Killer Colds and Productive Rebounds

For the first time in 10 years I came down with the flu. Terrible bodyaches, fever and horrible cough and congestion had me in bed for 2 days. Once I felt the tiniest bit better I was up and full speed ahead. Work at St. John has been crazy, our social calendar full and my neurotic and never-ending "To Do" list never seems to get smaller.

Well after 3 weeks of the flu/cold symptoms not subsiding I finally succombed and and went to the doctor. Let me just say that I rarely get sick, and never to the extent of needing to go to the doctor, so when it finally came time to go I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I finally got an appointment on Friday and after a five minute exam where the nurse practitioner assured me my lungs, ears and throat were free of infection I was told I just had a bad cold that needed to be treated. She prescribed me a heavy duty cough suppresant and told me to pick up three more over-the-counter meds (claritin, sudafed, and mucinex). Well I took all three and then went to a friend's house for some yummy Indian food and a beer. Let's just say by 9 pm I was about to pass out and my friends feared I would not be able to drive home! After some yummy homemade chai tea though I perked up a bit, made it home and passed out! (I still made it to bootcamp the next morning even!)

Well enough about me and my never ending cold. On to the family! In the past 3 weeks we've visited Jenn and Baby Brooklyn, worked on our garden by laying the initial planter boxes (we plan to plant next weekend when it warms up a bit), had a very successful Craft Fair at our house, visited Look What I Made, had plenty of playdates and fun dinners with our neighbors and friends & family, prepped for our 2008 tax appointment, and did lots of fun organizing! As usual we never seem to slow down! This was actually the first weekend that we didn't have ANY plans at all and last night after just hanging around the house all day, Taylor asks, "Who's coming over for dinner?" She seemed dissappointed when we told her it would just be us! hahaha!!

Attached are some pictures of some of the organizing I did over the weekend. I was so tired of Taylor's "clippy drawer" being a complete disaster so I took an idea from my neighbor Sarah and hung some ribbon to place her clips on, then hung it in her room. I figure this will make things so much easier for her and me when we are doing our daily routine of choosing her clippys to wear. My friend Chris gave me an awesome idea for organizing Taylor's artwork over the past few years; keep the most inspirational pieces and place them in a book. I made one for 2007, 2008 and started one for 2009. I also grabbed her idea for labeling toys with pictures so that Taylor and the rest of the family can help mommy clean up and stay organized. Am I passing on my neuroses to my children???

lastly, we finally hung the amazing pictures that our sitter Marin took of Sydney on his 1st birthday! She developed the pictures (in a darkroom!) and framed them for our 2008 Christmas present. I felt so bad that we hadn't gotten around to hanging them yet so while Art had out his hammer we finally got it hung. Thank you so much Marin!

Taylor starts Kidnastics tomorrow and I hope and pray it goes well! Wish us luck.

Sydney has started putting 3 words together and his vocabulary overall is just exploding. It's so awesome to see them grow in leaps and bounds in just a couple of weeks!

Here's to growing kids, stealing great ideas from fellow mommys, and over the counter cold medication! Happy Sunday everyone :)

A Moment of Awe

The message in church today was about letting our fear of God hold us back and how many of us know more about God than actually know Him. The pastor went on to discuss how so often we come to church on Sunday to be lifted up and revved up for the week, only to find that by Wednesday we may believe in God and know about Him, but our actions don't show it (the pastor admitted that even he is very guilty of this). He encouraged us before we took communion to have a moment of silence and really focus on God and Jesus Christ and understand his Awe if you will.

As we closed our eyes and the congregation became silent, Sydney, who was sitting on my lap, proceeded to try and pry my eyes open. Then all of a sudden he became very calm and still and literally wrapped his arms around my neck and buried his head in my neck and sat like that for about 1 minute. I know there are many ways to experience the power of God and Jesus Christ, but for me, there is nothing like the love of my children to make you bow down in true awe of Him. As tears streamed down my face during this truly precious and peaceful moment, I was reminded that God has put me on this Earth to raise these 2 beings and, and although it is extremely challenging a lot of the time (okay, most of the time), there is nothing more important I could be doing. I need to be grateful and appreciate every moment with them, and when it's tough, and you've all heard me complain how tough it is, especially with Syd, I need to say a prayer and ask God for patience, forgiveness and understanding.

I LOVE YOU Taylor and Sydney with every ounce of my being! Thank you for being who you are.

Trying to concentrate but having a hard time!

I currently sit at my freind Maura's house with a few great friends and we are doing a knitting and knoshing night, however, I don't knit :) So I actually brought my laptop and am working on my blog, catching up on emails and am even going to attempt to work on Syd's baby book!
A couple of other moms are doing the same thing (blogging, scrapbooking, etc.) My friend Chris is working on organizing her daughter's art work. GREAT Chris, another thing that i need to add to my TO DO list!

The last week has been busy as usual. Art took Taylor to a Father/Daughter dance for charity on Sunday and they had a great time (see before and after pictures). Taylor was so excited to go and dance with her daddy it was the highlight of her weekend. By Monday though she had moved onto something else of course, but Art relished his daddy time with Taylor.

The week has been a mix of highs and lows. I tell you I am feeling a little burned out. We met Art for lunch on Monday at ZPizza and Sydney was a pistol as usual. He is so frustrated right now with what I assume is his lack of communication skills. A typical meltdown with Syd looks something like this:
me: Syd, here's some pizza.
Syd: NO!!!!! as he proceeds to push the pizza away
me: okay, you don't want the pizza? I proceed to take the pizza away
Syd: NO, MINE!!!!!!!!!
me: So I give the pizza back
Syd: NO!!! shoves pizza away
me: what do you want Syd? i don't understand what you want (my temperature is rising)
Syd: screaming and crying and kicking in his high chair and raising hell in ZPizza

Art had to take him out of the restaurant at this point.
It turns out that he wanted his pizza sliced up. WTH?!? This goes on numerous times throughout the day and has been going on for weeks. i swear I am having a hard time dealing with him right now. we had 1 good day on Thursday where he really didn't melt down at all and it was great. By Friday though he was back on track with his usual MO. Oh well, at least we were 1 for 5 this week. here's to a good weekend right?!!?

Thank the Lord for my parents! They are going to take the 2 kids overnight on Sunday after church. A much needed break is coming very soon!

LB Aquarium

On Friday I took Taylor, Syd and Skylar (T's best friend) to the Long Beach Aquarium. It was the first time I managed 3 toddlers in a public place all by myself and overall it went smoothly. Here are some pictures of our day. It was nice and sunny so we played outside for a while and the kids got wet with the sprinklers and then we enjoyed a lot of time inside viewing the fish and touching all the different sea creatures on display. The picture of the 3 kids watching the seals/sea lions I thought was really cute. they were so enthralled with them we stood there for about 20 minutes. Check out Syd's new kicks!

The girls decided to each bring an umbrella with them and it ended up being the perfect thing to keep them from getting wet!

Carousel Fun and my Little Artist

Yesterday we went to South Coast Plaza with our good friends and neighbors Ali, Caroline and Olivia. (we missed you Sarah, Reagan and Paige!). We had brunch, went to the Disney Store and of course rode the carousel. Afterwards mommy got to do a little shopping at Nordstrom which is always nice and I finally got myself a new pair of black work pants! My little reward for losing 10 pounds ;)

Over the weekend we hung some artwork that Taylor did almost a year ago with her Nana. they are watercolors and I think they're absolutely amazing. I matted and framed them and we hung them in the main bathroom. I think we have a budding artist in the family?!?!

Ya, I'm a Loser

So on the top of my list of things to do are:

Finalize Living Trust (after filing our living trust back in September, I have yet to fund the darn thing. Now I know why Legal Zoom only charges $499!)

File for dental insurance - still contemplating that one

File for new health insurance - DONE! We got accepted to a new health plan that will be saving us over $100 a month. Thank God!

Finish Syd's baby book - hmmm, think I may complete that one before he turns 2 (hopefully!)

Print up 2008 pictures - I am very close to completing that one!

And finally, UPDATE BLOG! Well to check off one thing off my list, I proceed to update my blog.

I am a little anal retentive you see. What happened is that Art takes a ton of pics on his fancy Canon camera and then hoards them. They are stuck on his computer and I have no access to them. All the pictures from Thanksgiving, the El Dorado Park Home Tour and after-party, and the biggest one of all, Christmas, are all stuck on his computer at work! UGH! So the AR person that I am cannot move forward out of sequence. I keep saying, how can I update my blog and not post something about Christmas, the home tour, holiday party, etc.??? I am hard wired to just go in order.

So at this rate, I may never get my pictures (although I bug him about it every day so maybe some day?). I finally decided today the hell with it and just move forward.

The last several months have been eventful of course. Christmas was wonderful this year and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We saw both sets of famlies but still managed to keep it stress free. We limited our spending which was nice and focused on the kids.

Right before Christmas we were one of 4 homes featured on the El Dorado Park Estates Home Tour and we put in a lot of grueling hours in the preceeding weeks painting the living room, dining room, hallways and entry way and we got some great design consults from my neighbor Sarah. We redecorated a couple of rooms and if I ever get the pics I will share them eventually! I promise Lea :)

After the home tour we had a holiday open house and had about 40 guests. It was a lot of fun and we plan to make it an annual thing.

We celebrated New Years Eve with our dear friends Mark and Ali and their girls and had a mellow glass of champagne and called it a night by 9pm! We left the next day for Scottsdale to visit Lea and spent 3 nights with her. After our visits I am always reminded what a dear friend she is to me. I honestly can say that I have never had friend that I "click with" so well. I love you Lea!

The next weekend we took off to Lake Arrowhead and spent 2 nights and had a great time playing in the snow and feeding the ducks at the lake.

Yesterday was Valentines Day and Art and I just stayed home and had a good dinner with the kids. I made chocolate milk for them and gave them a V-Day cookie. Well that was a mistake becauase this morning we walked into Syd's room and he had puked pink all over his crib! Poor bubba :(

I have attached some pictures. There are a couple from our trip to Arrowhead, our Tales and Trails class at the Nature Center, Taylor on her way to a birthday party and the kids having fun with paint during Arts and Crafts time. If you see, the paint is all over the place, which is exactly why I refuse to get a new dining room table until these kids are at least 5!

I will try, but do not promise, to be such a stranger!

All the Things I Love (and there's a lot!)

Beauty & Fashion Stuff
* Beauty Products for Spring
* Headwrap Love
* For the Man In Your Life
* My Eye Cream & Night Lotion
* Nail Love

Two Things I Love Around My Home
* Big Tree & Kitchen Art
* Birdies & Piano
* Trompe l'oeil & Glass Jars

Faith & Family
* Link to one of my favorite Meg Posts On Her Trip To Africa
* Daniel's Adoption

* On Having Faith
* Markings On A Wall
* Family Devotions
* A Moment of Awe


Various Love
* Vacation Dreaming
* Food Love
* Gardening
* Winter Vacation
* Jesus Loves This Girl T-Shirt
* Milk Glass
* Funny Preschool Antics
* Still One of My Favorite Posts I Ever Wrote
* Being Don Draper
* Random Post On Various Stuff I Love
* The Estate Sale Horses the Kids Still Play With Everyday 9 Months Later