Been a long time

So it's been a while since we blogged.  I started working part time as a Pizza delivery driver, and was working 2-3 nights a week for the past 6 months.  Now that I'm quitting that, one of my personal goals is to get back into blogging regularly.  It's fun to read the old stuff and see old pictures.

So, I recently took a new job with Verizon, where I am a consultant, I work with commissions, reporting, web development and call routing.  In the first month, I designed a national scorecard for one of the directors of marketing.  It was awesome, and I learned a lot while doing it.

Fitness-wise, we need to get back to the gym regularly.  It's kinda sad.  I haven't gained any weight but I feel weaker.  Time to do instead of talk about doing.

Nicky and I went snowboarding today, first time in years.  So much fun, and I'm glad we went, next year, we'll go at least 2 times, and we'll bring Taylor at least once.  Nicky has been jumping on the trampoline a bunch.  She goes out with the kids, for what seems like hours every day.  She started doing front flips and it's fun to watch Taylor and AJ run around the outside edge while she jumps in the middle.

Taylor is doing well in pre-school and is looking forward to Kindergarten in the fall.  She's growing up so fast.  She has started to get AJ to play games with her and she seeks him out.  She loves to wear dresses, play dress up, and hang out with Linda, Samatha, and any other little girls she can find.  She also started doing Tricks again, she loves her gymnastics class.

AJ is a little terror.  He loves making raspberrys and hitting.  I try to judge when it's a wrestling fun fighting thing, and when it's an anger thing.  He gets in trouble for one, and boxing for the other.  He also is sleeping in a big boy bed, and potty training will start soon.  It's warming up and he loves jumping on the trampoline.  Next post I'll put up some pics or maybe a video of them jumping.

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!