As promised

Happy New Year!

Tagged again....

I've been tagged yet again, this time by my (newly engaged!) friend Mel. This time, I must tell you 6 random facts about myself. I am a pretty random person, so this should be easy......should......

1. I have the memory of an elephant when it comes to random, useless facts and events that have happened to me, and/or other people. My friends don't doubt me when I say what they wore when, and what happened on a certain show or whatever. On the other hand....if it's something important, I won't remember! This is completely frustrating to my husband.


2. I apparently know most, if not all, of the words to "If I only had a Heart" that the Tin Man sings in the Wizard of Oz. A little bit of the dance too! I didn't know this until I was watching it with my mom recently, and she kept looking at me as I sang along, asking me "How do you know this?" I don't know. I'm not a huge fan that watches it all the time.....must be that memory thing...... :)


3. I LOVE British Chick Lit books! I've read so many that I pretty much know the formula of how they are written, what will happen, and who the heroin will end up with.....but I still love it!


4. I am really proud of my driving skills. I can back into a parking spot like a pro, without turning my head, just using my mirrors. Yeah, I know. I'm awesome. :)


5. I have had over 20 jobs....I think 23 exactly. 18 employers. One year, I had 6 W2's to file in one year. :) I have been a butcher (hairdresser) a baker (Cookies By Design) and a candlestick seller (Partylite). And so much more.....


6. Despite my claims at having an awesome memory and "I'm so random this should be easy"........I can't think of a 6th thing. I'm sure there are 7, 8, 9, 20 and so on, but none of them are coming to me. A day later, after I started this blog, and I can't think of anything. Everything I come up with seems too normal: I'm an annoyingly picky eater, I cry a lot watching Animal Cops, sometimes my perfectionism with writing texts is almost OCD-like. OH, theres a good one! I don't know why, but I have to have perfect grammar and spelling when I text. I am trying to break free of those chains, but until I do.....be prepared to wait several minutes for my response to your text! :)

Ok, there we have it. I tag anyone who reads this and has not done this already. It's kinda fun and neat to learn kooky things about your friends!

Alright, I WILL post at least one new picture of Declan by the end of this year. I would promise more, but.......resolutions aren't necessary until Thursday! :)

Bros

Today, my brothers turned 32. Not so much a significant birthday, but two very significant men. Twin boys born a minute and a half apart, fraternal in every way. A righty and a lefty. A blonde and a brunette. Husbands and fathers of two. One an OC Sheriffs Deputy, the other a Nurse (studying to get his Masters in Nursing). Both have a beautiful wife that have been a wonderful sister to me. They have given me gorgeous nieces (maybe a nephew?) The past 28 years that I have known them have been wonderful and trying, but what I know now is that they love me, without obligation, and they respect me, as their sister and as an adult. I have ALWAYS been so proud to be their sister, and I ALWAYS will be. Happy Birthday, Chris and Danny!

(That's the best picture I have of them right now, it was from June 2007, and they had just finished the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon.)

6, and now 7, Months

I totally missed my 6 month blog, as Declan was 7 months this past Saturday. Oh well! You've read the tooth blog, you've seen the crawling video, what else is there? Food! Milestones! And stats from his 6 month appt.


Food:

We have officially started real solid foods! My first attempt at making baby food did NOT go well at all! I wanted to try out peas first, thinking they would be easy. We couldn't find fresh peas at Ralphs, so we went with frozen peas. The recipe I have for making baby food is from "What to Expect the First Year", so it's pretty generic, which is fine for me! It said to boil about an inch of water and simmer 1 cup of peas in a steamer basket for 7-10 min, then puree for younger babies and wala...you have baby food! My hang ups: should I have thawed the peas first? How many cups are in this bag? 3?! Are the peas steamed enough? How much water or breastmilk should I use to puree with? Is it completely blended? Let's just say it was NOT a good experience, and I was feeling quite out of my league making BABY FOOD! What?! But...my poor son....we tried to give him some anyway! :( I have video of it, but let me tell you about it first and you can tell me if you would want to see it! His face was REALLY cute when he first tasted it, you know that face: "eeewwww, what is this?!" Then I was "smart" and put a whole spoonful in his mouth.....to which he immediately gagged on and proceeded to throw up! I doubt he ingested any of the peas! I was really worried he wouldn't take to other foods after that, but the next day I bought a fresh sweet potato, diced it really small, steamed it with an appropriate amount of boiled water, pureed it with plenty of filtered water, added a little breastmilk for familiarity for D, and he was great! Still made the "eeww what is this" face, but he ate it! And no throwing up! I've since done carrots, and hopefully I will do green beans soon! We'll have to give peas another try someday. I also gave him oatmeal cereal the other day and he loved it....from what I can tell! :) So he gets cereal in the morning and a vegetable in the evening, and in a couple weeks we'll try fruit at lunch! I have to say, before starting solids, I was excited, but nervous about making my own baby food, thinking this was a daunting task. But it hasn't been bad at all, in fact it's pretty easy! And CHEAP!! I made about 18 servings of carrots from a $4 bag of baby carrots. That's about half the price of pre-made food. I encourage all mothers to do it! It's really not that hard, ask for help if you need it....I know I did!

Milestones:

Teeth update: Yes, TEETH! Plural! There is a second little tooth just popping up right next to his first one. He is no longer a one-tooth hillbilly! I had started calling him Cletus! :) (I apologize for offending anyone named Cletus who may be offended by being referred to as a hillbilly.......and to any hillbilly who does not like the name Cletus. :)

Just this past weekend, Declan has started pulling himself up! In fact, right now he is STANDING next to me while holding onto the coffee table and playing with a coaster. Let me make a clarification though: he's not necessarily successful at pulling himself up, I have to help him....mainly because his socks slide on the carpet and his bottom half goes under the table! But once I help him, he stands there holding on and playing! What a big boy! He can also pull himself up to his knees too, but the coffee table is too tall to enjoy from being on the knees! :) So he still hasn't mastered crawling, but standing supported is now a favorite!

The stats:

Ok, these are now almost a month old, so figure he's a little bigger than this! So he was 16 1/2 lbs, and......crap, now I can't remember his length....I think 27 1/2 in? That sounds right.... :) And his head was like 17 or something. Still about the same percentages. I thought he would be bigger, weight-wise at least, but the doc said all was great!

I definitely have pictures, but they are all on the desktop tower and unreachable at the moment. As soon as that is all set up, I WILL post pictures of our big boy!!

On the Brink

Our little boy is this close to crawling! In fact he may have technically crawled, but he's not necessarily getting places yet. He likes to get up on his hands and knees and rock, and then he may inch forward, or lunge, or he'll army crawl to a toy. It's so crazy to watch, he's growing up so fast. I feel like this next development is a big one. Sitting up is one kind of independence, but crawling is HUGE!! It's coordination and intention.....and my baby is almost there! I'm really starting to miss his little-ness. It's almost like it was a completely different baby that we had a few months ago, and now we've been given an upgraded bigger model! :) I guess we have the rest of his life to experience this feeling over and over and over and over and over.......

So here he is, in all his almost crawling greatness!

"It's like a razor in his mouth!"

Yes, Declan has a tooth! A couple weeks ago, I was letting D gnaw on my finger and I suddenly felt something I had not felt before: a TOOTH! It was barely sticking out, and not at all visible, but you could definitely feel it! At first, I couldn't feel anything while breastfeeding, which I was quite happy about......but unfortunately, that did not last. It was a rough couple of days.....but it has gotten better. And now you can actually see it!

See, if you look really close...... :)

70 Years

Gary Edward Gill turned 70 years old this year! To celebrate, he and his lovely wife, Nina, took a cruise to and around Hawaii......do they know how to celebrate or what!! Since the trip took place on his actual birthday, we had dinner with them a couple weeks earlier at the Olive Garden, Gary's favorite! Again, I didn't bring my camera (seriously, I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes! ;) ) but Nina had hers and took some great pictures.

Declan and the birthday boy

The cousins playing together. Ethan had Declan laughing SOOOOO much!

Not from the birthday dinner, but another shot of Papa and grandson

One Shot

Friday we had dinner with my mom's side of the family. My Uncle Dale from Oklahoma was in town, and my Grandma Spice's 88th birthday was the 23rd of Nov., so we was celebrating! My mom made a TASTY dinner and we again had fun watching the little girls hang out and play! So after promising to take many photos with all the cousins around, I only took one picture the entire day! My photog friend Jake helped me (or rather did it for me) edit it to look really cool! After getting some piano lessons from Great Uncle Dale, Hope was showing Gemma how to play.

She's gonna be a great big sister to her little sister! :) Yes, Grace is having a girl!! Yeah!! And in a couple months we'll know what Larissa is having! Can't WAIT!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I know I did! We have a tradition of spending Thanksgiving with Grace's family, and this year was no different! I think we've spent at least 5 or 6 Thanksgivings with them in the almost 10 years my brother has been married to Grace, and we have no intention of making other plans! Every year Trevor's family usually makes other plans (Dawn's in Texas, Danica has Hugo's family, Gary and Nina have Nina's children) and we celebrate with dinner on another day. So we are free to hang out with the Biniasz's, eat Carol's AMAZING dinner, play a game or two, and watch Survivor! :) Tonight we played "Press Conference" and it was so fun! Oddly enough, I did not take any pictures! I took the camera and never even took it out of the bag. :( I didn't even think about it. Tomorrow we are having a dinner with my mom's family, and I will for sure get the camera out! All 3 cousins will be there, so that will make it happen!

So, I know it's been a long time since I posted, and really, my excuses are lame. I have MANY things to blog about: Declan turned 6 months, Gary's 70th birthday dinner, I "quit" my job and we're moving......ok, just to explain that last part real quick: we are moving out of our appt in Fullerton and most likely moving to Irvine. To be closer to Trevor's work and basically have better living conditions. And I plan to work from home so I just "quit" the salon, not from hairdressing altogether! :) Anyway, I do plan to blog soon, I promise. And there will be pictures, I had my own "6 month" photo shoot with D and I want to edit them to look really cool, like my friend Gina does. (I really wish she lived closer so she could give me lessons, instead I have to borrow books from the library on how to use photoshop!) So be patient! :)

Alright........I'll be back.......soon!

35 Years

On November 3rd my parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary! **Congrats mom and dad, you are an inspiration to all of us! We look forward to celebrating your 60th! :)** Us kids took them to dinner at the Yard House, and then we hung out at Danny and Grace's. We had a lot of fun hanging out and watching the girls interact. Declan was pretty mellow, but give him a couple months and he'll be able to hold his own with those girls! Of course I had my camera there to capture the evening! (And the one picture I didn't get that I should have was one of my parents together! Oops!)

Uncle Chris and D

Uncle Danny and Gemma

Aunt Larissa and Hope('s legs)

Grandpa and Hopie

Daddy (his crazy eyes) and D. The shirt reads "Everyone's Favourite Boy", he needs to wear that as much as he can before Grace and/or Larissa have a boy!

Hope, America's Next Top Model

Gemma, America's Next Top Injured Model

(The cast is off now and she's fine!)

We gave our parents a Family Tree photo frame with the inscription "Our Grandchildren" on it. Trevor's dad has one and I've always wanted to get one for my parents and now I have!

the girls wanted to help open the gift...

but then Hope found Gemma's pacifier......

so Gemma had to "chase" her down to get it back!

These two steps have come to be known as the "baby couch" where the girls like to sit. Gemma was standing there by herself calling for Hope to join her: "Hopie! Hopie! Hopie!" When that didn't work, she shouted the first name she had been calling Hope: "BO!!" Sooooooooooooooooooooo cute! :)

And the family shot of all of us. Unfortunately, I didn't focus well! :( Oh, well, there will be plenty of opportunities to come, and more grandbabies to add!

Happy 4th!

How funny is that? This onesie was given to me by a client for the 4th of July.....and it still fits him! How entirely appropriate it was for today: it was the 4th, election day, and it was patriotic! So I had a small photo shoot with D. He's still slightly wobbly while sitting, he could fall back or to the side at any moment, so I was SOOOOO scared he would fall back on the cement! Eek!! He didn't! Yeah! And yes, I voted. For the first time actually. Well, I voted at the primary, too, but this was the first November election, and first presidential. My guy didn't win, but oh well. At least this year it didn't feel like choosing the lesser of the two evils.....ok, I don't really want to get into politics, I'm kind of over it. I'm SOOOOOOOOO glad there won't be anymore prop ads every two seconds! Ok, really, moving on! Enjoy D!

Bonsai Tree Update

When I posted our "family tree" a month ago, there were 7 cousins for Declan, with one on the way making 8. Well, #9 is coming too! No, Grace isn't having twins.....Chris and Larissa are expecting baby #2 in June! Our family is multiplying like crazy!! Congrats to the new babies! Here are the big sisters:

Gemma (with a broken leg! :( )

Hope

This is what Declan had to say (he typed it himself!):

"fxxbvc b v ,y, m m v fev o ."

I think he's happy!! :)

"Solid" Food

*Disclaimer: For those of you who are receiving this post via e-mail, please note that there are videos, and you will need to go to the actual blog to view them. I don't know why this is, and I think you can download them or something from this e-mail, but it's probably easier to go to the blog!*

After experiencing 7 nieces and nephews, and a few friends with children, I kinda know what milestones are coming and when. One of my favorites is when solid foods are introduced! For those who don't know, they are usually started between 4 and 6 months. I was planning on starting as soon as we got the ok from the Dr. at D's 4 month appt. However, due to some family history of allergies and asthma, the doc recommended we waited until 6 months. Boo. So........I mostly gave in! I decided I would try out giving him rice cereal on my birthday........as a birthday present to myself......because I was so excited about it! (Yes, really, I know I'm a dork, but you all love me anyway!) That day was exactly-ish 5 1/2 months, I figured we were pretty safe. I would give him the smallest amounts, only once a day, and watch for any negative reactions, like a rash or whatnot. So here we have, for your viewing pleasure, the adventure of starting "solids". (Really, it's so watered down with breastmilk, it's hardly a solid, but whatever!)

This is our first attempt. Trevor was not able to hang out and be my cameraman, so I tried at first to do it myself.......I quickly learned this was not a good idea.....well, somewhat quickly. What you don't see right outside the frame of the shot is Dec grabbing the bowl. And then when I set the camera down to retrieve the bowl, D goes after the camera! Yikes!

Second try at the filming! This is the edited video as I am sure you all didn't want to watch 6+ minutes of him eating...or slurping rather. I set the camera on the bookshelf, and I think I got a pretty good shot of him!

Here's a closer look. Sorry my hand is in the way, but you can still see his face reacting to the taste! I love it!

And the final look, with his face dripping and his pj's soaked! Good good times! I love this kid!!

Halloween 2008

A dream was fulfilled this Halloween.....Declan was an octopus! (Yes, Gina you were the winner! And Amanda.....good guess, so close.....maybe next time! :) ) Two years ago I saw the octopus costume on a little girl and I said "That is what my first child will be for their first Halloween!" Thanks to Danica and Trevor, my dream became a reality! Danica found the costume on ebay, and Trevor did the bidding, and won!! I'm soooo excited! Here are a few shots of him, and then one with him and Hope....Gemma was not up for wearing her costume for pictures!

Such a serious octopus!

Declan getting into character....

A happier octopus!

With all eight "legs"

With Hope the Chicken. (Grace made matching costumes for herself and Danny.....I can't wait to see them!!)
Gemma wasn't in the mood to wear her costume so Uncle Danny wore it for her!

On Halloween, we went to the Kidz Fest at our church. There were bounce houses, Carl's Jr., and trunk-or-treating. It was fun and REALLY crowded!! I was really hot so I kept thinking Dec was hot, so the only pictures I got of him there were with his costume half off! We didn't stay long as D was not nearly old enough to enjoy most of it, but it looked like a lot of people were having fun! I'm glad that our church does this event every year, I look forward to bringing D next year when he'll be able to walk and actually collect candy for me......I mean him......no, I really mean me! :) I only took a few pictures that night, so here he is with Grandma and then there's one of his girlfriend, Abigail. Yes, she is in the same costume as Hope!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Today is (or at this point, was) my birthday! I turned 28.....on the 28th....in 2008! I (because I am such a dork) have been looking forward to this birthday my whole life. I just think it's fun when you turn the age of your birthdate, and now I have! I've heard the term "Golden Birthday" a lot today, so I guess I'm not the only dork! :)

I didn't want to try and plan anything this year, just wanted to have fun with my little family, so the easiest thing to do was Disneyland! My dad works there so he signed us in! Yeah for FREE! :) We didn't get there until 5 because Trevor still had to work today, and I took my sweet time shopping and getting ready, and then the park closed at 8, so we only had 3 hours but that was surely enough! My dad hung out with us....which was wonderful because we got to go on a couple rides!! My main craving when I was pregnant was to go on a rollercoaster! I finally got to fullfill that craving! :) We did Space Mountain, and my favorite: Thunder Mountian, aka the Death Ride. :) Then Danny, Grace, and Hope joined us cause they had passes, and we went on the Nemo Submarine.....ehh. Just watch the movie, it's WAY better! It was a fun night, I'm glad more family was able to join us.

Daddy "getting" Declan

Declan....LOVING it!

D getting kisses from Hope

Grandpa taking candid pictures in the submarine. Apparently D and I both had the same thought....

Halloween Preview

Here's a sneak peek of Declan in his costume! For those of you who don't know what he's going to be......can you guess? :)

Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch 2008

We went to a pumpkin patch today with our friends from church, Colin & Sandra, Jared, Adrieanna, & Abigail, Paula, and Paul. (I'll have a group picture to post hopefully soon!) We didn't get pumpkins (they're freaking expensive at the patches!) but we had a lot of fun taking pictures, walking through a "corn maze" (more like corn circled paths to a little sunflower garden), picking veggies, and watching pumpkins get launched from a cannon! Check out the fun:

Daddy and Dec walking in the corn maze


Family pictures with corn...

Daddy and Dec....singing?

Dec making a silly face for Jared

Mommies and babies

Look who's sitting up!!!

Dec in a wheelbarrow-o-fun!

Dec in his funny matching hat!

Adrieanna and I thought we could join in the fun. Actually, Adrieanna and my hair apparently! :)

Such a long day! Someone got tired...

And this is the face he's been making lately. I LOVE IT!