'Cause you know it's confusing.....

So because of the impending snow "storm", (if you were here, you would hear the thick layer of sarcasm in my voice), my parents flight going out tomorrow was canceled. So of course my Dad calls the airline and the CSR tells him that the airport is going to be a zoo tomorrow. My Dad relays this information to my Mom, who is currently drawing with Kate.
Kate's reply to the statement is this:
"The airport is going to be a zoo tomorrow?!?! That makes NO SENSE!!"

LOL. We forget sometimes how confusing these saying can be when you've never heard them before. :)

Today's winner is.....

There were quite a few runner-ups, but out of them all, the one of Katie after her bath was the one that stuck with me. But here are the runner-ups if you're interested.

Thanks to Kelly!

I had my first maternity session last week. I thought I would share my favorite image from the bunch. :)

Pics from the viewpoint of a Katie

I finally had the where with all to download the pics off of Katie's camera. There were some funny ones, some not so flattering ones, and lots of pictures of her shoes, the floor, the back of the car, and other random objects from her eye level. I thought I'd post these three. The first one is her Aunt Connie, the second is me, pre-haircut, and the last one is Crossfit North Fulton (where we get our butts kicked every week). Sometimes we take her into the gym to hang out. She likes it, especially when the dogs, Max and Otis, are there. :)

The Zoo in February: Braving the Cold

Yesterday we went to the zoo with my sister and my nephew, and yes, even with the cold weather we went. It really wasn't too bad, especially as it got later in the afternoon. All of the primates were away in their warm and comfy indoor homes, as were the giraffes. But other than those animals, we still got to see pretty much everything. Katie really enjoyed it, and I think she was more excited this time than I have ever seen her. Sam, eh, you know, he's 9 months old. He was just wondering when he could eat, and then where he could sleep. LOL So here's a slide show of my pics from yesterday.

Have you ever had Argentinian cuisine?

I had not until last night. And let me tell you, "it was delicious", as Katie would say. We had empanadas, parrilla, and fried plantains. It was just awesome. I think my all out favorite though was the empanadas. For those who don't know it's like a hand held meat pie that's deep fried till the pastry is crunchy. Mmmmmmm........my mouth waters just thinking about it. Parrilla is great too. It's basically just a collection of grilled meats on a platter. Or as it was last night, on a plate served over a piece of hot charcoal. :) On this meat lover's delight you get pork chop, short ribs, flank and skirt steak, and chorizo sausage. This meal of course is to be shared with at least one other person, if not 4. :) So anyway, I thought I'd just give a shout out to this awesome restaurant, Villa Rica Grill. If your ever in Gwinnett county, check it out. It's just super yummy.

9 months and counting.....

So Sam is 9 months old. Technically, he was 9 months on Monday. He's only 3 months away from being a year old. Sniff..sniff... Although it seems they change so much in those short months. I figure Sam will probably be toddling around here and getting into even more mischief and probably even getting his sister in more trouble. LOL So I suppose I should share his particulars for all those interested to know. He's little. But I think we've been over this before. He came in at a hefty 16 lbs 8 oz. LOL That puts him in the 3rd percentile for weight. But as our pediatrician (whom I adore btw) said, he doesn't look skinny, he's probably just small boned. Obviously, we are to keep an eye on his weight and so will they. But all in all he meets his milestones and is a happy baby. He did come back slightly anemic (probably my diet, gotta eat some more of those dark leafy greens). Which our awesome pediatrician said we could fix through Sam's diet, as in more veggies and meat. So no having supplement with formula or making the poor boy take some other type of supplement. Anyway, he's 27 1/2 inches which makes him just under 50th percentile for height, so he's definitely growing. As for other areas of development, still not too much on the talking front. No explosion of language yet. He has started calling Miguel "dad-dy" instead of "dada". I am still Sam's "dadad", Katie is a grunt or a growl depending on the situation. He did add one new word besides hi, the other day he said "doggy" as he was chasing after Molly. Probably trying to get Molly to come back so he could harass her some more. ;)
Sam has started picking up the pace on the walking/standing/cruising front. He will now stand up from sitting without help or holding on to anything. Although most of the time he sits back down immediately. He will stand for a few seconds on his own if you stand him up and let him go, it's a confidence issue. The slide show is my camera's version of video, so enjoy the many pictures of him standing. LOL.


Other than that, it's all the normal stuff. You know, like his hair is getting longer and thicker, as are his eyelashes. He's becoming much more like a toddler and less and less like a baby. Which is nice and bittersweet all rolled into one emotion. He giggles at silly things his big sister does, he pulls open any cabinet or drawer he can manage to reach, he pulls the books off of the bookshelves, he loves his baths with a passion, always begging to get in anytime I'm in the bathroom and he throws his food at mealtimes. He also will sit forever trying his hardest to figure out how something works or better yet, how he can manage to destroy it. Oh yeah, he has two new teeth I think since our last update. His fangs. So yeah, my boy has his two bottom teeth and his top two fangs and that's it. We call him Count Samula. I know, I know, I'm a dork. LOL So there's our baby boy, and he couldn't be cuter or more perfect. :)

'Nuff said

He likes bath time.

IPod, my friend

I hope you all had a spectacular V-Day. I did. Miguel managed to surprise me by buying me my own pink IPod Shuffle. It's actually for running, since one of my goals is to run a 10k by the summer. Just as an FYI, I have yet to run with it. ;) But we'll blame that on my strained plantar fascia (arch), which by the way I am pretty sure was caused by my incredibly tight ham strings. Stretch ladies, stretch, 'cause trust me, all kids of nasty things happen when your hammies are tight. In any case, I have already loaded it up with some songs. Only 3 hours worth and I say ONLY because this little thing holds like 400 songs. Do the math, that's like 3 days worth of music. Anyway, you can see my current playlist here. Say what you want about the music. It's my music, that I like. So there. Oh and this is stuff for me to workout to. So, no, this isn't what I might typically listen to in the car, but still stuff I like.
Ava Adore - Smashing Pumpkina
Bad Cartridge/Remix E-Pro - Beck
Beasty-Boys_Sabotage - Beastie Boys
Bring Me To Life - Evanescence
Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) - Garbage
Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Different People - No Doubt
Don't Phunk With My Heart - The Black Eyed Peas
Even Flow - Pearl Jam
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Everything Is Everything - Lauryn Hill
Everything Zen - Bush
Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) - Aerosmith
Feel Good Inc.- Gorillaz
Feels Just Like It Should - Jamrioquai
Friday I'm in Love- The Cure
Gettin' Jiggy Wit It - Will Smith
Give It Away - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Heaven - Live
Intuition - Jewel
It's Only Me - Barenaked Ladies 1
It Wasn't Me - Shaggy
King Without A Crown - Matisyahu
Korn-Got The Life
Lay Down Sally - Eric Clapton
Let Me Go - Cake
Limp-Bizkit_Rollin'-
Meet Virginia - Train
Mr. Jones - Counting Crows
No Diggity - Blackstreet
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
The Rascal King - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Phrenology - The Roots
Roses - OutKast
Sleep To Dream - Fiona Apple
Stay (Wasting Time)- Dave Matthews Band
Summersong - The Decemberists
Summertime - Sublime
Traveling Song - Will.I.Am
Buddy_Holly - Weezer
White Shadows - Coldplay
Beautiful-Disaster - 311
32 Flavors - Ani DiFranco
66 - The Afghan Whigs

Yes, that's right, I did it. Jealous?

I cut my hair into a bob and died it light auburn/strawberry blonde. It's kind of in celebration of my weightloss. I like it..no, wait...I LOVE it. It dries in like 30 seconds and is so so easy to style. Thank goodness for time savers. Excuse the pic, no makeup, my eyes are doing something funky, but Miguel thinks it's a cute pic. So I'll go with it.

Fernbank and Flowers

So yesterday, Fernbank was having a Dinosaur party in honor of their new dinosaur exhibit. The exhibit had some neat stuff in it. Although Kate and her cousin James enjoyed the Senses exhibit the most. Which if I remember rightly, was the same one she enjoyed the last time. The big bubble making wands were of course a huge hit. As was the dinosaur tatoos, temporary of course. Sam, well, he didn't think much to I think. Lots of stuff for him to look at, but actually be interested in, probably not. But nevertheless, the kids had a blast. It was fairly educational for them and something different to do. I always love the 3 colored lights. I love the colored shadows. It just makes me go all shutter crazy. Trying to get all three shadow colors and a cute expression from Katie. :) Anyway, I'm glad I got the season passes there, Kate wants to go back soon. And I still have to take her to the Planetarium. I KNOW she will adore it. She loves the stars So anyway, that was yesterday. Today we were doing a treasure hunt for flowers. Flowers, obviously, being the treasures we found. Because, yes, my fellow readers, the sleepy little flowers are raising out of the ground and the buds are forming on the trees. Some little buds are already fortunate enough to have bloomed into flowers. So we went a-hunting and this is what we found.

The first kiss of the day goes to Daddy.

Happy Valentine's day, ya'll. Yeah, yeah...I know I'm a day early, but I don't have high hopes of posting tomorrow. :) These are pillows Katie made herself this morning. OK, well I helped cut them out, but she did the stuffing, gluing and decorating. Oh yeah, and I did the writing. ;) The first pillow we made, a kiss, was decorated especially for her Daddy. So that one is a special shout out to Miguel.
Oh and since we only made a few of these, and they were only sent out to a select few, I thought I would post a picture of the Valentine's Day cards we made. Katie decorated, I just put on the picture.

For those of you who haven't read this...

It's so true.....

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10
The Washington Post

Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

Tacoma, Wash.

Answer:
"Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself."

Ok, so while I really don't have any friends who I think think this way, I have seen that look in people's (acquaintances) eyes when I tell them I am exhausted after going to the grocery store and running errands by myself. I am pretty darn good shape, you would think I should be able to handle it, but it's not that it's physically exhausting. It totally wears you out mentally. Anyway, I just wanted to give the answer in this article a good, "Here, here!! Well said!".

Katie's draws from memory.....

So yesterday while I was working, Katie spent most of her time drawing. Now remember last week we went to aquarium. So this is what she drew for me while she sat at her table. She also drew a couple of other animals. I'll let you look them over and see if you can figure out what they are. ;)

#1


#2

#3

#4


#1. A Turkey
#2. A Pig
#3. A Jellyfish
#4. A Beluga Whale

Yesterday's Engagement Shoot

I got the chance to photograph another couple of happy lovebirds (and their beautiful Golden) yesterday and I thought I'd share with you a few of their shots. :)

Heh heh heh, he can model too.

He was so not into taking pics this morning. This was the only one I got of him. Oh well. It's cute. I gave this one a more boyish feel, rather than the all the pink and girliness like the one with Katie.

She can really model when she wants to. :)

Back to the world of picnics and parks...

It's been awhile since it was nice enough to go picnic at the park. Today was a perfect day for it. Warm, a little bit of a breeze, sunny...just beautiful. So I told Katie we were going to the park and she insisted we have a picnic there. We picnic'd (sp? grammar? is that a verb, really?) Katie style. PB & J, "cuppy" oranges, a banana, and some strawberry Kefir. Sam even enjoyed the sun and the grass. It was nice to get out and enjoy the day. We spent the rest of the time with Katie running around and her getting more confident about conquering her fear of heights. Sam climbed a little on the baby playground and Katie took him down the slide a few times. It was a glimpse of the future. Hopefully they'll play nicely together on the playground in the years to come. Here's a couple more pics for your viewing pleasure.



Oh yeah, and for all you northerners freezing your toushie's off (ok, maybe you're not today, but I'm sure that will change soon), spring's coming here, soon. :)

Ok. Here's one that makes me feel good about myself .

Because I am happy with the amount of weight I have lost. And because it is important to be proud of your accomplishments, especially when there was a lot of hard work that went into it. I'm still not where I want to be forever. I have more toning to do and about 10-15 more lbs to lose. But overall, if I never lost another lb or made it down another size, I'd be comfortable and happy. I really love working out though. Don't get me wrong, in the middle of a workout I question why I do this to myself day in and day out. But after a workout, I just feel so good and happy. So anyway, the pictures are of me with my size 18 jeans that I was wearing right after I had Sam and then me being goofy. Next time I take one of these shots, I need to wear something a little tighter I think. But I think you guys get the gist anyway. I did at one point have a pair of size 20 shorts, but thankfully, those are long gone. Although it would be nice to have those just to see how much I have lost since I wore those (which was before I had Katie). Mostly, I can thank my hubby for the motivation, and Crossfit for getting to this point.

The World's Largest Aquarium

Or at least I think it's ONE of the world's largest aquariums. In any case, we took Katie there yesterday on a surprise field trip. We hadn't taken her since she was little, little. Like maybe about a year old or so. Once we got in there she was so so excited to see everything and couldn't get enough of all the fish. I think her favorite was the tunnel and the coral reef. Oh and the alligators and turtles. Sam did enjoy looking at the fish, but it was more like tv to him than anything I think. Just something interesting to look at. So I put a few of the pics from the aquarium on flickr. I'll add more as I feel like it. There are some cool pics of fish and seadragons and otters that I have yet to add. :)

LOL!! Too funny...if only it were this easy...

My conversation from 5 minutes ago with Kate....

"Kate: Mom, Why did you write your words in my notebook?
Me: Because I needed a piece of paper to write my list on.
Kate: Mom, that list sure is long. Maybe you could use my school work scissors to cut the list.
Me: You mean to make it shorter?
Kate: Yeah."

If it only it were that easy to make my to do list shorter. If only....

So...you want to hear about the kids?

The kids are fun. All be it incredibly frustrating at times, but I'll get to that later. First off Miss Kate. She is growing in leaps and bounds. She is a total mimic in so many ways. We have to watch everything we say and do because little eyes are watching. She loves to mimic our workouts to the best of her ability. She can almost do a push up, she does sit ups, and she likes to do pull ups. She makes her Daddy especially proud with the pull ups. :) Yesterday when we went to the park, Kate also started conquering her fear of heights. She climbed all the way up the climbing wall, and she also came down the big slide. These are things she hasn't done in forever.
Kate has started to take interest in reading. We've been practicing her sounds and occasionally she will sound out a word for me. Maybe by the time she is four, she'll be reading beginner readers books. Yay!! She's also starting to try to write. It all depends on the day. Sometimes she can kind of write her name, other days she swears she can't do it. It'll be neat when she writes her first letter to Santa. Her imagination runs away with her as in we definitely have a story teller. The other day she was pretending to be a princess and she had to narrate everything she did. "The princess is going to eat her food. The princess is picking up her spoon." LOL Very cute. I can't think of all the cute and funny things she says now. It's really funny when big words come out of her mouth when she's telling me things. Even funnier when she doesn't use them correctly, which happens fairly often. Anyway, I'm sure I could go on and on about the stuff she does, but I also wanted to talk about Sam.

Sam got his 3rd tooth last night. It's a random tooth, not one of his two top front ones, but the next one over. But anyway, it ight explain his crazy and annoying clingyness (sp? I have no idea if it's even a word). I still think he's about 2 months from walking. Although he's doing his crazy "spiderman" walk more and more. I just know that he's going to be way into EVERYTHING once he can walk. He's bad enough as a crawler. :) He's already learned how to open and close the cabinets and drawers. He opens them in hopes of finding something to chew on. Because, yeah, he chews on whatever he can fit into his mouth. He's way cute though. Such a sweet snuggler. On Saturday he gave me a kiss on the lips for the first time. It was just too sweet. He likes to play shy with people, but don't worry it's just a game. He'll turn into my shoulder and then sneak a peak to see if your still looking. Silly boy. He's also starting to babble in a more conversational way. Like in response to something we say or to something that happened. Still no real words other than Dada, Dadad (me), and the occasional Momma (when he's upset). But I feel a word explosion coming soon. I know he'll be a lot of fun just like Kate, but this one is going to be T-R-O-U-B-L-E.