What is happening?

Ok so really not good at the consistent blogging but that's probably obvious. Not a whole lot of stuff has happened since my last post but enough to keep me way too busy. I had the extreme misfortune of going though my first landlord- eviction- process. Talk about headache with a capital H. I guess it was bound to happen eventually. Now I know to work quicker when they're late past the 15th of the month. Still not a very fun turn of events, lesson learned though should it ever happen again.

Also for some reason we all have this ridicules cold/ear infection/ sinus infection sickness that just keeps going and going for about a month and a half we have all been sick with some thing. I am at my wits end. I want us all to get better and get ride of this stupid thing. I am starting my second round of antibiotics this month as is Briel. Xander doesn't seem to be infected yet so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Briel is almost four now and such a good girl. She started ballet and seems to really love it. She has started the love for dress ups and I have found that it is less expensive to buy her nice church dresses that are the same color as the different princesses then to buy her the actual dress up princess dresses, ridicules. She is also fully potty trained I thought it was going to be a while before she slept though the night without an accident but she started right after Christmas and has only had two accidents.

Xander is now 18 months yay here comes nursery, (if we can ever get well enough to go to church again) but he is such a nut. He is by far the goofiest little boy I've ever seen. With that free spirited silliness comes a very willful little boy. He is defiant for defiant's sake. I guess I deserve it but he's got me pulling my hair out, but I love him. Fortunately he makes me laugh more then he make me want to cry.

We had a huge family photo shoot as a secret Christmas present for my parents and results were great. Although were probably going to have to do it again real soon cause half of us is getting married this year. It figures we make a plan to get this time in our family history recorded and it changes dramatically right after but that's how it goes. We had a wonderful photographer Missy Allen she did a great job at capturing all of us. We actually had these done in oct but because of the hush hush secret nature i couldn't post the results until after Christmas. (I realize that Feb is quite a while after Christmas.) Here are a couple of my fav's

I love this family shot it turned out great. Xander pretty much cried the whole time poor little buddy was so cold.
Briel loves to have her picture taken and turns into quite the poser when ever the camera comes out.

He was really cold so he wasn't his usual hammy self but we did get a couple good ones.

Here the one we ended up giving to my parents. They loved it it was well worth the wait.

Not So Good at Blogging

Ok so it's been a long time since I have posted anything but really there isn't thing I have had to post. Summer flew by thank goodness we never do anything real exciting during those summer months because I HATE the sun. Yes I know what your all thinking but it is true I really can't stand it. You would hate it to if only 15 min. outside gave you headache for the rest of the day and made you past out. This aversion to the sun is a combination of genetics from both sides. A weird heart condition and heat stoke issues has made me an indoor human for three months of the year.

There were however, a couple of things that we managed to do this year. One accomplishment we had was to make it up into the mountains once every month (it's cooler up there and there is plenty of shade to hide from the sun :) ) We realized that we had a beautiful resource and we were not taking advantage of it so come rain or shine when we picked a Saturday we went no matter what. There was only one time where the weather was truly ridicules and for any of you that were wondering it is possible to move an already lit fire from one fire pit to the next and keep it lit. (Only if your brave enough to carry lit logs with wet newspaper. I have just such a friend and she only almost caught on fire once.)


Also there was our garden. We added a lot of new veggies to our list this year and it was interesting to see the results. Some didn't workout so well and some did better then we expected. There is still so much to learn before we can really use the garden to sustain ourselves if we had to. That's our goal be able to grow enough to supplement fresh fruits and veggies with the food storage were are trying to build. I know were kind of way behind on the food storage thing seeing as how were just starting but better late than never.


Xander turned one in Aug. holy crap where did the time go. He is defiantly going to give me a run for my money or a least my sanity. He is in to everything always leaping before thinking and most of the time he's too cute to yell at. He flashes his cute little mischievous smile before he pluges into the very thing you tell him not to and I know he understands me, the little demon.

Here are some pic's from his one year old photos and some of Briel as well




Finally fall seems to be here although I think sometimes it can decided but hopefully it will remain cooler cause the electric bill has burn up the pocket book Ouch!

Pirates and Fairies

Briel turned 3 this last month and we had our first real birthday party for her. I was going to wait one more year but ever since we went to Disneyland she's been asking about her "pirate birthday". She really loved pirates of the Caribbean but I honestly have know idea how she related that to her birthday. Kids are great sometimes anyway we had an everything pirate birthday party. First the kids spent time decorating pirate swords, hats and eye patches. It was great.

Then we played with bubbles and sidewalk chalk. Mostly the kids just ran around and played. We had cake, pink pirate cake Briel's favorite.

Briel loves her pirate gear, she still wears it all the time.

Here are some other pictures from the party . Briel was all excited about the balloons.

Here is my son the pirate. Yarrr! or he looks kinda like a quiet pirate Shhhh!

Here is my best friend and my silly husband.

Then on the following Sunday we had a visit from the Binky fairy. She came and took all the Binky's and left Briel a fairy present. It worked great we only had a a couple of nights of panic but it was much easier. Thank you to my Friend who suggested her.

Life

Ok so just a quick update, first I have struggled this last month with my weight loss goal. We all got sick and I lost all the momentum I had and i can't seem to find it again. "Here momentum, momentum." I think stress is a big part of the problem. We need to get our condo rented and I keep needing to show potential renters the place right in the middle of my scheduled workout time, bleck. Any way I'll keep trying I just need to be really strick with the no-night-time-snacking and I'd be fine. I guess I'll just keep trying.

I'm also really excited because my sister-in-law has directed me to a web site that has free building plans for furniture. After two years in our house I will finally have a kitchen table. We went to home depot yesterday and bought all the wood we need. The total came to $70 dollars for the wood and supplies so for 70 bucks and a little elbow grease I hope to have a solid wood, modern looking, square table for a fraction of the cost. We start construction next week and everything goes smoothly with this then I will be trying several other things on this site. Knockoffwood.blogspot.com . I will hopefully be posting pic's of our totally cool table next week.

Next we have been working on out our garden since late January and now it's finally time to take our endeavor outside. We will be planting our cool weather veggies outside this week. Some of our plants are a little late, due to the mix up of mother nature not getting the memo about spring but better late then never, hopefully. We are adding a lot more veggies this year so it should be fun as we try and keep the new plants alive some include, artichokes, pumpkins, spinach, Jalapenos, Broccoli, etc. As well as a new strange melon I hope to get growing up my ugly chain link fence. The fruits are yellow with red strips and get to be about 1 lbs each so it should be cool. If you want to know what our garden looks like I will be doing a weekly blog dedicated to it's progress at Weekly Garden Update (I know such an original name huh). If you are interested in starting your own garden I have been working like mad to put together a website to make the whole gardening thing easier. Discover Square Foot Gardening I hope you find it helpful.

Disneyland is the best

We had so much fun playing in Disneyland. Briel is two almost three and even though she's a little young to remember everything it was well worth the trip. We were there three days and I would have loved two more because there is so much to do. We started out by going to Fantasyland (Briel saw sleeping beauty's castle and we had to go that way). We went on the tea cups, the carousel, Mr. Toads Wild Ride (which scared her a bit because it was kinda dark). She's been telling everyone her favorite ride is "Bumbo" (Dumbo) but truly it was Pirate's of the Caribbean. She would ask every time we came to a new ride to go on the "Ho Yo, Ho Yo ride. We ended up going on that ride 4 times and every time she would make me sing the pirate song.

We spent time to go visit the princesses and Tinkerbell which both girls loved.

Also we got a cool opportunity to see the fireworks from a different view. We were on a boat ride when the fireworks started. They had to stop the ride so we got to see the show from a boat, practically right under the fireworks it was a cool opportunity. Really everything was great we stayed in a condo thanks to some good friends of ours. We came back everyday for nap time and to eat so we didn't have to spend money on expensive park food. Briel also got to go with a friend they were so cute together. Truly we want to say Thank You to them, it was such a blast. It worked out well for us adults too, we got to switch who watched the kids part of the time so we could go on adult ride as well. All in all it was a fantastic opportunity and a lot of fun in spite of the fact that driving there and back was treacherous because of the blasted snow.

Potty Training and Training Mommy

So I started potty training Briel this month it has been about two weeks and it's still kind of hit and miss. I have to ask her if she needs to go potty and sometimes make her sit down and try most times. Then other times she'll stop and say she needs to go potty all on her own. She seems to better when she's in a dress with no underwear but that's not real conducive to being out and about. Here she is in one of the new dresses we bought her. We've had several accidents one involving an incident in a Home Depot store. Yuck! Over all she's doing really well. I always tell her I'm proud of her when she goes, so now when she's done she'll stand up and say "I'm so proud of you mommy" and wait for me to tell her I'm proud of her, it's cute.

On the Xander front he's becoming quite the character. He's taking to whining when he gets really tired but he sounds more like a screeching baby raptor. People worry that he's in pain but he just really needs a nap. Quite dramatic! (and people say girls are bad) Mostly he is a very happy, laid back boy which is nice since Briel is bounce off the walls crazy most days. He likes to stick his blanket in his mouth then look at you and smile. I'm not sure why he does this but it makes me laugh every time he does. He loves to do things to get my attention. The other day he was crying so I picked him up but I guess I didn't look him in the eye or something because he kept fake crying so stopped and asked him what was wrong and he just started laughing at me. I think I'm being schooled by my 6 month old, I'm in trouble.

We excited about spring so we can get back out side and play (Briel asks to go to the zoo almost everyday.) We also can't wait to get out garden started we'll be adding artichokes this year so were looking forward to seeing how those work out in this state.

Great Photographer

I was really upset when i heard Kiddie Kanddis was going out of business. They were the only studio photographer that i liked that gave you a disk of the pictures (which is all i really care about) because lets face it you never know what pictures your going to need and when you'll need them. So for me having the disk is the only way it's worth spending the money. In my dilemma of trying to find someone else I was directed to check out www.marykimphotography.com. She turned out to have exactly what I was looking for. For 60 bucks she will take pic's for an hour, hour-and-a-half, and give you all the pic's on high res disk. She will print the pics as well if you want her to. I decided to give her a try and was very happy with the results. She will even go on location for a small fee. I will defiantly be returning to her again. Check out her website. Here are some of the pictures we got

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