Day at the Mall

Had a great day at the mall today with Daniela and Kayleigh. Jayden was excited about spending time with Kayleigh all morning. He kept talking about when we were going to go play with her and what they were going to do when we got to the play area at the mall. "And we are going to play at the play area in the mall. And when we go to the mall Kayleigh is going to be there. And we are going to play together."

Well, we managed to spend the whole day there! We did have a little shopping to do at Old Navy (I needed a belt to hold my pants up!HAHAHA) and Baby Gap and Sears and Target. As an added bonus, we ran into my mom at the mall. Yep, weird, I know. I live with her and I ran into her on separate outings at the mall. Small world I guess! :) Anyway, she encouraged me to stop at The Children's Place where she proceded to buy Ellie a cute new outfit. We tried to find something for Jayden, but they didn't really have anything nice in his size. Oh well, we'll get you next time, Bubs!

All in all, we had a fun day and got home quite exhausted! But, we still had play left in us. We took out our new GeoTrax set (thanks Grandma Tess) and played with those for quite a bit before dinner and after as well. Glad he likes those! :) But as an added surprise, when it was diaper changing time, Jayden decided that he was going to wear his Bob The Builder underwear instead. So, he put them on and a short while later, peed in them. Then, he chose to wear his Mater underwear over the pull-up. He peed in those, too, right before dinner; but, again, chose underwear instead of pull-ups. I was ok with all this, but then he peed in those, too. However, I was not going to give in to pull-ups! And he got another pair of underwear (good thing we have lots!) Well, he didn't outright pee in those, but he did leak a little. Fortunately, he did finally pee in the toilet, but that was right before bed. SO, he was destined for a pull-up for sure! Hopefully, tomorrow will be a drier day! :)

Merry Christmas to all my Christmas celebrating friends and family!



May this message find you in great health, surroundings of love, and deep in your cups of eggnog and brandy! :)

New Friends

Today we made some new friends. Ina and Sasha came to visit and play with us. Jayden and Eliana had a GREAT time sharing their toys and drinks and food with their new friend. It turns out, that Eliana and Sasha have the same birthday! What a small world it is! :)

We had such a good time playing this week, that next week we are going to their house to play. Jayden said he was really looking forward to that.

The best part of their playdate is that it wore them both out and they are both sleeping soundly. Jayden went willingly upstairs for a nap at 4 and even now at 7 hasn't even stirred despite my several attempts to wake him up. Eliana had more to eat before she crashed at 6 and even though she woke up about half an hour ago, she plopped right back down on the pillow and went back to sleep. I wonder if I should really try hard to wake them up and keep them up for a while, or let them sleep.....what to do? what to do?

Flat Tire

Nope...not the beer. On the car! We had a busy day fixing it too! Started off the day going to visit Grandma Tess at work so we could drop off the concert tickets with her. One the way there, the tire went flat. Called AAA when we got there and they were going to be 45 minutes or so. Now, I probably COULD have changed the tire myself, but 1) I've never had to change a tire before and I wasn't entirely sure knew how or had the strength to do it properly and 2) let's face it! That's why I pay membership to AAA.

So, there I was freezing my butt off waiting for the guy to come change my tire. The kids were off playing with Grandma Tess and eventually heading to the cafeteria for an unplanned lunch stop. And, the guy shows up. YAY! He changed the tire and the spare was flat too. Yep...flat! So, I'm thinking," Good thing I didn't try to do this myself or we would be here all day!" And, he pumps the tire up with air and we are ready to go. Now, why don't I have an air-pumper coming out of the hood of my car? Because when would anyone need that? TODAY! :)

I decided that after our impromptu lunch, we were going to the tire place to get the tire fixed. I tried to think of a good reason to delay doing it (out of pure laziness) but there was too much driving to be done last night to put it off. I took the non-freeway route all the way across town to the shop where I got the tires. Took me about half an hour to get there. And then, it took them about 1 1/2 hours to get to the car and tell me they couldn't repair the tire and they just replaced it. PHEW! That was a long outing for such little reward!

On the plus-side, my choir performed the first of two concerts last night and it was quite an enjoyable experience. I am tired, but hopefully today will prove restful and tonight will be another good concert. Mom, Dad, Dave and the kids will be there tonight along with some other familiar faces. Hope they don't make me nervous! :)

Last Weekend

So last weekend was super busy...especially Saturday. I went to Asilomar for the math conference where I gave my presentation and then up to Monterey for lunch with my mom and Charlotte. Then up to Boulder Creek to drop off the kids and San Francisco for the Masquerade Ball. Here are the pics from that busy busy day!
This is the gorgeous view from the window of the FishHopper restaurant where we had lunch




















Here is Mom and Charlotte in front of Monterey Bay.








These were just fun shots that Dave and I took in our hotel room before we headed out to the party. Don't like the pictures of me at all. The one of me by myself was of me acting goofy because of what Dave was saying right before he snapped the photo. I look slutty! (Is that a word?) I think he said something about my big boobs. And, the one of us together was off-center and I was trying to push Dave over but he wouldn't budge. Not sure why it came out so fuzzy though. Anyway, enjoy! :)

My Internet Places

These last couple of weeks have busy internet times for me. I recently started a MySpace page. I didn't think I would want to, but it's kind of fun. Tammy set me up on Turkey-Day because "Everyone else has one". So, why not me? Mostly, because I thought Dave would make fun of me....and he did! And, he still does!

Anyway, I found an old friend through MySpace. (Hi Lisa!) I hope that we can chat and keep up now that it is SO easy! I also found a new song that I LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! (Thanks B!) It's called "She Won't Last" by The Panic Channel. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

And, lastly, Julie sent me some pics of the kids from our visit in August.

WOW!!

When life is slow, I wonder if there will ever be anything to do. BUT, when life is busy it is CRAZY busy!

This past week was a prime example of what I mean by crazy! It all started last week with Thanksgiving actually. We had about 25 people over here for Thanksgiving dinner. Dave cooked up 2 turkeys and we made the stuffing, yams, and cranberries. Everyone who came brought a little something to add to dinner, which is always nice. We had a great holiday and enjoyed all the family and friends who came over.

The rest of the weekend was pretty tame with just a couple of outings and some tutoring for me. But, then the week started! Wednesday Aunt Judy came over in the morning and we took the kids up to Walnut Creek for a photo shoot for the next Discovery Toys catalog. They fixed us up with hair and make-up (that was really fun) and took about a thousand pictures of Judy and Jayden with a book-toy-game and Eliana and me with a little ball and Eliana by herself and Judy and Ellie and more and more. The original plan was for them to shoot Jayden on Wednesday and Eliana on Thursday. So, I booked us a hotel for Wednesday night and we stayed overnight. We decided to stay overnight anyway even though they did Ellie's photo shoot on Wednesday because it sounded like fun. We went to CPK for late lunch/early dinner. The food was GREAT as usual. And did a little wandering of the downtown plaza, but decided to hit Safeway for a bottle of wine and some munchies and go back to the room. Thursday morning we got the kids the free breakfast from the hotel (which was perfect for them with fruit an instant oatmeal) and drove back to the plaza for Starbuck's for us. While sitting in Starbuck's we saw Sephora across the way and decided to stop in. That was the cause of our tardiness and we got a parking ticket (WWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH). Neither one of us had ever gotten one before! Bummer, but not a big deal.

Then we came home. I put the kids down for naps and spent time printing out overhead slides for Saturday's big event. Then, before I knew it, my babysitter was here and it was time to start tutoring. Friday was my day to get to Kinko's and take care of last minute things for the weekend. Then, it was Saturday morning! 6AM--Get up and leave for Asilomar. The annual math teachers' conference is held the first weekend in December at Asilomar conference grounds in Pacific Grove. I signed up to speak at the conference last year and re-upped to speak again this year. Last year, my session was at 2 in the afternoon. This year, 8:30 AM! Since we (my mom, Charlotte, and I) decided we were not spending the whole weekend down there, we had to leave insanely early to make sure we had enough time to get there for my 8:30 session. We got there with plenty of time to spare. My session was packed and a lot of fun, but I'll tell you, it's going to take many many many many many more of these conferences before I am not nervous to speak to a group of adults anymore.

Anyway, we toured the conference for a couple of more hours and didn't find much more of interest to us. We found that without teaching in the classroom full-time, there really wasn't much we were going to be able to take away with us from the conference. So, we left really early and stopped on Cannery Row for lunch. YUM!! Then off to home. At home, I had a short amount of time to pack and shower before Dave and I packed the kids in the car to head up to Judy and Gary's for the night. Well...the kids were staying at Judy and Gary's for the night, but Dave and I were off to SF for Symantec's Holiday party--a masquerade ball--and we stayed overnight in the city. Typically, the trip up the hill was wrought with anguish--Jayden puked in the car about 15 minutes from Judy and Gary's. We were expecting it to be Ellie, but I guess you never can tell! :(

Despite all the troubles, we managed to get to SF and have a GREAT time. It was the first night we spent together without the kids since Ellie was born and except for the one night we left Jayden with Grandma Tess one night right after I got pregnant with Ellie (I was SO miserable) it was the first night since kids we spent alone! It was nice! We will definately be doing this again! Perhaps next time, though, we will go somewhere more our speed. SF is a little too busy and crazy for us. We are more beach, lake, country type people.