April 30, 2011

I'm 35 weeks pregnant.  What else can I say?  I hate to complain, but I am uncomfortable, hot all the time, have heart burn, can't sleep, and sick of wearing maternity clothes!  When I was pregnant with Isaac I was in no hurry for him to come, but it's a different story this time around.  He just has to wait until after the 18th so that Charlie will be done with his business travels.  

April 29, 2011

This morning I hit up the Private Sale at Bloomingdale's.  I love shopping - especially when I can find a great deal.  Even if the deal is not necessarily for me.  I found a few things for Charlie but mostly bought stuff to sell on EBay.  

April 28, 2011

This was Isaac's second session of karate with Sensei Wayne.  This guy specializes in working with kids with autism.  It is just Isaac and one other little boy in the class and the other boy is very shy and not very eager to participate.  Isaac, on the other hand, is up for anything.  I took a short video of him with my phone:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiZEpNmxjtc.  He is not very coordinated, but he loves it and has a great time.  

April 27, 2011

Today my friend Christy & I took the boys to the pool by her house in Woodbury.  It was a nice pool and Isaac & Hudson had a great time.  But when we first got there we noticed all of these little kids... and no adults.  There was probably 8 to 10 children playing in the pools and they were all suited up with life jackets and floaties.  Finally we spotted the mothers: in a cabana clear on the other side of the pool area, chatting and half of them with their backs turned to the pool.  I hope I don't sound racist or anything, but they were all Asian so maybe it is a cultural thing?  Some of these kids were really little and were playing in the big pool all by themselves.  Christy & I were kind of shocked.  And I think the kids were probably really sad when we finally went home and took all of the toys with us!  

April 26, 2011

Isaac's latest obsession is boats.  Toy boats are a lot harder to come by than trains, monster trucks, construction trucks, or any of the other things he's been obsessed with in the past.  Luckily all of the pool toys are out this time of year so I got him a few plastic boats from Target.  He asks to take a bath (actually he asks for an "ocean") everyday so he can play with his boats.  This was mid afternoon and he spent an hour and a half in the tub playing boats.  Sure he was a little bit pruned up when he came out, but it made for some nice quiet time for me!  

April 25, 2011

When Isaac first started at ECLC we were told that he qualified for bus service.  I couldn't imagine sending my baby away on a bus every day, and couldn't see any reason why I wouldn't want to drive him to and from school myself.  Well, 8 months later he is taking the bus!  But only in the mornings.  He has been begging me for months to ride the bus, and there is so much traffic and no parking at the school.  I'm still picking him up so that I can check in with the teachers, etc.  Anyway, today was his first day back from Spring Break and his first day on the bus.  He was so excited!  But I only got a cheese face in the picture, so I'm also including the cute smile I got before the bus arrived too.  

April 24, 2011

On Easter Sunday we went to my aunt Joann & uncle Tom's house.  I've spent my Easter's over there since I was a little girl, but we haven't been able to go the past few years because we've been traveling during Easter.  Some things have not changed in the 30 years that I've been attending family gathering's at this house.  Joann still sets a "kid table" in the kitchen with all of her nice china, crystal & silver.  I think she's very brave to leave a group of seven children (all six and under) at this table alone, but they all made it through the meal without incident.  

April 23, 2011

Here it is: my "container garden."  Hopefully some of this stuff will actually grow.  I don't necessarily have a green thumb.  I planted tomatoes, red & green bell peppers, strawberries, and some herbs.  It's not much but I didn't want to be too ambitious just yet.  

April 22, 2011

Today was Good Friday so Charlie had the day off of work.  He has been traveling a lot over the past two weeks, so I think we were all looking forward to having a nice weekend with him home.  First on the list that day was haircuts for both Charlie & Isaac.  We ran a few other errands: dry cleaning, Costco, and Lowe's and then we went to see the movie Rio.  It was a fun family day.   

April 21, 2011

Isaac's grandparents send him a card with a little cash for holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Easter.  He's finally getting old enough to understand who the card is from, what it's for, and what money is, so he was very excited to receive his Easter card today.  Thank you Grandma & Grandpa Wood!  And this snapshot is from the new camera - I love it!  

April 20, 2011

I've wanted a nice camera for awhile, and Charlie said I should go ahead and buy one for my birthday.  It took me awhile to make the final decision on the camera I wanted, but I ultimately chose the Canon EOS Rebel T3.  It arrived today and I am really excited to start using it.  I read through some of the user manual and it's kind of like a foreign language to me.  I think I will just be using this thing on automatic mode for now but hopefully I'll be able to get some much nicer photos.  

April 19, 2011

Isaac asked to go on a walk - he rides his tricycle while I walk Cracker - but I had a few things to get done first, so I told him we would go in 10 minutes.  Well Isaac decided to be super sneaky and open the front door as quietly as he could (I've caught him in the act before) to go out and ride his tricycle on his own.  5 or 10 minutes later I walked into the living room only to see the front door open a tiny crack and Isaac missing!  My heart stopped and I ran out to find him.  Luckily he knows to only ride to the end of our walkway (about 20 yards) and turn around, and luckily my neighbor saw him out by himself and went out to watch him.  This is not the first time this has happened, just the only time it has taken me more than a minute to catch him.  So now we have a child safety knob on our front door.  And hopefully he doesn't figure out how to work it anytime soon!  

April 18, 2011

This morning I asked Isaac what he wanted for breakfast and he told me he wanted a donut.  I didn't understand him at first, so he told me it was a food that's a circle.  Ohhh... a donut?!  I still don't know where he got the idea of eating donuts because he's probably only had one or two in his life.  We did not go for breakfast, but he kept asking for a donut so we went for a special treat later in the afternoon.  

April 17, 2011

A friend of mine recommended this Chobani greek yogurt from Costco.  I had never tried it before but I went ahead and bought the whole case and I'm glad I did.  It's really healthy and really yummy too.  Any other greek yogurt fans out there? 

April 16, 2011

This morning we had a RS Enrichment activity at Armstrong Garden Center to learn about container gardening.  This guy was a little nerdy and seemed more into telling stories than talking about gardening, but he still had some great information.  I am looking forward to planting a few things next week and putting my new gardening knowledge to work!  

April 15, 2011

The Irvine Great Park has a big orange hot air balloon that takes people up for an aerial view of the park and the city.  It's been around for a year or two and I've always wanted to go check it out.  We went today with our friends Erin & Cody.  The balloon is tethered to the ground so it only goes up 400 feet.  It was a little anti-climatic, but was still fun to do.  Isaac's favorite part was being able to see all of the construction going on around the park.  Lately whenever anyone takes a picture of him, he makes this really great "cheese" face.  

April 14, 2011

Isaac likes to help me take the trash out to the dumpster.  He calls himself a trash truck and he is delivering the trash.  I bet most people never take notice of how many red circle cross out signs they see in their daily lives.  Isaac takes notice of ALL of them, and there are a lot more than you might think!  The dumpster alone has seven of them and every time we take out trash he insists that I tell him what each circle says.  

April 13, 2011

Isaac hasn't been sleeping well over the past few months.  He wakes up 2 or 3 times a night screaming and sometimes I can't tell if he is actually awake or not.  His biomedical doctor recommended that we try taking him off Melatonin for a week to see if he slept better.  After eight nights of Isaac staying up until 10:30 or 11:00 at night, I called the doctor and she told me to put him back on the Melatonin.  This was the first night he took it again, and though he ended up falling asleep in our bed rather than his own, I was more than a little relieved to have him asleep before 9:00!  (And yes he still sleeps with his pacifiers because he has enough sleep issues as it is and I just can't bring myself to take them away yet!)  

April 12, 2011

I am 32 weeks pregnant in this photo.  Just in the last week or two I've started to feel really big and much more uncomfortable.  Eight more weeks of pregnancy feels like an eternity right now!  

April 11, 2011

Week two of spring break.  We headed to the Santa Ana zoo with some friends.  It's nice because it's close by, cheap admission, and pretty small as far as zoos go.  You can easily see the whole thing in an hour or two.  Here's Isaac & his friend Daniel checking out the camel.  

April 10, 2011

Today was the YM vs. YW Conference Bowl.  This is a long-standing tradition in our ward and a pretty intense rivalry.  I must say though that in my years serving in YW, I have never seen the YM coming anywhere close to preparing as well as the YW.  The scoring got messed up at the Bowl in October and the YM walked away with an undeserved victory, so the YW were pretty set on stealing their title back today. They held the lead through round one but the YM made a good comeback during round 2.  By the time we reached final Jeopardy the YW had a very slight lead and gambled it all to take home the prize.  Congratulations girls!

April 9, 2011

Tonight we went to an Angel's game (vs. the Toronto Blue Jays).  We took Isaac to one game last season and he loved it.  Of course last time we had nosebleed seats and he was able to run all around.  Tonight he had to stay in his seat and became quite restless.  His favorite part was watching the fireworks after the Angel's scored a home run.  Unfortunately, the fourth inning was the last time that either team scored until the bottom of the 14th when the Angel's finally won.  We left after the 11th inning.  

April 8, 2011

I've been spending a lot of time in Isaac's old room cleaning things out and getting it ready for the new baby.  We're going to be repainting and redecorating, so I thought I'd snap one last shot of the bright blue and the fish.  You may also notice there is a slat of the blinds missing.  And it just happens to be in a really convenient spot - right next to the rocker where I'll probably be nursing a baby in a few months.  Isaac broke it a few days ago and the way that it's broken, I think we're going to have to replace the entire set of blinds.  We're hoping to do shutters instead.

April 7, 2011

Happy Birthday to me!  I had plans with a friend in the morning, but she had to cancel.  And Charlie was out of town for business, so I was left with kind of a boring day ahead of me.  Sandy was nice enough to come out and take me to lunch.  We went to Claim Jumper, which has been one of my favorites ever since I was a kid.  (Unfortunately they were recently sold and have started making changes to their menu and recipes.  Boo.)  They brought me a birthday cupcake, which was quickly devoured by Isaac and my niece Katie.  The funniest thing was when Katie decided to bend down and start licking the chocolate syrup drizzles off of the plate.  Children know how to get every last little bit!

April 6, 2011

Anyone who's spent much time around Isaac knows that he has A LOT of energy.  Recently Charlie suggested that we try to get him into some kind of Taekwondo or Karate - just something that will give him a chance to burn some energy and maybe get a little more focused.  Today we met with Sensei Wayne for an evaluation session to see if we can get Isaac going in one of his programs.  Isaac's favorite part was doing the kicks and yelling "Kiai!"  

April 5, 2011

Day two of Spring Break we headed out to Chino Hills to spend the day with my sister Sandy and her kids.  Isaac loves going to his cousin's house because there are always so many cool new toys to play with.  His favorite thing today was this little pet play ground with puppies & kittens that you can put on slides, swings, etc.  Baby Hailey was playing too and it was really adorable to see her get so excited about the baby animals.  She was squealing with delight and just the happiest girl in the world to have baby puppies to play with.  

April 4, 2011

Yes, two days of dog posts in a row.  What can I say?  I'm a bit of an animal lover.  Anyway, today was Isaac's first day of Spring Break (which is 3 weeks long because he's in a year round program) and we had lots of time to kill.  We were out running errands and were near the animal shelter so we decided to stop by.  Isaac always enjoys seeing all of the dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, pigs, and whatever else is there.  It made me really sad though to see all of those homeless animals so maybe we won't be stopping by again for awhile.    

April 3, 2011

I've been reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and the dogs in the book are a very central part of the story.  One of the passages I read tonight about Edgar's relationship with his dog Almondine was especially touching and just made me all the more fond of my own little dog.  

April 2, 2011

I was really fortunate to live with such a great group of girls while I was at BYU.  Not everyone was able to make it this weekend, but the six of us had a blast together.  I snapped this photo with my iphone as we were headed out to the pool on Saturday morning.  From left to right: Amy, Rebecca, Erin, Leslie, and Mikael. 

April 1, 2011

Tonight I arrived in Las Vegas for a roommate reunion.  We had been talking for years about getting everyone together and this weekend we finally made it happen!  My flight got in about half an hour before Mikael's, so I was waiting for her at baggage claim.  I was watching and waiting for her to come out of the terminal, but somehow she managed to sneak up behind me.  I hadn't seen her in about two and a half years, so it was really fun to be together again.