Christmas Part II

Alrighty, so here is the rest of the fun from Christmas Day...

After opening presents here at home we headed to the house of my mom, "Grandma M" and had some fun with her and Uncle David. Here are some pictures from that afternoon...

This was Grandma and Uncle David's Christmas Tree...Karyl loved all the fun little ornaments on it!!

Here is Grandma and Karyl watching "Santa's Marching Band" (See the picture below)....David and one of his friends hung them from the blinds on the window and Karyl was smitten with the all the noise and movement!!

Below...Santa's Marching Band....usually you hang them from a tree, but Grandma and David got creative. I remember this from when I was little, I can't believe that thing still works!!

Karyl's favorite gift that morning...she calls it "lip gloss" and makes me carry them around in my purse for her. I'm serious...ask me to reach into my purse, and that exact package is in my purse all the time!!

For those of you who don't know, my mom is a VERY artistic person and when she makes something, you know it will be worth checking out...hence this Gingerbread house. I have a picture of it at every angle, but I just put the general picture on here.

Now, also at my mom's, Greg and David decided to try out one of Greg's Christmas presents...a bag of clothespins. The reason for the gift was from a video on one of Greg and I's favorite website - below is the link for the particular show

http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/12/11/day-3-guns-and-ninja-stars/

Anyway, Greg had the innocent intention of simply attempting to shoot clothespins, but of course, my brother had heard of another way to up the stakes and make things more interesting....I definitely didn't think this would work, and even Greg was skeptical, but one box of strike anywhere matches later and they discovered that apparently it was not only possible, but kind of fun to try. Oh, and in case you're going to make a "Smokey the Bear" reference, you can rest easy, it was POURING outside while they were doing it in the walkway...so nothing was going to go up in flames!! Pardon my brother's attire...at least he had a shirt on!!

On a side note, this video of the modified clothespin gun got me into the exclusively secret {22} club on the "What You Ought To Know" website!!

So, after having what I think was almost a little too much fun at my mom's, we headed over to Greg's family's house....we had lots of fun opening presents with them and watching Karyl. She's a lucky little girl to have so many aunts with great taste in clothes!! Karyl got lots of larger clothes, which she desperately needed!! We stayed and played the rest of the day there and had tons of fun playing with our aunties and Uncle Glen!

We are so thankful to have so much great family so close. We had a wonderful Christmas at everywhere we stopped and just loved spending the Holidays with all the people we love.

Starting off the New Year right.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! And no, I did not forget that I still need to post Christmas part II....I just don't want to deal with the other camera right now....

Anyways, as the new year began we decided it was time to start things out right and have officially started a "Family Tradition." We posted pics from last month of Karyl in her apron from Home Depot, but this time we brought the camera. We have make a plan to go every month to the Kid's Project at Home Depot. This month it was book-ends with helmets in honor of the SuperBowl. Karyl had a blast making them with Daddy, and I think Daddy enjoyed it a little too =) Here are a few pics from that Saturday morning...

Then, that afternoon we made good on another task we had been putting off until the new year...Karyl's first haircut!! We finally decided that it had been left to nature long enough and it was time to tame those adorable locks. So, we called our friend Katie who is a hairdresser in Orange County and she agreed to take on the challenge (and of course, if Karyl was getting her hair cut, it was only fair that I should too, right??). So, we headed to her salon in Laguna Hills (if you need a great hairdresser in Orange County I'm glad to give you the info!!) and crossed our fingers for the best.

Once there, we tried to get her to sit in the chair but she wasn't having it. So, we agreed that Mommy would go first. I have never had my hair done in the "salon" setting before, the last few years it has been nothing but Fantastic Sams. It was wonderful!! Not only did she do an amazing job, but it was so relaxing...and she even blow-dried it straight (picture below) and it looked awesome!!

After my turn, we were able to get Karyl to sit on my lap and Katie went to it. Karyl was surprisingly calm, and when we asked her if it hurt, she said "no, it doesn't hurt" and she even thought it was kind of fun!! Of course, Katie did bribe her into the chair with the promise of a flower in her hair at the end. All in all, it was not nearly as traumatic as we had planned for and she got such a cute haircut!! We love how her hair looks now and she seemed to enjoy the experience!

This was Karyl BEFORE the haircut...look at that hair all in her face!! Daddy had her looking at a magazine of different hairstyles trying to get her in the "salon" mood

Here she is again being so calm...she kept telling me "Mommy, I'm staying still" it was so much fun to watch her!! Although, I'm not sure how I ended up making the face that I'm making, so we'll just overlook that....

Here's a pic of Karyl and I with Katie...she did a great job, didn't she?!?!

Here is an after picture...doesn't it look great in the back...no more dangly uneven ends!!

And here's the side view...Katie kept her promise and gave her a flower in her hair...we hated to take it out that night because she looked so cute!

And just for randomness....for those of you who have not seen pics of the inside of the new house yet, here is a picture of our dining room and part of the kitchen. Greg did an awesome job getting the boxes out and arranging the table so it looked good and we had plenty of room! We'll try and get more pics up, but we're still trying to get everything organized!

Christmas Part 1

I should start with Christmas Eve....Santa and Mrs. Clause came to visit Gma and Gpa's house for Karyl. At first she was a little scared with all the bells and noise, but then Santa had a "present" for her and that seemed to make him suddenly an OK guy!! Grandma had given Santa beforehand some PJs and books to give to her...she was so excited and even gave Santa a hug on her own!!

OK, so I have been lazy and not posted about Christmas yet...and I still have pictures on the other camera that I need to download and go through, so I'm just going to call this post "Part 1."
Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas. We opened presents in the morning at our house and then headed out to Orange County to visit my mom and Greg's parents. Karyl got lots of fun things from Santa including a tricycle (see pics below) and a few other presents...she has enough toys to keep her busy until she's 5!!

Those bikes are more complicated than you'd think...here's Greg helping Santa put Karyl's bike together Christmas Eve.
And here's daddy helping Karyl unwrap some presents...don't they look cute together??
And I think Greg would be upset if I didn't include this picture for our kids to see years from now when this blog is in book form....

Now, let me preface this moment by saying that I had just opened up a box with a new purse from Greg (I was already super excited to see the purse)...and then I opened up the purse to see what the inside looked like and this moment came after seeing what was inside....which is below...

Notice Karyl is already attracted to that Tiffany Blue Box!!

So, that's it for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning...I will post the rest (visiting the grandparents) in the next post...maybe later tonight...maybe tomorrow...soon though!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year...until the next post!!

Happy Holidays!!

Sorry, I'm too lazy to wait and put any pictures on here, but I did want to make a quick few notes before the craziness of Christmas and the New Year hits...

This year has been especially wonderful in many ways...some of which I'm sure we don't even fully understand. We truly have so much to be thankful for and are just enjoying this festive time of year.

We got a tree about a week ago and decorated it with all the ornaments we had that were unbreakable. Greg also came up with the BRILLIANT idea to get a bunch of wooden ornaments for the extended family to color and sign on the back with the year to put on the tree so it looks more decorated, but Karyl can't break them. In fact, she kind of enjoys re-arranging them when I'm not looking!!

We're trying to just slow down and enjoy the rest of this year because once 2009 starts up, we might as well just fast forward to the end of summer because with Freddie coming the beginning of March and Wild Rivers the first 3/4 of the year are as good as gone!! We are so thankful to be adding another member to our family and are super excited that it is a boy...and we have lots of new (and old) friends that are having babies within a few weeks of us so he will have lots of friends (as does Karyl now too!). On that note, we even discovered that a friend of ours that was in Greg's ward growing up and went to seminary with me in High School lives RIGHT down the street from us!! We have had lots of chances to catch up with her and she has a little girl due like 3 weeks before us, so we are enjoying getting to know each other again and reminiscing over all the crazy stuff we went through in our teenage years!

So, with so many things to be thankful for this Holiday Season....health, happiness, a new home and wonderful family and friends...we want to wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!!

BATH TIME!!!

So, this morning I realized that we were going to the ward Christmas party, and Karyl hadn't had a bath in a few days....and her hair looked like it!! So, I decided that there was no way I was taking her to the party without being cleaned off, and with that, I was on a mission this morning.

We got up, ate breakfast, and then I struck. I told her we needed to take a bath and I let her look at it for a minute and we talked about it. She seemed ok with it, but I allowed for some resistance...I let her watch cartoons while I filled it up because it's really noisy when it's filling up and that seemed to scare her. So, the tub was filled a few inches, the toys were in and now it was go time. I brought her in and she started whining. I explained to her that she was going to take a bath either way and took her to pick a cup to play with. She picked a Spongebob cup and we headed back. She reached in and touched the warm water and suddenly it was like the light went on "this is just like my other bathtub at Grandpa's..."...

So I took her clothes off, diaper and put her in...no whining, no fighting. We played with the foam letters and stuck them to the walls, we threw the Spongebob squish balls Greg had put in there, and then we got clean!! She said she had fun and actually didn't want to get out...so we spent about 5 minutes putting all her letters back in the bag while singing the clean up song from Primary. We then watched the water drain, bundled up in a big towel and now she's watching cartoons and I'm back to work.

I've attached a few pictures for your enjoyment...I also attached some pictures of her helping me make peppermint bark last night and pictures of her with Greg's Goofy Ears Santa hat that he gave her to play with while he "babysat" last night and I went to the Relief Society Gift Exchange (which was a wonderful treat!).

Hopefully this can become part of our bedtime routine....but I'm happy that she'll get in now without a fight...I'll take that for now!

I know you probably can't tell, but her hair was so messy!! It needed a good washing!!

This is something I never thought I'd see...a HAPPY baby in the big bathtub!!

Greg and Karyl came in the house last night from the garage with these on...I couldn't help but laugh..and then grab the camera!!

I am learning to let her help in any way possible, even if it means slowing down my progress a little...I don't think she crushed a single peppermint, but she sure had fun trying!!

Cuteness and Mommy's new addiction....

Some more fun pics...

Karyl wearing daddy's Angel's visor...he's been wearing it under his rain jacket at work the past few days and when he comes home she wants to wear it.

Yesterday we went shopping at our new local mall and we visited the Disney Store...we got a pair of slightly too large mittens for Karyl (they were only $3!!).


OK, I know you can only see the feet, but that big red ball is a large Santa plushy toy that Greg brought in last night from the garage to show to Karyl...she LOVED it!!

This morning Greg sent me a text message saying there was ice on the cars...I thought he was kidding....this is just a small piece on the windshield wiper, but there were chunks all over the car!!! Welcome to the Inland Empire!!

And last but not least....a picture of my new addiction!! I picked up a 12-pack at Target the other night and have been drinking ever since!! Luckily it's caffeine free...I had 3 yesterday, and that was with trying NOT to drink too many!! We even put them in the fridge in the garage so it would take more energy to get one...yeah, that worked!!

YUMMY!!!!

PICTURES!!!!

I FOUND OUR CAMERA CORD!!!

So, I'll spare you the long entry and let the pictures do the talking...

Daddy's Little Helper

These are Karyl and Daddy building Mommy's desk....

These are them building the toy "cubby" for her room...Karyl got to "sign" the back of her furniture for future generations to see (if it lasts past her 5th birthday!!).

Front Yard Fun

Random Fun

Karyl after doing her first "Kid's Workshop" at our local Home Depot...she made an easel to put her favorite book on.

Karyl talking on the phone...probably to Grandpa!!

Our pool...covered...it's pretty neat, you can walk on the cover (but the kids don't know that!!).

So there are some pics to get you caught up...enjoy and I'll try and caught caught up some more soon!!

Daddy's helper

So, this morning Karyl came to her door and since Greg was right there he took off the baby gate and let her out and they came to my desk.

The cute part....on the way out she saw that Daddy was working on the desk in the Green Room and the first thing out of her mouth when she saw me was "Mommy, I need to change my diaper so I can help Daddy build your desk."

So we changed her diaper and while we were changing it she heard Greg hammering and she said "Mommy, Daddy is using the hammer, I need to go help!". She didn't even mention breakfast, she went right into the Green Room and sat down with Daddy and wanted to help. So, she helped Daddy build the desk while I fed her bites of oatmeal inbetween hammer hits.

I have some great pics, but again, until we find that camera cord I can't put them on here...eventually!!

Until then, I just wanted to share the story about Daddy's big helper!!

Cravings

OK, so with Karyl I never really had any "weird" cravings, or any normal ones for that matter. With her I had more things that the smell made me want to lose my lunch, like Greg's Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches, and french toast....

But this time around I have actually found that I am SERIOUSLY craving things and as I was making myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich it made me giggle thinking about the randomness...so here are the few things I have been really craving this time around...
* Peanut butter and banana sandwiches (I'm eating one as I type!!).
* Lemonade flavored Crystal Light...I can finish an entire gallon pitcher in 2 days if I'm not careful!!
* Grandpa's chocolate cake (it has a "little" extra frosting).

Funny enough, there is only 1 thing this time that I have found turns my stomach...funny enough...it's brownies. Just plain, non-frosted, brownies....so sad!!

Ewww...GROSS!!!

This morning I was about 3 inches away from stepping on a cricket....in my BARE FEET!!!

After stopping to appreciate the quick miss I grabbed a piece of junk mail and led the little guy out the front door.

Both my mom and Greg's mom have pointed out that a cricket inside is supposed to be a sign of good luck....with as many crickets as I have had to shove back out the door I have decided that Greg and I must be in for some REALLY GOOD LUCK in the future.

Maybe we should buy a lottery ticket??

Update from the IE

Sorry, haven't found the camera cord yet, but we have lots of pictures for you when I finally do!! Just for kicks and giggles, here is a list of things we did finally find (and when) and what we have yet to find...

FOUND:
1 - TODAY!!! Our regular silverware (we have been using a set of dollar clearance silverware...)
2 - Yesterday - our church clothes (see still looking list for a crucial piece of worship wear that we are still looking for...).
3 - Yesterday - the rest of our diapers (we were literally out...).
4 - Yesterday - the checkbook and other important items from Greg's desk that were packed at the very last minute...I think Greg was close to having a heart attack because we hadn't found it yet!!
5 - Yesterday - the tray for Karyl's high chair. We have had to let her eat at the little wood table she plays at in the living room because we couldn't find the tray to set her food on!

STILL LOOKING....:
1 - The camera cord.
2 - Our body pillows (I have had to make do with a few extra pillows sprawled around me, mainly to help prop the ever-growing belly up).
3 - Greg's ties...he had to go to church without one yesterday since we couldn't find them.
4 - The rest of Diana's Maternity clothes...I have one maternity shirt that I have been wearing when we go out for the past 2 weeks....but rest easy, I have been doing laundry!!
5 - The baby monitor...we found the base, but can't find the part that we listen from in our room. Luckily we have only had one mid-sleep crisis and I heard her crying. Luckily the big girl bed thing is working out well!

I'm sure there is more for both of those lists, but as of this minute that was all I could come up with. Overall, things are going smoothly and we are loving our new place. We even found out yesterday that a girl Greg and I knew separately in high school lives just down the street from her mom who lives in our ward! We were both excited to hear that we might actually know ONE person out here in Corona!!

Oh, and for anyone interested, Freddy is doing great! We thought Karyl was active, but he is putting Karyl's in-utero acrobatics to shame!! He is growing just like he should and I am healthier at this point in my pregnancy than I was with Karyl! I have managed to lose some weight and stay under what I was with Karyl, so that's happy news for me (but I have been warned that if I don't gain some weight over the Holiday Season I will be in trouble). He has a strong heart beat and everything via ultrasound looks textbook healthy and perfect!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will keep trying to find the camera cords....Until then, Happy Holidays!

We're back and better than ever!!!!

So, it's been a while, and LOTS has happened...where do I start? First off, let me say that Greg deserves the "HUBBY OF THE YEAR" award for being so amazing this past week.

MOVING DAY...
Saturday morning I caught the inevitable flu and was no help at all. Luckily we had Greg's family and lots of unexpected help from our old ward...it was such a blessing. There were about 10 adults there to help and it worked out so beautifully! So...they got the truck loaded up and I was so glad to see so many people come to help. I had horrible nightmares of Greg being there loading up that entire 26 foot truck all by himself.

THEN...as they were finishing the first load we get a call from Greg's grandma to check out the news, there was a fire in Corona. And with our luck, there was...not too far away from our new home but the wind was blowing it the opposite direction. So, Greg got in the truck and headed up, hoping that they wouldn't close the 91 freeway, and he beat them closing it by minutes!!

As he got here he discovered that there were people from our ward that were being evacuated and that the able bodied men were helping them get out (obviously a first priority!!) so again, I thought it was just going to be Greg and his super sisters to unload that entire truck, but somehow the tender mercies of the Lord had people there to help them unload!!!

So, they got most of the stuff there and off the truck, but they had to come all the way down south through Escondido to get home (a total of 200 miles round trip) but they all made it back.

Crazy, right?? So, the next day Greg and my brother and Greg's dad loaded up the rest of the stuff and we headed up to Corona again. Things were a bit smoother this time and we headed back to the OC.

So, where does that leave us now?

Last night was our first night in our house. Greg's parents were sweet enough to let us bury ourselves on their couch for a few days while we tried to get everything in order. Yesterday we came and unpacked TONS of stuff and got the place ready. Thankfully we had handy helper Grandpa on hand to put together Karyl's "Big Girl" bed and she even slept in it last night with her Princess sheets!!

We love our new house and enjoyed staying here last night. One thing we have learned though...wood floors are not condusive to sneaking around past kid's doors at night....we need to put our rugs down!!

I will post pics when I find the cord for my camera, and until then we hope that you will all get to come visit us when we get settled in and we can't wait to let you know what happens!!

Ugh....

OK. so I know it's been a while...this week has been stressful beyond belief!! Monday morning Karyl got the flu, BAD!! She finally stopped throwing up that night, but that didn't mean mommy got any sleep. I slept in the living room with her and every move or sound she made made me jump. Then Greg got sick on Wednesday...and I fed Karyl a little too much a little too soon that night and found her in the morning with dinner strewn about her bed. Poor little thing (both Greg and Karyl!). So, Greg is doing better, and Karyl seems to be fine but we're sticking to the ever popular "BRAT" diet with her for a few more days.

And tomorrow is the big move....

If we're not being tested from above, then I don't know what else to think. I just pray everything goes smoothly and that we get lots of help!!

Sad, but inspiring

I saw this on an article about the protesting at the LA Temple....sadly, what's not mentioned in the articles is that the outside fencing and walls were vandalized. There are few pictures of it online, but when I did find some it made me want to cry that people who are demanding equality and tolerance treat us with such disrespect.

Greg and I love this picture....it's sad that they have made us resort to this kind of protection, but it's an awesome reminder that we will be protected. I wish I could thank everyone of those officers standing there for protecting our freedoms and for their courage and stamina! THANK YOU!!

Our New Ward

So this morning we left Karyl with Grandma and Grandpa and trekked out to our new ward in Corona. I have to admit, as excited as I was to see the new ward, I was REALLY nervous because this was it....we're going to be here for a while and I was just hoping that this new ward had a good balance of young and old (both adults and children alike) and that they were really nice and didn't mind our brand of humor and sarcasm.

So we showed up bright and early (and even drove through some rain!!) to discover that the ward was awesome!! Since this ward covers an area with maybe 1 apartment complex (I actually don't think there are any) and it is all houses, the turnaround of members in the ward is really small and they all know each other...so we kind of stuck out...but in a good way!! Lots of people came up and introduced themselves and within 10 minutes after sacrament meeting we were already offered help moving in and meeting the EQ President and the Bishop! I even met the RS President in the bathroom...she was so sweet!! Now, don't ask names, we heard a lot of them during introductions and I tried to at least remember first names, so far I've remembered most of them...

So, we met lots of people in our new ward and found out that like our old ward, there are quite a few pregnant woman, and since this ward has a lot of self-proclaimed "grandmas" that love to fawn all over babies, I think this will be a great fit for us.

And, as we were giving the RS President our info, Greg said something and she made a comment that they have "plenty of sarcasm to go around" and that we would fit right in!! YAY!!!!

We loved our ward here, and I will especially miss all the people that I have grown up with, but being in a new area with all new people is something so awesome and the people there are so great!!

Now next week we'll take Karyl and try out Nursery..right now there are only a few kids her age so the nursery is pretty small, maybe that will bode well with her?? We'll see next week!!