Vacation 2012 Angel's Camp

 We left our house on Aug 31 and split the drive into 2 days.  We stayed at an out of the way little bed and breakfast the first night, which I don't have any pictures of.  They raised goats and had chickens and ducks and we had a whole 2 bedroom cottage to ourselves.  It is so nice to have the kids have their own rooms on vacation.  It was super cute and really fun and I wished I had made the effort to dig the camera out.  The next day we drove to Angel's Camp CA and the final drive through the mountains was so beautiful but rough as well.  The kids were done and those last 89 miles was slow going through all the switch backs.

 The kids playing at our condo.

 Our time at Angel's Camp was GREAT and just so good to be together as a family and I know K enjoyed the downtime away from work as well.  We hit the local lake (only 15 min) away on Tuesday and the kids got to use their water shoes and although the beach was super rocky it was so nice.  K and I had wished we had brought our suits because the water was so so so perfect and being the day after Labor day no one was around. 

 Sarah actually was awake she just had her eyes closed for the picture.

 We weren't planning on going into the water because we had taken Grace to an urgent care on Labor day because we noticed a bunch of dried blood in her ear.  They said to not get lake water in her ear and in case of infection, so they just waded. 

More pictures and vacation stories to come later, going to keep it short for now.  K leaves for 2 weeks tomorrow and then he flies home for the weekend before going to another 3 weeks of training.  % weeks of training total although we might be able to see him on the last leg of his trip.

Birthday Fun

Came back from playgroup yesterday and there was a couple of packages on the porch.  The kids got their rain boots from their Nana in the mail.  Needless to say Grace was thrilled about her boots and showed them off.

 Aaron showed me his too, they are big on him still and he was having a bit of trouble walking in them, but I am sure they will be just fine in time for the rain.

 The other package was these pretty flowers from my little brother! Such a nice birthday surprise and the kids loved the bubble wrap!

 This peanut is getting so big! So today we had her 4 month appointment.  Her weight was 14 lbs 14 ounces, which actually seemed lighter to me since when I weighed her I got 18 lbs.  And I think she was 26 inches long...shoot, I can't remember for sure and I am not getting the paperwork, but she was like in the 89% for height and average for weight, so another long baby.  This week I have been putting her sleeveless sleep sack on her and the using her baby legs on her arms because her arms are so long they stretch out of her pjs and get cold.  It seems to be working.  The other good thing is she has been taking a paci kind of at naps.  Yesterday and today I stuck it in her mouth when I laid her down and she immediately started sucking on it! No gagging.  Of course when I gave her rice cereal with apple juice she made a terrible face as she kind of gagged on it and then spit it out.  Really? Who doesn't like apple juice?  Yeah I bought apple juice so her rice cereal wouldn't be bland and boring, we did it with the other two and she makes horrible faces for me today.  Whatever, I guess we will wait some more before we try that again.  She is so into observing everything though!  I can't get her to keep nursing because she has to crank that head around and see what those big brother and sister of hers are doing.  I am going to have to get serious about quiet time when I am nursing so I can actually get her to finish a full feeding, and we can go longer between feedings.

 You can kind of see she is getting blond hair like her brother.

 Ok I love these kids! So cute they were cheesin it up for me on the couch! Playing with Mr. Potato Head.

 Showing me her lil guy..

 Showing me his block!  Ok Aaron's teeth take forever to come in.  He has had those 4 gaps there forever! And the top right tooth for that space has been trying to come in for so long now.  But seriously..those blond curls and those cheeks and grin??? Melts a momma's heart!

Even though we didn't do anything special for my birthday it was a blast and then last night I had a great run on the treadmill.  So far I am down 13.5 pounds and am hopeful that a birthday week didn't mess me up too bad when I weigh myself on Friday morning instead of Saturday.  K comes home tomorrow afternoon and then we head west for our vacation Friday morning...I can't wait!

Watch out World!

Grace is such a big girl and loves dresses and playing dress up, it's so cute.  She wanted to wear this bow that goes on a knitted crochet hat she has, so I stuck it in her hair..of course then she had to get my high heels. 

 After playgroup today we helped a friend out, and then I remembered we didn't have anything really for the kids to eat for lunch so we ran through and got them something.  Took us a little longer to get home and naps for the big kids got messed up.  Grace stayed up and helped me take pictures of the size 2 diapers I had.  They sold tonight!

 I took this one of peanut awhile ago, she was watching Sesame Street with the big kids.  She is constantly surprising me with how early she is doing things. I said it before she was born because of how active she was, but she is going to keep me on my toes I think! Oh and I got a video to upload of the kids on our walk tonight! Imagine that! Took the video with my phone so it's grainy, but you can hear Aaron talking! Also I think I have Sarah trained to fall asleep by herself now, which is great! Naps and now bedtime are getting easier!  Time to get Grace to bed, I let her stay up a little bit so Sarah could fall asleep.  Nighty night!

Hungry

Yesterday after we left the zoo it was dinner time and we were all hot and sweaty and tired and hungry for some yummy food without doing any cooking.  So we headed over to Rubio's which I hadn't been to before.  At least not here.  It was delicious! And fresh and the kids ate great.  The thing is Sarah has really been into trying to grab my food lately when I am holding her and eating.  She will try to grab my plate and pull it towards her and last night she was trying to grab my burrito!  I really can't blame her because it was a very yummy shrimp burrito.  But seriously the girl is ready to start eating real food I think!

And, last week at playgroup one of my girlfriends offered me a box of rice cereal that she had leftover that was going to be expiring soon and I said, "Oh no thank you I think we still have another month before we try rice cereal!"  If only I would have known! 

 Then later tonight the big kids were 'cooking' with their play food and bringing it to me to eat.  Again Sarah was on my lap while we sat on the couch and Grace brought a plastic piece of pie and Sarah reached for it, got it and instantly put it into her mouth! So maybe she will sleep better getting a little bit of cereal...got to put it on the grocery list! She is definitely cruising right along.

 Today started out rough because I couldn't get anything done! And I had/have a lot to do, but right before lunch things started getting better.  (Ha! Probably because Sarah finally fell asleep and took her morning nap) And then she took a nice 3 hour nap this afternoon with the big kids.
I was at Costco last week and could not resist getting this pjs for the big kids this winter!  They were only 7.99 each.  I was going to buy Sarah some but thought I should wait and see how much bigger she gets!

Looking forward to playgroup tomorrow.

Dinosaur museum and the Zoo

In August Thanksgiving Point has $2 Tuesdays and so I decided to take the kids, I tried to get there early..however I got to the off ramp 8 minutes after they opened and I still had to wait in line for an hour!

 I knew it was going to be busy I just didn't realize it was going to be CRAZY busy!

 Today the whole family went to the zoo.  It was also busier than we thought it was going to be and we ended up skipping naps.  The kids went to bed early tonight which was great and they had a blast today.

 Sarah is growing so much!  She is already in a size 3 diaper! I tried to prolong switching her up because I had just bought a big box of size 2 diapers at Costco and still have most of the box left..so now I have to try to sell those.  And I should re-adjust all my cloth diapers and start using them.  It's kind of crazy because Aaron is still in a size 4! And before I know it Sarah and Aaron will be wearing the same size diaper.  I love how Sarah is a chubby baby, I just love smooching those chubby cheeks.

Still loving my FitBit and going to work hard this week to get some extra calories burned.  Going to head off to bed soon after K and I finish watching a movie, because we are tired! Last night I think I was up at least 6 times with Sarah or the dog on the hour.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Reminds me of her daddy

Yesterday I posted pictures of the big kids but I didn't have any of Sarah.  Now today I have one of Sarah asleep at the park today.  I looked over at her and she was passed out like this.  I had to take a picture because she totally reminds me of her daddy with her arm and leg like this.  Can you believe those pudgy baby legs, don't you just want to gobble them up? And those cheeks and that belly??

Today at the park Aaron went down the metal slide again again and had a blast and Grace went down the fireman pole thingy all by herself! Oh! I almost forgot Aaron went pee pee in the potty training seat again tonight, a little bit more than last time.  He is getting so big so fast! I can't believe in a couple of months he is going to be 2!  And this time last year we found out we were pregnant and now look how big our little 'peanut' is.  (K started calling her peanut and it just stuck, which is ironic because she is far from a peanut baby, I mean she was 8lbs 8 ounces at birth! But she is our last so she is our peanut)  She is getting some good afternoon naps.  Morning naps are hit and miss, she will go anywhere from 30-60 minutes.  But the afternoon naps she will take a good 2 1/2-3 hour nap. 
She still hates paci's and is beginning to use me as a paci! Which of course I am not fond of, but because K has been gone traveling and I am trying to put all 3 kids to bed at the same time, I do what I have to do to get a little bit of me time. 
Tomorrow our street is getting repaved and we have playgroup, K has another busy day at work and we are meeting some friends at Buca Di Beppo for dinner, time to hit the rack!

What we have been up too

I can't believe that August is almost half over and soon summer will be too.  I have been trying to grow Grace's hair out and train it to go back.  Baby hair is a tough one and I am still learning with my 3 year old.  I am hoping I will have gained some sort of wisdom about training baby hair by the time Sarah gets enough to train.  So a few weeks ago I suddenly remembered how to french braid.  I had never been able to do my own or anyone else's for that matter.  But when you try to puzzle out different ways of doing your daughters hair so its cute and out of her sweet face, you brainstorm.  So I had her sit down (she didn't want too, bless her heart but she is obedient for the most part) and we tried it out.  As you can see one side is better.....

 ...than the other.

 It wasn't very tight on the other side, not sure if it was because she was wiggly or because her hair wasn't wet enough and I haven't tried it again since.  Tomorrow's no good because I washed her hair tonight and it's super soft and smooth.

 Her poor eye, these pics are about 2 weeks old, because K is in them!

 Being silly with daddy.

 Not sure what he was saying or doing but being silly for sure.

 Grace drew a picture of a rainbow on Saturday when we went out to dinner with daddy once he got home. I was so proud of her! Can you see it?  She remembered from a Sesame Street show, she is so smart!

 This was tonight after we went on a walk, Aaron wanted to mow the lawn...soon enough my boy, soon enough. 

So on Saturday I weighed myself again and I am down another 2 pounds!  That makes a total of 10 pounds!  I am very excited and can't wait to fit into more of my pre-pregnancy clothes.  And last week I didn't do a lot of working out because it was the 2nd week of K being gone and I was feeling pretty worn out, so I just tried to eat good and not splurge.  Also on Saturday night we went into Best Buy and checked out the FitBits, for K.  It's funny because at the end of August we had a birthday dinner for some family down at my mother-in-laws place and I was telling everyone about my FitBit and how much weight I had lost and how I loved it.  Well I guess my sister-in-law was all about getting one, to track her steps.  She recently graduated from the U's nursing program and got a job really quickly as a nurse.  And since nurses walk a lot, she was diggin it.  Well to make a long story short she got a FitBit and then K did and then my brother-in-law got one yesterday after seeing his wife get one! So now the 4 of us are all on FitBit tracking our steps and getting healthy! And I am excited to have my hubby with me so we can compete!  The rest of this week he will be working at a huge job site where he does a lot of walking up and down hills and such.  It will be interesting to see how many 'floors' he gets on his FitBit, the only downside for him is that he hikes around there with his tool box and a lot of gear and FitBit can not measure the exertion you do when you are working really hard like that.  But it's better than nothing.
Also last week I had a doctor's appointment with the dermatologist.  When I was pregnant with Sarah I broke out in a few red scaly patches and thought I just had some eczema and it would go away when my hormones settled back down.  But then I had her and I kept getting more and more all over my legs.  So I booked an appointment and found out that I officially have psoriasis. It can come on around age 28 and you can't get rid of it, just treat it or control it.  Their are different triggers that people have that can make it flare up, strep, a sunburn, winter weather and stress.  Mine was for sure STRESS! Having the 3 littles and running around like a headless chicken...yeah I am stressed.  Another thing I didn't want to do was to treat each spot topically, however that is exactly what I have to do.  But at least it is working pretty quickly.  I took a picture of my leg with the 4 worst spots.  They used to be dark red, but the strong steroid ointment I have is doing the trick.  I just have to remember to put cream on each spot daily and they are mostly all over my legs front and back.  Our poor kids between K's eczema and now my psoriasis they are doomed! Well hopefully not.

We are so glad to have Daddy back and are looking forward to having him home to hang out with us for a little while, at least until the middle of September before he is gone again.  Well it's getting late and I need a shower before I can get my zzzz's. Love yas!