6 years, 2 kids, 1 house and a dog!

Ryan and I just celebrated our 6 year anniversary! Wholly cow, 6 years!!! While that may not be a long time in the grand scheme of things, it's a long time when you think of how much has changed or happened in those 6 years! We have become Mommy and Daddy, homeowners, met some great new friends, found a great church, went on some great vacations, and many numerous things to count! It's hard to believe it all started out though, over 13 years ago. It's so funny to look at us now and think were here! It's hard to explain but growing up together, you just never think you'll be ya know, older! Yet, here we are and I wonder when the day will come that we feel grown-up? Maybe that's a good thing and it's better you never quite feel grown-up! Who knows.

Well, we started off our anniversary day at church. It's kind of silly but I guess since there was a leap year, we got to celebrate on the actual day of our nuptuals, Sunday. We then spent a few hours at the Rowell Ranch Rodeo, took the kids and had some fun. We then by the grace of Ryan's mama, went out to Livermore to a place I think we went to first on some anniversary. But, that was quite some time ago and we've been wanting to go back there ever since. So we did, dinner at Zephyr in downtown Livermore and then splurging on dessert at Simply Fondue. Our waitress suggested we try the Bananas Foster chocolate and it was to die for. (The waitress at Zephyr Ha!) It's always nice to get some "alone" time and hang out just the two of us, where it all started! 6 wonderful years and I'm so glad I call you my Hubby, love you Bucky.

New Carpet and Kid's Rooms

I don't know how long I've been saying that when the kid's rooms were "done" I would take pictures of them to show off. Well, Ryder is almost a year now and they still aren't "done". But, with the new carpet, and spring cleaning the heck out of these rooms (so much easier to do when there is no furniture) they looked neat and tidy and cute enough to take some photo's and show them off. Enjoy!

Gracie's Room

10 on 10 : May

Take a photo once an hour for ten consecutive hours on the tenth of each month. Document a snapshot of your life and find beauty among the ordinary things of your day.

Happy photographing!!!!

Ah! The joys of having a construction guy for a Hubby! He scored us some great carpet that someone was getting rid of. Their loss our gain!!! Jim (carpet guy) came this morning at 8a.m. to start installing. Meaning, we had to get everything the heck out of the kids room by then so he can have an empty room, felt a little like moving!





We had waffles this morning for breakfast. Left over from Mother's Day. I just love my waffle maker, it's awesome and the train whistle alarm is a wonderful feature that the kid's love too!

If looks could kill!

Why did I even try to feed this boy today! He looks happy but don't let that devilish grin fool you! I didn't even attempt the rest of the day!





While going to take out some recycling and trash, I'm reminded of how fortunate I am to live so close to our dumpster/trash area. It's something I don't think about often but on a rainy day like this, it's nice to only have to walk a few feet from your door (picture taken from front door).




Here is Gracie's room finished!

Teeth suck!!!! I don't even know why we really have them, are they all that necessary? I tend to think not!!! This is a perfect image of what I've been faced with for the last 3 days!!! You can also see one of the little buggers!!!!

Going through the kiddo's clothes for summer I realized that neither babies really have any summer clothes. With upcoming birthdays I hate to buy clothing for them as we are usually inundated with them. So I decided to head to Goodwill to hunt for some frugal deals. Didn't really find any outfits, but did find this adorable diaper cover, way too cute. Wrangler butts drive me nuts!

As you heard from earlier, we found Ryder's kryptonite!!!! It's teeth!!!! He's been sooooo crabby, I went to Target to arm myself for the long night ahead




This was my yummy left over Mother's Day dessert. Banana Creme Pie, enough said.

How priceless is a photo?

Well, this certain photo happens to be worth two FRONT ROW tickets to the Brooks and Dunn / Jason Aldean Concert!!!! That's right, I won FRONT ROW tickets!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! Okay, now that I'm calm I can fill you in on the details. Our local radio station here, 95.7 The Wolf was having a contest: Kiss your Bro for the front row. You were supposed to take a picture of, yes, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, a photo of you kissing your bro, if you didn't have a bro, your sis, so on and so forth! Upon checking out the website for details, I saw disgusting photo's of girls kissing girls and not in the friendly sisterly type way! Apparantly they were confused about the details! Come on people have we lost all wholesomeness?!? So I was trying to think of a way to finagle a cute shot with one of my two brothers but then I got an even better idea, how about a picture of Gracie kissing her Brother? How cute would that be and how could they resist making me the winner? Well, I was right and look at what my two cute kids got me!!!!! Alright kiddos!!!! I'm am so excited and we are going to have a rockin' good time!!! I will post pictures after the show which is this Sat.!!! Here is the link to the page on the wolf's site of the winner! http://957thewolf.com/pages/6833828.php

This probably won't be up for long, so check it out while you can!!!

P.S. We have given our seats that we originally bought for ourselves pre-win to our great friends the Jackson's who are dear friends and have hit hard times. They are one of our few friends who enjoy country and I immediatly thought of them. They are awesome people and what a great way to give back!

10 on 10:April

My friend Melissa has an amazing blog that I have to say I read as my guilty pleasure, along with all my other friends blogs, but truly, hers is amazing, she does it all!!! Go Melissa!!!! Anywho, she has this great post once a month called 10 on 10, here's the general idea:

take a photo once an hour for ten consecutive hours on the tenth of each month. document a snapshot of your life and find beauty among the ordinary things of your day.leave a comment to be added to the list of contributors..happy photographing

Here is my first attempt at 10 on 10!! Enjoy!

9:00a.m. Started my Saturday at work (boo for work, yeah for $)!

10:00a.m. My client Andrea has been growing her post twins hair out to donate to locks of love! That's 20" of hair that will go to someone who has lost theirs! Thanks Andrea! Her "after" hair looked super cute by the way!

11:00a.m.This is my adorable client Michelle's daughter Abbie!!! She is so adorable and always comes to hang out with Michelle while she gets her very thick, semi-long, very curly hair highlighted, usually trimmed but we skipped that this time and straightened. She's such a trooper. She asked me to braid her hair this visit and if you didn't notice, she just got her ears pierced!

12:00p.m. This was my pathetic excuse for a lunch! I often don't get breaks on busy Saturday's but I managed to much on this mangled apple that was at the bottom of my bag!

2:00 p.m. This is the image I see all to often when I'm away from my sweet baby boy. My pump! (By the way, I know I screwed up the timing, I'm just getting used to this, give me a break!)

3:00p.m. I got a chance from my coupon I have through Our Town Hostess to meet a wonderful new client Denise. Here is the color I used on her!

4:00p.m. I had to wash out Denise and my go to shampoo and conditioner is always Nicolas.

5:00p.m. This is by far my favorite hour yet, coming HOME!!!! I had the camera ready to capture what I saw when I walked through the door. I look forward to those first few steps when I come home from work 3 days a week, and this was definatly a great way to show what I see, minus Paul and Nate, they usually don't greet me when I'm coming home from work, but he was graciously helping Ryan hook up this music thingy, so, there they were!!!

6:00p.m. This was my yummy dinner that my house husband made for us! Thanks Bucky!

7:00p.m. My 5th and final dose of Azithromycin for my ear infection! Antibiotics ROCK! I finally feel "normal" again after 2 1/2 weeks!!!

Ryan's 30th Birthday

Wow, last time I checked we were two wide eyed "kids" just graduating High School looking wishfully into the great blue yonder that was to be our far off distant future together

Well, fast forward 11 years and pheeeew!!! Where did the time go? A wonderful wedding, a dog (our first born), two beautiful kids, a little piece of land, wonderful jobs, loving friends, and poof, we're here, our far off distant future is the present.! It's just mind blowing and wonderful to see how far we've grown and how far we have to go!!! So many things to look forward to and so many blessings to be grateful for. Still, I just never thought we would turn 30!!! It just sounds so grown up yet, I feel the exact same.


Well, luckily for me, I don't have to reach this milestone for another year and a half!!! For Ryan however, it came and went. I was intending to do a surprise birthday for him and that quickly got quenched when I realized with friends and baby schedule's, this would be much too difficult. So when I asked the birthday boy what he would like to do, he expressed that he would love to just have a birthday party. Whens the last time I had a birthday party was actually what he said. So, done and done, a birthday party it was. After figuring out the details and our friends the Coli's graciously allowing us to terrorize their house, it was on. 21 of our friends and a bunch of kiddos, taco's, and last but certainly not least, yummy, yummy margarita's! We had a wonderful time laughing, talking, eating and drinking! The Coli's did a marvelous job at sprucing up their newly purchased home's back yard for the party and the setting couldn't have been better, 75 degree's, sunny, warm and gorgeous!!! Here are some photo's for you to enjoy the day with us;



















Oh, by the way, the birthday boy conveniently noticed just days before the event that our BBQ was on it's last leg's and sadly, finally quit working!!! Lucky for him, he got a brand new one the day before the party, just in time to pre-cook all the food!! Here he is dirtying it for the first time the day before;

Update on my Peanut

So, after talking to the lactation consultant on Mon. morning, she wanted a weight check to see how we should proceed after all this "building". After a headache and a half we finally got him weighed Mon. afternoon. Who would have thought it would be so hard to get a baby weighed!! Anyway, he gained 2oz. That might not sound like much, but in 3 months he gained a little under a pound so, 2oz. for a week is pretty good! Another call into Pat Ross, who promptly called me back later that afternoon, confimed that all my hard work had been good and I should probably keep it up to the best of my ability! What!!! Keep this up!!!! I was doing "okay" thinking that this was going to be a temporary thing for a week, now I have to keep this up!!!! Oh boy!! So she asked me, key word, asked, which I thought was just great, how I felt if Dr. Kotin wanted to supplement with formula. Thank you, I said, what I feel about that is; I feed him every 2hours and pump for 10-15minuets afterwards, solids in between and now you want me to supplement!!!! Where is the little guy going to put it? So, to answer your question, I feel like N-O!!!! Is the boy malnutritioned? No. Is he unhappy and seemingly hungry all the time? No. Is he growing and healthy? Yes. So back the f$%& off!!! Excuse my rage but really? A busy Mommy can only take so much! So after a talk with the pediatrician, I agreed to see a nutritionist. I will track what Ryder will eat for 2 days prior to the appointment and she will be able to analyze his calorie intake and how appropriate all this "over-eating" is. The one thing I like about this and probably why I agreed to it is that if she see's that he is doing the best he can and still not gaining, this is probably just his body type and that's that!! Really, I don't need a degree to tell you that. Well maybe a degree in Mommy 101! Anyway, stay tuned for that appointment, Apr. 8th I believe. For now, pump, pump and pump!!

My Peanut

Ryder had his 9 month Dr. appointment on Monday March 15, Auntie Amanda's Birthday!!!! Anyway, much to my assumption, he is a tiny little tot! While for his age in height he is average (32%) and his noggin circumference (44%), his weight is not matching up (.59%)! So, per Doc's requests, we are working on building my milk supply!!! What does this entail do you wonder?
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Well even if you don't here it goes;

• Get up, feed Ryder, pump,
• Feed Ryder 2 hours later, pump,
• Put Ryder down for nappy time,
• Feed Ryder upon awakening, pump,
• Feed Ryder 2 hours later, pump,
• Put Ryder down for second nappy time,
• Feed Ryder upon awakening, pump,
• Feed Ryder 2 hours later, pump,
• Pump one more time before drifting off to sleep until about 1:30a.m. when I feed Ryder
• Around 6:30ish, wake to feed Ryder yet one more time and start all over!

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This is just on the days when I'm home with him and I failed to mention all the other things I need to get done in between all that!!!! Things like grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, e-mails, breakfast, lunch and dinner for all 4 of us, etc. Sometimes I'm so thankful for work cause' it gives me a break from my "real" job!!!!! Pheeeewwwwww!!!!!
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I'm exhausted just writing this, oh boy!!! The good news is that it's only for a week and then we will have him weighed at the 10 day mark (March 25) and see if all that effort did anything to bulk my peanut up! If not, we will have to resort to supplementing with formula, which don't get me wrong is not a big deal, just more time, money and effort, that I don't' have! Anywho, for now this is my life and what can you do but love it. I love spending so much quality time with my baby who despite what the Dr. says, is growing like a weed. I just love cherishing our time together as Mommy and Son, for I know these days of "baby" Ryder are soon coming to an end.

Building Character Qualities

I try to work on building character qualities in my kiddos, not only is it important for them to learn them, but I get joy in teaching my kids to some day be able to "fend" for themselves. One we get to work on on a weekly basis at the grocery store is thriftiness. Constantly walking around the store I hear, "aw Mom, can we get this? Is it on sale?" Now sometimes I feel that I take this a bit far and worry sometimes what type of "character" I'm building.
As you know we are stretching our budget and trying to really pinch pennies, while I think it's important for Gracie to know this, sometimes I think it rubs off a bit much. Last night I came home late from work and accidentally "woke her up". (I think she wasn't really asleep, even though everyone else in the house was!) Anyway, she came out and I graciously let her come downstairs while I ate dinner, pumped and took care of house type things. We then snuggled up on the couch for a bit and watched one of our favorite shows, the Duggers, with their 19 kids and counting!! Anywho, I was not skipping through commercials for some crazy reason and a Kohl's commercial came on. They were advertising this weekends MEGA sale and continued on to advertise that EVERYTHING was on SALE!!!! My little frugal frog who is watching intently says to me "Everything is on sale?" (in one of those cute voices that goes up at the end as if to say, can we go, it's all on sale!!) Well, looks like were on to another character building quality, discernment!!! I of course explained to my 3 1/2 year old that this is a propaganda gimmick and that while everything might be "on sale", it's just a tactic they use because they just want you to buy stuff!! "Oh"! is all I got!

The American Cancer Society - Relay For Life of Oakdale:

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/MicheleReed

Please help out to donate or just pray for resources, efforts, and a CURE!!!!!

If you decide to donate, can you please click on My Team Page and donate to anyone on my team who needs help with fundraising. Thanks so much!!!

Little Accomplishments

With a 3 year age gap between my chitlin's it's hard for me to remember a lot about the first year and even the second. Going through it all a second time has opened my eyes to how wonderful the first year can be. We've already been through some great milestones such as the first smile, the first laugh/coo, sitting up, first meal, all that good stuff. However, now were getting into the "real" awesome milestones. While Ryder's been "scooting" all over the family room honing the nick name "Scooter" for a while now, today I officially saw a real crawl!!!!! This is especially neat to see because Gracie never "crawled". She defiantly got around but she did this half attempt at a real crawl where she would keep one foot out in the event she would need to get back on her bum, because she never quite figured out how to do that from her tummy, she than quickly walked and that was that. Ryder though, has mastered getting on to his bum from virtually any position. It defiantly hasn't been all that helpful with his new sleeping situation, but were trying to figure it out.

Anyway, seeing him wave, crawl, figure out the snack trap and eat Cheerios' from it, turning the pages in a book, saying some real words (we are all Dada these days) it is just amazing to me that these completely helpless creatures turn so quickly into the children they are growing to be! It is truly amazing and I love to watch his transformation almost everyday! While it is a bit bittersweet, watching him grow makes me happy and fulfilled that I hopefully will raise a great little human being. Especially in that first year, when there is not a whole lot of discipline, not a whole lot of "parenting" just love and fun and enjoyment of seeing them grow so rapidly! I hate that he's growing up so fast but for now, it's so much fun to watch his accomplishments and marvel at his incredibleness!!!!

Finger"less" Momma!

Well, I guess I don't have enough going on in my life so I decided it was time, time to cut my finger tip off!!! Yep, that's right clean off. The vision that goes around in my head, often at night while "trying" to fall asleep, is a gruesome one. It makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. All in the name of hair. Contrary to what one might think, I did not do this little deed while "cutting" the actual hair, no no, that would be to boring of a story. I was opening a little squeeze bottle for a perm, and instead of finding a pin like you supposed to use, I was trying to stick the tip of one of my scissor blades into a tiny little hole! Well, lo and behold it slipped and kung-foo style, karate chopped my little buddy clean off. Luckily the ordeal didn't hurt one bit, in fact I probably wouldn't have even have known that it happened, but seeing the tip fall to the counter was confirmation that indeed I had become fingertipless!! What is so much worse than the fact that this is not fun, will be a long recovery and so annoying, is the fact that it's such a burden!! It's hard to work at home and in the salon and learning to re-cut hair using middle and ring finger is not my idea of reinventing a new "style"!!! Ugggg, oh well, for now, I look back and think well, I sure hope I won't do that again, but it's a perk that comes with the wonderful world of hair!

To Preschool or Not to Preschool, that is the question

Gracie has been in preschool now for the last year and a half. We chose that preschool back when she was just a little over 2. Seems like so long ago, she was so much littler (sp., even a word?), not potty trained, was just starting to muster up some "deep" conversations and hardly socialized. Based upon all this, we found a great little place in Pleasanton, that met our needs financially as well as spiritually and comfortability with teachers, classrooms, criteria, academics, play, etc. Well, fast forward a year and a half later and our shy, diaper wearing 2 year old, is a vivacious, stubborn, sweet, lovable, strong-willed, chatty, friendly, imaginative, goin' in the potty all by herself 31/2 year old. Those are just the adjectives right off the top of my head!!! She has done so well in school and I believe it has really helped her to blossom into the little girl she has become! Which is why this decision is so hard on us.

My thought was for her to always in her 3rd. and final year of preschool, to go 3 days a week, to prepare her into the "scary" world of Kindergarten. Well, her school now, will not allow us to choose the days in which she attends their fine establishment, apparently all the Mom's in Pleasanton are stay at home Mom's that don't have to have their kids revolve around their work schedule! All that aside, okay, time to make some important decisions do we

A. keep her at her 2 day a week schedule and hope that it will be enough to prepare her physically, mentally all that for the big 1st day of Kindergarten? Or....

B. move her all together to a school with a more flexible schedule therefore fulfilling our plan of having her go 3 days a week.

As you can imagine, both these come with a lot of considerations; money, a big one, considering the time right now; moving her away from all she knows in a school, teachers, friends, schedule, etc.; and finally, our comfortability with all this!

It has been on my mind a lot lately and trying to decide what is best is really tough. I am reminded that she is adaptable and will probably be just fine in whatever we decide to do and that God too will provide in whatever decision we make. I just fear that these decisions only get harder and more important as time moves forward. I can't imagine having this very conversation in about oh let's say 14 years about choosing COLLEGE!!!! Oy vay!!!

We have decided for her to go to another preschool starting in the summer and then continuing through fall of this year into the following spring. I'm still struggling with the decision and worrying financially how we will make it work. But, time will tell and nothing is permanent, so all we can do now is see what the future will hold and try to remember that this is only the beginning!