lazy birthday

The last days of November are a birthday bonanza in our house.  My birthday is on the 28th and Ray's is on the 30th.  It drives our family crazy, but then they should be happy because then we just have one dinner for both of us instead of two separate ones!

Sunday we had a game night with my family and some friends.  My team actually won at Pictionary!  Sometimes things just happen so fast in that game that by the time I process what's happening the other team is rolling the dice!  We played Disney Apples to Apples and then Sour Apples to Apples.  I love that game!  Tho I did not win either. :(

My birthday was just another day.  Emma woke up a little under the weather from the busy weekend and actually threw up a little.  I kept her home from school, fed her some toast and quarantined her on the couch.  She was much better by the afternoon.  When Ray got home we headed out to Babies R Us and got Olivia a two mobiles.  She's starting to get interested in checking that stuff out.  One goes on the changing table and you can attach it to a play pen or the stroller.  It's simple, pink with three little butterflies and it plays tinkling music.  She loves it.  It does a pretty good job of distracting her during diaper changes.  The other plays music and has three little round animals (a lion, a monkey & an elephant) that alternate lighting up.  They're like little lanterns.  It also will project a moon and stars onto the ceiling.  It's so cute, but so far she's not too interested.

Dinner at PF Changs so I could get some Salt & Pepper Calamari and Salmon steamed with Ginger.  Then we headed back home and I put together the mobile.

The next day was our shared birthday and we had dinner with Ray's family at an Italian restaurant.  Emma and I scoured Targets looking for these wafer cookies that Ray loves.  Found some at the 4th Target.  Score!

Today Ray had the day off for his birthday and decided he would hang out in bed and catch up on his TV and get some much needed rest.

So now it's 11:40 pm and everyone's asleep (for now) and the birthday festivities are over.  This weekend my niece turns 2 and we'll be attending her Minnie Mouse birthday party!  I can't believe it's been two years already!

I've got to get some stuff done around this house!  I'd like to get the Christmas decorations up and get our tree, but I'm not sure when we're going to get around to that!  I should start with finishing the laundry....

breaking out for some vamps

So yesterday was the day we were waiting for.

Kim and I were to meet JeNae & Jennifer at the theater to see Breaking Dawn, Part 1 at 11:59.  Kim and I spent the evening text messaging about how cool we are while our husbands made fun of us.

By the time it was time to head out everyone was asleep and Kim texted to say she was outside my house waiting for me.  I get in the car and she says 'I feel like we're sneaking out!'  The greatest thing about Morgan Hill is that at 11:20 pm there is NO ONE driving around so you feel like you're the only people in the world.  Dead town.

Of course, last night, everyone in Morgan Hill was at the movie theater standing in line.  And because Kim and I are so cool we walk up just as they start letting people into the theater and they just wave us in.  Whopee!  No line waiting!

The movie was exactly what I expected.  I laughed & got teary & rolled my eyes, but dang I had fun.  JeNae and I ganged up on Kim and her Team Jacob-ness (bleck) and then Kim almost cut off the circulation in my arm as the birth scene got a little too graphic for her.

Slight spoiler alert for one paragraph!!  I wondered how they were going to do Jacob's part of the book.  For about 90% of it he's in wolf form and all the communication is done in their heads.  They did well in that most of the time Jacob, Leah and Seth were in human form so they could just speak, but there was one point where all the wolves are communicating with weird voice overs and I must say it was lame.

The best part of the night?  Seeing a 80 something year old man coming out with two slightly younger gentlemen.  See!?!  Everyone loves Twilight!

Now get yourselves to the theater!

three hundred?!?!

Can you believe this is my 300th post?  That's a lot of rambling nonsense if you ask me.

So I've got really nothing excited to mark this occasion.  Sorry.

The end.

only a few hours to go!!!

Tonight's the night - finally!!!  If you'll notice on my sidebar there are only 12 hours left until Breaking Dawn!!  Woo hoo!  I'll be there at 11:59 with my fellow Twinerds.  So excited!!

I'm bummed that it's going to be just Part 1, but I guess it just prolongs the fun for one more year, right?  And sometime between this one and the next we'll have the first of The Hunger Games.  Which I just recently saw the newest preview for.  Did anyone else watch it?  What did you think?  Even though I've read the books when I started watching the preview I thought 'Too much, too much!'  It felt like there was too much given away in the preview.  Stuff that, visually I kind of wanted to be surprised, but oh well.

I'm still not a fan of that Josh kid as Peeta.  He looks awful with blonde hair.  Ugh.  But I am excited to see the movie.  It looks fantastic!

But let's focus here.  Back to Edward & Bella and that other kid I don't care for.  I'm so interested to see how they do the whole entire part of his 'book'.  Since most of it was in his head (and in the heads of the other wolves) and Edward can't translate everything I'm wondering how much Jacob will be a wolf?  I'm also wondering when they'll cut it off to go on to the next.  I'm thinking it'll be at the end of Jacob's book.  But we'll see.  I can't wait!!

holy crap she's growing up

When Olivia was born, all of a sudden Emma seemed like such a big girl.  She started to look less like a little girl and more like a grown up girl!  I thought it was just because we had a teeny infant in the house and it was just my imagination.

And then we got this today:

 In the words of my sister:  'OMG She looks so much older!!  I don't like it!!'

one month gone by

Today little Miss Olivia is a month old!  Amazing!  It's gone by pretty fast and at the same time it feels so long ago that I was pregnant!

She's starting to gain some chubbies, starting to outgrow the preemie stuff and soon she'll be in newborn sized stuff only!  Woo hoo!  Did you know that it's really hard to find preemie stuff?  I noticed the other day that her little thighs are almost too chubby to fit in the preemie diapers.  It seems to happen in the blink of an eye.

You can see her little personality starting to form.  Since she's got a little bit of a cold right now she's a little grumpster, but you know she can't help it.  I love how her eyes follow me around or when she hears one of our voices she turns her head to see where we are.

 Emma at 5 days old

 Olivia at 2 weeks.  They slept the same!  And yes, that is the same pillowcase.

 When she was first born I was astounded at how much she looked like Emma when Emma was born.  It was so nuts when we were still in the hospital.  I felt like I was transported back five years, but as she gets older she's starting to look more like herself with little glimpses of Emma here and there.

It's been an amazing month.  Thinking about how difficult it was to get pregnant sometimes I just look at her in wonder, astounded that she's here, that I'm holding her.  Our little family is complete and I couldn't be happier.

halloween hoopla

Halloween was quite the production this year!  We had our first Girl Scout event with the Daisy Halloween Party, two trips to the pumpkin patch, two pumpkin carving gatherings & trick or treating not to mention the Pumpkin Run and Halloween Parade at Emma's school!

So let's get on with the recap!

Emma really wanted to be Bat Girl for Halloween but only if the costume came with a batarang.  Which I couldn't get so she opted for a Vampire because she really wanted to wear fangs...which she didn't end up wearing because she didn't like them.

First up was the Girl Scout Daisy Halloween Party.  The older Girl Scouts put on a party for Daisies and Brownies.  They tell stories, have crafts and games all centered around Halloween.  The kids had so much fun!  My co-leader JeNae is super creative and she and her daughter Autumn were Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Isabelle from Phineas & Ferb.  JeNae was the hit of the night!  All the kids kept pointing and getting so excited to see Dr. Doofenshmirtz.  Emma's friend from school has joined our troop and she and Emma were showing us their scary faces!

Then we had the Pumpkin Run and Halloween Parade at school.  Even though Emma had a Halloween Parade at her preschool this was her first big kid school event so I was so happy to be able to go and see her.  Originally I would have been in the hospital after just having Olivia.  One of the pluses to having Olivia early was that I didn't miss this fun day.  It was an active day for Emma & all the kids at her school!  After running 10 laps for the pumpkin run they then walked two times around the field for the parade!

 

Emma the Vampire

 Kai the Red Power Ranger & Pixie Fairy Tashi

Autumn as 'Whatcha doin' Isabelle

Princess Leia-Brooke

Then there were the two trips to the pumpkin patch.  The first time we went with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.  The kids took the train ride and we went through a little corn maze.  It was freakishly hot and we just couldn't take it anymore so we headed out with plans to come back during the week to get our pumpkins!

 On the train with Auntie, Uncle, Dominic & Chloe

 About 6 inches taller than last year, at least!

 Strong Girl!

Pumpkin Queen Emma

We carved our pumpkins.  Well, actually I carved our pumpkins and Emma punched holes in hers.  We headed over to the Kaisers' to carve pumpkins first and then on Sunday my sister, niece, nephew, parents and grandma all came over to carve pumpkins.  Mainly the kids played out in the backyard while I carved pumpkins and my mom & sister picked our pumpkin seeds for me to roast (which I still haven't done).

 The kids with their trick or treat pails from Ba-chan & Ji-chan

 My mom made spider cupcakes

 Emma's Pumpkin

 My Nightmare Before Christmas Pumpkins: Zero, Jack & Sally

Olivia's Pumpkin

And then finally it was time for trick or treating!  We had to convince Emma she'd rather get candy than give out candy because she was having so much fun passing out candy to all the kids who came to our door (and there were a lot this year).  Since I was feeling pretty yucky with my cold Olivia and I just did one street of treating and then we headed home to pass out candy.

 Olivia the Ladybug courtesy of Auntie Amy

 Ready to head out and get some candy!

All done for the night & ready for bed!

Olivia's first holiday was pretty eventful!  Can't wait to see how Thanksgiving and Christmas go!

it's been awhile

Who knew having a baby would put a damper on blogging??  Mostly it's about not having the energy to blog.  Lots of stuff has been going on, but I hadn't uploaded pictures or anything.  Today I finally got around to reorganizing my pictures and updating my 365 projects of Emma and Olivia.

Olivia's growing and now she's starting to outgrow the preemie diapers!  We gave her her first bath last week and she really didn't care for it.  A couple of days later though I discovered she loves being in the shower.  I plug the drain and put her foam bath mat in there and lay her down covered with a washcloth to keep her warm.  She just lays there and looks around calm as can be.  Unfortunately she's had a stuffy nose (courtesy of Emma and I) this week so I've been putting her in the shower with me to get some of the boogers out.  Thankfully, she doesn't mind it too much.

Emma's been busy too!  Last week she was VIP at school.  Every week a student in class is chosen to be VIP.  They bring pictures to class that they can share with the class and they are 'interviewed' about their favorite things and such.  They also get to be line leader and they feel very important.  Her friends in the other kinder classes were all very excited for her.

For Halloween the school does a pumpkin run.  The kids gather pledges and then run ten laps.  If their class earns enough to meet their class goal they win a pizza party.  It's the school's biggest fundraiser and this year they raised over $38,000!  Emma's class met their goal so they'll have their pizza party.  She's very excited!

We spent the morning at the school cheering on all the kinder classes since we have friends in each class.  They were so cute running around the pumpkin track!  Most of them started out gung-ho, but then after a couple of laps started getting tired.  Emma actually ran the whole ten laps!

Autumn

Kai

Emma's Class Ready to Run

Running like the wind!