Ohio Bound

I went to Ohio the first weekend of May to watch my 1/2 sister Danielle get married. It was a beautiful wedding. A little awkard for me since I don't really know very many people there. Danielle is usually my tie to the family and always makes me feel better since she gives me a heads up on who people are and re-introduces them to me. But overall it was a great time. It was weird to be away from Justin & Paige for 4 days. But I read 2 1/2 books on my trip, watched 2 movies on the planes and had some relaxation. Now we are gearing up for a quick trip to the Grand Canyon in a little over a week. We are going to spread Justin's moms ashes, so I can't say the trip will be a lot of fun, but we are going to make the best of it. I will post more on that adventure when it comes. For now, I will leave you and avoid the fact that it will be mothers day tomorrow and my 30th birthday in a couple of days.

Danielle & Jeff during their first dance.
My nephew brady and Danielles new neice and nephew dancing.

Me & the Bride.

The Ceremony

The Ceremony.

Summer Fun- Wait it is only spring

It has been very hot the past few days. It was in the 90's yesterday. So after we got home from swim lessons, took a nap (Only Paige) and ate lunch, we set-up the kiddie pool. At first it was too cold for her and she did not like me much since I kept pouring water on her. She is used to very warm water at swim lessons so it was different. When she got used to the water she had a lot of fun playing. Then we introduced her to her first popcicle. It is one of those 100% fruit, no sugar added, ones and they were delicious. It took her a few minutes to figure out what it was, but she ate it. The plus side to eating popcicles in the pool is that the mess is easily washed away!

The birthday parties begin

Paige was invited to her first birthday party for a friend. Her name is Audrey and she turned 4. She had a party at a place called Gymtastic in San Ramon. It was so much fun. It took Paige a little while to warm up, but she was having a blast by the end. She jumped on the trampolines and the jumpy house. It also became her mission to empty the ball pit, but it was another young boys mission to put the balls back in so that kept her busy for a while. Chasing her around this gym made it difficult to take too many pictures, but here are a few. Climbing the balance beam
Jumping on the little trampoline

The staff did a great job playing game with the birthday girl.

Paige and her buddy Zane are only a couple of months apart. They had fun eating Pizza and cake together. Zane has the pizza thing down better than Paige.

The birthday girls cake.

Her Daddy's Daughter

Mikaila and I went and ate at Panera Bread yesterday. I had not brought much food for Paige so I ordered a turkey sandwhich with the intention she would eat the turkey and cheese. Instead she ate onions. And a piece of salami from my sandwhich. She is definetely her daddys daughter.

Great America for Easter

This year, my parents came up with a great idea for Easter. We went to Great America. And it was really a great idea. The parking lot was only about a 1/4 full. We were there for about 5 hours and rode pretty much all of our favorite rides. Some of them we rode more than once, and we were able to sit in the front row after only waiting for 2-3 cars. It was cake. And Paige had a great time. She rode her first rides and while she was a little scared at first, she warmed up and enjoyed them after not long. And she loved running around. We all got season passes so we plan on coming back at least a few times, and there is talk that this will be our new family Easter tradition. See below for the pictures of Paige on the rides.

This is her very first ride. Auntie Chelsie tried to put her on a horse, but she clung onto her for dear life before the ride even began so she sat in the bench instead.
This was the Dora the explorer ride. The car goes up for a while and that freaked her out for minute but she did like this ride.

This was a bus that goes over and up and back down. She did not like this one too much. She wanted to be in my lap, but she could not be in my lap.

This is the Great American Bandstand where they do Karaoke shows. Justin and I really met for the first time here when I was singing with my friends. Now 14 or 15 years later we are back with our daughter.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter has a whole new meaning with a little girl. We decided to "hide" plastic eggs in our front yard. We gave her the basket and showed her what to do with the first egg and she went on her way. She had no problem finding most of the eggs (only got a few hints). When she was done, we went back inside, she dumped them out and then put them back in the basket. The greatest part was that we didn't even have to put anything in the eggs. At this age, just finding the eggs is fun enough. We "hid" some more at my moms house after church while we were getting ready for Brunch before heading off to Great America (More to come on the next blog). Here are some pictures from both hunts.

At my moms.
Isn't the basket a little big for her.

Her first one!

Learning to self feed

It is important to teach Paige how to feed herself. And not just the finger foods she has mastered well. It is time to start teaching her how to use a fork and spoon. So every dinner we feed her something more on the liquid side (yogurt, cottage cheese) and let her go at it with her spoon. We do it at dinner because as you can imagine it can get a lot messy and it is good to have bath time not far away. She is getting more food in her mouth every day.

Riding Her Tricycle

OK- So she can't actually ride her tricycle, and the helmet is a little big. But her cousin Alyssa gave her this bike when we went to visit a couple of weeks and she loves to try to ride it. Plus she loves wearing the helmet. Sometimes she will actually try to take it on a walk with us. Then it usually gets turned into a purse. But safety first, right?

Brushing Her Own Teeth.

Paige had decided that she needs to brush her own teeth. No one else can do it. She won't let us near her mouth and there is a lot of screaming if we try. But she loves to brush her own teeth. She would do it all day if we would let her. Here are some cute pictures.

Paige Walking Clo-e

We took Paige for a walk last Monday and she insisted on walking out 65+ pound pitbull. It was so cute I had to run back to the house and get my video camera. This is a small sample of the cuteness.

Our little kitty cat

We have Clo-E, out pitbull so we haven't felt the need to get a cat. But my mom took Paige to library time where it was kitty day and she learned how to Meow. It is the cutest Meow so I tried to catch it on video. This was the best we could get.

First Hair Cut

Today was a very important day. We are both tired of her hair always being in her face, and she does not always keep the ponytails in (more often than not- she takes out the hairtie within seconds). So we decided it was time for her first haircut. I called up the place this morning and they are very busy. But they had a spot at 9:45. After rushing out of the house and picking up my sister Mikaila, we made it just in time. However, Paige took a small nap on the way. So when we walked in she was just waking up. When I put her into the car chair, she was not very happy. She cried for the first few minutes. But then she did great. They kept her hair long which is what I wanted, but I have a feeling it will still get into her face some. The did give her bangs which will help. They put her hair into a ponytail, added a ribbon and snapped a picture. They printed out the picture and put it on a special piece of paper with her name and the date. They clipped some of her hair on to so we will have something to remember this day by. Here are some pics.

She was not a happy camper at first.
I tried to comfor her but it took a little while.

I was able to step back and she started smiling.

She didn't even try to push the hairdresser away.

Mikaila and Paige after.

Update- What Paige can do at 15 months

I believe that our daughter is very smart. She knows lots of things and is learning every day. She has a vocabulary of over 20 words. She runs around. She climbs up on things. She loves to go down slides head first. She likes to say "Hand" and take you places. She also says "Up" and tries to pick you up to go somewhere. She loves to play in daddy's old car, and she loves taking walks in her car. She is trying to use a fork and spoon, but still gets most everything somewhere else. She eats weird things when Justin feeds them to her (Raw mushrooms, radishes, whatever else he eats) but won't eat many of those things in her high chair.

Camera Dump

I have not been taking as many pictures as I did when she was first born. Even more so, I have not been posting them. I just uploaded a bunch of pics to my computer. Here are some of my favorites from the last couple of months.

Yes that is my bra. And yes she did this on her own.

In her new Green outfit.

Pig Tails- Not great at putting them in and they don't stay long- but aren't they cute?

Having fun in her ballpit

Working on the Old Car

Most of you know about the car Justin was able to get from his Grandma. He loves spending time in this car. He is a great dad and often takes Paige outside so I can get something done inside (Cooking Dinner, Paying bills, etc). Most of that time outside is spent walking or at the park. But a growing amount of time is spent in this car. She walkes by it and says "car" and tries to get in. Here are some pics that I took when I walked into the garage and saw this cute Daddy & Daughter moment.

15 Month Check-up

We took Paige for her 15 month check-up today. She weighs 23lbs and is 30.5 inches tall. 50% in both categories. But that was not surprising. The Dr told us she has two molars which we did not know were there. So she now has 9 teeth total! Hard to believe. She says more than 15 words now which puts her way ahead of the game! I knew she was smart but it is nice when the Dr confirms it. Everything went will. She had two Vaccines today and while she did cry (But she also cried when they weighed her and looked at her) she calmed down quickly and is her normal adventurous self this afternoon. Just thought I would give a quick update.

Our Valentine's Day Gift from Paige.

You can read below for the whole story- But I thought I would add this pic I got from Kayla's Cell.

Justin & I have never been big on celebrating Valentine's Day. I think that the day is overrated and I would rather not just pick one day to celebrate the love I have for my husband. I have always been nontraditional in the fact that I am not a big fan of flowers, jewelry, or chocolate gifts. I want a gift that is from the heart and it does not need to cost much at all. And I would prefer to receive that gift on any other day. It could have started back in 7th grade when a mean person sent me a Candy Gram as my secret admirer with a notes to meet them in front of the gym at 3pm. Of course they did not show, breaking my heart and starting my dislike for today. Or it could have really sunk in when Justin bought me a Bass Tube (A speaker to make the Bass in my car sound louder) for Valentines day. I know I just said that I don't like traditional gifts, but that is not something I needed or wanted (In fact it is in his truck now), so it kind of ruined the gift giving on this holiday and we just decided not to exchange real gifts now. On a side note, he has improved his overall gift giving skills over the years. Partially from listening well, and partially from my very blunt hints.

OK- now that I have ranted about my feelings about Valentine's day, let me tell you about this Valentine's day. Kayla is hanging out with us today, while my dad takes my mom away for a special day. We had a great lunch all together at Sweet Tomatoes. We came home, and while I was doing bills Kayla was playing with Paige in the living room. Justin came in and was playing for a few minutes too when he noticed that the Kaleidoscope she had been playing with was going with her everywhere. It was making climbing up her slide, etc harder. He told her that she could put it down, but then he realized it was stuck on her thumb.

After we had a flash back to the story of Chelsie getting the coffee pot top stuck on her finger, he took her into the kitchen. He soaped and oiled her up. But he could not get it off. We were not sure how to cut it off so we piled into the car. We drove to the firehouse (Where my mom had taken Chelsie) but no-one answered. So we headed over to Valley Care Hospital to their emergency room. When we got there, the lady who checked us in smiled a little when she saw what was happening. After I gave them our whole life story and our insurance information, we sat in the waiting room. There was a little boy there who was waiting with his mom to have her grandmother transferred to another hospital by ambulance. He loved to play with her. Everyone was so amazed by the fact that it was actually stuck on her finger.

They got us in fairly quickly. The doctor looked at it and said it was a first in his 39 years. He had another guy come in with a cutting tool and they took out pieces of the toy until they cut it almost down to her finger. It finally came off. Paige was a trooper. She screamed the whole time but did not pull her hand away too often. It took a while to calm her down, but then she just enjoyed playing on the hospital bed (going through the bars to the floor and back up) until they checked us out.

Needless to say- the toy will not be used again. We will be throwing it away now. I did not get any pictures with it on her finger (Kayla has one on her cell, but can't email it to me) but I do have a couple of pics of what the toy looks like now.

Hello

Just because I have not posted in a little while, I thought I would write a quick hello. Things are going ok here. Things have been a little stressfull with Justin barely working, but on the plus side he has had lots of bonding time with Paige. Paige is feeling better, but now I have a sore throat and Justin may have a little cold. The CD Player we use to help Paige sleep isn't really working anymore, so we are examining our options. A friend at work mentioned she had a cd/radio/alarm clock that I could use that may work for a while. But I do love the green CD player we currently have (Which another friend from work gave to us and saved our lives since she started sleeping better when we used it). For tonight, I have the radio tuned onto a christian radio station.

Despite some frustrating situations in our lives, we are doing good overall. We are really trusting that God has a hand in our lives and he has not failed to provide. I was able to get my cable company to reduce my bill subtancially for 6 months so that will help for now. Hopefully in 6 months Justin will have more work. We have a couple of jobs pending, so for now we just wait. As always- if you know anyone who needs tile work please send them our way.

The little engine that coughed

Paige has been coughing since Saturday and we thought she had just a little cold. On Monday she had a stuffy nose and the cough was getting worse. Plus it had woken her up every hour or so on Sunday night. And while she went back to sleep within a minute or two each time, it made for a long night. So, after talking to the advice nurse we had an appt to go to the Dr in the late afternoon. Let me tell you how much Paige loves to have Dr's look at her.. (She takes after her Aunt Chelsie). Doctors appointments are always quite the adventure, and it is helpful to have both of us parents there.

The Dr determined that she had a mild case of croup. She prescribed a steriod which he had to crush up and put in some applesauce or juice/milk for 1-2 nights to reduce the swelling. Last night she did not get the full dose since we put it in the milk and she refused to drink it all. Today her cough was not really worse, but not a whole lot better. Besides waking up at 4AM and not going back to sleep, the day went OK Justin says. But that could be because she slept more from about 5:30-7AM on my chest on the couch. I was late to work, but that was OK since I had to get some bloodwork done (fasting) so it all turned out good. Now hopefully my bloodwork will be good. They are testing me for diabetes since I have some ongoing fungal infections (I know this is probably TMI). What a fun family we are this week.