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!