The New Crib!

Brian and I never hung up any pictures in our little house on Rockefeller. When we got married in 2002, we figured we'd live there for a few years and then hopefully buy something to call our own. It didn't happen in the time period we imagined but we finally got around to moving! We bought a townhouse in San Pedro and couldn't be more excited!

While it's not huge, it is 50% bigger than where we were squeezed into before. And with a third kiddo on the way, we needed more space!

Austin was very happy to help determine just how much extra space we were getting!




(He's been OBSESSED with tape measurers ever since that day!)
It's got a decent sized patio that the kids get to play on. It's not as big as the front yard we had in Redondo, but at least here, the kids can play without me worrying about them running into the street!

Brian did his best to give us some grass on the sides of the patio but it just didn't make it. Too much shade. It was a good try though!

And Brian's #1 personal wish was a garage! And he got his wish!

We are still working on setting it up for him (Just finished moving our crap out of the garage and into the house a year later!) but soon he'll have the workbench he's been waiting 10 years for!


Color!!

All of the walls were that loverly stark beige in the above pictures with Austin. Having rented, surrounded in stark white walls, for 10 years, I knew that I wanted pretty much every wall to have color! Thankfully we have the best friends in the world to help us transform our place before we moved in! And I didn't pick out just a few colors...I had 21 different paints on the list to buy! We didn't end up using them all but I think the final count (including ceiling and the baseboard paint) is 17? Regardless, it's exactly what I wanted!!





My pet project was Austin's room. I was so happy with how it came out!

I should have just ended with that room though. Turns out 8 month pregnant women shouldn't balance on toilets to try to paint small bathrooms!


I don't have great "after" pictures, so these will have to do. They were taken while still in the midst of moving in, so the rooms have changed a little and they showcase some good messiness that I wish I could say was gone, but really it's just changed to a different messiness!

The girls' room of course had to be PINK!



McKenna loved it! She kept saying "I like it! I like it!" She got a new play kitchen (pink of course!) for her birthday and that added to the moving excitement!





This is her excited face. I swear!


Austin's room


Our room. I matched the walls to our bedspread. I still cannot get over how much space we have in our room! Our old room was wall, bed, dresser, wall! And now we can easily walk around our bed, with room to spare! Not to mention the great walk in closet! And our own bathroom!




My favorite color in the house is in the kids bathroom!

Living room. So much more room for the kids to play! And we adore our new couch! It was the first thing we knew we were buying before we moved in. Our old couch was at least 15 years old, ugly and horribly uncomfortable.


In case you forgot how small our old place was, this is how much space our kids could dance in!


The dining room.

The kitchen will eventually have a cute flowery valance that is mostly pink with this green in it. I have the fabric, we'll see how long it takes me to actually make the darn thing! Someday! It has little less cupboard space than our old kitchen but it's got a great big pantry and we are making do just fine!

We also have another bathroom downstairs, but I don't think I ever got a picture of it. It had all sorts of issues getting painted. The previous owners removed the wall paper but not the glue and painted over it. And then we tried to texture over it and then paint and it just fell off! It's a bold maroon though. You'll just have to take my word on it, I suppose!

We are so enjoying our new home! We feel very blessed!!

He is Risen!

I know that these posts are more than a year ago, but I swear they feel like yesterday! I don't feel that far behind!

Eggies!

I swear my kids aren't naked in these pics. It's just that egg dye and clothing, other than underwear/diapers, don't mix!




Easter service was held at our usual location, overlooking the ocean. I tried to get some cute pics of my kiddos dressed in their Easter digs but only Austin was cooperative. But he was ridiculously cute so it made up for McKenna's lack of cooperation!





Then it was Easter lunch at Nani & Papa's, with some fun bubbles, an egg hunt and attempts at a cousin pic.










Yeah, this is as good as I got with all the cousins!

Miscellaneous March Fun!

Well, I'm more than a year behind. It's just pitiful! I'm striving to get caught up but it's slow going! I'm gonna make it though! Someday!


March 2012
My cutie pies!




Ride 'em Cowgirl!




Daddy was gone for work for a week and when he got home, McKenna wanted to do nothing but sit on his lap and snuggle. She laid here and let him scratch her back for the longest time! I love that my babies love their daddy so much! He's such a good daddy!






In March, we went to a combo birthday party for Jack & Sammy. Sammy's birthday is about a month before McKenna's. Auntie Becca threw a very cute Toy Story party!



One birthday boy showing off his sliding um...skills




McKenna loved the "Sidewalk Chalk" area!


The other birthday boy showing the Mrs. Potato Head game



Austin Gets a Shiner

Austin came away from the birthday party with his first real good black eye. He got hit with the back of someone's head on the way down the bouncer slide. We actually thought he had fractures in his eyebrow because it puffed up and bruised so badly so quickly. I'm sure it's just the first of many to come!

10 & 11 Months

Bella turned 11 months this week and I still haven't written her 10 month update! Momma fail. I'm going to have to go off of memory as what was by 10 months and what was by 11 months.

Have I mentioned before how much I love this kid? She is simply awesome. So much fun and getting even moreso each day! She cracks me up and radiates sunshine and joy!







By 10 Months

Her top two teeth came in with little fuss. It's funny how those teeth look like they're about to pop through any moment...for about 3 weeks! They actually probably still had a few days to go but she slipped in the tub and bonked her mouth and a corner popped through. Nothing like a bloody mouth to get a momma's heart racing!

Her right eye was almost clear! At 9 months it was still way goopy. And then she got a cold. I have to sincerely thank whoever exposed us to those germies! I hadn't really given her left eye clearing up much thought until the right eye started out and I remembered that she had a cold at 6 months too! I guess the pressure of the sinuses pushed the blockage out somewhat. I had already made an appointment with the eye specialist and she recommended surgery still since it wasn't completely clear. They like to do the before a year old so it's more likely to stick. This was about a week after the cold. She also thought I was a looney thinking the cold had something to do with it. I pushed for re-eval after a month since the clearing was such a new event. About a week ago, Austin was in the dr's office for a virus and I had the dr look at Bella's eye while we were there. She thought the blockage was so slight that she wasn't sure she'd even do the surgery. And she absolutely agreed it was the cold that cleared it up! I knew it! A momma knows these things! We had the follow up appointment this week and she's 100% clear! The specialist was shocked and admitted she was wrong! She doesn't need surgery! Yay for colds!

She's still a pretty easy going kid, but she is definitely developing her own opinions and can be a bit stubborn and cranky now. She has 3 things she has found a hatred for! She HATES to be locked off the stairs. She loves to crawl up the stairs. As soon as she hears someone go through the gate, she beelines for the stairs, hoping to make it through before it's closed. She looks like a little ice breaker ship, just tearing through whatever toys are in her way. And when her hopes and dreams are crushed, she lets you know her extreme disappointment! Lots of shrieks, sometimes crying. Angry little elf! She also hates to be washed up after a meal. Same shrieks and angry face. We're getting better at making it a game so hopefully that won't be a struggle for long. And she absolutely abhors getting changed and dressed. I can only change her with a leg over her chest to keep her from escaping. And once I get to the actual clothes swapping part, she is super pissed off! Doesn't matter if I'm trying to change her standing up or laying down. Really hoping that gets better soon. Thankfully, if you're not doing one of those three things to her, she's really really a happy joyful little thing!

She's starting to get a little naughty. I had these dreams about a kid that actually listens but I guess I was mistaken. She's a tiny bit better than the other ones, but mostly I'm getting creative with how to block her off from certain No-No's. The TV stand, bathrooms, computer (which she already broke a piece off of!) She does not like to be denied!

She does this way cute scrunchie face that I just love! She does it when she's both happy and sad, but her happy one is really funny. She does it at us at the dinner table to get us all to smile at her. Already getting a sense of humor.

By 11 Months

Cruising has become free standing! It's amazing how quickly it goes from that first attempt to being able to stand there and play with toys without holding on. She was even shaking toys while standing yesterday. She took a step the other day. Mostly just a fluke step but it still counts! I'm guessing she will be walking by a year or shortly there after.

She has become seriously attached to her binkie and blankie. When she's tired and fussy, I ask her if she wants to go find them and she does this nervous little giggle and then when she gets them she just melts in my arms. She still does her little tired moan when she has them. Love that sound!

She has so many more words than I thought she'd have at 11 months. She says and signs "Down" and "All Done". "Dadda" sounds more like a "Hi Dadda!" She's figured out "Uh-Oh!" and likes to drop things just so she can say it. Her favorite is "GO!" That's her mantra as she goes up the stairs and also gets substituted in for "All done". She's just now saying "What's that?" as she points to things. Her little pointing is so cute! It's both for questions and for excitement at the sight of different people or things! She also seems to be getting into the immediate imitation of sound phase too. When you tell her to say something, she gets pretty close I think!

She's learned what a fishie says and she knows how to use that for giving kisses. Such sweet kisses!

She really really loves ceiling fans still.

Man, can this kid eat! It's awesome. Anything and everything! She easily can out eat the other kids. Her favorite is strawberries I think. She likes so much though, that I'm not sure she actually has a favorite. She gets so cutely excited at the sight of a ritz cracker and her sippy cup. She just recently figured out how to use a straw too and thinks its the most amazing thing in the world to have some of mommy's lemonade. She's getting a little bit of a belly, so I'm trying to limit her, but it's such a joy to have an eater!

She's starting to rough house with the big kids. They still don't quite know how to play with her without hurting her, so it always makes me nervous to let them, but before she gets hurt, she thinks it's so fun to be one of the big kids. She comes at them too and of course they can dish it out but don't like it so much when she pokes them back! It's really fun watching them all interact. Love it!

I now have 3 kids I have to compete with for the iPad. She is obsessed with both it and my phone. It's scary that she already has a sense of how to use it. Her little pointy finger swipes across it just like it's supposed to!

A Three Year Old Princess!

About a month ago, our sweet McKenna turned 3! Seems like just yesterday I was waking up neighbors with my banshee cries and almost giving birth in our brand new minivan! Her flair for dramatics hasn't waned. She is so full of personality and attitude!





Oh, that attitude might just be the death of me though! I joke that she just turned three and we're hoping she makes it to four! The 2s started way rough and then they smoothed out some. And then right before she turned three, she got that little bee in her bonnet again! She has a very strong stubborn streak, that unfortunately she inherited from her momma! Sometimes she is very vocally defiant and other times, when you're asking her to do something, or correcting her, she just subtly sets her jaw and oh-so-slightly narrows her eyes and I know that a battle of will has begun! Thankfully now that we are a month into the 3s, the battles are spreading out again. She's working on having a loving heart and saying sorry when she's done something wrong. And I'm working on keeping my cool when she pushes buttons, cuz losing it only makes her attitude worse. Hopefully we'll get all these struggles out before adolescents, right?!

But despite our battles, she is so much fun. She makes us laugh and I'm so proud of the little girl she's becoming. She is smart and sweet and very loving. Such my good little buddy!

She has a funny sense of humor. She loves to laugh and giggle. My favorite silliness of late is how she loves for me to change the words to the songs we sing. You are My Sunshine now goes "You make me happy when skies are purple. You'll never know moose how much I love you. You have been my pickle today." That just cracks her up.

She is a bouncy little thing. She has to hop down stairs. Not just wants to, has to. If she doesn't get to, it usually starts a fight! She is always running and sashaying through the house. And bouncing on beds and in bounce houses could keep her occupied for hours!

She is going to be our creative one. She loves to color and will spend hours doing it if she could. She's very careful and does a decent job of staying in the lines for her age. Her main quirk is that she usually only uses one color per page. She could be on her way to being ambidextrous. She switches hands when coloring because they get tired, but she seems to have about the same amount of control between the two! She is all about coloring anything girly. Pinkalicious and princesses are pretty much all that get attention.

She loves playing on the computer. She's getting pretty good at using the mouse and can play a few games all by herself.

She loves puzzles! She didn't really give them much attention until just a few months ago. On and off mainly. But now she loves them!

She loves to sing! She is great with lyrics too. She knows "O Holy Night" - her favorite bedtime song still despite the less than wintery weather. And all three verses to "I am Jesus' Little Lamb". All the songs to all her princess movies. No car ride is complete without at least 3 rounds of the ABCs and It's a Small World!

She is still uber shy. She might be getting more shy. I'm not sure if it's played up because she's aware she has the power to be shy or if she really is scared of people. She immediately hides behind me if there is any men around that she doesn't know. She often says "I don't like people!"

She is very very into doing her fingernails right now. Her "Po-nailish." When Austin is at school and Bella is napping, we get some good girly time in. We either do some baking - usually cranberry orange muffins, cuz those are her favorite kind, or we do our fingers & toes. She lets me know when they get "all messed up" and she's due for an redo!

Right along with all thing girliness, she is very into her clothes & shoes! She loves wearing dresses and loves having lots of different shoes. She's very specific that her shoes match her outfit too.

She still adores Bella and still talks in an incredibly high, pretty dang annoying nonsense voice to her! I keep telling her to use real words so we don't confuse Bella, but that doesn't seem to help. Bella loves it though!

She adores her daddy too! She usually asks me at nap time if Daddy will be home when she wakes up. (Sometimes he has meetings or bible study) The other day when I answered yes, she said "Oh, that makes my heart so happy!"

I wouldn't say she adores Austin, but I think I can safely say she likes him, most of the time. They can be such good buddies sometimes. He helps her dress up in her dress up clothes and then he's her knight in shining armor. Or they'll play so good in his room with cars or reading. And then sometimes, he just irritates her so! She gets so mad at him when he teases her. I guess that's to be expected! She's starting to hit and kick him which isn't good, although the first time she started wailing on him was a little funny since he thoroughly deserved it!

We did potty training at the beginning of this year and it was an amazingly quick success! I thought it would go awfully since she can be a bit stubborn, but after the first couple days, she got the point and enjoyed her M&Ms and Hershey kisses! It took about 2 weeks for her to be trained and she's only had one accident outside of the house, and maybe less than 5 at home!

McKenna is all about dressing up like a princess. She likes to dress up like whichever princess she's watching. She's very very particular about her details too. She wears the accessories that she's deemed to go with that princess. She has a tiara that she thinks looks like Cinderella's, a necklace that goes with Rapunzel, etc. She has clear/purple Rapunzel shoes but she refuses to wear it with her Rapunzel dress, because in the movie Rapunzel is barefoot. Instead she thinks they look like glass slippers, so until she got some official Cinderella glass slippers, she wore the Rapunzel ones with her Cinderella dress.

She's all about all the princess movies too. Tangled was, and still is, her first love. But Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella (I, II, & III)are close behind. She knows nearly all the lines to each of those. And Sofia the First is right up there.

She is incredibly talkative! Whereas Austin asks about 1,000 questions a day, McKenna has 1,000 things she wants to tell me about. From what she wants to wear in her hair the next day to what her favorite toy is. Every statement or question always starts or ends with the very distinctive way she says "Mom". She kinda draws it out in a odd way. It's hard to explain, but I have video of it somewhere. Bella is starting to call me Mom in the same manner.

My favorite McKenna-ism these days - "Just because". When she answers any kind of "why" question, her answer always starts with "Just because..." "Why did you hit Austin?" "Just because he was being mean!" Sometimes it's included in some circular statements. "I like pink just because I like pink!"

She's still a peanut! A whopping 28lbs at 3 years. I can't find her card to get her exact height but she's still about 70% there. She actually eats better than Austin does when it comes to what she'll eat, but just not a lot of it. Funny enough, the reason she's more adventurous is because she likes to point out "Well, I like it!" when Austin complains that he doesn't like something. Hey, I'll take competitiveness if that's what it takes to get my kids to eat! No amount of peer pressure seems to work on Austin yet though.

Her hair is getting so long now. Just shy of the middle of her back. She is incredibly patient, letting me do all sorts of fun braids in it. And she loves to have a bow or flower that matches her outfit. Her eyes are the most gorgeous blue! She's growing out of her toddler cuteness and is turning into a really beautiful little girl!

Just like I'm trying to remember to do with Austin, I asked her a handful of questions about what she likes at 3. It'll be fun to see how these change over the years!

Favorite show - Sofia the First, the kite one (trolls)
Favorite food - Watermelon
Favorite Breakfast - Waffles
Favorite Movie - Tangled/Beauty and the Beast/Cinderella
Favorite thing to do with Mommy - Snuggle and say I love you
Favorite thing to do with Daddy - Play and roll around, Bat Tent Covers
Favorite thing to do with Austin - Play Super Why
Favorite color - pink and purple
Favorite song - O Holy Night
Favorite Toys - Princess Stuff
Favorite Candy - Rolos
Favorite Drink - Cranberry Juice
Best Friend - Sofie (Robinson)
Favorite Snack - Fishies
When she grows up - Wants to go to school. Be a big mommy

I think that's it! Can't wait to see what the next year has in store for our little princess!