Birthday Present!

Wes' birthday is coming up (well, it was a month ago :) and on June 28th, he received a special package in the mail!  Auntie Caitlin's baby girl is due in about a week, and she did an awesome job of getting this present to Wes for his birthday and he was so excited to receive it!

 Cora was pretty interested in the package too, but Wes kept telling her "This is for me sister!"

 It's a butterfly habitat!  You send away for caterpillars and then you watch them make their chrysalis and then turn into butterflies.  

He kept saying "let's do it now!" and didn't quite understand why the caterpillars weren't in the box.  The instructions say you need to be staying put to take care of the caterpillars/butterflies and we've had so many little trips planned that I think we need to wait until we're back home for a while to order them.  Can't wait until we're able to watch this amazing transformation, thank you so much Auntie Caitlin and Uncle Ben!

Cars Land!

On June 26th, Grammy came over to stay with Cora and I took my guy on a Mommy/son date!  Cars Land opened at California Adventure and since Daddy and Grammy are blocked from going through the summer, Wes and I decided we couldn't wait to see Lightning, Mater and Radiator Springs!

Summertime and the opening of a new "Land" meant California Adventure was super crowded, and while there were tons of people, it wasn't the absolute madhouse I expected.  

My little navigator...this kid loves maps!

We checked out all the Radiator Springs Landmarks...

...and got to see Mater and Lightning.  We even got to watch Lightning drive away and Mater drive up, that was fun.

We grabbed an ice cream treat at one of the Cozy Cones...

...then we waited in a 35 minute line to ride Mater's Junk Yard Jamboree (see, not too bad.  Though the other new rides were all over an hour wait).  We both really liked this ride, it kind of whips you around and Wes just cracked up the whole time! 

Once we saw everything in Cars Land, we headed over to Disneyland to ride Wes' favorite ride: the Monorail.  On our way, we passed the Matterhorn, which is now reopened, and Wes pointed out these guys on the very top.  I stopped to ask a worker what they were doing and he said they were just mountain climbing, which is a new thing they do every day.   

And then we were lucky enough to get to sit in the front of the Monorail!  We had a great time together, it's been a long time since it's been just me and my boy together.  I need to make more of an effort to spend time with him, just the two of us.  It's weird to think it was just me and Wes for two and a half years and that this was probably only the second or third time that we've done something together without Cora in the last 7 months.  I obviously love spending time with both of my kids, but I can see how important it is, for both of us, to schedule some one-on-one time together.  I love you buddy!

7 Months Old

Cora changed so much from 6 to 7 months....I just couldn't tell you exactly how.  Since she is 8 months old now that I'm writing this, 7 months just seems like so long ago!  A few things that come to mind are the standing and pulling up, obviously, trying lots of new food, which she loves all of, and teething, her first tooth popped through about a week after these pictures.  She is still such a sweetheart, mellow and easy going.  She's not the amazing sleeper that Wes was, but she does pretty well with an off night here and there.  She takes two naps a day (unless we're out and about in the morning!), nurses 4 times a day and eats 3 meals.  She wears a size three diaper and 6-9 month clothing.  She is infatuated with Wes and is all up in his business these days!  Half the time he loves playing with her (usually a little too rough, but I guess that will make her tough) and the other half, he's irritated that she's touching him and his stuff.  I love seeing them interact more and I know he really loves her!    

Two "photo shoots" this month trying to get the perfect picture :)

Standing!

Cora is seriously a girl on the move!  I can't believe these were taken over a month ago!  Right before her 7 month birthday, she started pulling up in her crib and on chairs and just about everything else too.  I would obviously know she was up in the morning or from nap because she would be crying so hard.  She would pull herself up but then get stuck!  Poor baby, she's since figured it all out, but in the beginning it was so sad and funny at the same time.

What mean mama would leave their baby crying to run and get her camera?!?

Oh yea...me! (but I think this was the first time I came in and found her standing up, love getting it on camera!)

Working Hard

As I mentioned in a previous post, we've had lots of changes going on in our complex.  Besides the tree removal, we've also replaced some of the cracked and damaged stamped concrete and parking spaces.  We had fun watching the Cat with the Impact Hammer (I know you're not surprised that I know the specific names of construction vehicles) break up the concrete but when the dump truck pulled up, Wes had to get in on the action.

Wes loves this John Deere backhoe loader that he got from Papa Ron for his birthday last year.  We spent lots of time driving around the "construction site" scooping up left-over pieces of concrete and dirt and I think he was more than a little disappointed that he couldn't dump the rocks into the dump truck.  But everything turned out nicely and it's great to have the construction finished and things back to normal.

Date Night!

Our good friend's Ryan and Tanya have season tickets to the Angels and when they are not able to go they sell their seats to friends.  Well, the Giants were in town and everyone knows that Mike is a huge Giants fan, so Ryan gave us first crack at the tickets.  Luckily Grammy was available last minute to watch the kids so we were able to have an impromptu date night.  We had a great night...we had beers and peanuts, met up with some friends who were also there, were able to talk uninterrupted (or an least only interruped by a good play), and the Giants won to boot!

On a side note, I wanted to include a copy of my ticket stub, but Blogger keeps telling me my storage is full! I guess I'll just have to give in and pay for the extra storage, but my cheapskate frugal nature is making that difficult!  (which, by the way, is also why my posts have been infrequent)  Hopefully I'll take care of it shortly!

UPDATE:  Ok I sucked it up and bought the storage, so here's our ticket stub.  A couple of bucks a month doesn't seem like much, but a little bit here and there adds up, you know?  Ok, so here's to hoping I can get caught up, I'm over a month behind! Ugh!  

Changes

There have been lots of changes around our complex recently.  Daddy is the president of our homeowners association (a completely thankless job, and one that he does so wonderfully but usually gets nothing but headaches in return) has been making sure everything stays nice and we keep on top of all the maintenance issues.  One issue that has been a long time in coming is the removal of the Coral tree at the front of the complex.  It was planted here when the complex was built in the late 70's but has grown so big and pushed up so much concrete that it had to go.  It was a sad day when they cut it down, but it turned out that it was rotting inside and would have one day fallen over!!  Guess it was a good thing it was cut down.

The morning Fernando (the landscaper who does all our tree maintenance and Michael's friend) came to cut down the tree, Wes got out his saw and tool belt and was ready to help...

...but once he head the real saws, he was content to just watch.

Going,

 going,

gone :(

They also removed all these trees that were in between the units.  Apparently, with time, they will grow to 50 feet tall.  And apparently, a couple of years before we moved here, they paid someone who recommend planting these trees.  Hope that guy's not in business anymore.  Change is always hard, and believe me, Michael has heard about it from some of the neighbors, but things will be nice and pretty again soon!  

Swim Lessons

Since I've mentioned before how Wes has become fearless in and around the water, we decided to get him into some swim lesson ASAP and signed him up at our local YMCA.  I love discovering things that are just around the corner from us, but that we've never checked out in the years living in Costa Mesa.  And our local Y is a great discovery!  Anyway, we signed Wes us for two weeks of lessons every day, Monday through Thursday for 25 minutes (June 18th-28th). I thought the intense two weeks might get him water safe, but I think it actually just made him more confident.  We'll definitely need some more lessons before he's swimming laps! 

                       Grammy gave Wes these lessons as a birthday present, thanks so much Grammy!

The first week was overcast and the other two kids in the class were NOT interested in swimming, the little girl even cried the entire lesson for the first three days!  I almost switched Wes to another class because the instructor, Andy, had to spend so much time coaxing the others off the top step that it seemed like so much time was being wasted...

...but then the sun came out and the other kids got comfortable and Wes got even more comfortable (which translates into silly).  So I guess in the end, it was all fair and even, the first week the other two were a little distracting and the second week, Wes was doing the distracting.  It's always interesting to see the ways God tells me to relax and be humble.  I still think he learned a lot about technique- kicks and big arm scoops, which is what he needed.  

I think lots of practice is in our future and probably some more lessons!

Sweet Shoot

Before we left for Nebraska, I reserved a spot in my good friend Shelly Young's Sweet Shoot.  She is a very talented photographer and has been doing these Sweet Shoots for several months now.  Each month she has a different themed shoot and you can book a 20 minute time slot.  This was the Father's Day Shoot, but I really wanted to get pictures of Cora since she was 6 months old in May, and of me, Grammy and Cora together.  So here's many of the great shots Shelly got in just 20 minutes, which seems like plenty of time, but goes by in a snap, especially when you're trying to get a six month old to cooperate!

And here's one for Father's Day :)

www.shellyyoungphotography.com

Happy Father's Day!

Mike worked overtime on Father's Day, so we celebrated a few days early with nice BBQ dinner and a little present for daddy.  He had been dropping hints that he wanted a laser range finder (a device that tells you the yardage, among other stats, to the pin on the golf course).  So when I checked into getting him one, I discovered they were around $250!!  That wasn't exactly what I had budgeted for a father's day gift, so I decided to just go ahead and make him one instead...

Wes, helping Dad open his gift...

...and Daddy figuring out what we gave him!

Michael measuring the distance between himself and a real rangefinder...a long way to go!!

Here's my range finder (two tubes of toilet paper glued together and painted black with one of those little laser lights on top.  And of course the real thing.  We tried to talk Daddy into taking it to the golf course, but he didn't seem that into it.  Can't figure out why?!  Happy Father's Day anyway Michael.  We love you so much!  God gave our kids the most amazing father, they are so blessed to have you!  (by the way, we did get him a Roger Dunn gift card as well.  He's been saving up gift cards for a while and I think is going to make a big purchase soon.  We'll see if the range finder is his top priority!)