Birthday Weekend

This year I turned 31. Can't believe that my 30th year is over! I dreaded it all the way and now it's over...in a blink! I guess having a baby, a Kindergartner and a 2 year old will make the year fly by! Gotta love my birthday because it seems to always fall on a holiday weekend. This year we had a busy weekend. We got invited by my friend Kim to enjoy some beach time at Mission Bay. Even though the weather was crummy, we still enjoyed being by the water and the kids got to enjoy riding Kim's parent's jet skis! I'm bummed that I didn't get pictures of the kids riding them, but they LOVED them! Even Brandon who doesn't really take many risks, loved riding it!

Brandon and Makayla enjoyed playing in the sand:




While Zach and I enjoyed watching from above! Zach slept the entire time we were there (which gave me a lovely excuse to just SIT and RELAX!)

That night Dad and Becky came up to the house and made us hamburgers and hot dogs (my favorite meal) and we played our favorite family card game: Shanghai.

The next day we were off to celebrate mine and Bestafar's birthday at Mom's house. Always fun to get the whole family together with lots of yummy food! Zach enjoyed all the love and attention he got from Oldamore:



And we even spotted a bear at the party!


But the best picture of the day came at the end....it will be one to treasure!


Here is to my 31st year!!!

A moment to capture in my heart

So if I were just a little more hormonal right now, I probably would have cried. But I did get choked up at what I saw. Here is the moment I want to remember:

Tonight Mike and Makayla went to her dance practice and then they were staying later to practice the Daddy/Daughter dance that they will be performing at Makayla's dance recital. So that left me with the two boys. I needed to go to the store to get some milk and other things so we went to the store. By the time we got home I was a little frazzled from having Zachary scream (not cry) the whole time I was checking out and driving home. So I rushed to put the milk in the fridge and then left all the rest of the non-refrigerated items in their bags in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Brandon grabbed his bagel that I had gotten him and he sat on the floor and watched Garfield while I nursed Mr. Zachary. After Brandon was done, he got up and went to the fridge and opened it up. Since I'm nursing (and lazy....er....tired), I kept yelling at Brandon to close the fridge, but never bothered to look to see what he was doing.

After a while, Brandon came back in the living room and I got up to change my now stinky Zachary. Then I walked into the kitchen, first thing I noticed is that all the reusable grocery bags were hanging up on the chair. I thought, okay, he put them up there with all the items still in the bag, but then I looked inside them.....nothing. I started to look around and that is when I got a little choked up, he had put all my groceries away! I called for him and gave him big hugs and kisses and had him show me where he put everything.

He had put the cantaloupe and watermelon up on the counter. The juice in the fridge (and made room by putting other juices in other spots), put the cereal as high as he could reach, and then some on a lower shelf.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but when your almost 3 year old helps you out without even being asked and puts it all in the right spot...let's just say...I was super proud!

I love my Mr. B!!!!

(Let's hope he's my helper even when he's a teenager!)

Model to be...

It's pretty scary that Makayla who is only 5 (turning 6 this month...yikes!) is a great photographer. She has been taking pictures with my camera and other people's camera for a couple years:


She gets some really great photos:


Lots of ground and ceiling photos:



She sometimes has a cooperative model:



Often times she just taking pictures of objects around the house:



She loves to take self portraits. She's gotten really good at turning the camera around and capturing herself:



Holy cow! When did she become a teenager???? (This picture is an all time keeper!)

Reality Check

Zachary is already 8 weeks old. Where does the time fly? I went back to work this last week (May 9th). It was a hard day but one of the easiest for me out of the three kids. A lot had to do with the fact that Zachary was going to be home (5 minutes from work) and with Mike, so I didn't feel so guilty. Mike did a great job all week with all three kids!

The first day back was hard trying to get back in the swing of things and then getting the dreaded phone call from Mike about 10am telling me that Brandon had a temperature of 102. When the kids get sick, my stomach churns and I worry. So for the next 2 days we watched him ride the fever wave. Not fun and poor guy got the worst chills where his mouth was chattering and his body shaking. But eventually it passed and must have been a really bad viral infection or cold.

We did have to cancel on my Mom to celebrate her 54th birthday because of Brandon's sickness, luckily she understood and we had her up tonight (Sunday, May 15th) for her make-up dinner.

Zachary is now 2 months old! He is growing ever so quickly and I'm sad to see my little newborn chunk up, but since he's starting to smile, I guess I will accept it!

Mini Staycation & Surgery

The last week of of April was Makayla's spring break and my second to last week of maternity leave. Me, being the ever efficient Mom, planned appointments for every single day of it. BUT, was smart enough to plan them all in Escondido, where we could stay the week and not have to waste $4.20 a gallon in gas (yikes!).

Monday - we drove down to our first appointment in the morning, my 6 week follow up from delivery. Went smoothly and kids did great while waiting for me in the car. After that we dropped off Angel (my Dad's dog who we had been watching), dropped off our luggage at Mom's house and then headed down to the zoo! We rode the skyfari which Makayla loved, Brandon was kind of timid but still enjoyed it, Zachary...slept the entire time (love that age!).



Tuesday - Brandon's hearing appointment scheduled for 8:15AM!! He didn't do so well, he could hear the man talking however the background noises he seemed to not notice, so now we are scheduling a sleep hearing test. Cross your fingers on that one! Then after his appointment, off to Sea World we went!





Wednesday - Mike had an 8am dentist appointment (he loved me for that one!) and then off to the Wild Animal Park. By this time, the kids were worn out but were troopers. Brandon being the best trooper of them all...Makayla not so much. She whined the whole day about how her legs hurt and she had to be the one in the stroller. So she would make sure that she was the first one back to the stroller so she would have a seat. Brandon did a great job of walking, but needless to say, Wild Animal Park was not visited by us for very long.



We did get to see the beautiful butterfly exhibit they had. Interesting fact is that they have to account for each of the 100,000 butterflies that they have in the exhibit. If they can't account for all of them, then they lose their license to have it the next year.







Zachary was such a great sleeper all week. He was in his car seat for almost 3 whole days during all the parks, and we hardly heard from him! He did get some air time at the Wild Animal Park, it was such a nice warm day!



That night Zachary and I got to go to a girl's night out! Fun times with those girls and Zachary didn't mind being passed around the table at all. I wish I had my camera because he sat with Bonnie for awhile just chillin listening to all the girl talk! Bonnie was sweet enough to get Zachary a cake and we all enjoyed it for him!




Thursday - Makayla's surgery....Mike and I were super worried about it all week. She had a cyst that was growing above her left eyebrow. I was worried that eventually it will get bigger or that it might cause her headaches in the future. I figured we should take care of it now. So she had to go to a pediatric cranial-facial specialist to have her surgery. She had to be completely knocked out which is what scared Mike and I the most. She did great! She wasn't worried or scared at all and I'm sure it had to do with the fact that Mike and I hardly ever showed her our concerns nor we hardly talked about it. That day, I dropped Mike and Makayla off at Rady's Children and then drove down to Oldamor's house. I nursed Zachary and then zoomed back to Rady's just in time to see Makayla off to surgery. She walked into the OR with the nurse, all with smiles.



She was especially happy that she got to take her unicorn (who also got a name bracelet on).





The surgery took about 15 minutes and the doctor said she did great! When she got into recovery the poor girl looked like a zombie but the nurse said it was because of the Demerol that they give the kids before they wake up to help prevent them from slashing around.




She was very excited to get a Popsicle at the end of it all.



She's a trooper and the doctor had prescribed Tylenol for her to take for pain....she never needed it! Amazing and so thankful that all came out fine!

I like fufis

Makayla is in Kindergarten and her little brain is absorbing so much! It's fun to see her start to read and recognize her "site" words. The new thing in class that they are learning is to "stretch" out the sounds. So she writes her site words everywhere and can make some decent sentences out of them. The other morning as we were getting ready for school, her and Brandon were coloring and writing at the kitchen table while I was probably screaming my head off trying to get everything ready to go with a crying newborn wanting to be fed.

Before we left, I glanced at the sheets of paper that they were working on and I had been listening to what she was trying to write but not fully understanding what all she was doing. Well, she was trying to write a sentence and color a picture to show it. Her sentence was "I like french fries" and instead of asking me to spell french fries, she tried to stretch out the sounds to spell it!

When I saw this, it melted my heart because I thought it was pretty close AND eventually she will learn how to spell french fries but for now I like that they are "fufis"! Oh and by the way, the dots are "salt" go figure that my daughter would draw french fries with tons of salt on them! Must take after her grandma's!!!

Journaling

Journaling. Something I'm not good at. But I do love reading blogs and getting caught up in everyone else's life, but then it just makes me mad that I haven't taken the time to document some of the finer details in our life. So here is my start! I'm determined to make it work and I'm determined to keep it up. That's my goal.

Right now, I've got a 5 year and 2 year old sleeping...and a 5 week old crying to be held. Oh the joys, the household never has a dull moment, nor a quiet moment! In years to come I'll reread this blog and I'm sure I'll yearn for these moments, for now, my boobs hurt and my mental capacity is not quite there.

So here is my start. My start to journaling about the daily details, fun tales, quirky moments and sayings that will happen in our life. I'm excited to be able to finally have something to look back on!