Merry Christmas!!!

Duck pond

I had a photo shoot at the prettiest duck pond today. I took the kiddos with me and we met up with Jessi and the cousins. It was such a gorgeous evening and the kids had so much fun playing together. You gotta love December in So Cal :)

Guitar Hero

Sarah's Birthday

My baby is two!!!! I can't believe my little angel is already two, she is growing up so fast! Here are some pics of my sweet Sarah Rosie.....

Dressing up in her new princess clothes

Cute pics of my girly

Birth collage (Yes, I REALLY was that big)

Showing "doll, doll" her new bike

Chicken Pox

Funny Story......

So, Sarah woke up Tues morning with a spot on her hand that I thought was a bug bite. No big deal, but I still had Jimmy check the bed for spiders (he found no spiders). Later that morning as I took off her pajamas to give her a bath I noticed that she had "bug bites" all over both of her arms. I called the Drs. office and they told me not to bring her in because she had a case of the CHICKEN POX!


This really would have been no big deal except for the fact that her birthday party was planned for SATURDAY! So, Jimmy and I called everyone and rescheduled the party and quarantined (bad spelling I know) our house. We bought calomine lotion and oatmeal bubble bath and faithfully called everyone she had been exposed to over the past five days........

Then today I decided to call the Dr. again because the sores were not behaving as chicken pox are supposed to. So, they had me bring her in so they could tell me that she is.........

ALLERGIC TO SOME KIND OF BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!! They don't know what kind of bug, possibly fleas (even though we have no pets and have never seen a flea on her). Whatever, apparently you don't have to be super intelligent to get into med school..... you just have to be able to read one of the books that you keep in your fancy office that tells you the difference between chicken pox and flea bites.

Grateful

Ok, so Obama was not our first choice, but he is now our president and we will support him. All politics aside, we do live in the promised land and I am SO grateful to be able to raise my children in a free country. I am grateful that I got to vote and have my say. I am so grateful that I can take my children to the church of my choice each Sunday and teach them the gospel.

Superman and his Hero

I just LOVE this picture. Seth and Jimmy are two peas in a pod. I can't even begin to describe thier relationship. They are so close. From the moment Seth was born Jimmy had a new best friend. I am so grateful for a husband who takes fatherhood so seriously and loves his children so much.

Halloween

Halloween was SOOO much fun this year! I had planned on getting up early and making the kids some fun pumpkin pancakes, but they wanted mini-wheats instead. (At least the mini-wheats were healthier). Anyway, we went over to my sister Jessi's house for our usual chili and cornbread and we had a blast! Minnie Mouse and Superman had tons of fun trick or treating!

Note to self

Note to self: "Don't leave permanant markers where your toddler can get them".



Yes, I know most mothers come equipped with a sixth sense that warns them of these things....but not me! I am the dumb one that leaves permanant markers on the counter for my toddler to get. (It's a good thing we don't have to interview or pass some kind of test to become mothers....If so I would never have been given any children).

Cute Pics

I had to test some things with my camera and lighting for an upcoming photo shoot, so of course I had to use my only options for subjects. They were semi-willing because I told them that they could wear their overalls (they love their overalls). Anyway, I got some funny shots of them. (I apologize for the bad lighting....this was a "practice" session).

Slacker blogger

I know, I know, I am a slacker blogger. I'm sorry, its just that...well you know.... ok, I don't have any excuses. I'm just plain old lazy. Anyway, we are alive and doing well. Jimmy is in school up to his eyeballs ( not quite over his head just yet), he just joined a basketball league and just to brag a little my hot little jock scored 20 points his first game!!! (This is very exciting news at our house, as Seth thinks that Daddy could very possibly be drafted by the Lakers at any moment). I am doing great...I lost 4 more pounds!!! I only have 20 to go, so at the rate I am going, be sure to check our blog again in five years for an update ;) Seth is doing wonderful. Preschool is back in session so he is happy about that. Sarah goes with him to preschool and thinks that she runs it. She is quite the little Melissa....(You know, always telling people what to do). I will take some pictures next week and post some preschool pics.

Seth

Some days I am just so happy to be Seth's mom. Well, I am happy to be Seth's mom everyday, but some days just stand out. Lately Seth has been asking "why" to everything. I have heard that 3 yr olds do this, and I do remember it from teaching preschool...but I have never dealt with it 24/7 before. It seems I cannot tell him anything without the usual "why" being asked. Some days (ok most days) it frustrates me, but today was different. Today I was happy to answer all his "whys". This was our car ride to my sister's house:
Seth- "Are we going on the freeway to Aunt Jessi's house?"
Mom- "Yes, we are.
Seth- "Why"?
Mom- "Because it takes too long to get there without taking the freeway"
Seth- "Why"?
Mom- "Because there are no stoplights on the freeway, so it's just faster"
Seth- "Why"?
Mom- "I don't know".
Seth- "Dad"?
Dad- "Yes, Seth"?
Seth- "Are we taking the freeway to Aunt Jessi's house"?
Dad- "Yes".
Seth- "Why"?
Dad- "Because it takes too long to get there without taking the freeway".
Seth- "Why"?

Ok, so you get the point. Why is the most common question asked in our house. But, I am going to try not to let it frustrate anymore. He is only young once....so I will try to have more patience with my little man.

Summertime in Cali :)

We packed up and headed down to the beach this last Saturday. It was SOOOO much fun! Seth loved every minute of it, and Sarah wouldn't go anywhere near the water until 45 min before we left. Oh well, at least she left on a good note...maybe next time she won't take so long to warm up to it. Anyway we had a great time. Jimmy goes back to school next week, so there won't be any more beach trips for awhile. We will miss you Jimmy, see you at the end of the semester :)


Daddy helping Seth over a wave.

My big girl

I am so proud of my baby girl, she threw away all her bottles this week! Even though we would only give her water in her bottle (juice and milk only in sippy cups), the doctor suggested that we take away the bottle so that her teeth wouldn't get crooked. I finally agreed with him. We took her to Target and let her choose some new sippy cups, (princess ones of course) and then we came home and she threw her bottles away! Anyway, here are some cute pics of my big girl that we have taken recently. She is so wonderful! I am so grateful for my beautiful Sarah Rose!
Proud of her new sippys!
Lining them up for a picture

Making a picture on the easel

Daddy's Girl


My Angel

The Library

Now that swimming lessons have ended...we have started going to storytime at our local library. The first time we got there at 10:02 instead of 10:00 and they would not let us in. They told me that "storytime begins promptly at 10:00"...so I had to literally drag Seth out of there hysterical because he had been so excited to go. The second time we went Sarah make a huge scene by running around pulling books off of the shelves. And today, well lets just say I don't know that we will be going back for awhile. Seth decided to get into an argument with the children's librarian. This is how it went:
Libraian- "Sweetie, please don't run in the library"
Seth- "I wasn't running"
L- "Yes, you were. Please be careful"
S- "I wasn't running, I was skipping"
L- "Well, we don't run or skip in the library"
S- "It's ok. I'm being very careful"
At this point the librarian didn't really know what to say and started to walk away from him. He stepped in front of her and started skipping again and said:
S- "See? I am being very careful and not running. Just skipping."
At that point she just stared at me until I got Seth. As we were walking away from her Seth told me that "skipping is careful, but running in the library is not". What can I say? He is Jimmy's son.

Swimming Lessons cont......

Excited to jump in
Seth putting his face under
Sarah with her teacher

Here are some pictures from the second day of swimming lessons.

Why Mothers Don't Wear Makeup

Got up at 6:50 to get Seth some juice. Layed back down. Got up at 7:25 to Sarah screaming Mommm! Ran to her to find out that she wanted to show me the stars on her crib bumper so that we could sing twinkle, twinkle. Sang twinkle, twinkle. Layed Sarah on the couch and started Barney. She started crying for juice. Got the juice. Thought I had a second to potty...nope, Seth had now run out of juice. Get the juice, try to slip into the bathroom. Sarah starts crying and informs me that she is hungry. I tell her that mommy needs to potty and that I will get her food in a moment. She throws herself on the ground and has a fit because she is hungry. So, I start some scrambled eggs. While I am cooking the eggs, I remember that Sarah has a Dr Appt in an hour. Ok, I think I can get things together in an hour. Feed the kids there eggs and take a quick shower. Get dressed and start to put on some makeup. Seth starts screaming from the living room that Sarah has pooped. I go out there to find Sarah sheepishly standing next to her diaper (yes, NEXT to her diaper). I look up to find poop on our end table. I clean up the poop and replace the diaper. Back to the makeup. 1 min later it is too quiet. I check on Sarah to find out that she has found a pack of gum and unwrapped several pieces that she is now chewing on. Take away the gum (not without a fight) and go back to my makeup. Seth comes in and informs me that Sarah has "eaten" his teck deck (miniature skateboard). I find Sarah with all the wheels of the broken tech deck in her mouth. Pry them out and go back to my makeup. I quickly realize that I should check the time and wouldn't you know it....we are going to be late for our dr. appt. Get to appt and get through Sarah's shots just to find out that the Dr. would like me to take her to the lab to get some blood drawn. You know how that went. Not good. Anyway, that was my morning (this all happened by 11:00 a.m.) Now you know. So, if you see a mother in the store or the Dr office without any makeup on, just know that she earns the right not to wear it.

Swimming Lessons

Sarah and Seth started swimming lessons today!!!! I am a bad mother and forgot my camera, but they did so good! I must say, it was a little hard for me. Sarah is taking a mommy and me swimming class, but Seth goes away with his own teacher for an hour! It is the first time he has ever done anything that I could not be part of (besides nursery, which every mormon mother knows is quite alright). He did really good..(even without me), he already learned to hold his breath and get his body moving in a somewhat forward motion. Sarah learned to blow bubbles and kick :) Anyway, I will post pics tomorrow. (If I am still alive, I am attempting my hike again tomorrow).

Mel's Hiking Adventure

I went hiking yesterday. Ok, I will admit, it was beautiful to see the sunrise (we started at 4:45 a.m.), and it was a great workout (I think I burned seventeen thousand calories)., but it was HARD. I almost passed out three times, almost threw up about a dozen times, thought I saw snakes (sticks that look strikingly similar to snakes when laying on the side of a hiking trail), and ran because I thought a mountain lion was chasing me (turns out it was just the buckle on my backpack hitting the bushes). But I must say, I do feel good having acomplished something so out of my norm. A couple things I learned.... 1) Don't run down steep hills, 2) Keep your eyes on the trail....you will see strange creatures if you look into the bushes, 3) I am not an "outdoorsy" type of person.

Food Storage?

While I did the dishes the other day Sarah was playing in our pantry. She was moving around all the canned goods and seemingly looking for something. Every few minutes she would head off to her room and then come back a min or two later and start rummiging through the pantry again. Later on that day when I was picking up the kids room, I opened her refridgerator and came across this....



Yep, its tuna. All perfectly organized in her cute little fridge. I think she gets the organization gene from me....ha ha ha! Actually, my pantry is anything but organized...so it is so adorable to me that she searched through it until she found all the tuna.

Happy Day

It is a happy day for me.....my crappy camera is working!!! My good one is still broken, but what can you do? Anyway, here is some new pics of the kiddos that I took today. Sarah was playing with her dolls...and Seth was the "fixer man" that would fix her doll stoller whenever it broke (it tends to collapse a lot because she shoves about five dolls in it whenever she takes them on a "walk" around the living room). And because my son is three and going through a silly stage...he wanted me to take a funny one to put on the "comptudor".

Broken camera

Sorry I have been ignoring my blog...my camera is broken and it is just not the same posting without pictures. I am so upset, my good camera broke a while ago, and now my small crappy (is that a bad word?) camera is broken too. Poor me :) Anyway, the kids are doing great. Jimmy starts back to school in about a month, and I am going back to school too!!! I will taking some photography courses and I am so excited!

Me and Hubby

My sister took this picture of Jimmy and I today. We don't have very many pictures of us, so I thought I would share!!

Best Friends

Seth and Sarah have become best friends. Now that Sarah is old enough to really play with Seth, they have so much fun together. I love it when they go in their room and make up some silly game....I try to sneak and watch from the door, but I usually get spotted. I am crossing my fingers that they stay this close forever...... :)

Seth's Imagination

Firefighter Seth

I love having a three year old! Seth's little imagination is so much fun! The other day he wanted a "spagetti hamburger" for dinner. It was so funny watching him try and eat it.....

His uncle Tim is a fireman and Seth thinks that is just the coolest thing. So, the other day he got my boots, his red jacket, his sunglasses, and his fireman helmet and told me he was a "captain" like uncle Tim.

New Clothes

Ok, so I have only lost 4 pounds in the month and a half I have been trying (well, kind of trying). Anyway, since none of my old clothes fit me I was only down to one pair of pants, shorts, anything that fits on the lower half of my body, etc... Jimmy has been begging my to buy some pants for a while now, but I have been refusing to buy clothes at this size. So yesterday we went to the mall and he insisted. So I now have about 5 new outfits. I can't even begin to tell you how much better I feel. It sounds weird but now I am even more motivated to lose weight! I forgot how much fun it is to shop for cute clothes! Thanks honey, your the best!

Fathers and Sons Outing

Swimming in the creek
Daddy and his boy

Jimmy took Seth to our wards annual Fathers and Sons outing last week. This is the second year they have gone. When they got home I asked Seth who was there and he told me "only dads and boys, moms are not supposed to go". They had a lot fun as you can see in the pics.

My Handsome Brothers

Tim, Martin, and Jamie

Here is a pic I took at my dad's wedding a couple weeks ago. I love it. I don't have any other photos of just the three of them. Don't they look so handsome?

Just a fun day at home

Bubble blowing 101

Sarah and her bear

Today was just a fun day at home. The kids were in such good moods and they were having so much fun playing together. Seth was trying to teach Sarah how to blow bubbles...(she is not a very good student), and Sarah wanted me to take about a million pictures of her and her bear. It was a happy day :)

Sea World

We got to go on a field trip to Sea World with Seth's preschool class this week and we had a blast! The only damper was that we lost Seth. No, I am not kidding. This paranoid, overprotective, never lets anybody watch her kids mother actually lost her child. We were standing around talking with my sister and niece when Jimmy said, "where is Seth?" I didn't panic at first, because I guess I just figured he had just wandered a little ways off....but after like 5 minutes I started to go crazy. My mind started thinking about kidnappers, and child molesters, and all kinds of crazy people and what they must be doing to my child. Right when I went to get help from the Sea World staff my neice found him. He had just lost sight of us and was trying to find where we were. Needless to say, everybody was hystarical. So please, don't ever take your eyes off of your kids!!!! Anyway, the rest of the day was tons of fun.

Mother's Day

Sarah and Grandma
Seth and Uncle Mikey
Sarah sunbathing :)

Posing in their swimsuits

Well, we had such a wonderful mother's day! We spent the day at Jimmy's mom's and Sarah was head over heels for her Grandma. She just crawled up into her lap and cuddled with her. The kids got to go swimming for the first time this summer, so they were very, very, happy. I got pretty spoiled too, thanks to my hubby. :)