Halloween to Now

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

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!!!

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.

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

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!

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

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.