Blessing

What a special day for Camille - not that she will remember it. However our whole family gathered together to have Jim give her a name and a special blessing that will help her through her life. A very sweet lady in our ward took notes for us and I have a wonderful summary of the blessing Jim gave Camille. We are so very lucky to have her as a part of our family. We love you Camille.

Ummm Christmas

So I was going to post some photos of our Christmas but Mark is completely naked in most of them...Here is the lone photo to represent our Christmas this year.

More Camille

Annual Christmas Tree Hunt

Every year we go out and cut down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. The weather wasn't really cooperating, but we went anyways. It was cold and wet! It was the fastest we had ever found a tree - about 10 minutes! Afterwards we warmed up with hot cider and sandwiches.

Buffalo Hunt

Lilliana's class has been learning about Native Americans and their culture in school this week. At the end of the week they have a pow pow and a buffalo hunt (ok it's just a parent dressed up like a buffalo, but it's lots of fun). The kids make all their own things. Lilliana's Indian name is Thunderbolt. They had to earn the feathers in their headdress by mastering the color sight words.

Lost Tooth

Lilliana lost her first tooth. It has been loose for weeks now. She came home from school and announced to everyone that she has a loose tooth. She was wiggling it constantly so I thought it would fall out within a day or two. Nope weeks later it was still hanging in there. So finally I asked if I could give it a little tug, and out it came. Lilliana had me sew a special envelope to put the tooth in for the tooth fairy. She was very excited.

Camille

She's here. She arrived on Nov 14, 2009 at 12:20p. She came 3 weeks early. It was a very fast labor. If you want to read the birth story here it is:

I was up with the kids on Sat morning around 6:30 when I started to feel some light cramping. Both of my other labors started this way so I started to look at the clock just to see if they were regular at all. they seemed to be about 7-8 min apart. Lilliana was going to see a movie that morning with grandma and jim was getting ready to meet with a client. i wasn't sure if this was actual labor though because I had been up and about doing things I thought well I bet if i just lay down they will stop. But alas there was much to be done that morning just in case I was in labor... I got Lilliana ready to go and then started to clean up the house and get a few things ready to go in case it was the big day. (I was only 37 weeks so I was pretty skeptical that this was it). But the contractions kept on coming. Around 10 or 10:30 they were strong enough that I had to stop what I was doing to breathe through them. At 11 I called Jim and told him he needed to come home - thankfully he was already on his way and was home a few minutes after I talked to him. Called the doc and they said to come on in. By this time the contractions were a few minutes apart. Oh and did I forget to mention that Camille was breech? For most of the pg she was transverse, but that morning I woke up with her head in between my ribs. Around 11:45 Jim and my mom manage to get me into the car and off we go to the hospital. We are only about 5 min away (thank goodness). We get to the hospital and I have to stop 2 times in the parking lot for contractions. They get me upstairs and I go into the bathroom to change. While there I am starting to feel the urge to push a bit. I tell the nurse that I am feeling a lot of pressure so she checks me and I am fully dialated and my bag of waters is bulging. Now they are starting to rush around to get everything ready for a c/s. One nurse is getting my iv while the other is having me sign the papers for a c/s. One nurse asks if we have the camera and I panicked that we didn't have it, it was out in the car. The nurse said there is time to get it if we wanted to so Jim ran downstairs to get the camera. In the meantime all but one nurse had left the room. I started to have a contraction and bang my water broke. That's when things got dicey. I have never in my life felt the uncontrollable urge like that to push. The poor nurse is trying to get me to focus and not push while she's calling everyone back to get me down the hall to the OR. We get to the OR and I'm expecting them to put me out because there wasn't time for an epidural, nope I'm pushing this baby out. She was coming. Jim was also back at this point with the camera. So they tell me to push when I'm ready. Well that wasn't hard! I think I pushed through maybe 3-4 contractions and she was born butt first. It was so surreal how fast everything happened. She was born at 12:20p and we got to the hospital at 12:01! She is perfect though, 6lb 15oz, 17.25 inches long :)

Happy Halloween

We had lots of fun this year for halloween. I managed to not spend a dime on halloween costumes. Lilliana decided she wanted to be a ninja and a power ranger (both of which we already had a costume for), and Mark was a train engineer - and a wonderful friend gave us the hat! Lilliana got to go to the pumpkin patch twice (once with her class and we went as a family a week later).

Halloween night was lots of fun. I only made it around the block and then went home to hand out candy. The kids, Jim, Grandpa, Papa, Nani, and Nona kept going. Mark was really excited to get candy, but got a little scared at some of the houses where the person who answered the door was all dressed up.

Then when the kids got home they had a lot of fun handing out candy. Mark had to make sure everyone got some candy and wanted to answer the door each time.

Kindergarten

First day of Kindergarten! Doesn't Lilliana look so grown-up? I know everyone says this, but I can't believe she's a kindergartener. She's been so excited to go. All the other kids in the neighborhood started school in the middle of Aug, and Lilliana's school didn't start until after Labor day. She's been very anxious to go and asks me everyday if it's a school day. She's also wanted to start wearing her uniform before school started. I'm excited to not have an argument over what she chooses to wear each day!

Family Vacation

This year for our family vacation we got to spend some time at the Russian River with Jim's family. We had such a wonderful time. There are all kinds of fun things to do with the kids. One day they had a kids carnival with a huge slide, bounce house, games, cotton candy, popcorn - you name it. The best part was the games and things only cost .05 so you could have fun all day on like $2! That's my kind of fun :) The next few days we would go to crafts in the kids center, play at the park, and go to the beach. There were lots of other kids there to play with. Jim's cousins Hannah and Nick were really sweet to play with my kids all the time and let Lilliana tag along with them.

One day Jim decided to rent a canoe for he and I and Lilliana to go down the river...it was supposed to be a nice relaxing afternoon on the river. The last time Jim did this was in high school (over 10 years ago) and apparently there was a lot more water in the river. So that meant that there was literally NO current in the river to help move us along. Oh and did I mention that it was ridiculously hot that day? Oh wait and towards the end of the "ride" the wind picked up and was blowing against us. I think this was my most favorite activity (insert sarcasim here).

Overall though we all had a wonderful time making memories together. Mark kept asking for weeks afterward when we were going to go back to the cabin. Lucky for us Jim's mom invited us to come back up again a few weeks later for a few days :)

Thanks Kathy for helping to make our summer vacation awesome!

4th of July

The week of 4th of July we spent at Seacliff beach with my family. I know I've said it before but when you have kids, RV "camping" at the beach is the only way to go. The bathroom is right there, there is shade when you want it, a fridge for keeping food cold, you can put the kids down for a nap if you need to...it's perfect!

Lilliana and Grandpa played a bit of baseball and she actually got pretty good a hitting the ball. Mark was more into playing golf or hockey with the bat and ball :) They both had a great time playing in the water and sand.

We love spending time at the beach together.

Gilroy Gardens

This summer we bought passes to Great America, but they also got us into Gilroy Gardens. So the kids and I went on a weekday to check it out. Can I just tell you this place is wonderful for younger kids. We had such a lovely time. The rides were perfect for my kids. There was plenty of shade, even on a hot day in Gilroy I didn't feel super hot. They really had a wonderful time. Mark's favorite ride was the train - I think we rode it 3 times. Lilliana loved the hot air balloon ride which they both wanted to ride again and again (which we could since there were NO lines). My stomach could only handle that ride about 2 times in a row. I was a bit worried about going to an amusement park with 2 kids by myself, but they both did really great staying right with me.

There was one area that had a waterfall that you could walk behind. You did get a bit wet but it was nice a refreshing. Mark was too afraid to walk through on his own so his big sister picked him up and carried him through. It was really sweet to watch her take such good care of her little brother.

It was an awesome day. One that we will repeat a few times this summer since we have passes!

Poem Recital

Towards the end of the school year Lilliana's class all recited poems that they had memorized. Lilliana did a WONDERFUL job reciting Teddy Bear Teddy Bear with her friend Sean. (Movie to come when I have time to upload the video).

Here she is with her best friend Oliver. I still can't believe I convinced her to let me put a hairbow in her hair! She tells me that she and Oliver are going to get married, he will change his name to Pojda and then they will live at our house. :)

Chicken Pox

My poor baby boy came down the the chicken pox. He actually fared pretty well. There was only 1 day were you could tell he was sick (other than the spots). That was a very LONG night to say the least. But he recovered and now has a lifelong immunity.

Easter 2009

This Easter was filled with activities. On Saturday we went to the ward easter egg hunt at a local park. They had 1000 eggs hidden through out the park. (I know how many because I helped put candy in some of them). Lilliana had a great time collecting eggs and even had a young man helping her out :) Mark on the other hand would not collect any eggs. I even tried putting some in his basket and he literally threw them out! Afterwards the kids played on the playground for a bit. It was a very nice morning.

Sunday after church we tried to get pics of the kids, but alas Mark wouldn't let me put him down. So I only have a pic of Lilliana in her Easter dress. After church we left to go to Hollister to have Easter dinner with our family. Visiting with family is always lots of fun. After dinner we had another easter egg hunt. The kids couldn't wait to get out the door and get started. Even the adults joined in (some of the eggs had $, and gift cards in them). Lilliana and her cousin Myra banded together and searched for eggs together. As you can see in the pics Lilliana is carrying a huge laundry basket to collect eggs in. She and Myra had that basket FILLED. Mark finally got into the collecting eggs. After all the eggs had been found we still hadn't found the grand prize egg of $20. Come to find out my cousin Sammi had given some eggs that morning to a friend who had forgotten to put some eggs together for her kids. Guess where that $20 egg went? You guessed it her friend's little boy found it! :) We had a great time with the family.

Mark and Abby

Mark and Abby really have a great time playing together. They are so cute to watch as well. Their first lunch date


Nap Time



Chillin at the discovery museum






I sure hope these two stay great friends :)

SF Adventure

The weather had been unusually warm so our family decided to make a trip to San Francisco. We drove up the night before and had a sleepover at my dad's house. We had planned to go to the California Academy of Sciences, but when we got there there were a TON of people outside so we didn't even bother. So then we decide to go to Zeum (the children's discovery museum) there in the city. So we get there and guess what, they don't open until 1p! There is a neat park right near by so we played there for a while. It was getting to be lunchtime and instead of waiting around for the museum to open we took the trolley car down Market Street to Embarcadero and to Pier 39. We ate lunch there and then went and saw the sea lions. After that we saw a magic show and all of us were pulled up on-stage. The kids and I rode the carousel and let me tell you don't ride the spinning cups on an already spinning ride. Overall we had a great day even if we didn't end up doing what we planned on.

She's 5!!

On Lilliana's birthday day we got to take snack in to school. She choose pizza. It was a lot of fun to stay in the class with Lilliana and share her special day. Mark LOVED being able to stay and participate with the rest of the kids. I was put to work helping cut-out shapes for an activity later in the week.

For Lilliana's 5th birthday we had a party at Chuck E Cheese. Not my first choice but ever since her friend Carter had a party there, well there was just no way I could convince her otherwise. So Lilliana and about 18 other kids had a wonderful time living it up at CEC. The party was a spy theme so all the kids got a badge with their picture on it to identify them as official spys. I took pictures of the kids beforehand so I could print off the pictures onto those pin on name badges. Then for the cake I choose a cupcake cake and let me tell you that was the best decision ever! No cutting and you can get different flavors of cupcakes. I didn't actually eat any but i was told they were very delicious (thanks Safeway). For treat bags the kids got a spy essentials bag with notebook, pencil, magnifying glass, and a compass. It turned out to be a great party and the best part was that it wasn't at my house :)

Later that afternoon we had the whole family over for more cake and ice cream. It was a great way to all celebrate together without the stress of trying to feed 20 some people.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lilliana.