September 30, 2011

Charlie's twin brother Chris and his family came from Utah to visit and arrived today.  We headed to the pool for the afternoon and the kids had a great time dumping buckets of water on each other and chasing each other around the kiddie pool.  I loved watching Isaac play and interact with his cousins.  

Chris & Ginny took turns jumping off the high dive.  Nice form Chris!

September 29, 2011

Tummy time for little Lukester.  And tummy time is always more fun with a few toys to look at.  

September 28, 2011

Tonight I convinced Charlie to go to dinner at Souplantation.  I love to eat a good salad, so this place is great because I can load up my plate with all kinds of yummy salad stuff.  The only problem is that it is always SO busy - you have to wait for a table, and then it is really noisy and chaotic while you are eating.  But I did enjoy my salad!  

September 27, 2011

After my last haircut I decided that I was never going back to the girl who was doing my hair.  A) I just don't really like her that much as a person - like it was annoying to have to sit and talk/listen to her while she did my hair and B) she kept cutting my hair crooked!  But that left me without a stylist and my hair was starting to get really annoying.  A friend in my ward has a sister that comes to visit every couple of months and does hair for several women in the ward, so I decided to give her a try.  

September 26, 2011

We went to a friend's birthday party at the bike park today.  After it was over Isaac and Hudson played out in front for awhile.  I think they were hunting for snails or something.  Isaac had kind of a rough time at the party.  He does not do well with big groups of kids and usually ends up off doing his own thing.  Today he had a total meltdown and I was feeling kind of discouraged that he was not interacting well with the other kids.  It brought me a little bit of peace to see him play so well with Hudson afterwards.  

Tonight during dinner Luke was getting kind of fussy in his bouncy seat, so I brought him up to the table in the bumbo.  He was grinning ear to ear and so happy to be sitting up with us.

September 25, 2011

Tonight we met up with some friends at Newport Beach for a bonfire.  The weather was perfect and it was not very crowded.  We had a fun & relaxing evening chatting by the fire, eating dinner, and making s'mores.  You can see Isaac in the background - he is playing football with some really nice older kids at a neighboring fire pit.  Luke fell asleep after awhile and slept in my arms for about two hours.  He never naps that long unless he is being held.  We had such a great time that we set a date to do it again next month.  

September 24, 2011

Here's Luke enjoying some Saturday morning tummy time.  I love that he is so interested in his toys now.  It's fun to watch him try and grab at things.  In this photo he is looking at himself in a little turtle mirror.  I love this blanket that he is laying on too.  Janelle made it for Isaac, but now Luke is using it.  The fabric is a "Dick & Jane" print and really nostalgic and cute.  

September 23, 2011

Today was Isaac's last day of school before a three week break.  We met up with some of our school friends at a park later in the afternoon.  I heard Isaac say "look mom, I'm upside down!"  and turned around to see this.  I was kind of impressed that he was strong enough and coordinated enough to get his feet up on the bar all by himself.  He looks like a long string bean though, and he is!  

September 22, 2011

When Luke was born, Karl & Janelle sent me a hydrangea in the hospital.  We planted it in the backyard while Janelle was here helping with the boys, and she was telling me how her mother (Charlie's grandmother) always named her plants.  So we named the hydrangea Luke.  Then when the construction workers came to do our fence they destroyed most of our plants - including Luke's hydrangea.  I was kind of devastated.  But today when I was out in the yard I discovered that it is growing back and I am so happy!  

September 21, 2011

We went to Sandy's house this afternoon and since Charlie is out of town, we stayed for dinner.  After dinner the kids started chasing each other in circles around the kitchen/living room.  It was all fun and games until Ryan crashed into a coffee table.  

This was Luke's reaction to all of the chaos:

September 20, 2011

I love Sonic.  Actually, I just love Sonic's diet cherry limeade.  And I always get the Route 44 size.  We don't have a Sonic super close by, but we drive the 10 miles or so a few times a month.  Today I went during Happy Hour and got myself not one, but two, Route 44's.  I need to drink a lot since I'm nursing :) 

September 19, 2011

Today I took Luke with me down to the County Clerk's office to get his birth certificate.  We had to wait in line for nearly an hour, but Luke was his usual happy self.  He's recently taken an interest in grabbing at and chewing on his toys.  Sophie the giraffe is one of his favorites.  

September 18, 2011

I taught the lesson for the Young Women today.  It was on "Good Health Habits" and was probably one of the easiest lessons I've had to teach.  I didn't really feel like I could bring cookies or brownies for treats though, so I opted for grapes and honey wheat pretzels.  These pretzels are my favorite snack lately.  

September 17, 2011

Saturday at Lowe's.  We had to buy some new heavier bricks to keep Cracker in the yard.  We filled the gap under the gate with regular bricks again, but Cracker has wizened up.  After nearly five years he figured out that he could actually move those bricks and he escaped again.  Now we have some big cinder block type bricks to keep him in.  

September 16, 2011

We are eating out way too often lately, and for no good reason other than I have gotten out of the habit of planning meals and shopping for them ahead of time.  But when we end up going out I always regret it because a) I don't really love most of the restaurants around here b) it is more expensive than cooking at home and c) I'm trying to lose weight!  Anyway, tonight we went to Pei Wei and Isaac had fun eating fortune cookies with his chopsticks.  

And thanks to this blog, I will be able to check back and see if anything exciting actually happens in three months.

September 15, 2011

We are leaving for Maui in just a little over two weeks, and I wanted to find one more swim suit before we go.  But I also wanted to lose a little more baby weight before I braved the nightmare that is swim suite shopping.  I was afraid I waited too long because most of the swim suits are pretty picked over by now.  Then I just happened to walk past a store at The Spectrum called Swim Spot and they had tons of suits, and most of them were marked down 60% off!  I ended up with two new suits and a cover-up and all at a great bargain too.  What more could a girl ask for?  

September 14, 2011

Time for my "Mother of the Year" award.  With all of the company and the craziness of the past week, I totally forgot to wash Isaac's karate uniform before his class today!  Our washer has been in constant use the past few days washing everything from sheets, tablecloths, beach towels, bath towels, running clothes, etc. but I just hadn't gotten to the whites yet.  Oops.  Isaac's class is really cute lately.  They added a few more kids and switched to an hour long.  He puts up a fight every week before we go, but once we are there he always loves it.  

September 13, 2011

We went back to the Lagoon today with our friends Christy & Hudson.  The water is really shallow so Christy & I just sat in the lounge chairs with Luke and chatted while the boys played in the water.  The slide was technically closed, but they had fun climbing up the rocks and sliding down over, and over, and over again.  It is nice once school starts up the Lagoon is pretty much deserted.  

September 12, 2011

My younger sister, Wendy, came down with my parents for the blessing.  We took a "sister picture" just like this in Sandy's living room a year or two ago when Wendy was visiting, so we thought we'd recreate the shot tonight.  We're missing Lisa - our oldest sister - but three out of four isn't bad.

September 11, 2011

Today was Luke's baby blessing at church.  We were delighted that both mine and Charlie's parents were able to come from out of town.  The blessing was beautiful and after sacrament meeting we came back to the house for brunch.  We invited all of my local relatives and some close friends, so we ended up with about 40 people at our house.  It was crowded and a little crazy, but everything went smoothly and it turned out to be a wonderful day.

September 10, 2011

We decided to try out the latest culinary craze and eat lunch from a food truck today.  Charlie found a website for the "Lobsta Truck" and we tracked it down in a parking lot in Costa Mesa.  The lobster rolls were quite small for $12 (about the size of a hot dog), but there was lots of lobster meat in them and they were yummy.  Still my all time favorite lobster roll is the one at The Surf & Sand in Laguna Beach.  

September 9, 2011

Karl (Charlie's father) loves to hunt and fish.  He thought it would be fun to take Isaac fishing so we went and bought a little fishing pole for him.  Don't let the picture fool you - Isaac still doesn't have quite enough patience for fishing.  Karl was however quite patient with Isaac.  They tried for 30 minutes or so but didn't catch anything.  I'm not sure how well the little Woodbridge lake is stocked anyway.  

Mr. Chubby Cheeks came along too.

September 8, 2011

My parents and Charlie's parents are all in town right now for Luke's blessing this weekend.  This evening we all headed over to the Lagoon that is down the street from our house (Sandy's family came too).  The the lake is on one side and the other side is a sandy area with a swimming pool.  We had dinner, went swimming, had a camp fire with s'mores, and the kids played in the sand and fed the ducks.  Janelle was trying to help Isaac break off little pieces of pita bread for the ducks, but despite her best efforts, he kept throwing in entire pita's!  

September 7, 2011

I missed Back to School night because Isaac was sick (with croup) and Charlie was out of town, so I scheduled another time to go meet with Isaac's teacher one on one.  Isaac seems to really like Miss Abbey.  He talks about her often at home and while we were there he kept wanting to talk to her and show her things.  They have a cute classroom and Miss Abbey says that Isaac is doing very well so far.  Sorry it's such a lousy photo.

September 6, 2011

We usually make it through the summer months in Orange County without a lot of heat.  And then it always seems to hit us in September.  106 degrees.  Yuck!  Especially since we have no A/C in our condo (unless you count the portable unit that we drag out of the closet around this time every year).  

September 5, 2011

We had dinner at Chili's tonight.  The service was terrible and the food was very average.  After finishing our meal, I was sipping the last little bit of water in my glass when I looked down and noticed a lemon that didn't look quite right.  I fished it out with my fork and just about lost my whole dinner when I realized that this lemon was totally rotten and moldy!  I told our waitress and she brought over the manager who was very apologetic, but that did not ease the queasy feeling that I had for the rest of the night.  I don't think we'll be eating there again anytime soon.  Totally disgusting.  

September 4, 2011

Isaac has become very interested in things like "bad guys" and guns, fighter jets, battleships, etc.  That whole nature vs. nurture thing?  Yeah, we totally did not teach this to him.  In fact I still try to avoid using the word "gun" and instead call them "shooters."  Anyway, today Charlie and I were helping him build airplanes out of the Trio blocks that a friend gave him for his birthday and before I knew it, I was the target of a fighter jet that shoots missiles and fire.  

At least this little guy is still oblivious to any concept of violence.

September 3, 2011

The movie Cars 2 came out just a few weeks after Luke was born.  My mother in law Janelle was here at the time and she took Isaac to see the movie.  Well Isaac has been talking about it ever since and asking all sorts of questions about the characters and their names and everything else.  I figured I would need to go see it with him eventually and today was the day!  It was kind of fun to have a little date with just Isaac and I.  And we were the only ones in the entire theater.  Only bad thing was that I have been giving Luke a bottle just about once a week so that he could drink from one if needed.  Well of course the one time we actually needed him to he totally refused to take it and Charlie ended up texting me towards the end of the movie to let me know that Luke was quite upset with that bottle.  

September 2, 2011

The new fence is finally done so we were able to leave Cracker's dog door open to the yard while we went out for the evening.  The only problem was we used to have a bunch of bricks blocking off the space under the gate, and the workers must have thrown them out.  We still had a few left and Charlie thought there was no way Cracker would be smart enough to escape.  I wasn't so sure so I added some construction vehicles (um yeah, not so hard to get through it turns out).  When we came home 4 hours later Cracker came running up to our car in the parking lot to greet us.  He obviously has no desire to run away, he just wanted to go with us.  And though he is smart enough to get out, he was not smart enough to get back in.

September 1, 2011

A few weeks ago our microwave went out.  I was warming something and suddenly it just stopped.  We weren't sure if we should bother having it fixed or just replace it instead.  So we went a couple of weeks with no microwave.  It wasn't horrible, it was just kind of inconvenient.  You really can cook/warm most things on the stove or in the oven - it just takes longer.  Anyway, this guy came out took the whole thing apart.  He quoted me $191 to fix it and once I gave him the go ahead he replaced a switch and had the whole thing back together and working about 5 minutes later.  Cheaper than a new one anyway.