A Little Bit of Life, A Little Bit of Baby

Fall

2009-11-02T14:02:00.001-08:00

Well, fall has been pretty wonderful so far. Like so many other people, I love fall. The weather is beautiful, the trees are beautiful, we get to spend time outdoors since it isn't too hot or too cold, and I know that the holidays are just around the corner. Oh, and don't forget the batch of pumpkin bars I made last week. The cream cheese frosting and the yummy cinnamon and nutmeg. It was spectaular.
Things are going quite well for our little family. Ellie is getting bigger everyday. She crawls everywhere and just got her first tooth last Wednesday. She is so quick to smile and I love to cuddle with her. She is very independent until big Walter walks in the door. She will not cry all day but as soon as he walks in she cries until he picks her up. And he had better not just walk past her. That is pretty much a sin in her book. She is cute and fluffy and we love her.
No, I did not plan the baby plumber's crack in this picture. She was just playing the part of daddy's little plumbing helper.

Little Walter is awesome. I just love that kid. He makes me laught all the time. He LOVES his little sister. He rolls around on the floor with her and still makes sure to give her a kiss every night. He loves to help me with just about everything I do, including chores. Now, if I can just teach him how to do the chores properly we might be on to something. He had a great time at the ward Halloween party even though he wouldn't wear his costume until the party was over. Not a big deal except that he was cookie monster and the rest of us were chocolate chip cookies. Without the cookie monster we just looked like spotted cows. It happens, I guess.

We are still working on the bathroom remodel. It is so pretty and so worth the work. I just wish someone would give us a few more hours in the day so that we could do more work. We have done a lot since I last blogged but nothing stands out as being the coolest thing to blog about so I guess I will finish.
For good measure, here are a few cute pics of the kids together and on of Walter and I to show that we are still in existence.

Decision

2009-08-14T12:38:00.001-07:00

Well, I think we've decided to keep this one. She is awful cute and I sure do love her a lot.

Slip-n-Slide

2009-08-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Little Walter got a Slip-n-slide (sp? slip & slide?) for his birthday. We (meaning not me) took it outside and played for a bit. I am pretty much anti-watersports so I was the picture taker while the boys played.

Can you tell that he loved it?

This guy enjoyed it too and I just know that he will love me for posting this picture.

Oh, and yes, I am aware that we have the moveable sprinkler spraying the slide. The water tube part had a hole and sometimes we just can't control our hick-ish ways.

Bobby's Home

2009-08-13T12:44:00.002-07:00

I think the biggest thing that has happened around here lately is Bobby's return from his mission in Argentina. I can't imagine the culture shock he is going thru (and the shock of seeing how all the little one's have grown) but we are really glad to have him home.

Little Walter is especially glad because he knows that once Uncle Bobby comes home we can get ready to go to the beach. That little guy isn't self-serving or anything.

Little Walter is 3

2009-08-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my little baby is 3. Sure, he was born a long time ago and I have had another baby since then, but three years just doesn't seem right.
He was really starting to understand the idea of a birthday party this time around so I thought it would be fun to have his friends over for a BBQ and some play time. There were about 35 people total and it was a lot of fun. The kids ran themselves ragged and were a bunch of big sweat balls by the end of the party. Walter went to sleep very easily that night.
I am grateful for everyone that shared in the fun with us. We love you all.

It isn't a party unless you stick a kid in a garbage can. In this case it was Kobe. Poor kid.

Some of the party-goers in the back yard.

This is community candle-blowing. It's very popular around these parts.

Oh My Goodness

2009-07-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

I don't often write about the conversations that I have with Little Walter, but this one was a winner.
He is standing on his chair in the living room spinning around in a circle with his arms in the air.

LW: I'm spinning like a man! I'm spinning like a man!
Me: You're spinning like a man?
LW: Yes, I am spinning like a man.
Me: (laughing hysterically)
LW: What's so funny about it?
Me: Nothing. I just think you're cute.
LW: (gives me a confused look) I just spin like a man.

Where did I find this kid? And, why is there never anyone around when this stuff happens?

P.S. Three new posts in one day? I rule.

Feasting Upon the Word

2009-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

I left Ellie alone on her floor mat to play while I did the dishes. She was quiet for a good long time and I was thrilled. That was until I discovered this. That is the copy of the Ensign that I had left on the floor. I had never thought she would take the term "feasting upon the word" quite so literally.

P.S. Make sure you read the post below this one. It is new too.

Just Stuff

2009-07-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

We all know that I am not the best at this blog updating thing. Well, now there is too much to catch up on so I will add a few pictures and try to tell you about them if I remember what they are.
Little Walter took swimming lessons at BC. He had a great time but all he really wanted to do was this. He was technically too young to attend the lessons but I neglected to mention that when I signed him up. Oops. Bad Stefanie. That could be why he was a total spaz during most of the lessons. Oh well, we will try lessons again next year and see how that goes.

I got a new camera in June so I spent (and still spend) a lot of time taking pictures of my kids. I tend to find some pose/thing/person that I want to photograph and then take about 11 million pictures of it. Everyone else would find my photo albums annoying but I find them, well, I find them a little annoying too. But that is just because I don't know what I am doing so all of my 11 million pictures are all a little off. Anyway, here are a few pictures from some of the photo shoots with the young'ns

We went to northern California for a dual wedding weekend of Jari & Kevin Doran and Tori & Dustin Garrett. They are my friend Michelle's mom and sister and I have known them since I was 11. Here is a pic of Tori and Dustin. I didn't get a pic of Jari and Kevin because a torrential downpour started in the middle of the reception and we had to leave (since all of our things were getting soaked in the bed of the truck) and I didn't get a chance to get pictures.

In case anyone was wondering my kids do like each other, sometimes.

Ellie now eats solid food. She is five months old and she's pretty cute if I do say so myself. At her last doctor appointment she weight 14 lbs. 10 oz. and was 26.5inches long. Of course this was a month ago so I am sure she is bigger now.

In addition to eating solid food she also likes to eat her feet. I hear this is a delicacy in some parts of the world.

This kid turns three years old in a week. Can you believe that? My little baby is going to be three. Weird. He is so handsome and he is a good helper. He loves to help me bake and he is always right at his daddy's side when he is doing projects around the house. He makes me laugh and he makes sure to tell me that he loves me "a million-billion fishy crackers".

Here is that husband of mine. He is such a good dad and I am quite fond of him. He is currently on his way up to Girls' camp to spend Bishopric Night with the girls. Our Bishop is out of town so Walter is stepping in. He is also the lucky guy who gets to tow the trailer that is full of camping equipment. In addition to his camping he is also still knee-deep in bathroom remodel projects. It has started to move along again but things like Girls' camp keep pulling him away from working. Oh well. It will get done and we will love it.

Wow, that was a lot of pictures. Until next time...

Other Pics

2009-05-22T21:42:00.001-07:00

Little Walter playing with Ellie on her play mat.

Another cute picture from the father and sons' camp out.

She is doing pretty well with her tummy time. I can even get her to smile during the tummy time occasionally.

She was a little sleepy and really didn't care where I laid her down.

Little Walter is such a good big brother. The batteries had died on Ellie's swing so he decided to lay on the floor and use his foot to push her while he watched something on tv.

Father & Sons

2009-05-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it, my little baby went on his first camp out. I can not believe that my boy is old enough and grown up enough to go camping without his mommy. Of course I am not a camper so if he is ever going to go it will have to be without me. The Walter's joined our ward for a father and sons/priesthood commemoration camp out. I was afraid that he wouldn't do well with going to sleep or being out in the dirt, but he did wonderfully. His friend Wyatt came and they had a good time running around the hiking trails and climbing on things. And we did discover, no surprise here, that he loves s'mores. That's my boy.

The boys getting ready to leave.

Walter and Wyatt running away.

Okay, is it just me or does Little Walter look like a clone of his daddy in this picture. I love that their mouths are held the same.

Kelsie and Cameron came into town for the weekend so Cam was able to go with the boys on their campout.

Two Month Check-up

2009-05-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ellie had her check-up on Monday 4/27. She did really well. Of course she waited until we got to the waiting room to have a slight diaper blow out. Typical. She got four shots and one oral vaccination. I hated to hear her cry but she was better within minutes.

Here are her stats:
Height-23 3/4 inches
Weight-11lbs. 8 oz.
Head circumference-16 inches

She is in the 80th percentile of height and head and 50th percentile for weight. I was so excited that at this point my daughter is not a big beast like Little Walter was (he has always been in at least the 95th percentil for height and head).

They'll hate me for this.

2009-04-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Someday she will despise the fact that I made these gigantic bows and made her wear them.

Today he hates me a little because we took him to the dermatologist's office so that they could start treatments to get rid of his molluscum contagiosum (that link will tell you a little about it). They put a compound on it that is made from the goo of a blister beetle. I don't know what kind of goo a blister beetle secretes but apparently it is something that gets rid of the molluscum. It will solve the problem but it irritates his skin a bit. Thus you see he is a bit frustrated and crying.

Stavros Flatly = Hilarious

2009-04-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

If you need a good laugh, check this out. Side-splitting hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

Blessing/Easter/Misc. Pics

2009-04-14T18:06:00.001-07:00

The Walters coloring Easter eggs.

Our little family after Easter egg coloring.

The great egg hunt of 2009. We had about 100 eggs for two kids. Overkill? Yeah, I think so.

Ellie, in her pretty blessing dress, being held by Grandpa Ray (a.k.a. Grandpa Jumping).

This is Ellie's "I'm going to eat you" face.

Isn't her smile cute.

Okay, this has nothing to do with my family, kids, etc. but it is still cool. The boys in our ward won the stake young men's basketball tournament. We still aren't sure how they managed it but we are proud.

Yahoo!!!

2009-04-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, this post deserves three exclamation points. Little Walter is doing so well with his potty training. I am very proud of him. Once I convinced him that there were no crocodiles in the toilet and that going pee in the toilet is okay he was fine. I know that regression is a part of the game so I need to be prepared for that. But, for now, he is doing wonderfully. We have only had one accident in the past 1.5 weeks and he has even gone to the restroom with out asking or telling me. He just went on his own.
He might drive me crazy some days but I know that he is a good boy and sometimes he really surprises me with how quickly and easily he takes to things.

On another note, Ellie's blessing was this Sunday. We had a great Easter and it was nice to have family and friends there with us. I have taken pictures but haven't uploaded them yet so I will get on that eventually and post some so that you can see how big out little girl has gotten.

Help Me!!! Please!!! Potty-training related

2009-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

People, I need some help. I am REALLY trying to get little Walter potty trained but I am not doing well. Not only do I have absolutely no idea what the tricks are but I also think this kid might be one of the most stubborn kids in the world.
A couple days ago I decided to crack down and get over this diaper phase. It is not fun to change the diaper of a 36 lb. beefcake of a two-year-old. I have put him on the potty numerous times over the last 6 months or so but he would never go. So Monday, when he woke up in the morning, I put him right on the potty. He hadn't peed since Sunday evening and he woke up with a dry diaper so I thought this would be pretty easy. He hadn't peed in at least 12 hours so he should have gone pretty quickly, but Noooooo. He sat on the toilet for 1hr. 15mins. before he FINALLY went. And, when he did finally go it was after a little whining, fussing session because he did not want to pee in the toilet.
He has now gone 3 times in the last 3 days but only after I made him sit and sit and sit until he finally went. But, if I take his word for it that he doesn't have to go and take him down he will pee in his pants within minutes. He is really driving me crazy.
So, my question is...What advice do you have? Do I keep him in pull-ups until he volunteers and then move him to underpants so that he doesn't pee on everything? Do I just keep him in underpants so he pees on himself and realizes that he hates it? Sometimes he says he is scared of the crocodiles and doesn't want to sit on the potty (apparently there are crocodiles in my toilet. who knew?). How do I deal with that? I have a potty chart on the wall, I have candy and movies that I am using to bribe him with. Does that work for other people because it isn't working so well around here yet. Any tricks I should know? Books I should read? Places I can send him to and they will take care of it and just send me back the new and improved, potty-trained version? : )
Anything you can give me would be amazingly helpful.
I am going to go sit by the toilet and try to wait him out again. Blah.
Much love. Peace out.

The First 19 Days

2009-03-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have approximately 5 minutes until Ellie wakes up so I will give a quick update. Everything is going really well. I am ridiculously tired but we are all surviving and getting along quite nicely. At first Little Walter didn't want anything to do with Baby Ellie but he has come around. He often tells me that she is his best friend (of course everyone is his best friend so this isn't shocking) and loves to give her kisses and hug her. He is pretty good about being soft but I have to keep my eye on him so that he doesn't try to squeeze her head as a form of hugging.
Ellie likes to do the usual baby things like eat, sleep and poop. Nothing extraordinary there. She is a very good baby and she is very soft and squishy. I enjoy giving her kisses on her cheeks and forehead. They are pretty irresistible. Here are some more pictures to admire.

Flowers

2009-03-12T19:31:00.001-07:00

This is a bit of an older post but I wanted to put it on here so that Walter can get some credit for being pretty awesome. A week and a half before I had Ellie I had a regular doctor appointment with the nurse practitioner at my OB's office. I was really hoping to schedule my induction or to at least find out that I had made some progress toward having the baby, but no luck. I left the appointment feeling very defeated and with the fear that I would be pregnant FOREVER. I called Walter and complained and I am pretty sure I cried. On his way home that night Walter got these beautiful flowers for me just to brighten my day a bit.

Then we had Valentine's day that weekend and this time he got me another beautiful bouquet of flowers and a pan of cinnamon rolls. Many of you may know that cinnamon rolls are my big weakness so this was definitely a way to a pregnant girl's heart.

He is not too bad as far as husbands go. : )

Baby Ellie

2009-02-23T16:20:00.000-08:00

I have several posts to do but I am a little tired and busy at the moment so I will just give you the most important part now. I actually had my baby. Eliza DeLon Ray was born on Sat., February 21 at 1:37pm. 7lb. 15oz. and 20.5 inches long. Ellie is a perfect addition to our family and we love her to pieces. Everything is going wonderfully and I will post most details of her arrival later.

Because I'm Violent

2009-02-13T08:33:00.001-08:00

Here is a tidbit from my conversations with Little Walter (LW) this morning.
Randomly, out of nowhere...
LW: (while grabbing and holding my face in his hands) Momma. Don't.Push.Dadda. MOMMA! Momma?
Me: Um, Okay.

Pay it forward

2009-02-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Lindsey has this on her blog and I thought I would play along, so here goes. I will use Lindsey's words to describe it and you can play along if you would like. "The first 3 people to leave a comment on this will receive a hand made gift from me during this year. When and what will be a surprise. There's a small catch...You knew there would be didn't you? Post this on your blog then come back and leave a comment, telling me you're in. Fun, huh? Remember, only the first 3 comments receive the gift."

Now, unlike Lindsey, I can't promise that my gift will be hand made because I am not terribly creative and my creative center in my mind seems to tire easily, but it will be cute none the less.

So, if you want to play along go post on your blog and come back and comment.

Going Strong

2009-02-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

I know that I am getting close to my due date so people are getting curious about whether or not I have had the baby. Well, no. I haven't. In fact, I haven't progressed at all. The baby is doing great, however. Measuring right on, non-stress test was "reactive" (which is a good thing), blood pressure is good, and so on. I really wish I had some exciting news for you, but I don't yet. I promise I will update when I have something to share. On the bright side, I will be able to attend my baby shower on Saturday so I am looking forward to that.

Oh, and one thing that is driving me crazy, other than still being pregnant, is that Little Walter has discovered a new favorite saying. Every time Walter or I tell him to do something, not do something, tell him no, etc. He says "I don't care" or "I don't care about that" in a rather stern tone. It is so annoying but he won't stop. I was trying to encourage him to not say it but it didn't work so I have had to take to punishing him. Where does the kid get these sayings? I am sure it is from his father ; ).

Things and Stuff

2009-01-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Ray household has been buzzing with lots of activity lately but somehow it seems that nothing is really getting done. We have so many things started or in progress but I can't seem to get them done. Luckily my husband is working very hard to try to get his projects done because if things were left up to me we would be in this predicament forever.

Here is a little list of what we have going. I have started getting Ellie's room ready for her but I cant finish because I have no desire to sew the curtains right now and I can't get the rest of Walter's toys out of the room because the garage is too full. The garage is too full because we have all of the stuff for the bathroom remodel in the garage is the place where I want to put Little Walter's tool bench. The bathroom remodel isn't done because some of the additions to our house were done by crazy people so everything has to be done from scratch or fixed before we can move forward. We still haven't gotten all of the Christmas stuff down to the basement because 1)the bathroom remodel takes all of the free time so we there is no time left to get a dozen loads of stuff to the basement and 2) we got all of the lights and decorations packed up but somehow forgot the giant ornaments hanging on the elm tree out front and they need to be taken down at some point but I am not exactly in top ladder climbing form. The baby stuff hasn't come up from the basement yet and gotten clean because there is just no room for it right now. With the boxes of bathroom stuff and the boxes of Christmas stuff I am a little low on storage space and I also have a pile of food about 6' long against the wall in my front room because it is for Girl's camp and no one can figure out a place to store it where it won't get ruined by heat or rodents. I am also still working on cooking this baby because, like Little Walter, she seems perfectly content with living in her current habitat FOREVER.

On that note, let me update you the pregnancy. I am still very pregnant. Painfully pregnant at times. I had a doctor's appointment today and I have made no progress. For some reason I think my body is missing whatever it is that makes babies want to leave. I promise I am trying my best not to be hospitable but it just isn't working.
I am currently working with little Walter on his shapes, colors, numbers and alphabet. The numbers and alphabet are doing pretty well. The colors are okay and the shapes could definitely use some help but we are working on it. His latest news is that he had a little mishap in the bathtub last night and bit through his lip. It was terribly traumatizing for me. I am sure it was bad for him too, but I was in a little bit of shock. It bled so badly and now it is so swollen it makes me hurt to look at it. I will include a picture at the end of the post.

Big Walter has discovered a new hobby. He has discovered ways to alter his nerf guns to make them shoot farther/harder. It is so funny to see the little boy in him come out. I have no problem with him altering his gun but I really wish he wouldn't have made Little Walter's gun shoot harder. The kid is going to lose an eye one of these days. My only real request is that he not try to make the super soaker flame thrower that he saw on youtube. There have to be limits.

A cute family photo from Christmas.

The boy in front of the piles of leaves that are another unfinished project. I rakes them but the darn green trash can isn't big enough to hold them all so it will take us a few tries to get rid of them all.

This is Little Walter's favorite new activity. Running. The kid would run forever if we let him. I would love to go out with him more but I am not in the physical state to keep up with him all that well these days.

The injury to his lip. I think it looks worse in person but this picture is pretty gross. I really hope it heals soon without bothering him too much.

I love this man for so many reasons, not the least of which is how darn photogenic he is.

That's all for now, folks.

'Tis the Season

2009-01-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Well, now that the Christmas season is over it is now time for the sickness season. Ugh. Coughs, sinus problems, ear aches, we have them. I hope this is a short lived season because I am really tired.

The Great Name Debate

2009-01-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it has taken us 7.5 months but we think we might have picked out a name. It is weird to refer to the baby using a name since I have gotten so used to referring to her as "the baby", "baby sister", "little girl", etc. Now, we do reserve the right to change our minds because we like being indecisive it seems, but we actually both feel really good about this name. And the name is......drum roll, please......Eliza. Full name being Eliza (Ellie) DeLon Ray.
I have liked Eliza for a long time (since high school, maybe) and I think it goes well with Walter as they are both more classic names. The middle name is my grandfather's, mother's and my middle name. I know it is odd, but it's a family name. So, there you have it.
Oh, and if you hate the name could you refrain from letting me know. That would be great. : )

Quick Baby Update

2008-12-29T16:02:00.001-08:00

I just thought I would let you all know that she is still a she. We weren't able to confirm last time because she was sitting breech though they were fairly certain that it was a girl. This time she was still sitting breech but after a little pushing and shoving we were able to get a good picture that confirms what we have been suspecting.
Like I said, she is still breech but they said that there are still a few weeks for her to turn before they will get concerned. Other than that everything is marvelous. She is measuring 32weeks 3day and I am 32weeks 2day according to my due date so we are right on. They also said she is about 4lbs. though that could be totally wrong since ultrasounds aren't the most accurate when it comes to weight but I will take it.

Hey There

2008-12-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't updated in approximately, um, forever. Things have been going well. Little Walter keeps me VERY busy. Usually I will read other people's blogs to keep updated on everything going on but just don't write. Well recently he has kept me so busy (plus I am quite pregnant and quite tired these days) that I haven't even read any other blogs. So, I really hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and Christmas because I haven't read in a while.
Little Walter had a great Christmas. There are way too many toys in our house at this point in time but he is thrilled to have so much to play with. My parents came for the few days before Christmas and it was nice to have the opportunity for the little guy to see them at both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.
I don't really know what else to tell you about in regards to Little Walter so if you have any questions, just ask.
Big Walter is still doing the same things he usually does but now he is working on a massive bathroom remodel in his free time. Ha ha, free time. Yeah, like he gets a lot of that. We are working on the master bathroom and it is quite a project. I would love to help him but construction work isn't really my thing. I think I would be more in the way than anything else. I do plan to help when it comes to the finish work so I will feel better about my contribution at that time. I took some pictures of the before and will get some pictures of the after so that we will always be able to appreciate the work that he has done.
I am still pregnant. I didn't start to look pregnant until this last month. I am hoping that will mean that this baby is small but I am not holding my breath. I will have another ultrasound on Monday to make sure everything is where is should be and I am hoping they will be able to tell me gender for sure this time. During the last ultrasound the baby was sitting breech so we could get 100% but the tech said she is fairly certain it is a girl. This is what I thought all along so I am pretty confident that it is a she but I would like the ultrasound to tell me for sure before I buy too many dresses and pink things. The rest of the pregnancy is going as planned. Starting to get uncomfortable, eating like crazy, ready for it to be over. You know, the usual. If you have anymore questions about the pregnancy, me, bathroom remodel, Big Walter, or me just ask those as well. I might even answer.

Oh, and no, we do not know what we are going to name the baby. I can't decide for the life of me.

And here are some pics.
Family Christmas Pic:

At Hart Park feeding ducks:

Halloween:

Just Do It

2008-11-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

GO VOTE!!!

Oh, and don't forget...YES ON 8!!!

That is the most important thing going on today so I will update you on everything else later.

The Best in the West

2008-09-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

I figured that I was doing such an awesome job of posting (this makes 6 posts this week) that I should keep going. So, you lucky readers will get to hear about our trip to the fair.
On Monday, Walter, Bradon, Little Walter and I all headed to the great Kern County Fair. In case anyone is wondering what the title of this blog means, it is the theme of the fair this year. I don't necessarily agree that it is the greatest fair in the west but we had a good time none the less.
We started a tradition a few years back of going to the fair for family home evening. It is much less crowded on Monday night so the guys don't have to wait in long lines to get their massive curly chili cheese fry (a.k.a. a heart attack on a plate). We decided to split our eating up this year by visiting various kid attractions. The main reason we go to the fair is the food but we decided that we over did it last year so we enacted a new routine to help avoid this problem.
We started with a philly cheesesteak sandwich for Walter and Bradon. That firemens' booth makes a mean cheesesteak. We then moved to the animals. There are way too many animals for my liking so we stuck to the outskirts to avoid the smell and my son's need to touch EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL. After animals we hit up the funnel cake stand, then the pedal tractors/fake cow you can milk/old farm stuff that you can make music with section, then curly fries with chili and cheese thing, then the other kiddie tents with reptiles and music, then the kids karaoke stage and lastly, my amazing fair cinnamon roll. I wait all year for this thing. mmmmmm.

I think my favorite part of the fair was the karaoke stage. It was for kids 7 and under and little Walter had a blast. He was hesitant to get up at first until he heard two little boys sing the ABCs. Though I do sing the ABCs to him he doesn't really know them yet. He has a few favorite letters that he likes to repeat but on Monday night there was no telling him that he didn't know the song. Not only did he get on the stage in front of everyone to sing it but he got up multiple times and sang with conviction. It was really cute. Here are a few video of the ABCs and one if his drum solo.

This picture is just for Bradon. I convinced him to take a picture milking the cow because it would be cool to have it on the internet. I don't know if it is cool. but it is on the internet.

Beautiful Lengths

2008-09-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it. It took me two years but I finally grew my hair out long enough to donate it. I decided to donate the ponytail to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program because I only needed to donate 8 inches of hair. I ended up with a ponytail that is 9 inches that I will be mailing in. I am really happy with the hair style and I even decided to throw in some highlights. When you are going to donate your hair you can not color it so it has been at least 2.5 years since I colored or highlighted my hair. I was definitely ready for a change.
Here are some before and after pics for your viewing pleasure.
Before:

After:

I totally look thinner with short hair.

Pictures

2008-09-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is our new trampoline. Actually it is just the matress to the bed that will be going in the baby's room as a guest bed. However, for now it sits behind the front door and the boy can knock it over and jump on it. It is pretty fun.

Our little family on the Train Town U.S.A. mini train.

Feeding the animals at Train Town.

Riding the carousel. He liked it after the first few turns.

Feeding the ducks at the park.

Sticker time with mama. This is what happens when you leave me home alone with the kid all day. I need to entertain myself somehow.

Walter's 28th Birthday

2008-09-22T10:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday was Walter's 28th birthday. Wow, he's old. : )
We had a nice day together. It was Stake Temple day so we were able to go down to L.A. and attend the temple together. On the way back we ate at Claim Jumpers with Mom and the V's. We ate too much as usual but it was nice. The rest of the day we spent with little Walter since we hadn't seen him all day. We were pretty low key in the evening since we were a bit tired from all of the driving.
Sunday we went to church during the day and then had Walter's family over for dinner in the evening. Walter, being the non-conformist that he is, wanted pizza for dinner and pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. Sunday dinner is not usually a pizza kind of meal (I much prefer something like roast and mashed potatoes) but it was his birthday so he got to choose. We got tome papa murphy's take and bake on saturday night and cooked that up for everyone. For some reason we thought we would need 3 family size pizzas. Well, we were wrong and we now have and entire family size pizza worth of leftovers. Don't worry though, Walter won't let it go to waste. The cake was also quite lovely but of course he picked the one cake that you can't write "Happy Birthday" on.
Little Walter and Andi loved the birthday cake regardless of writing. Every time the two of them see a cake with candles on it they are convinced it is their brithday. Little Walter started blowing candles out while we were still trying light them and the to of them were super excited when we sang the happy birthday song. It didn't matter that we said "Happy Birthday, Dear Walter" because they were convinced we were singing to them. Walter was kind enough to let them help blow out his candles and upwrap his presents so that made their worlds a little brighter.
I am pretty sure Walter had a good birthday. I hope he did because he is a wonderful husband, father, priesthood holder, provider, friend and so many more things and he really does deserve the best.

Pregnancy Update

2008-09-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Not much to tell but I though I should record it just in case anyone was curious. I am a little over 18 weeks. I feel pretty good most of the time. I still don't really look pregnant which is a little annoying because I just look like I have put on a lot of weight right around the middle. It will be just a matter of time before I look back and think how nice the stage of pregnancy was, but for now I would just like some clothes that don't look silly on me. The diabetes thing is going fine. I did not end up needing insulin, at least not at this point. My doctor told me at my last appointment that if I were going to cheat that it is probably better to do it now while my sugar numbers are low. So, I have taken him up on that. I am not too bad but now and then I have a little cake or a cookie. Trust me, this is much better than the half dozen cookies I used to eat. And yes, I will be having a cinnamon roll at the fair tonight. : ) The only other news is that we are hoping to find out the gender this week. I am not holding my breath but it would be nice to know. If not this week I will find out on October 13. I think that is about it.

Napa Trip

2008-09-22T09:52:00.001-07:00

Let me start out by telling you that there will not be any pictures in this update because I am on the laptop and I am too lazy to get the pictures off the desktop and move them to this computer. I will add pictures later.
Now, to the update...Earlier this month the Walters and I went to Napa for the annual birthday trip. I am pretty sure I mentioned this trip last year, but in case you didn't know this is a trip we take every September to celebrate the family birthdays. My Grandpa's birthday is August 31, my Grandma's is Sept. 3, my mom's is Sept. 6 and Big Walter's is Sept. 20. Every year we head up north, have raviolis and malfottis for birthday dinner, eat too much cake, have pizza from my family's pizza shop, and open presents. Big Walter especially loves this trip because pizza and malfottis are two of his very favorite foods. They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and I agree. If you come to my house with good pizza and malfottis I can almost guarantee that Walter's heart would be bursting with love for you.
We did add something new to our trip this year. We took a trip to Train Town U.S.A. It was pretty fun. The have a miniature train that you ride around whole place. You cross mini bridges, ride past mini cabins with mini animals and eventually stop in a mini town with a petting zoo. Little Walter really liked the animals and even fed them some food. After a few minutes at the petting zoo we loaded back up in the train and rode back to the beginning. After our train ride we took the boy around to some of the amusement rides. He was scared of the rollercoaster but rode like a champ.
After Train Towm we made our way to the park where we were able to feed the ducks. It was so cute to watch the little guy throw the bread and get so excited when the ducks would come up to eat. The bread lasted longer than I thought and we had a really nice time.
The next day we made our way to church with my Great-Grandma and Great aunt and uncle and then drove home. It was a really nice trip. I don't love the drive and I certainly don't love sharing a bedroom with Little Walter, but all in all it was a very nice vacation.

Detestable Injectables?

2008-08-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

In case you have been wondering how we have been doing. We're fine. Little Walter is still full of energy and spent his morning harassing the other kids at play group. Yep, that was my boy locking people in the play house and having a slapping fight over a Care Bear. What can I say? I am pretty sure he gets it from his father.
For those of you that don't know I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I know many of you know because I find it calming to complain about it on a regular basis. This means that for the rest of my pregnancy (a mere 26 weeks or so) I will have to watch everything I eat and test my blood 4 times a day. I am allowed approximately zero good desserts. I can have anything sugar free, in moderation of course. Unfortunately, the sugar free desserts do not appeal to me at all. I have been trying them (ice cream, jello, pudding, etc.) and it isn't working. I also only get fruit the second half of my day. This isn't too bad but I would occasionally like a banana in the morning or maybe a peach, strawberries, anything. And, the hardest part of all is the lack of carbs. I get anywhere from 15 to 45 carbs depending on the meal or snack. Did you know that one serving of Freschetta frozen pizza in 48 carbs? A piece of bread is 20ish carbs which means a sandwich is 40ish carbs. That means that regular sandwiches are pretty much out.
It hasn't been fun or terribly easy but I am pulling through...I think. The bad part is that even though I have been good about my sugars and carbs, my sugars have still been high the last three mornings. I was told to keep up with my testing through the weekend and if they continue to be high then I will be put on injectable insulin next week. I am hoping that my pancreas will kick into gear and this won't be necessary but we shall see.
That is my latest update. Everything else is still right on track. I am still able to wear my normal jeans and at the end of the day, that makes me really happy. : )

The Rest

2008-08-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

I really intended to do this post earlier but well, I don't feel good. I am exhausted pretty much all the time and the nausea is about to kill me. But enough about my whining.
Here is the rest of vacation:

Some more beach action

A trip to the Morro Bay aquarium. Walter really liked these guys. The rest of the stuff scared him. I think this is mostly because it was so dark and the fish were half dead. I suppose you really get what you pay for (it was only $2 each).

Best investment we made on vacation...matching seals. Inexpensive and they didn't fight over them. Marvelous.

We (not me) had a rousing game of horseshoes at the beach.

Tuesday (I think) we took a trip to Pismo Beach where we had delicious cinnamon rolls and did a little shopping for sunglasses. We also walked the pier where my son kept trying to climb over the railing into the ocean.

In the evening we took another trip to the park. This time my son was trying to figure out how to steal some kid's car. He really was eyeing it.

Wednesday, Walter and some of the family took a trip to Hearst Castle. Since I had already been and I knew that Little Walter would take to it so well I decided to stay home with him.

Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember which, we took a walk and my son decided to climb on/dance with some rocks.

Thursday we took a trip to Cambria where I got a massive peanut cup. It made me quite happy, if you couldn't tell.

And, afterward we drove to the sea lion place. I am not sure what it is called but I am sure most of you have heard about it. It is the place where something like 10,000 sea lions come each year as they migrate. This picture is Walter pinching a sea lion.

The last day we took a family picture in this big patch of ivy. Luckily, we all made it out without poison oak or ivy.
The end of the trip was the long drive home and all of the laundry and unpacking. We didn't get pictures of that because it isn't very exciting.
The End.

Vacation

2008-07-22T09:53:00.001-07:00

**I will break the vacation recap into multiple posts because it was a long week.**

We had our annual Ray Family vacation last week. It was wonderful to be able to get away for a week. It was especially nice for me because I have been REALLY tired and quite sick at times due to this pregnancy so I actually got to relax.

As soon as we got unpacked we headed down to the water. I always worry how Little Walter will take to new experiences and it seems that every time I think he will dislike something he does the exact opposite. The beach was no different. I was sure that water would be too cold, the waves too big, the sand too um, sandy. But, no. He loved it. It was like pulling teeth to get him to go back to the house.

Saturday was more beach going. Some of the guys even tried skin boarding. I don't think it went as well as they had hoped but it was sure entertaining for those watching.

Doesn't Walter look skilled???

In the evening we headed to the park. The weather was amazing during the weekend and we were actually able to enjoy the park, which didn't happen later in the week. The boys played soccer, the kids played on the toys, and I took pictures. I took so many pictures, in fact, that I forgot that I had even participated in a lot of the activities. There is very little photographic proof of my existence on vacation. I guess that is what happens when you spend all of your time behind the camera. I guess I need to master the skill of taking pictures of myself.

If you look closely you can see what appears to be Aunt Lisa playing a little soccer. She's got moves.

Here is Morro Rock in case you forgot what it looks like.

This kid cracks me up.

Sunday we went to church and tried going to the tide pools in the evening. Unfortunately, the tide was too high so we didn't get to see anything.

Hey, look. It's me.

That is pretty much the end of the weekend. I will start the rest of the week when I have a little more energy to write.

Okay, I will give you one more picture. I find this one pretty funny. Big Walter has his thinking face on. This wouldn't normally be funny except that he was the one taking the picture and he was concentrating so hard on getting everyone in pic that he forgot that he would be in it too. Thus you see the thinking tongue.

The New Baby

2008-07-22T09:48:00.001-07:00

In case you haven't heard yet we are having another baby. I had an ultrasound done yesterday which put the due date at February 27. We got a picture at the ultrasound(which I will post if I ever figure out how to scan it). We are pretty sure that this baby looks just like me; it has a really big head and little tiny arms and legs. Just like me, right? : )
Yes, I know that is reality the arms and legs will grow and it will probably come out looking exactly like Walter. That is what happens around here.

4th of July

2008-07-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

A little rundown of the Fourth of July:

Woke up
Worked in yard
Took nap
Headed to Mom and Dad Ray's
Had BBQ and swimming
Realized we forgot the camera
Thought "Darn, I was supposed to post pictures of the 4th on the blog"
Quit caring about the camera and ate more potato salad
Boys built the TOWER OF FIRE (Brittany has a pic on her blog)
Had our own fireworks show
Kids nearly caught each other on fire with sparklers
Watched the BC fireworks
Thrilled that the kids loved the fireworks
Went home and to bed

That was pretty much it. I was worried that Little Walter would be frightened of the fireworks but he wasn't at all. That was quite a relief.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

2008-06-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything specific to talk about, nor do I have any one event that has been particularly blog worthy. So, for this reason, I am going to put up a bunch of recent pictures and tell you what they are. How does that sound?
Here we go:

I got home from date night a a week or so ago and found a couple pictures like this on my camera. I always have to be afraid when someone from the Villanueva household finds my camera because pictures like this (the hold-the-camera-yourself-self-portrait) become inevitable.

I made strawberry-apricot jam and it is MARVELOUS. The first jar made it two whole weeks. I am pretty impressed. Yes, I know I am dressed in ill-fitting, jelly-covered clothes and that my hair looks bad. It is my jelly making outfit. Sorry.

Kate (who now walks in case you were interested) had her first birthday party. Walter was kind enough to eat a large part of the frosting off her cake. He is such a helper. A messy, messy helper.

Little Walter found his monkey pajama top in his drawer and made me put it on over his clothes. Apparently it is some sort of monkey/banana sport coat. Nice.

We are trying to transition Little Walter to a big boy bed. The first step of the transition was to lower the rails on his crib. This way he gets the freedom of getting out of bed but still has the familiarity of his crib. Well, as everyone might expect it hasn't been perfect. I found him stuck behind his door a few days ago and this morning he was up and in my room at 5:30am. Not good. We locked him in his room until 7am. Much better.

I just think this pic is funny and gross. We had spaghetti for dinner last night and about half way through his meal he got something in his eye so he had to rub it. hehe.

That is pretty much it for now. There are some things coming up that I hope to get pictures of. Note to self...Must remember camera.

Upcoming events: Family vacation, finishing the backyard, finishing the front bedroom, Little Walter's birthday, Girls Camp, and hopefully some family pictures. Hopefully I will be posting about some of these things soon because that means a) I remembered the camera and b) I actually got stuff done. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Poor, Poor Walter

2008-06-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

More than once this past few weeks my poor husband has been forced to sit and read a book in the evening instead of enjoying my company. Why, you may ask, do I not visit with my husband in the evenings? Well, here is why...

It is really sad, but I just love it. I hope he gets on the bandwagon soon so he can join in my fun.

A New Do

2008-06-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

Walter and I gave little Walter a hair cut the other day. I think he looks quite handsome so I thought I would share.
Before:

Oh, and that second picture is a darn cute pic of him sleeping.
After:

Well, what do you think? I know it is short, but it is not nearly HUGE and PUFFY. Oh, and it is adorably when I put gel in it.

Park Hoppers

2008-06-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

Our ward (more specifically Laura Pollock, the new enrichment leader) recently organized a park day each week for the moms and their kids. I can not tell you how much I needed this park time. We go out on Thursday mornings and the kids get to play while the moms get to visit. I love the adult interaction, Little Walter loves the toys and playing with the other kids, and Kate enjoys eating stuff off the ground. Finding stuff on the ground to eat is one of her finest talents. If anyone wants to join us we meet on Thursdays.

Strange Habits

2008-06-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone else will find this funny, but I do. My son has some strange habits that crack me up. One of these is that he REALLY like his toys/magnets in straight lines. I walked into the kitchen the other day to find the refridgerator magnets like this:

And, in case you wanted a close up:

I just love that little boy and all of his quirks.

Baby Chickens

2008-05-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Recently, our neighbor got four baby chicks. I am not sure why, eggs maybe? Anyway, she has these chicks and asked if I wanted to bring the boy by to see them. We usually have extra time during the week so I brought him and Kate by on Wednesday. They both had a good time and I was impressed with how gentle they were. Kate did try to pull the leg off of one chick but it survived.

Ever since we went to the neighbors' Walter has been asking for chickens. We can not leave the house without a request for chickens. I am glad that he liked them and we will probably try to get over to see them again soon. I don't think he will enjoy it if we wait too long since they grow pretty quickly and big chickens aren't nearly as cuddly as baby chicks.

Memorial Day and More Backyard

2008-05-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I seem to have started a nasty habit of not taking my camera with me when I go places. For that reason you will not get any current pics. Sorry.

Well, the long weekend started last Thursday for me. I still had to take care of the kids and Walter still had to work but we were celebrating so it sort of counts as the weekend. Anyway, last Thursday was my birthday. Yep, the big 27. Thursday was fairly average except I got some presents from family and friends and a gigantic birthday banner on my garage door from the birthday fairies (Emma, Asher & Renee). Oh, and I had many calls with people singing the birthday song. I love my family and friends but they need to work on their singing skills.

Friday, Renee and I headed down to Burbank to pick Alexis up at the airport. No one knew she was coming so it was fun to be in on the surprise. After we collected Alexis and her stuff we went to Steve and Barry's to do some clothes shopping. All I wanted for my birthday from Walter were some new clothes so I was able to add to my wardrobe a bit.

Friday night we had a birthday dinner at the Elephant Bar and then saw the new Indiana Jones movie. If you haven't seen it yet I don't want to ruin it but I will just say that it was interesting. It was Indiana Jones meets Star Trek meets X-files meets Tarzan. If you have seen it, do you think it was a bit weird?

Saturday we finished the fence around the pond. My backyard is now pretty child proof. No drowning babies at my house. I can not tell you what a relief it is to know that I can let my child into the backyard and not be afraid that he will end up in the pond. We also made our way to Rosemary's for some birthday ice cream which was lovely.

Sunday we went to church where little Walter was fairly well behaved until the end of Sacrament meeting when he decided that he needed to throw himself on the floor and scream at the top of his lungs. That evening we had dinner at the V's and dessert with Mom and Dad Ray.

Monday Walter didn't have to work because of the Memorial Day holiday. We worked around the house a bit and then took the boy on a walk to the cemetery near our house. They put flags at the headstones of every person who served in the military and then large flags lining the roads. It is really a beautiful sight and it is amazing to see how many people have served our country. We tried to explain the purpose of the holiday and all of the flags to the boy but I don't think he quite got it yet, obviously. But we can continue to go each year and he will eventually understand. His favorite part of the whole experience was the memorial benches that he could climb on. Not exactly peaceful and reverent but he had fun.

Monday night we went to Mom and Dad Ray's for a memorial day/birthday BBQ. It was a lot of fun spending the evening with family and friends and the food was delicious. I love summer barbecues with the potato salad, watermelon, burgers, etc. I also love that my birthday was still being celebrated 4 days later.

I think Memorial day pretty much rings in the start of summer and I love it. Now we just need to purchase a kiddie pool and we are all set.

Family Fun at Knott's

2008-05-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we attended Walter's company picnic at Knott's Berry Farm. We would have had an absolutely marvelous time if not for the 100 degree weather. I find it amazing that the terribly hot weather waited for us. Did you know that next weekend it is only supposed to be 72 degrees at Knott's? Did you also know that Knott's does not have misters? That water is $3.77 a bottle? That the one water ride where you actually get wet was closed this weekend? Well, enough about my complaining...

We had a really nice time. We (the Walters, Bradon and I) went down the night before and stayed at the Knott's Berry Farm hotel. We had fun swimming and the boys got to go play basketball in the morning before we headed to the park. I really liked going early and not having to make both legs of the drive in one day.
After we checked out of the hotel we headed to breakfast and then to the park. Little Walter spent about 2 hours during the day napping so that threw off our plans a little but we made due. We rode several rides between the boy's naps. We hit up the ferris wheel, the train and the race cars together. I rode the log ride and Walter went on two of the big coasters during our "you watch the boy so I can ride" times. I don't remember Knott's having so many big coasters but they were great. Of course I probably wouldn't remember considering the last time I was there was about 18 years ago. I had a really fun day with the guys and I am glad we went. I think we will hold off a little while before we go amusement park hopping with the boy, but this little experience was just enough for him and us.

We are now trying to catch back up on out sleep since my kid is fairly horrible when it comes to sleeping at hotels. I love him to death but he needs his own bedroom.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Mother's Day Sod

2008-05-12T11:19:00.001-07:00

Yep, that's right. I got Mother's Day sod in my back yard. Walter and I worked Saturday and got all of the sod laid and it looks marvelous. I really want to go roll in it. Unfortunately, you can't walk on it for a couple days so I guess rolling is probably out too.
The back yard is coming along nicely. We have the border in and the patio done (the picture isn't the best of the patio but I will get another one later), the shed in put up and we have started on the fence around the pond. The white posts you see in the yard are for the fence.
The grass and back yard weren't the only great parts of Mother's Day. In fact, the whole day was lovely. Little Walter slept in until 8am, then Walter made me breakfast and then he and the boy gave me a beautiful new watch that I have been eyeing. After that we headed to church where my kid actually behaved during Sacrament meeting. That was almost magical.
After church we handed out the Mother's Day cakes that we sold as a fundraiser for Young Women's camp. We ended up selling almost 230 cakes. I couldn't believe how well it went. This past week I backed over 200 cakes and am now done with baking cake for, I don't know, the rest of my life. Little Walter was a great help with cleaning up the frosting beaters for me.

For dinner we headed to the Villanueva's and had a lovely meal with their family. There were lots of kids which kept little Walter quite busy.
Now it is Monday and my fun is over and I am back to the same old, same old.
I hope everyone else had a lovely Mother's Day.

A love of Books

2008-05-01T13:19:00.001-07:00

Lately, Little Walter has been taking books to bed with him. Every night we read two books before bed. He then grabs a book or two as we are scooping him up and putting him into bed. He is a great sleeper so I don't complain about his weird desire to have things, like books, when he falls asleep.
Well today he took this weird quirk to new heights. I just took him in to put him down for his nap and found not one, not two, but 13 books, a bottle of lotion and a pair of dirty socks in his bed.
I had to draw the line somewhere so I gave him his stuffed dog and took the rest of the stuff out. I wish I had the batteries for my camera (they are in the diaper bag that we left at Mom & Dad Ray's) so that I could take a picture of his bed full of stuff.
I suppose I can't complain too much. At least he loves books.

R.I.P.

2008-04-23T21:13:00.001-07:00

(Not actually Nemo Goldfish. Photo courtesy of Flickr.)

Rest in peace Nemo Goldfish. With us for a short time but, um...well, in our hearts forever? Okay, maybe not. However, the tank is a little less exciting without you.

Nemo Goldfish
12/07-4/23/08

Tagged

2008-04-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

So Debbie "Dweebie" Austin tagged me a while back so I thought I would take care of that.

What were you doing 5 Years Ago?
1)April 2003. I was getting ready to graduate Cal State. Dating Walter.

What are 5 Things On Your To-do List Today:
1) Clean the front room AGAIN.
2) Finish the dishes.
3) Have dinner with the Walters and Kate
4) Get everything ready for the Missionary dinner (Mutual) tonight.
5) Attend Mutual

Name 5 Snacks That You Enjoy:
1) Cold cereal
2) Wheat Thins
3) Chocolate chip cookies
4) Strawberries
5) Bread

Name 3 Bad Habits You Have:
1) I hate folding laundry and put it off as long as possible.
2) Watching TV at night instead of heading to bed.
3) Not drinking enough water.

If you were a billionaire...
1)Pay off the truck and mortgage
2)or maybe sell the truck and house and move to Spain
3)Make sure mine & Walter's families have a comfy retirement
4)Set up a college fund for Little Walter
5)Buy lots of clothes and shoes

List 5 places You've Lived:
1) Napa, CA
2) Sherman Oaks, CA
3) Van Nuys, CA
4) SW Bakersfield
5) NE Bakersfield

List 5 Jobs That You've Had
1) Front desk/towel washer- Exertec Gym in Napa
2) Shift Leader- Golden Bagel Cafe in Napa
3) Intermural Volleyball Ref at CSUB
4) Payroll Tech at CSUB Extended University
5) Mom and Kate watcher

List 5 Things That People Don't Know About You:
1) I bit my fingernails until I was 24.
2) I eat more cold cereal than most people I know.
3) My family owns a pizza shop so we get free pizza everytime we go to Napa.
4) My minor in college was Criminal Justice. Profiling serial killers was my favorite class.
5) I love to grocery shop. It is relaxing to me.

Wow. That was harder than I thought. If there is anyone who hasn't done this and wants to...consider yourself tagged.

Watching Buboff

2008-04-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

We have been a little busy lately so I actually have a few stories to share. On Thursday the 17th Walter and I went to see Wicked. It was wonderful. There was an understudy playing the part of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and she was AMAZING. There was something about her singing voice that was awe inspiring. Mom and Dad Ray got the tickets for me for my birthday and I am so grateful. Walter didn't even hate it. I was a little worried about that at first, but he was good about it. I think his favorite part of the whole night was dinner. We ate at a restaurant called La Paella. It was an authentic Spanish restaurant in L.A. We ate too much for our own good but it was delicious.

Click this link to hear Teal Wicks singing "Defying Gravity". http://youtube.com/watch?v=DOA-XmmfHEI

Walter has been doing a lot of work in the backyard and it is coming along quite nicely. He has had a lot of help lately so that has been really nice. He has had his Dad, Grandpa Crowley, Uncle Don, Bradon and cousins Kurt and Kyle. This weekend, while the Crowley side of the family was here in Bakersfield, the guys got the last of the yard cleaned out, the ground roto-tilled and smoothed and the yard looking all-together fabulous. The ground is so smooth now. I can't wait to get the grass in. Here are a few pictures of the crew working.

Last night we had my Mother-in-Law's surprise 50th birthday party. There were a lot of people there to celebrate with us and I think, for once, the surprise was actually pulled off. The food was delicious and the decorations were marvelous if I say so myself. The only down side were the blisters I got from my new shoes. Oh well, it is the price you pay for cute shoes sometimes. I would but up some pictures from the party but I forgot to take the camera out of little Walter's backpack. Oops.

Lastly, the latest little boy happenings...He has been really enthralled with Rudolph (a.k.a. Buboff, Weewoff and my personal favorite, Momoff) and Frosty the Snowman videos. I guess he doesn't quite get the concept of "Christmas" videos yet. I enjoy a nice Frosty the Snowman video as well but I try to save them for the month of December. He also started saying "Cheese!" for the camera. I have been working on this for a while and he would never do it. That was until yesterday. I was outside taking pictures of the backyard and he sees me taking pictures and stands in front of me saying "Cheese!", "Cheese!". Unfortunately, he wasn't in view of the camera when he was saying it but at least he got the idea that camera=cheese! I few minutes later I did get him to repeat it so we got this picture.

He is just too cute for words. Oh, and the dog he is holding now goes EVERYWHERE with him. The poor thing is so dirty but he loves it.

Easter and Stuff

2008-04-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

On April 20-22 we took a family vacation to San Francisco. We realized that we rarely do things like this (where we get to run away for a long weekend) so we thought we would give it a try. We had a really nice time. Our hotel was about 2 blocks from Ghiradelli Square and about ¼ mile from Pier 39. We tried to see all of the local sights, while still leaving time for naps.
I think Little Walter’s favorite part was the Aquarium of the Bay. We ended up going twice because it was such a nice activity for him. We also made a trip to Golden Gate park where he was able to play with the 15,000 other kids. I am exaggerating of course, but I couldn’t believe how many kids there were. Maybe it is because I am a big fan of personal space but it didn’t seem to bother anyone else. Oh well, the little guy had a great time.
After we left S.F. we headed to Napa to visit my family. We had a really good visit and a wonderful Easter. Little Walter had a great time looking for Easter eggs. He never ceases to amaze me. I was convinced that he wouldn’t look for the eggs but didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else. Well, how wrong was I? He was running all over the yard. Granted, the eggs weren’t exactly hidden, more like tossed on the lawn, but he still did well.
In house related news, we are working on the backyard. By we I mean Walter only at this point. We have all of the trees out that we plan to remove, we have put down the stuff to kill the grass and weeds, the sprinkler lines are in out back and we will get the ones on the side in this weekend. Walter will sod cut while I am at the Temple with the youth on Saturday. Then next week we will get the sod removed, put in a cement border, put up a fence around the pond and seed the yard. Once the grass is growing (at least 2-3 weeks) we will put plants in bordered area, put up a back fence, put in a shed out back. Then eventually get around to putting up a porch railing on the back porch, building planter boxes for a garden and adding swings to the climbey, slide thing.
Oh, and I want to send a big internet high-five to Thad and Britt on the future baby. I am so proud of myself for keeping the secret. I rock. Oh, and I guess you guys do too.

Spring Has Sprung

2008-03-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

The weather lately has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL. In the Upper 70s the last few days. I love when the weather is like this because I can go outside and enjoy it without getting too hot. It also means that it is shorts weather. I have been wearing shorts lately but I will not be posting pictures of that because the glowing whiteness of my legs is a little frightening. Maybe I will have a few pictures involving myself in a few weeks if I can get a little tan.

I have been taking little Walter outside every day. He totally loves it. He is still going around the yard picking up any rocks he can find and throwing them in to the pond. Unfortunately, he sometimes throws rocks that he shouldn't throw (like the rocks that build the sides of the waterfall) but I fish them out and we are good again. He has also taken to throwing leaves, sticks, dirt and the occasional stuffed animal in the pond. That would be why his teddy bear is currently in the washing machine.

The other thing I love about spring is the flowers. I tend to have what you might call a black thumb. I can't make a plant grow but I can kill just about anything for you. Since we have had our house I have gone through hundreds of dollars worth of plants. I plant them, they grow for a while and then they take a nose-dive. So, I thought I might try bulbs this year. They seem a little heartier. I planted tulips and two other things. I can't remember what the other things are, but I planted them. I have been checking on them every day in hopes that they might actually grow. I had set a goal for myself that if 10% of the bulbs would come out of the ground I would feel like I succeeded. Well, today I reached my goal. 9 out of 86 bulbs have come up. Granted, they are only little pointy green things sticking about 1/2 inch out of the ground, but they at least came up a little bit. I can not tell you how excited I am. I included a couple of pictures of my bulbs(the first pic and the one below) and the last picture is of my blue potato bush flowers. We have had this bush since shortly after we moved into our house over three years ago. I have butchered this thing so many times. It only grows on the left side of the plant and some of the branches might look a little droopy, but it can still grow flowers.

Oh, and in case you doubt my plant growing abilities. Here is a picture of "The Great Tomato Harvest" of 2006. This is all I got before the plant died.

Especially for You

2008-03-06T16:49:00.001-08:00

By "you" I mean Cameron and Kelsie. Kels has been bugging me for weeks about getting a video of the boy talking. Since he loves the viewing window on the camera this task has been tough. He just wants to see himself. Well, today I gave it another shot. I was hoping to get more talking out of him but he, well, distracted me. When you get to the end of the video you will see why I couldn't get any further.

Cameron and Kelsie, try not to take his actions personally. I am sure he thinks higher of you than this. : )

New Games

2008-03-06T16:44:00.000-08:00

As little Walter gets older he gets more creative. It has made my life easier since he can now find his own toys to play with and can use his own imagination.

I have always heard parents say that the best toys are the random things around your house that you don't buy for the kids. Well, this just goes to prove this point. Our favorite new toy............. the box from the garbage bags.

** In case you didn't notice, the second picture is actually the boy falling over his 4-wheeler. That is what happens when you try to walk with a box on your head.

Cough, Hack, Whine, Puke, Poop- not necessarily in that order

2008-02-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let you know that there has been a little sickness going around our house. I started it all. Yeah me. I am sure I wasn't actually the first to ever get this horrible, hacking, phlegm-filled junk but I was the first in my house, unfortunately. I have been sick since Monday night, little Walter and big Walter were sick by Wednesday with different ailments. Little Walter get what I have and is still suffering. Big Walter had some stomach thing that tortured him for a few days but is now gone.

I am still waiting for this cough to leave me alone. I am just thankful that my friendly neighborhood pharmacist was kind enough to deliver some cough syrup with codeine. Magic, pure magic.

The worst part of all of this was last night when there was an incident involving a certain 18-month-old, a bath tub, some poop (not mine) and a lot of freaking out (mine). I will not go into details for your sake and mine but I will leave you with a warning. For those of you who don't have kids or haven't had a sick kid yet, you need to know that administering regular doses of Tylenol and Motrin can cause a few, um, bottom problems. It won't always, but it can. This is just a warning; do with it as you please. Well, I am now going to go have codeine-induced nightmares about last night.

Oh, and trust me, you don't want pics in this post.

Halloween to Now

2008-02-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

Um, Hi! So I have gotten reports from some of you that you are displeased with my frequency in updating the blog. I would like to promise, as I have in the past, that I will be better at this. But, let’s get real here. I am terrible at this timely updating. I will give it my best effort but will not promise you anything as I don’t really want to get your hopes up. Then I would feel just terrible when I neglect to update for a while and you are all heart-broken. I know, that would be likely to happen.

Well, now for that update you have been wanting. Since I haven’t updated since before Halloween I guess I could start there. Walter was the Kool-aid man, little Walter was a monkey and I was “Thing 2” from Dr. Seuss (Renee was “Thing 1” and our shirts were quite cute). My parents came to town and we all attended the ward Halloween party. The party was a huge success and I made my first batch of Galyan dogs. For those of you that don’t know about Galyan dogs, they are the best hot dogs around. With explicit directions from Sister Galyan about preparation I set out on my maiden hot dog voyage. I wouldn’t say that they were quite as wonderful as Sister Galyan makes them but they were pretty good and all 100 were eaten.

Next, we come to November. I am sure it was a lovely month but I can’t remember too much right now. I know we did Thanksgiving in Rialto before Thanksgiving Day and that was a lot of fun. We (Thad, Brittany, Andi, Walter, Little Walter, and myself) all went to “A Day Out With Thomas” where we got to take a short train ride on a replica Thomas the Tank Engine. It was pretty fun. I wouldn’t necessarily say that is was worth the money, nor will I say that I am inclined to do it again, but it was a good experience all in all and I now have pictures of the event. These pictures will be used for years to come so that I can tell my son that we did take him to Thomas once, we love him enough to make that journey, and just because we was too young to remember it is not my fault. He can just look at the pictures when he is older and make up the details.
We also had Thanksgiving in Bakersfield on Thanksgiving Day. I was in charge of the relish tray which turned in to a relish tray, salami filled with cream cheese, devilled eggs and two cheese balls. We already had a ton of food so I don’t think we needed the hors deourvs extravaganza but we did it anyway and I have no regrets about my caloric intake.
Now, on to December. There was a lot of eating. I could almost stop there but I won’t. We had a FHE activity with the young married couples in the ward. It was a potluck and I ate too much. Then we had Walter’s company party where I ate too much Indian food and about killed myself with the spices (They said it was mild. Yeah right). Then there was Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, Christmas breakfast at my grandparents’ (a.k.a. the breakfast meatstravaganza that included a large cookie sheet full of bacon and two types of sausage) and finally the Christmas dinner. Oh, and how could I forget New Years eve when we had Korean food with Alexis. At least Renee and I shared on New Years Eve. I guess that helped a little.

If you haven’t guessed, we went to Napa for Christmas this year. The pictures that you see to the left are the boy running through the grapevines in my parents front yard. It is so pretty there. It was a nice trip and Little Walter was spoiled again. That kid has so many toys. Of course Walter and I didn’t help considering we got him a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine. He really didn’t need it but we thought it was cool. Not practical, but cool.

Let’s see how much of January I can remember… We put new windows in the house. That was good. Oh and in December we put in extra insulation. Our house is nice and toasty. What else??? Oh, I got the flu. Terrible stuff. The good news for the month is that Little Walter started attending nursery after the start of the year. What an amazing thing nursery is. I love it. I can actually listen during Sunday school now. I am sure other stuff happened in January but I have tired myself out thinking about the other months and now I can’t remember. Hmmm.

February has been lovely so far. I have been working outside in the yard the last couple of days because it has been beautiful here. I made the aforementioned rolls. Kate rolled over for the first time. We knew she could do it and I am pretty sure she has been rolling over for months but just never let us see. She is like that. Little Walter has still been great with Kate. He really loves her and is kind to her, which I love.

So, is that enough of an update? If you made it this far I am very impressed. Ta ta for now.

Still Not an Update

2008-02-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

This isn't the post that I have been working on but I was too excited to keep this to myself. Are you ready??? Okay, I made homemade rolls for the first time. I even used my bread maker to mix the dough. It was awesome. I am like a domestic goddess.

I got the bread maker at my wedding and this is only the second time it has been used. Unfortunately, the first time I used it things didn't go so well so it went back in to the cabinet for a few more years.

I think this might be the start of something big. Probably just the making of more rolls, but that is pretty big for me.

Pffft!!!

2008-02-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

I had the hardest time signing in to this thing. Anyway, I wanted to put your minds at ease and tell you that I am working on an update. It will be loooooooooooooooooong since I have a lot of time to catch up on. I have Halloween, November and early December accounted for so far.

I know you arae all on the edge of your seat and it should be coming shortly.

This Might Take a While.

2007-10-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

I keep getting requests for a blog update. I promise that I don’t really do anything cool, at least I don’t think it is cool enough to write about. I guess that is my problem. My day to day life doesn’t excite me all that much so I assume that it wouldn’t excite anyone else either. I could be wrong.
I will try my best to recap the last month and a half for you in the next few paragraphs.
We have been working a lot on the house. The new AC/heating unit is in. I love it. I have only had to use it a few times because it is supposed to be 80 degrees on Halloween so we don’t really require much in the way of heat yet. We ordered our new windows also. I had a nearly four week long fight with Home Depot in order to get my 20% discount that I was supposed to get in the beginning. It was a mess, but I won. The windows should be delivered in the next week or two. As for when they will be installed…I don’t know. But at least we will have them when we are ready to put them in. We took down the large bookcase in our living room and put our new computer armoire in its place. I really live the armoire and I am glad that I could get the computer out of my bedroom. Walter and Thad replaced the wiring in a good portion of the house. It was the old cloth wiring that was just a fire waiting to happen. Luckily, it is now replaced and we don’t have to worry about our house burning down. We took the heater out of the wall that was between the baby’s room and the guest room and replaced the wall. It still needs to be plastered and painted but at least it is a solid wall now and we don’t have the weird paneling that we used to have in the babies room. I think that is it for the house except for a few minor changes. I would put pictures up but nothing that is completed is really picture worthy. Do you want me to take a picture of the wiring? Maybe a nice pic of the air conditioner? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
The little boy is doing wonderful. He is talking like crazy. I love the he is getting to the point that he can actually ask me for things that he wants. It is always such a struggle when they don’t speak and you are trying to play a game of charades with a little person that isn’t very good with their hands. He is pretty good at both English and Spanish. Well, he is as good as you can be for a 15 month old. When I get a chance I will write down all of the words that he knows. He also started putting words together to make mini sentences. This doesn’t seem like a big accomplishment but it is a milestone for babies. He is still walking around like crazy. He has started to run now as well. He thinks he is soooooo fast. And, his new favorite game is peek-a-boo. The only problem is that he covers his ears instead of his eyes. He really thinks you can’t see him. It is hilarious. He will also try to say peek-a-boo but he isn’t very good. It sounds more like bee-boo.
The other big change is the addition of Baby Kate to our daytime routine. For those of you that don’t know who Kate is, she is Corinne’s little girl. For those of you who don’t know who Corinne is, she works with Walter and Renee, she is Laurel Kowssar’s daughter-in-law (Laurel is in our ward), she was the camp nurse at Girl’s Camp for a couple years, and so on. I am sure there are other connections I could make, but it is late and I am a bit short on ideas. Anyway, Kate is 4.5 months old. She is a good baby and Little Walter loves her. He gives her hugs and kisses ALL THE TIME. She is really good with tolerating his affections most of the time. Occasionally, she gets a little tired of him but it usually takes 10-15 hugs/kisses before she gets fed up. Little Walter also tries to help her but ends up sabotaging her more than anything else. For example, he likes to take her pacifier and hand it to me. It doesn’t matter that he had to take it out of her mouth. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t lose it. Sweet, right?
Well, I think that is about it. We are all doing well. The two baby thing is tricky but we are figuring it out okay. As always, I will try to be better at updating. But, as always, I might just fail at that.
P.S. Little Walter is going to be a monkey for Halloween, I will be “thing 2” from Dr. Seuss and Walter will be something that has yet to be determined. I will take some pics.

This is a picture of the rash that the baby had a few weeks back. It was an allergic reaction to something unknown. It was quite scary.

He is pretty hard core with he saggy pants. I guess this is supposed to work better with boxers than a diaper. Whatever.

This is Walter and baby Kate. They quite like one another.

One day he wouldn't get out of his crib and wanted every one of his stuffed animals in with him.

Forget that saggy pants thing. The saggy diaper is totally hip. I was sewing a button back on his shirt and since his shirt was off he kept trying to take off his pants as well. Unfortunately, the diaper came with it.

The guys in their Big Guy/ Little Guy shirts.

We like to call this one blue steel. There is more to life than being really, really ridiculously good looking.

The Walker

2007-09-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I am a little sore today so I won't write much. First Brittany tried to kill me with pilates yesterday morning, then Renee tried to kill me with a nearly hour long walk last night. They're crazy.

Anyway, here is a video of Walter walking. Now you can see for yourselves. The rest are just a few recent pics.

Walter decided he wanted to eat a roma tomato. The problem is that he wanted to eat it whole.

Yes, he is crawling with one hand in each cake pan. He lifts his legs, but scoots his hands across the ground so he doesn't lose whatever it is he is holding.

Here he is walking on his knees. It looks a little painful to me but he will put his hands up and walk around on his knees.

He has discovered a new love of boxes. They are the greatest toy. he decided to plop himself right down in my box from target. Target box=cheap toy. Love it.

Done!

2007-09-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

Walter finished his MBA. Yahoo!!! That is the big news with us lately. He finished his classes last Thursday and did really well. He got an A and an A- on his two classes this quarter. I am very proud. He won’t get the actual diploma for a few weeks because they make sure he is done before they send those out, but he is done. His transcripts even say so. Now we are just trying to figure out if he is going to go back to school again.
I know, I know. Why would the guy with the MBA want to go back again? Well, he doesn’t really want to go back, but it might be a great career move if he does. He is looking in to two different programs. The one at CSUB is the “Master’s in Public Administration-Health Care Management” and the one at University of LaVerne is “Master’s in Health Administration”. He is going to find out if either of the programs will accept classes from the MBA as electives and then he won’t have to take as many classes. I think the program that accepts the most classes might be the one we go with. Who would want to be in school longer than necessary? Not Walter.
The reason he wants to go back is because he will need this degree to move up the ranks in the Hospital system. He could do well with degrees he has but couldn’t be the big boss. Since all of the big bosses will be retiring in the next 5-10 years he will have some opportunities to move up and wouldn’t want to get passed up just because he doesn’t have this degree.
It is all still up in the air, but we will let you know as things come to fruition.
Little Walter is doing well. He hasn’t graduated from anything, but we are still proud. He is talking more and more. We went to the grocery store yesterday and he kept asking for “ball, ball, ball, ball, ball” while pointing at the balloons. I didn’t realize he cared about balloons, but I guess he does. Cookie is still his favorite word. However, I think that is mainly because everything he wants to eat is a cookie. Pudding=cookie, goldfish crackers=cookie, graham crackers=cookie, kiwi=cookie. Since we don’t usually know what cookie means we just let him crawl over to the pantry and pick something out. That is much easier than picking up each item to see if he shakes his head at it.
He still isn’t walking much. He is getting better and is becoming steadier on his feet, but he just doesn’t want to walk around. He still walks to you if you are close by and will walk between pieces of furniture, but that is about it. I think he has turned his energy from walking to yelling. He won’t walk for you but he will scream at you. It is usually in a loud, high-pitched screech. Lots of fun.
Now for the Stefanie update. I am now unemployed. That is the reason that I am updating. I actually have time. The last few weeks I have been at the office almost every day. I would work in the office in the mornings, take care of the boy, take care of the house and a days worth of chores, run a full day worth of errands, make dinner, etc. in the few hours I had in the afternoon plus I would still do work from home. It was tiring, but it is now over. I feel so much less stress now that I don’t have to check e-mail and voicemail constantly. My biggest issue now if trying to workout a routine that doesn’t involve work. Friday was my first non-work day and it was great. I actually got chores done. I never thought I would be so excited about chores.
Not much else and no picture to share. We set up our new computer and I don’t know if it has the software for the camera on it. I will put up a post with pictures soon.

Feeding the Cravings

2007-08-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

I decided to be a good wife and get the laundry done this afternoon. Our washer and dryer are in the garage so I have to distract the baby for a second and run out the door before he can catch me in order to accomplish this task. He always follows me and usually stands at the door in the kitchen that leads outside knocking until I come back in.

Today, however, was a little different. I went outside and he followed me to the door as usual. He yelled and knocked for a few seconds and then he was silent. Upon my return to the kitchen I found him partaking of a little tasty treat that we had just thrown out. He really is gross.

Happy Birthday, Baby!!!

2007-07-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

Today is Walter IV's first birthday. I can not believe it has already been a year. He seems to have done well so far this year so we think we might keep him. : )

Here are a few pics from his birthday party. It was just a small affair with the family. Too bad that ended up being 23 people. I guess I should resign myself to the fact that we will never do anything small. I will admit it is more fun to have all of the people around.

The next two pics are not from the party but they are recent and cute.

Vaca and Other Stuff

2007-07-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

It has, once again, been a LONG time since I have posted. In the last month we have had July 4th, I quit my job with Weight Watchers (My last day at CSUB will be Aug. 30), we went on family vacation, Walter got his grad check back and he will graduate Aug. 29, the baby is working on 2 more teeth, the baby also had his first real illness and went to the ER, and today my parents are on their way to Bakersfield and we will have Little Walter's first birthday party tomorrow. There was some other stuff mixed in there as well but when you only post once a month it make it easy to forget.

This month has been pretty busy but a ton of fun. This was Little Walter's first fourth of July. He enjoyed most of the fireworks but fell asleep toward the end. How do you fall asleep during a fireworks show? I still haven't figured that one out, but he did it.

On the 6th Kelsie and Cameron got to California. We didn't see them until the 7th when we were all down in LA to go to the Temple with Bobby for his first time. It was great to have the whole family there. The Temple is so peaceful and beautiful that you can easily forget that you are in the heart of Los Angeles.

On the 10th we took family pictures. I don't know who invited the babies to come but they made that picture taking very difficult. I guess it wouldn't really be right to not have them there but can't we just photoshop them in next year?

The 12-14th was mostly grocery shopping and packing for vacation. I can not believe how much food we needed to get. I got a definite work out lifting all of that stuff in and out of the cart. A little girl as FoodMaxx even commented on how full our cart was and that wasn't even 1/2 of the food.

July 14th was the first day of vaca. We drove to Morro Bay and got situated in the house. It was really nice and very close to the beach. Plenty of room for everyone. Well, everyone but Bobby. He had this weird loft bedroom. The ceiling was maybe 4 ft. high at the tallest spot. It was weird, but it had a bed so he made due. Poor Andi was sick to begin with and by Sunday Bradon, Brittany and Bobby were all feeling the effects of some weird bug. Wednesday Little Walter was sick. He was running a fever of 103 and he cried uncontrollably. I am not used to him being sick so I didn't know what to do. We decided to take him to the ER because we didn't know what to do with him and how to make him better. I have to say it was the BEST emergency room experience of my life. Next time I need to go to the ER I am driving to San Luis Obispo and going to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. We walked in the doors at 5pm and we were discharge by 7pm. And in that time they gave the baby meds, drew labs and got the lab results back and we saw the doctor twice. Two hours in and emergency room is just unheard of. The coolest part is that the doctor was named Cinnamon Redd, M.D. It made me giggle to think that my son was being treated by someone named Cinnamon, but she was great.

Cameron got sick toward the end of the week and he had it worse than anyone. I guess he doesn't get sick very often but he might want to start. He really needs to build up an immunity.

We got home on the 21st and went back to life as usual. Work for me. Work and School for Walter. Church. The usual.

Here are a few pictures from this month. I will post some of the birthday party after we have it.

I owe you one

2007-06-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

It appears that my attempt to update more reguarly has not gone so well. I have several weeks worth of information to share. Luckily, (for everyone but me) not much happened so it won't take long to update.

I have been working on the world's worst project for work. Due to circumstances beyond my control I have had to redo almost an entire year's worth of work. Everything from 7-1-06 to 5-18-07 had to be redone. The best part...I had about a week and a half to do it. It was horrible. I can take comfort in the fact that there were people at every Cal State campus doing the same thing but that didn't make it any more fun. I finally finished on Monday and have now been working on everything that I neglected the last to weeks while I was focused on this other project. It is a vicious cycle. So, after that project was done I promptly put in my notice and told my job I would be quitting soon. I tried to have my last day be July 13 but that didn't work for them I guess. So, for now my last day is Sept. 1 but hopefully that will change and I can be out of there sooner. There are a few things that need to happen between now and then so we will see how it all works out.

Walter's last quarter at CSUB started yesterday. He is taking two classes online this summer. The nice part about the online classes is that he doesn't have to drive all the way to Cal State. He can get on the computer at his liesure and take care of his assignments. He will be done sometime in the end of August though we don't know the actual date. I turned in his "Grad Check" yesterday. This is what they use to tell you if you really are done, how your name will be spelled on you diploma, where they will mail your diploma, and so on. I am so proud of him.

Little Walter is doing well. He still refuses to walk because walking is for sissies. Real boys crawl super fast with their mouth wide open and their head down. At least that is how he does it. We are working on the walking thing a little each day but he is still just too afraid to fall. I get that he is tall for his age, but his tushy is only a foot away from the ground. How much damage can he really do?

Other than the walking thing he is just working on growing more teeth. He no longer looks like Nanny McPhee and now has six teeth. He looks like such a big boy when he smiles now. I love it. Of course he bites occasionally, but we are working on that.

There really isn't much else to report. I told you there wasn't much going on. That work project really stopped us from getting anything done.

Here are a few recent pics. In the videos at the bottom you can see him as he helps clean up his tissue paper mess and in the second video you can hear his weird laugh. This is the same laugh he likes to use during church. Very entertaining.

The Widow

2007-05-28T15:24:00.001-07:00

As usually, we have been a little busy lately. So busy that I have forgotten to take the camera out to take any pictures so you won't get any on this post. Sorry. We travelled up to Napa this week to visit my family. We kept trying to figure out the best time to go and couldn't come up with an ideal time. it seems that there is something going on every weekend. Weekends are the time that we like to get house and yard projects done but those will have to be put on hold for quite a while. Anyway, Napa was really nice and we enjoyed getting to visit with the family. We saw my great-grandmother while we were there. She turned 90 this month and she is still as feisty as ever. They were all amazed how much little Walter has grown. He was great with everyone and very well behaved this weekend.

On our way back on Saturday we got a phone call letting us know that Bobby (Walter's brother) got his mission call to the Argentina, Buenos Aires West mission. He has to be in Provo at the MTC on August 29. This is going to be a wonderful experience for him and I think Walter is secretly a little excited that there will be another Spanish speaker in the family even though Walter says that Bobby will "sing like an Italian" when he speaks Spanish.

On Sunday Walter got a new calling. He is now the second counselor in the Bishopric. This means that he will now attend High Priest Group and will be the youngest guy there by more than a decade. I told him that he should get a hearing aid and then he might feel like he fits in a little better. I believe the median age is somewhere around the mid-50s. It was a bit strange for me when I was sitting in Sacrament meeting and realized that I was going to be sitting alone every Sunday. I can not tell you how thankful I am that I have family in the ward that will keep me company and help with little Walter when I need it. I think the oddest part of the whole thing for me was how many people congratulated Walter and then turned to me to offer their condolences. I was told that I am now a widow and to kiss my husband goodbye. This calling will take some more of Walter's time but he is a good guy with his priorities in line so I am not too concerned.

Walter is currently working on one of his final papers. He has a presentation to give on Tuesday for his Master's project and another assignment or two for his online class and he will be done with this quarter. I know he is a little stressed but he is trying to hide it as much as he can.

The baby is still teething. He has 4 teeth now and is working on at least one more. He is still doing well with saying Nana and Dada and we are sure that he said "duuuuCK" on our way home from Napa. He actually said it a few times when he was repeating me after handing him a rubber ducky. I know that he has no clue what a duck is but it is pretty cool that he will copy me. I guess I have to be careful about what I say from now on.

Walter and I will be spending the evening at a young married people family home evening so I should get to the making of treats.

It's been a while. I've missed you.

2007-05-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I have gone so long without posting. Almost two weeks. That is a long time. I really want to be better at the regular updates but I have been a little busy. With all of the working, the Young Women activities, taking care of things around the house, oh yeah, and taking care of the kid. It just takes all of my energy. Unfortunately, I have to pay a little less attention in one area and I chose the blog. I think I might try to get into the habit of doing one post a week for certain. I will post during the week if something exciting happens or I have exciting news, but I will definitely set time aside once per week. What do you think?

Well, now that we have that out of the way I can get to the update from the last two weeks...if I can remember that far back. May 4 I left Walter home with the baby. This was a Friday night, which is traditionally date night, but I had to chaperon the Youth Conference for the 14-17 year-olds at church. I had a good time. Some of the youth from our ward (including Bobby and Bryce who are no longer youth but don't have much else to do) have a band that played during dinner. It was great to see them up there and they did a great job. I could never have gotten something like that together at their age. Forget the fact that I couldn't play an instrument if my life depended on it, I just wouldn't have the wherewithal to organize it.

The next day was filled with shopping, a baby shower and getting Alexis (Renee's daughter) ready for the prom. She looked so pretty. I was in charge of hair. Actually, I was in charge of a dress, shoes and jewelry earlier that week, but that day it was just hair. I have never dealt with so much hair. If you want some tips on growing a lot of hair, ask Alexis. I finally managed to tame it and it turned out pretty well. There isn't much to talk about in regards to the baby that weekend because he was passes back and forth between Walter and I quite a bit and was really a trooper.

I must interject a bit of upsetting news. It is not upsetting for anyone but Walter and I really, but I still want to share. Our neighbors moved last week. Their names are Justin and Anji. They were great neighbors. They would visit with us, keep an eye on the house if we were out of town, never loud, just all around good neighbors. We used to have good neighbors on the other side of us as well, but they moved in December and the crazy lady moved in. She uses our trash can, complains if you park in front of her house and lets her dog use our front yard as a lavatory. That is just not okay. Her dog was in our yard on Sunday, May 6 when Walter was having an Elders' Quorum meeting. One of Walter's counselors comes walking up the front and her dumb little dog with the bandanna around it's neck tries to bite him. I understand that the dog was trying to be protective of his yard, but he wasn't in his yard, he was in mine. So anyway, the experience with this new lady has made us a bit leery of new neighbors moving in. I am hoping for the best, but if the lady that was looking at their house who had the HUGE tattoo on her arm is any indication of what is to come, I don't think I will be very happy.

Things settled down a little last week and I got to spend more time with just the baby and I. He is doing the weirdest things these days. He grinds his teeth now. That is a noise that bores into your skull. He only has three teeth, but he learned how to grind them. Ugh. He has also become a little bit of a sleep stripper. I have gone into his room twice in the last week to pick him up from a nap and found him without pants. Yesterday he took his pants off and threw them into the middle of his room. Why? I don't really know. He has started saying "dada" and "nana". I think nana is supposed to be mama which is close enough for me. I don't know if he understands that I am mom and Walter is dad or if he just likes the fact that I clap and get excited when he says nana to me. I just figure that wishful thinking is probably the best way to go on this one.

Oh, one more thing before I scurry off to get ready for work. I had my first official Mother's Day on Sunday. It was great. Walter and I picked out a new dining room set on Saturday. That is my Mother's day/Birthday present. I am very excited for it to actually come in. The tentative delivery date is my birthday so I hope it comes in then. Walter made me stuffed french toast for breakfast. It was delicious. He usually has meetings Sunday mornings but they were cancelled for Mother's day so he got to stay home and take care of breakfast and getting the boy ready for church. I don't know if I expressed this quite enough that day, but I have a wonderful mother and a wonderful mother-in-law. I am truly grateful for both of them and all that they do for our family.

I must go now. Obligations await.

Little feet during a nap.

Ready for his Nascar debut at Lowe's.

Being destructive. As usual.

In the absence of exciting news

2007-05-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

I feel bad sometimes when I don't update the blog. I feel as though I am letting you all down. My fan base is pretty limited but I still feel that I owe it to my family and friends to write something. Unfortunately, there isn't much to write about right now.

Little Walter is still teething. Tooth number two should be in any time now. Husband Walter is still going to school and is getting more and more eager to be done. He will be able to do his last two classes online this summer and will not actually have to attend campus. That is a great blessing. I am still doing the same things I always do and they aren't particularly thrilling.

That's all. No life changing news. No funny anticdotes. Nothing really.

I suppose you can all take comfort in the fact that I don't have anything bad to report.

I promise that as soon as something exciting happens I will let you know.

Just one of those days

2007-04-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

There are some days when it seems like Little Walter is out to get me. Every time I turn around he is in something, on something, eating something, etc. I know that you are probably thinking "he's a baby, that's what they do". I get that, but I just can't seem to understand the fact that he is only a menace sometimes. Do I feed him something different that makes him hard to handle? Did I look at him wrong? Does he have a little baby stress disorder that makes him act out?

At the end of the day he is still a very good baby, but sometimes he seems to have too much of his dad in him.

Here are a few pictures from one day of fun. What isn't included is his attempt to be king of the toilet paper mountain. He crawled on to the costco pack of TP and then took a spill. I tried to stop him.

The Tooth

2007-04-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of it. I don't know why you wouldn't believe me, but in case you didn't I now have proof. If you click on the picture it will be bigger so you can see it.

I also tried to get a video. That didn't go so well. I suppose it is a good representation of what I put up with during the day.

I am busy right now canceling my denture order

2007-04-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday little Walter finally got his first tooth. He has been working on it for almost two weeks now. I was starting to worry about his lack of teeth but I was assured by Corinne (Nurse Practitioner Extraordinaire) that toothless children are not a concern until they are two years old. Exactly what they do with them when they are two I don't know. Luckily, my kid seems to be on his way to actually being able to chew, so I am not worried about it.

The teething process hasn't been too bad. There have been a few rough days. More so for me than him, I think. He was a bit whiny but all in all he was pretty good, I guess. I think it was more traumatizing for me because I am used to him being so pleasant that it is difficult to relate to him when he gets fussy. I seem to have come out of it all okay and the baby came out of it with a tooth so we are doing alright.

There still isn't enough tooth visible for me to get a picture so you will have to wait on that one.

Baby's First Easter

2007-04-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

Baby's first Easter wasn't very climactic. We had a lovely day but the baby doesn't understand yet so it wasn't much different than other Sundays.

Walter and I dyed eggs on Saturday night after the baby went to sleep. We really didn't want his help because we knew it would end in a bigger mess than we could handle. We started our Sunday off at church. The baby was grumpy and spent most of the time in the Relief Society Room. He is still teething so he hasn't been his usual chipper self.

After Church we went to Mom and Dad Ray's and did a little Easter Bunny action. Once they arrived home from New Jersey/New York we did an Easter Egg Hunt. All that Little Walter cared about was trying to suck the dye off of one egg. I was more concerned with someone opening their eggs so I could steal their candy.

After the egg hunt was had dinner and settled in for a quiet evening. Like I said earlier, it was a lovely day, but fairly quiet.

Maybe next year we can have the little boy help with egg dying (this thought scares me. Maybe we will dye eggs outside) and he might be slightly interested in searching for eggs. Though I think it will be a few years before he really gets the looking for eggs thing and probably a few years after that before he understands the real reason that we celebrate Easter. I don't know how I will explain the connection between Easter eggs/bunny and the Resurrection since I am still working on that one myself. Oh well, maybe some things are better left unexplained.

I hope you all had a great Easter.

Here is a pic of the boy trying to undye the Easter egg with his slobber.

The Kitchen

2007-04-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

It is done. The kitchen is done. If you don't know about the kitchen then I am pretty sure that you haven't been reading anything here in the last month or so. Don't worry, I am not mad if you aren't reading the blog. I am too happy enjoying my finished kitchen.

Is anyone interested in playing a little game? I will post the before and after pictures of the kitchen and you can try to figure out all of the changes that occurred? Sound fun? The answers will be at the bottom along with the obligatory baby picture.

The answers are below. No cheating, unless you aren't playing. Then you can cheat.

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Here they are:

-Green paint on the walls
-White paint on the ceiling
-Blinds (hard to see in the pic)
-Valance over the window
-Removed corner cabinet (where the Kitchen-aid now sits)
-New sink
-New counter tops with pretty mosaic tile backsplash
-New rug in front of sink
-Lightened and polyurethaned the cabinets
-New cabinet hinges (did anyone catch that one?)
-New dishwasher
-New stove (it does have grates on the top but they are in the dishwasher)
-Extended the counter top by the stove/pantry
-New ceiling light
-Shortened the cabinet by the microwave (opposite side) so that it is the same height as the other cabinets
-Replaced all of the electrical outlets and light switches
-Replaced the Sprite on the floor with some apple juice
-Rearranged a few counter top items and thinned out the junk on top of the fridge
-Put the doors back on around the stove (the were already being stripped when I took the pic)
-It also appears that we finally got the lid on the garbage can correctly. That’s a tough one.

Well, how did you do?

We are really glad that this project is over. I LOVE the kitchen but it was pretty time consuming. The stove that lights by itself is an amazing thing. With our old stove you would have to light a lighter and then turn the knob in order to light any burner. Not only was it annoying, but fairly dangerous.

Little Walter was really good throughout the project. As I have mentioned in other posts, he would take stuff out of the cabinets several times a day, but he never messed with the cleaning products.

Here is a picture of little Walter in the box for the light fixture. He seems to have a mild fascination with cardboard. He loves boxes.

It Keeps Going and Going and Going

2007-04-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

There are a few things that keep going and going these days. One thing is the kitchen remodel. We are getting so close, but still have a little work to go. All that is left right now is sealing the grout, caulking the sink and putting up the light fixture. We attempted the light fixture tonight. Of course, in our classic fashion, it didn't work how we planned. The new light fixture is smaller than the last one so we have to paint the ceiling to make everything blend. Just a small setback.

The other thing that keeps going is the little boy. That kid is a speed demon. Well, at least he thinks he is. We try not to tell him that when he moves his arms and legs really fast when he is crawling it doesn't help much. He will crawl as fast as he can, get completely out of breath and still get to his destination in about the same amount of time. At least he keeps trying.

There is not much else that is new to report. Life is a little boring and I sort of like it that way. Hopefully I will be able to post kitchen pictures this weekend. I know everyone is looking forward to that.

The boy has become a huge fan of snacks. The other day I came into the living room to find his cheerios thrown everywhere. Cheerios-a snack and a toy.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

2007-03-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I was trying to vacuum. I plugged the vacuum in to the outlet and turned it on. All of the sudden I hear a *pop* and the vacuum stops working and the ceiling fan light goes out. Nothing else on the circuit goes out and all of the breakers in the box were fine. Our friend/electrician has been out twice and can't find the problem. Yeah for old houses.

P.S. I am taking this as a sign that I should stop vacuuming.

Land of the Living

2007-03-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

Life has been a little hectic lately. On the 16th we headed up to Utah for Chris and Megan Jackson's wedding at the Bountiful, Utah Temple. It was a beautiful sealing, but an awful long drive. We spent over 20 hours in the car with the baby that weekend. Yuck. The second half of the trip was worse because we had our niece, Andi, with us. It was bad enough having one baby but two was nearly enough to put us over the edge. Luckily, we had some time out of the car and we got to visit with Thad and Brittany and watch Andi and Little Walter play. All in all, I have to say it was a good weekend, despite all of the driving.

As soon as we rolled into Bakersfield we got into the kitchen remodel. This past week we demolished the counter tops, put the new tile in, grouted, installed new blinds, put up new curtains, removed the old appliances, fought with and eventually installed new appliances, put in a new sink and made about a thousand trips to Lowe's. I am still working on the cabinets. Hopefully those will be done by this weekend and I can post finished pictures.

I have a feeling the baby won't be so thrilled when the cabinet doors are back on. Right now he takes the tupperware out of the cabinet and throws it around the kitchen a few times a day. The same thing usually happens with the pots and pans but they are heavier and don't seem to be as much fun. I tried to put up a baby gate to stop him but he just sat by the gate and cried every time I put it up. By crying I don't mean that he just sat their and pouted. Oh no, he had real tears. I guess the baby gate is highly offensive. I felt bad and took it down so it now appears that I wasted money on a baby gate. Oh well.

On top of that we have had work and church responsibilities. I finished my training for my receptionist job at Weight Watchers this week. I am now an official receptionist rather than a trainee. Next Monday I will have my first meeting without my trainer. I thought it would be a super easy job when I signed up but it is turning out to be a little more difficult than I thought. There are a lot of codes to remember and forms to fill out for each meeting. Once I get used to it I am sure it will be easy.

Last, but not least, Walter and I celebrated our third anniversary on the 19th. We spent the day tiling the kitchen. We are quite romantic. We still owe eachother a nice dinner out. I am sure we will get to that one of these days.

The basic point of this post was just to let everyone know that we are still alive. Busy, but alive.

Since you can't live without pictures. Here is a pic of Walter and Andi from last weekend. I don't really think she wanted him touching her toy. Lucky for him, she was a good sport.

Wanna Play?

2007-03-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Things are a bit hectic around here lately. We are in the midst of a kitchen remodel and it looks like a tornado swept through the place. All of the cabinet doors are either on the floor or in the back yard. We haven't done anything with the counter tops or appliances yet, but just taking the doors off and having the inside of the cabinets exposed is enough to make it look pretty bad.

The part that is the most nerve wracking for me is that the little boy is crawling everywhere these days and it is a little difficult to baby-proof when you don't have anything to attach locks to. We are trying to hurry as fast as possible to get at least the bottom cabinets done so that they can be put back and hopefully stop the baby from trying to get to any cleaning supplies.

Over the next few weeks we have quite the project slated. We are refinishing the cabinets (as I already mentioned). This involves two applications of the paint on/scrape off stripper followed by two coats of polyurethane. It is the messiest job I have every done, but the cabinets look really good. Making 20 year old cabinets look new with minimal cost is totally worth it. After we get the cabinets done and put back up with shiny new cabinet hardware we will move on to the counter tops. We picked out some nice 12"x12" tile in a pretty beige color. The grout will be a "latte" color which will be much lighter than the dark brown that we have now with our lovely yellowish tile. After the tile is done we will put in the new stove and dishwasher. Our current stove will only turn on if you use a lighter or match and the dishwasher shakes the whole kitchen when it is running. Very scary. We will complete the kitchen transformation with a new coat of paint followed by a really long nap, I hope.

I like that we are doing this project ourselves because we are not only saving a bunch of money, but I am learning a lot. However, I wouldn't mind letting someone else do it in the future. I told Walter that I don't EVER want to refinish cabinets again. It is a stinky, slimy process.

Hopefully, we will have the whole kitchen done in a few weeks. I took some before pictures and I will take some after as well and post them.

If any of you are in the neighborhood and have a desire to work on the cabinets or lay some tile, let me know. I am sure we could find a little work for you to do. : )

Off and Running...or crawling

2007-03-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

Walter is now a force to be reckoned with. Last week he started to crawl. It has taken us a solid week to get it on video but I have finally done it. Every time the camera came on he would stop and stare at it. We would try to sneak up on him but for some reason we couldn't get it. Finally, after a week of bribery we got it. I am now trying to baby-proof the house. Luckily, he hasn't figured out that he can go from one room to the next yet so I have a little time to get things in order, but it won't be long.

In other news, Walter III is almost done with his Winter Quarter classes. He has a final due on Saturday and another test next Thursday and he is done for a whole week and a half. Of course he will start back up again and we will be back to all of the fun, but at least there is a week and a half of freedom. Once he is done with the current classes he will only have four classes left in his MBA program. We can hardly wait until he is done.

Who Knew?

2007-03-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

Apparently Walter III and this pillow are the funniest things EVER. Make sure your sound is turned up because I am pretty sure he is snorting.

Smiling for the Camera

2007-02-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

We FINALLY got family pictures taken last night. I told mysef before I had the baby that we would get pictures taken as soon as he was born and then every three months. Well, he is about 7 months now and we finally got around to that.

It was great fun trying to get the baby to smile. We did everything short of standing on our heads to get him to smile for us. I find it interesting that he has no problem smiling when you don't have a camera.

Here is my favorite family shot:

You can notice the cute new haircut and the cute new clothes. Those aren't the size 6 jeans I bought, but we can pretend. I think part of me (or all of me) wanted to wait until I had lost all of my weight before I got pictures taken. I would rather remember my skinny. It is a better feeling.

Here are a couple pictures that we chose of Little Walter. He is so handsome.

All the Latest

2007-02-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

My parents came in to town this weekend to see Little Walter. They said that they were coming to see all three of us, but I don't really believe them. Hey, my kid is cute, I can't blame them.

Luckily, the weekend was good for the boy and we was in great spirits. I would hate for them to travel and then the baby acts like, well, a big baby.

It is amazing how much he is changing and growing each day. Sometimes when you are too close to the action you miss some of the changes. I see him all day every day and I forget how he used to be. I will have to look back at pictures to remember how he looked. He is really wanting to crawl these day (except that he tend to move backwards and never forward) and I had to think rather hard to remember a few short months ago when he did nothing but sleep and eat. It is amazing that babies really do learn and grow every day. The good thing for my kid is that he seems to be getting cuter as he grows. Total bonus!!!

I didn't get any pictures of the baby while my parents were here. I totally spaced on that one. However, I don't think he could have taken anymore picture moments. My parents took well over 50 pictures in two days. The poor kid is still seeing spots.

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T16:10:00.001-08:00

This is why I shouldn't be left alone with the baby. (And yes, he is incredibly drooly)

Yahoo!!!

2007-02-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

I haven't done many updates on myself but I had to today. As many of you know, I have been doing weight watchers for some time now. I lost about 30 pound before I had the baby and started again after I had him.

Well, today I reached my weight goal. I still had about 10 pounds to lose before I got pregnant so I never got the chance to celebrate. Well, now I have done it.

Now that I am victorious I get to treat myself to a day of shopping. I have waited for months to buy myself new clothes in anticipation of this day. Look out Mall...Here I come.

The Stats

2007-02-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

We had a Dr. appointment for the little guy today. I never look forward to those because I know that he will be getting shots and will scream uncontrollably. I know it is best for him, but it is not very fun. The only good part about the appointment is that I get reassured that he is doing well.

He got all checked out and is doing great. They did his height, weight and head circumference measurements. The result of those are pretty much what I expected. He is built just like a Ray; tall and skinny. Here are the stats:

Height: 28.5 inches (above the 97th percentile)

Weight: 19lbs. 15oz. (between the 75 and 90th percentile)

Head Circumference: 46.5 centimeters (above the 97th percentile)

Height to weight ratio: between the 25 and 50th percentile

I fully understand why he wants to eat so much. He is a beefcake.

In other news...Walter made the baby a "fort" yesterday. It isn't really a fort. All he did was take the box from his car seat and turn it on it's side. Luckily the baby doesn't know any better and he thinks it is really neat. We put him in it and he started making his new favorite noise. He scrunches his nose up, opens his mouth, and breathes through his nose really fast. He is so weird, but we love him.

That Kid

2007-02-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

It seems that Little Walter has become "that kid". You know, that kid who's parents you feel bad for. That kid who waits until the prayer starts at church to make the spitty noises. That kid who is an angel at the restaurant until the food comes and then he throws a fit.

I think it has to do something with the age and the fact that he really wants to be involved in everything these days. He doesn't like to watch others eat. He doesn't necessarily want to eat your food, he just wants to put his hand in it. I am also pretty sure that he doesn't have any desire to say the prayer since all he would say is "da da da ada ada ada". But he wants to be talked to and played with.

So far he has only been mildly embarassing but I have a feeling it will get worse. There is so much to look forward to as the parent of "that kid".

On a lighter note...here is a picture of him in a sweatshirt that is 12-months. It fits really well except that I ripped it trying to get it over his gigantic head. He is six months and can't fit his head in a 12-month sweatshirt. He was doomed from the beginning with Walter and I as parents. The big head is genetic.

Happy 1/2 Birthday

2007-01-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today is Little Walter's half-birthday. Wow, six months has really flown by.

He is not feeling sick anymore but now I have the cold AGAIN. We just keep passing it back and forth. I would like to keep my head away from his so that we can aviod germ sharing, but I can't. He hasn't figured out how to take care of himself yet so we might pass this cold back and forth a few more times.

Oh well.

Happy Half-Birthday, Baby!!!

Under the Weather

2007-01-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

It appears as though Little Walter is not feeling well. For the last two days he has been incredibly boogery and has barely slept. For example, his nap this morning lasted 20 minutes. So, consequently, I am in warm-up pants, my third shirt of the day (thanks to him spitting up), no makeup and my hair isn't done. I was able to squeeze a shower in during that 20 minutes so that was helpful.

I have been loading him up on the baby tylenol and hoping for the best. I really am hoping that he is sick because it is either that or he has some serious emotional issues. Laughing and giggling one minute and crying the next.

Luckily, he was able to take time out of his busy schedule to say a quick hello.

Nothing new

2007-01-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting for the baby to start doing something exciting and new, but he isn't. So I will fill you in on the most exciting thing Walter III and I have going on.

Now, this is a little sad, but the most exciting thing in our lives is that fact that in only 6 months we get to go on vacation. Yes, I know there is a lot of time and family vacation probably wouldn't be quite so exciting for most people but we really don't have much else going on. In fact, we are so unexciting that we spent part of our Friday night coming up with our menu for food while we are gone. I think I am the only person I know who has a grocery shopping list that I don't intend to use for 6 months.

Here are a few pics from vacation last year. You can really see a difference in the little boy. He has really grown.

Oh, and another reason that we are really excited to get out of here is my bathroom. This is the result of a leak behind the light fixture and medicine cabinet. Would you want to wake up and see this every morning?

Oh, and this picture doesn't have anything to do with the post but this is a pic from when he was about 3 weeks old and I think it is hilarious.

Picture People

2007-01-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

Walter III is currently working with dad to come up with a website that will provide pictures of the little guy for everyone to see. The ETA on this is still unknown but I will get back to you because I know you all want to see more picture like this:

Moving Day

2007-01-17T09:18:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the day Christina moved out. She moved in with the Ledbetters and I think this is a good move for her. She was with us for six weeks and things were fine while she was here, but I think this will be a better fit.

Though the Ledbetters do not have a daughter Christina's age (their oldest is 13) they at least have children closer in age. Because she has some preparation to do before starting college it will be helpful for her to be with someone who has teenagers that need to learn the same things. I would love to try and teach her everything, but my 5 months of parenting knowledge doesn't really make me qualified to deal with teenagers.

I am just grateful that she will finally be taken care of. Everyone needs to feel loved and protected.

What you have been waiting for...

2007-01-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

It has been requested that I make some sort of blog to give updates on Walter IV (Cuatro) and life in general. So, I have decided to make that step and start one up.

Life has changed quite dramatically in the last 5 months. We have a beautiful baby boy, I am now working from home, Walter III is more than half way done with his Master's Degree and for the last 6 weeks I have been fill-in-mom to a 17 year old. Through all of the hectic times I have realized that we are really more blessed than we ever thought possible. We are happy and I suppose above all else, that is most important.

Little Walter is quite the character these days. We have started feeding him baby food and he isn't all that great at it. I know he is a typical baby and that is what they do, but it is a little gross. Drool filled with peas or carrots isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Today he decided in the middle of lunch that he needed to grab his carrot covered bib and pull it over his face. I felt bad for a second, then laughed at him, then grabbed the camera for a quick picture. I wiped it off after that, but I seriously considered a little more of a photo shoot before getting the carrots out of his nose.

He is also a champion doorway jumper. I don't think there is really an award for that, buy if there was he would probably win at least third place. We will put him in the jumper and he will not stop until we finally pull him out. He will yawn from exhaustion and still jump, he will cry out of hunger and still jump, he just has a need to jump. He does have one leg that is a little stronger so he tends to spin himself around in a circle every now and again but he doesn't mind.

I promise to try and update when I get a chance.