically flat in weight.

Kids:
AJ - He has recently learned to jump, with both feet off the ground.  He helps Nicky vacuum the house, he has started talking.  He says Up, Down, Owie, Meemee, meme, momee, dadee, uhoh.  He sits on Taylors Tricycle (and stands!) and rings the bell.  He has started learning to feed himself with a spoon, and he even gets some in his mouth!  He barks like a dog.  When we're sitting on the couch, he'll climb up and body-smash himself across our lap, over and over...

Taylor - She's finally starting to like AJ! WOO HOO!  She laughs at him, plays with him and wants to help wipe his mouth after he 'eats'.  She says "please" and "thank you" all the time.  She likes to play candy land, lucky ducks, and the puppy game.  She really likes reading Oswald books and watching Little Bear on TV.  She asked for a swing set for Christmas.

Pics:

I need to remember

Couple of things:
We got our house interest rate locked at 5% on a 30yr fixed, woo hoo! Also, I was talking with one of my buddies and he pointed out something to me that I need to remember.  I often point out when people mess up or fall off from what they're supposed to do, but I don't often call them out for doing things right.

At work we call it "catching people doing it right" and I don't do it enough.  My buddy is doing a great job with his work outs gettingfit.lifewithdave.net.  I encourage you to go over there, check it out, and post a comment cheering him on.  He and his wife are doing like Nicky and I did, and they're at the beginning of their journey to wellness.

Also we play this Halloween song that says "Slimy bugs... EEEEeeeeewwwwww" and AJ sings along with it!  He can't hardly say any words and he's singing along with the EEeeewww!

Sooo cute.