And we are off....!

After a very hectic week we are leaving tomorrow for our 9 day vacation in Punta Cana. To say I am excited is a bit of an understatement. This week has been craziness! I am happy to report that my grandma came home today from the hospital. She had a partial hip replacement on Monday and is already doing pretty well. She has even been up using the walker.

On Monday, the same day my grandma was in surgery, I took Amelia into the dr's for her 9 month well baby check up. The doctor was impressed with how well she is growing and commented numerous times what a happy girl she is. She is now almost 29 inches long and 19 pounds! They did a finger prick to check her iron though and to the dr's great surprise it came back low which worried the dr. So we had to take Amelia out to Children's Hospital Monday night for a blood draw and further blood tests. I was freaking out of course, trying not to think of all the kids I've worked with in the past that started their illnesses out the same way.... Tuesday morning the dr called though and said all of Amelia's tests came back perfect and gave her a clean bill of health. Whew! What a relief! As you can see from this picture I have no idea how I ever doubted she was anything but healthy. Her and Alex have been LOVING the box that came with our dishwasher and Alex has named it his clubhouse.




So with all the medical dramas going on this week that left me scrambling a bit today to get everything together. But as of right now the kids are completely packed, Alex even has his own carry on full of new toys he hasn't even seen yet and snacks. I didn't have time to get Alex's hair cut so Paul touched up his side burns and back a little, but Alex wasn't too happy about it.



I have just a few things left but overall am feeling pretty prepared. I am getting ready to get my camera all prepped and ready to go so I have lots of pictures to share when I get back!!! Please send all good thoughts our way....I am not the biggest fan of air travel since we always seem to have some sort of bad luck and get stuck somewhere...ugh. But hopefully this goes smoothly! Talk to you all soon!

Another work weekend

Whew! I had no idea what we were taking on with this kitchen renovation. I am probably about the millionth person who has every renovated anything to say that. The dust, the debris, the mess....did I mention the dust? And all I did was stand by and freak out about the mess, Paul did the heavy lifting. And I literally mean heavy lifting. He uprooted our entire countertop and has it down to the wooden slats for our templating that happens tomorrow for our granite countertops. So I have no countertops, obviously, but as you can see from the picture below I also have no sink which means no running water in the kitchen. Needless to say, we are eating out all this week.





The good thing is that it is done and ready to go....and I only have to really deal with this for the rest of this week and then we are gone until they install the countertops on March 9th. I can't wait!

With Paul working hard all weekend I did my best to entertain the kids. It was a little difficult, especially keeping Amelia off the dirty floors. Saturday Alex went to gymnastics where he did lots of flips and even did a somersault on the balance beam! Coach Ashley gave him a picture Valentine's Day card and he has been carrying it around every since. Oh yes, he has his first crush on an older woman.



Despite being hindered in where she could crawl around Amelia was still her happy self, she even is starting to stand by herself for a few moments. Of course as soon as she realizes she is standing alone, down she goes but we are getting close to those first steps....I can feel it!



She has also gotten quite quick at climbing the stairs, she can get up them in less than 30 seconds I swear! Even holding a puzzle piece as I caught her doing here.



Today as Paul finished the kitchen, Alex has a playdate over at Bridget's house. He has really missed Bridget since he left his preschool and they had a great time playing today. I was really grateful to have something for him to do as well since I needed to run errands (buying a bigger suitcase was top priority for our trip) and doing errands with one kiddo is much easier! Bridget's Mommy has also been great in setting me up with plenty of summer clothes for Amelia for our trip which is ever so appreciated!!



The only big bummer from this weekend was the news I received this afternoon that my grandmother had fallen and broken her hip. She laid there for 2 hours until my aunt became panicked when she couldn't reach her on the phone and sent her brother over there to see what was going on. My uncle found her laying at her neighbor's house where she had slipped when she had ran over to check on their house since they are out of town. Only my 80 year old grandma would jet on over to her neighbor's house wearing FLIP FLOPS in the RAIN!!! Geesh. My aunt just informed me she is having hip surgery tomorrow afternoon so any thoughts and prayers to my grandma are greatly appreciated. Wishing you all a fabulous week....I hope to get up at least one more post before we leave on Friday for our big trip!

A weekend of love....and hardwork!

Paul and I had a grand idea for this long weekend....send the kids up to Turlock for some quality time with their grandparents and we could just relax and hang out. Well, the kids went up to Turlock but relaxing is not the way I would describe this weekend. There were some wonderful aspects of the weekend (sleeping uninterrupted throughout the night being one of them!) but we also had to get things going for our kitchen renovation.

Friday night was relaxing. I took Paul to Ruth's Cris for dinner and we had a very nice dinner there. Saturday morning we went out and picked out our new kitchen sink and faucet (ouch said our checkbook...) because we figured this task was much easier accomplished sans kids. We then patted ourselves on the backs for our hard work by treating ourselves to some wine at Vino 100 and Paul took me to see "He's Just Not That Into You." Very cute, and gotta love Paul for taking me to see it. Then my wonderful hubby cooked me dinner and we watched yet another flick. So Saturday was pretty restful.

We sold our old dishwasher and fridge on Craig's List so their new owners came to pick them up on Sunday, which left us cleaning up the voided spaces they had previously resided in. Ew! I encourage all of you to pull out your stoves, dishwashers and fridges to see what is hiding back there. I am now on board to do a full kitchen cleaning every 6 months.

Today our new appliances arrived, in the rain. What a day for it to be pouring cats and dogs. I came home from pilates to find the Home Depot delivery men unloading our new appliances. Now Paul had insisted it was a waste to pay the instillation fee so WE tackled this. Oh and I mean we. I had to hold that range microwave up while Paul screwed it into our cabinet and it was no easy task. Especially since he remembered he had forgotten something and then we had to take it down and do it all over again. It all turned out though. Here are some before and after pics, as well as Paul getting the brackets ready for the new range microwave.

Before.....


During....



After....



Now the really hard and messy work begins! Paul has to start demoing our countertops. He got a little headstart tonight....more of a symbolic start really.




It was a good, productive weekend. I am glad to have my two babies back home though. Alex said he had a great time with Grandma but that he had missed us. At one point during the weekend when we had called to talk with Alex he'd made the connection that Paul and I were home alone and was perplexed as to what we could possibly be doing at home without kids. He informed us we would be lonely but at least Daddy has Mommy. Everytime he goes away for a day or two I swear he comes back with double the vocabulary. And little Ms. Amelia appears to be getting ready to cut more teeth and gave me a big "Ma Ma" when I walked in the door to pick them up. Nothing melts my heart more. Alex is now passed out upstairs as is Amelia. Here are some pictures from this past week of them because I just can't put up a new post without some pictures of them....the one of Alex is one night after apparently an especially tiring day. The one of Amelia is her Valentine's Day picture, a few days early. :) Wishing you all a wonderful week.

New Camera!

I am so excited...my new camera came! I have been anxiously awaiting its arrival and yesterday when I got home a big box was waiting for me and ta da - inside of that box was my new Canon Rebel SLR digital camera! I decided that as I get older my camera should mature with me. So enough point and shoot (although I will be hanging on to it as a quick snapshot camera) and welcome SLR. I am actually amazed I was able to talk Paul into this but I guess it is a justified purchase since I take pictures constantly and am quite into both blogging and scrapbooking. Heavens knows I will get my use out of this camera.

I am slowly reading through the instruction manual and hope to learn some new tricks soon. But in the meantime I've just been goofing around with it and LOVE it! I can totally see how much clearer all the pictures are. As I was looking at pictures that I had uploaded last night onto the computer I could even really see the red in Amelia's hair! It is amazing! Hopefully even greater pictures will be coming soon, for now here is what I've been shooting as my new 'friend' and I get to know each other....

Weekend wrap up

We had a busy weekend! My mom was here so we did some early Valentine's Day celebrating. We started off by making some heart sugar cookies that Alex, my mom and I decorated. Amelia loved watching our cookie making process, but Alex was really more interested in eating the frosting and decorations, but who can blame him? They were yummy...I am taking them to Alex's daycare tomorrow to share with his friends, and get them out of the house so I don't feel tempted to eat anymore than I already have!

Paul and I have finally decided to renovate our kitchen. We've wanted to since we moved in, but other projects kept taking priority. We are going to the granite yard tomorrow to pick out our granite and today purchased all new stainless steel appliances (fridget, dishwasher, microwave range and stove). I can't wait!!!!!! Who would have thought that one day I would be this excited over a new refrigerator?! But I am!!! Both Paul and I love to cook, and I love to bake, so this is exciting for us. Well, at least me. I think Paul is having sticker shock right now or maybe a bit of buyer's remorse but I know he'll love the end result.

Well I am off to correct papers and Alex is getting a bath from 'Nana' in the other room right now to wash off all the sugar from the weekend. Hope you all are having a good Sunday night!

Hopes of a restful weekend....

Eeek! It has been a bit since my last post, I have good reason though for the five of you who follow my little blog. Amelia got pretty sick last Friday with a cough/cold that then turned into a double ear infection. She is now on the mend (thanks to some antibiotics) but unfortunately I now have her cold. Both she and Alex are sleeping well now (especially Alex as shown above with his Baby Cindy Lulu he hijacked from sister). I am hoping and a wishing to be sleeping just as soundly this weekend.

Work has been nuts for me! Yesterday I worked a 15 hour day that involved a training up in Davis. I left Fresno at 5 in the morning and returned at 8 that night. I enjoyed the time I got to spend with co-workers on our little road trip, but didn't get to see my kids that day....it got me thinking about what I want to do long term. I am glad to be getting this management experience, but at what cost? I already am in awe at how fast Alex and Amelia are growing up, I don't want to miss it. I am in serious life planning and possible alteration mode right now....

Anyhoo, it is raining cats and dogs here today. Before it started with the downpour Alex and Amelia got in some sunny day park time this week.




My mom is here for the weekend. We have plans to make some Valentine's Day cookies with Alex and just hang out. I am hoping to get some movie watching and reading time in as well during nap times! I wish all of you a happy and relaxing weekend as well!