Pull it together

Baby Tuesday on Wednesday

2010-01-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

This week is the first week of preschool for C & R! It's great. I feel like I'm doing what the rest of the world does, those who have kids.
I get up, I work out, I feed them breakfast, I make their lunches, I get them dressed and make sure they have their jackets and I take them to school.
And then I go to work and I don't have to stress about who is going to watch them.
When I pick them up from school and come home, all I have to do is make dinner and put them in bed.

It's nice.

Now, the laundry getting done and the dishes getting done, I'm not sure yet where to put that in my schedule. Normally that would go in the hours before the kids get up, but that's my workout time, so I'll just have to keep thinking on that.

Speaking of early hours, the young master R has been getting up super early since he knows he can get out of his room. He has now mastered both kinds of door knob guards, so he can pretty much roam freely.
One morning I tried taking him on my run and it didn't work. He was good, but a fixed wheel jogging (double, yet single occupant) stroller is a joke if you're really jogging.
I took this video this morning, right after I finished my (somewhat depressing) yoga session in the living room. He's super cute in the morning so I can't bring myself to tell him to go back to bed when I'm already up.
(When I'm still in bed, I have no problem telling him to go back to bed!)

I don't think I ever posted these pics of the gingerbread house construction...

I think you can tell from his face that he heavily sampled from the raw materials of the house.

Dubious.

Sprinkles. They occupy their very own section of this family's food pyramid.

This was the second year we've made a gingerbread house as a family, but the first time we've ever made one from scratch. It was an intense assembly for Kevin. Especially since I wasn't really helping him. But I did provide cookies for the kids to decorate to keep them busy.
Here's the video of me not really helping:

Sprinkles for the cookies, sprinkles for my mouth.
Sprinkles for the cookies, sprinkles for my mouth.
And more for my mouth...what cookies?

These are the "outtakes" from the Christmas Card photo shoot.

it's like a fragrance ad, no?

Is it a hug? Or is he trying to push her over?

The noble tot.

I think she said something about this being a "princess" pose.

There would be no looking at me. No matter how much I begged.

I should have brought bribery candy.

This is what consumed much of our time out on the bay-- rock hunting.

Here he is ready for his first day of preschool, the little sweetheart.
I bought him that fancy lunch pack, and it has little reusable bento-type boxes on the inside.
(I happened to have accidentally left it in his classroom tonight, oopsie.)

He didn't want me to take his picture, and he refused to look at me.

blurry, but you can see his little evil-knivel backpack.

I didn't ever post this here

2010-01-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

I helped make this video for our Christmas Eve service at WG.

This isn't the final version that we showed, but I didn't want to upload the perfectly edited one, since I had already uploaded this one (for final review before I loaded it). But it's almost identical.

Baby Tuesday on Thursday

2009-12-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

2 hours before 2010, no less!

Santa brought her this Hello Kitty robe for Christmas. She thought it was great, but she didn't really want to wear it (to my disappointment).
After her last bath, I convinced her to put it on and then I also pleaded with her to let me put the towel on her head. She was so cute, I would have let her go to the grocery store like that.

Baby R also got a robe from Santa, but no bribe is big enough for him to wear it. It has little Jolly Rogers on it too, but he won't give in.

Check out this guy right here.
Baby S is watching him chug his chocolate milk like he's at a toddler frat party.
(He's shirtless after going through 2 shirts already, and getting both wet at our New Years Party tonight.)

For GiGi

2009-12-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

(hope this makes you feel better about your frozen clutch)

Christmas Card for Baby Wednesday

2009-12-23T22:19:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox collage

Baby Tuesday on Saturday

2009-12-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, this might be the latest Baby Tues I have ever done. If you could see live footage of what's going on around me right now, you would understand completely.

It's so insane in this house.

Anyway- here's just a morsel until next week...

These are from the TX trip

Here's Mrs. Claus, looking an awful lot like every elementary school teacher I ever had. Mrs. Rankin? Is that you?! ;)

Btw, speaking of that I named off every elementary school teacher K-6 to my friend Fran the other day, and I was proud of myself, so I shall do it again, but this time with an interesting fact about each:

K, Mrs. Rankin -never seemed to really like us, and made us spell Dinosaur, which I thought was torture

1, Mrs. Shirley, -looked exactly like Vincent Price, and I watched enough TV by that time that I knew exactly who he was and thought that.

2, Mrs. Bennett, -very very thin, and kinda old. Definitely a smoker.

3, Mrs. Sparkman, I've talked about her before, she was the strangest of all, ashes on her forehead on Ash Wednesday

4, Mrs. Lolindger, very young, huge boobs, her husband looked like like he liked the Grateful Dead and "herbs."

5, Mrs. Miller, was single, and had a big crush on Kevin Costner

6, Mrs. Ingalls, her husband was a cartoonist and made all her classroom posters.

Outside the "Teddy Bear Hospital"

"Reindeer House"

Here she is with Santa. Shmoopie.

The cousins are watching baby Brooke sit on Santa's lap. That didn't go over too well.

Aurora makes fun of me that I turn my flash off alot, but look at all the pretty lights!

Sparkley.

I tried to take her picture in front of this fountain but she was too consumed with Santa's house, so we moved on.

today I made

2009-12-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

This flag was a special request from my high school friend Jason who's serving in the Army over in Afghanistan right now.
I think it's a Star Wars flag? Something like that? I'm not sure, but apparently this is what it's supposed to look like, kinda. I have no idea if it'll fly, the fabric is slightly heavy, and my sewing leaves alot to be desired. But I dunno if he actually wants to fly it or not.

I mailed it today and I think it's probably not gonna get there in time for Christmas. And the peanut butter cups that went with it, I hope they don't get mangled on the way.

redlining

2009-12-10T20:45:00.001-08:00

Currently I have 106 work emails.
Most of those emails have "action items" in them.

I only have 4 hours to work tomorrow.

Tonight alone I have to create a video, make cookies, make more food for tomorrow's meeting.
And then tomorrow I have to do a ton of work and prepare for a baby shower at my house.

The groceries [non-refrigerated ones] are still in bags on the kitchen floor. I have used up almost all of my clean underwear, the laundry is off-the-hook, and so are the dishes.

I don't even want to think about the stuff I need to sew and get mailed off.

And did I mention the 106 emails?!

:O !

I think I smell smoke coming from my brain.

Baby Tuesday on Thursday

2009-12-10T07:40:00.000-08:00

I left my purse at a restaurant last night-- fear not, they have it and I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow.

However, the camera was in it. So I can only use my iPhone and Aurora's pics for Baby Tuesday. Sorry 'bout that.

We all headed over to Santa's Village on Sunday night to check it out, and of course, see Santa. After visiting Christmas in the Park for 3 years in a row, I can confidently say that Santa's Village was WAY better. Because you can actually go inside the little houses in SV, and CITP, you have to stand behind a gate and look at the houses. Plus, CITP is more commercial feeling.

(GiGi without a hat, had to wear a scarf on her head!)

Anyway, it was really fun, even though it was cold and wet out. My mom scored a place in line for us to wait for Santa.
Side note: I had more or less decided that I wouldn't take the kids to see "Santa" because I remember that I was freaked out by him when I was a kid and it seemed like a weird concept. I wasn't really against the idea, I just never thought that I would take the time to try it with C and R.
I interviewed Kid C before the big guy arrived:

She really had no idea what she was going to ask for but she was psyched up for the experience nonetheless.
We let the babies with us go first, then Kid S told Santa exactly what she wanted, which was hilarious.
Then Kid C got up there, with the demeanor of someone who was in the presence of a celebrity, just awestruck and mute. She froze up like Ralphie from Christmas Story and didn't come up with something to tell him.

She was happy though.
She was wearing Kid S's clothes from head to toe, that also made her happy.

And Santa had a Texas accent. That might have been my favorite part of all.

(this was the Reindeer barn)

I took a bunch more photos, but I'll have to post them next week. She met Mrs. Claus, some real firemen, and her and Kid S's highlight-- the Snow Princess. I mean, wow, they almost bowed in reverence. I can't wait to show you those photos.

We were there for Kid S's big birthday celebration. And from then on, the girls didn't want to be out of each other's sight. Even if they were fighting like Desperate Housewives, they still needed to be together.

NorthPark Mall looking at the ducks and turtles.

More Mall.

This is right when Kid C arrived and surprised Kid S at her party!
Kid C still has major static-head from the plane.

Aurora took this one, and this is such a perfect shot.
Smarmy. There's my Mini Me, right there.

And I wasn't with the little Mr. Baby R for most of the last week, but yesterday we hunted down some snow on the "east hills." Success! It sucked that the real snowy hills were guarded by barbed wire. I considered tossing them over, but then thought better of it. I did put the blanket over the barbs just in case they ran into the fence.

It looks meager on this side of the fence, but it was enough that they could play with it.

"cold!!"

Look at him. omg, he's cute.

(wheels are turning)

The classic I'm-taking-my-own-pic pic.
There, I was there, and I reached the snow.
Take that, CHP!

When there's no nap, and no gloves, the snow trip soon turns grumpy.

Baby Tuesday on Thursday

2009-12-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

Why is all my text underlined? I have no idea.

Anyway- we cut our tree down from Crest Ranch on Saturday. They were slightly more grumpy than I would have preferred, but next year I'll remember to do the hot chocolate *before* the tree cutting, as to help them be in a perky mood.

Grump grump grump grump.

Finally she cheered up. She liked guarding the tree once we found one that we all agreed on.
She said "just like we had to guard our fridgerator!" [at the Sears outlet.] haha

Grump grump grump grump grump.

I had to bribe her with candy to wear that coat. I bought it from a garage sale, it's a vintage all wool coat from England. She hates it. If it had Cinderella on it, she'd wear it. But it has no commercial affiliations so she doesn't like it.
(I had to tell her some princess tennis shoes were tacky the other day at the store. And I might have said, "they make ugly shoes and then put princesses on them so people will buy them, don't fall for it." Maybe I said too much? Baby R had just dropped my iPhone on the ground, I was pushed to the limit.

Baby R and the tree carrying cart. We didn't really need it since we buy squat trees but hey.

Hoods on, both looking forward. Thank goodness, we got the pic.

Grump grump grump grump grump grump.

Love this shot! The joy was sporadic.

We bought an "Arizona Cypress" this year, which is a kind of seafoam green color. It's pretty cool, but I had to buy a different color scheme of ornaments to go on it.
Target trip!
I told Kid C she could pick out one ornament (in the correct color scheme of course!) and instead she found a 6 pack of princess ornaments. Her little face was so cute and innocent asking for them, that I didn't want to say "no, those are tacky!" Right below were these tiny tinsel trees, so I said "how about you can have your own tree and you can put them on there" She was SO happy with that. Best 9.99 I've spent in a long time. She decorated the whole thing herself, proudly and quietly, while I put other decorations out around the house.

This is Kid C in her preschool class doing show and tell today.
I felt like total loser mom today because I forgot until 5 min before class that it was my day to help out and bring snack. THANK HEAVENS FOR SUE! She was able to take Kid C to class and cover for the first 30 min while i took Baby R to KidsPark and bought some crackers and juice and ran back by the house to get her show-and-tell object. I grabbed the tree, and that made Kid C forgive me I think. She got to tell the class all about it. So cute.

(here she is decorating)

sorry!!

2009-12-03T00:13:00.000-08:00

I know, Baby Tuesday is majorly late! I know!

I've been working like crazy trying to make deadlines before I leave for Dallas. And on top of that training for the half marathon (aaaa!)

But to show you that i"m not making it up, check out the video I just finished!

Turkey for me, turkey for you, let's eat turkey in a big brown shoe

2009-11-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

I'm getting up before 2am tomorrow to join Joanne and Kara tomorrow for Black Friday.

I have never done something crazy like this before, but it was their idea. I'm just along for the ride. I will for sure take photos of all the maniacs running each other down with walmart shopping carts.

But here's some pics of Thanksgiving, after my Turkey Trot of course.

Check out Baby R's cool H&M outfit. I saved it special for today. And yeah, those are skinny-fit pants with a big robot accessory on them. Awesomeness.

Kevin's aunts, uncles, cousins, grandfather, etc.

El Guapo!

baton wielding powder keg.

Everyone!

Baby Tuesday on Wednesday

2009-11-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

I didn't forget.
Well I kind of forgot, and then I would remember. And then I would forget and now I'm posting this.

Thankfulness Homework Day 1

2009-11-23T15:08:00.000-08:00

Mark said we had to write down one thing we're thankful for this week. One different thing per day. I think that means for 7 days.

So today, I'll do the obvious:

My babies.

I'm thankful that they are incredibly healthy, mentally and physically.
And thankful that they are pretty darn cute and loveable.

Even if I don't *really* pray at night. (by "really" I mean, focusing and making a real effort) I almost always thank God for my C & R.

(even if they drive me crazy ;) )

Baby Tuesday

2009-11-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

My theme until the kids get into preschool is tiredness. Tiredness until January.

Baby R got sick and barfed at KidsPark and I didn't know my phone was on silent. So not only did I unknowingly bring a barfy kid to childcare, but I also didn't come and get him when he got sick.
I felt AWFUL about the whole thing. I took them some "apology cookies" this morning with a card to those women that had to take care of him.
I need to take them there tomorrow because I have a ton of projects I'm working on, but I'm kinda afraid of them giving me the look when I go in there. Maybe it'll be different people? Who knows.

After we bought our new fridge, we stood outside the store and there was this display with a real old Ford Fairlane behind the glass. Since it is her middle name, I made her stand next to it and take her pic.

Yes, the "l" is missing in the name, like it broke off.

Baby R had to get in on it too.

This is Kid C's pumpkin. She drew it out and Kevin cut it out.
I know I'm completely biases, but I was impressed with hers and Baby R's too.
But I felt like I would draw something like that on purpose to look "whimsical."
The scar on the head? So great.

Baby R's looked like something from Nightmare Before Christmas. I liked it alot too.

Kid C took these photos with the camera. It's like a tiny gallery showing of Mojito as her muse. The yawn one is actually a super awesome shot!

And the long awaited refrigerator serenade video. As the installers were putting our fridge in the kitchen, she sang to them in "spanish" which was just her making up gibberish, and a few Dora vocabulary words thrown in occasionally.

Baby Thursday

2009-11-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

oopsie.

Tue and Wed were crazyville.

Today's still crazy, but I gotta put something up right?

Here's a collection of self portraits by the kids. Playing with "Photo Booth" on my laptop is one of their favorite games. I have hundred of Kid C's.

('sup, yo)

(peace out)

(this one is from a while back, I forgot to post it)

Sears Outlet is Da Bomb!

2009-11-07T14:12:00.001-08:00

Here's the fridge we got, but we didn't pay NEAR that much crazy money for it!

I really wanted a Big Chill fridge, but they aren't practical at all. Boo.

Baby Tuesday

2009-11-03T23:58:00.000-08:00

I'm really tired, here are just three for now:

(photo credits to the mommy of the angry little dinosaur and the very agreeable pink fairy)

not that I'm really qualified

2009-10-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not an interior decorator, but I can try!

I made these in my campaign to save our tragic lobby.

You can plainly see the "before", which is in fact the present.

Baby Tuesday on Wednesday

2009-10-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, it happened again. I think this means truly I am too busy.

Will I stop? Not anytime soon.

Mostly in reverse order, as usual.

Kid B getting ready for her Halloween party, as a pirate by her pirate mommy.

Baby R and Kevin milling about as the party begins.

All the kids at the Halloween party watching the pinata action.

Cute little babies.

I'm not usually a let-me-hold-your-baby kind of girl. But Baby L was so gosh darn cute I had to hold her.

The pirate showing the princess the jump house.

The pirate and the princess again, they're a year apart, but look how tall Kid C is!

Pirate's booty! (okay, I know, narf.)

Give it hell, my little prince!

They had this sort of community pumpkin, er, thing downtown a couple of weeks ago. I mean, what else are we doing with two kids on a Saturday? Not much.

Kid C is stoked about her firefighter stickers, handed out by real firemen.

I love this outfit of hers. If she wanted to wear it everyday, I might just let her.

A couple of weeks ago, a neighbor's fence caught on fire, and you would have thought the whole block was burning down by the number of firefighters on the scene. Holy moley there were a TON! I woke up Baby R out of his nap so he could watch them (I don't remember where Kid C was, maybe at school?).

We walked out to the sidewalk and a firefighter, in his full ensemble came over and handed Baby R a firefighter badge sticker. He was so smitten, it was a top ten cute moment.

Orchard Valley Coffee is the alt-coffee house 'round these parts. The free wi-fi and multitude of seating makes it super popular with pretty much everybody. It's not that stylish, and it's not that tasty, but wifi and seating, that's all we want apparently.

We sat and drank some chocolate milk before the used bookstore opened. They were, of course, spaz-tastic from all that sugar and chocolate afterwards. And there was slight mayhem in the bookstore when we finally got in there. Oh well, we traded some books and called it even.

preview to Halloween

2009-10-25T16:01:00.001-07:00

we are but their humble servants

Baby Tuesday on Wednesday

2009-10-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

I tried really hard to post my Baby Tuesday from my new iPhone last night! I really tried, but forces aligned against me and I was unsuccessful. Boo.

But to celebrate the arrival of "snowball jr." my new iPhone, I will post all my iphone pics on this edition:

I took this photo of Kid C last night after she splashed permanent pink ink all over the dining room carpet, the hall carpet, the dining room table and herself.

I was mad.

You can see on her hands is the pink ink stains.

The only thing I managed to get the pink out of was the table, but I had to sacrifice the veneer a little bit to get it out.

Kids, they will make you crazy.

Ah, MoBo, always a crowd pleaser. See below for video of him in action.

Monday we had a different schedule so we went to go "watch" Kevin play in the eBay soccer tournament final. Baby R however just wanted to wander off. Kid C was pretty good for a while and then she got iPhone happy and then shortly after we had to call it a day and leave.

Kid C made this necklace for me out of Baby R's snowboot tag elastic and a Barbie purse. And then she insisted on taking a picture of it with my phone.

We had some friends over on Friday night and one friend brought her daughter Kid V along. I told Kid C she could stay up and play with her, and that's just what she did. Until midnight, they played and played and played. Here she is post-dress-up in her undies. All hopped up on marshmallows.

I accidentally dressed my son as a farm boy last week. I had to buy him snow boots because at Target, they don't sell "wellies" in October. And they sell rain boots in the spring, when we in California don't get rain anymore. Aren't there enough of us here that they can sell us some rain boots? And what about Florida? C'mon.

You will see that he's wearing heavy duty boots, Wranglers and a western shirt. All he needs is a little ATV and a mesh-back hat and I'd make him carry around a little cannister of Skoal in his back pocket to complete the ensemble.

This is the cute pout. It's blurry, but I think you can make out the cuteness.

Baby Tuesday on Thursday

2009-10-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

Oldies week.

I took this at the SF in the summer.

After I uploaded this, I realized that you can barely make out the kids riding the carousel all by themselves.

Hmm, what else do I have? I'm too tired to go find the camera and upload this week...

This one must be pretty darn old because Baby R is still in cloth diapers. But I don't know if I ever posted it. So enjoy the retro cuteness.

2000 is a big number

2009-10-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

I am training to run in half marathon.

Why?

Only because it raises money for Leukemia and Lymphoma research and patient services. And in order to race, I need to bring in 2000.00 in donations.

So I made a special page on my Pull It Together website just for my fundraising.

Please check it out.

And of course, if you don't want art, you can simply donate straight to my donation page and get your tax deduction in before the end of 2009, easy peasy.

thanks so much. I'll be giving updates on my sorry-butt getting kicked by the TNT trainers. omg...

poster of the wee hours

2009-10-13T00:31:00.000-07:00

This is the rough draft, I know there are problems with it.

inside folding part of of the poster. It folds open twice.
And then the back is below, when it's all unfolded...