This and That

Less than a month now and the kids and I will be in Birmingham! I'm super excited and I can't wait to see everyone. Our plane leaves at 6:00 A.M. from San Francisco so it will interesting to see what time we make it to the airport.

Bella has her last field trip today and Jason went with her. They are going to Crab Cove in Alameda, CA. They have an aquarium and they teach the children about the marine life that lives in the San Francisco bay. It should be fun and interesting. It will also be interesting to see how Jason does because this is his first field trip with Bella ;)

I really love the weather here. It has been between 65 and 70 everyday for the last few weeks. It's nice to live somewhere that actually has a spring. My allergies are still bothering me, but they are not as bad.

I signed up for the See Jane Run 5k. It's next Sunday and I haven't trained at all! I haven't done a 5k since Spring 2008. Hopefully I won't pass out and fall on my face.  They serve chocolate and champagne at the finish line and I will get a medal so I'm pretty excited about that :)

After boot camp Finley and I ran to the mall because I had to return a few things and I think I may have finally found a way to shop while she is with me...buy her a smoothie! She just rode in her stroller and drank her smoothie. I tried on some stuff in H&M so I let her out to walk around the dressing room and they always have dance music in there so she was breaking it down in front of the mirror. I wish I would have recorded it. She is definitely going to be my dancer (YAY!!).

                                        Bella loves to put a bunch of hair bows in her hair

                                                     Trying to get out of her car seat

                                                              Wearing mama's Toms!

Lately

Jason finished his first semester of graduate school! One down, four to go!

I'm in my fourth week of boot camp and I'm actually still going 4 days a week! I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with it.

Only 12 days of school left!


I'm guessing the milk that I poured on my cereal Saturday night was bad because I was so sick! I thought maybe it was the Chinese food that we ate for lunch, but the girls and I ate the same thing and they were fine. I checked the milk yesterday and it smelled a little funny, but it I don't thing it smelled bad enough to make me sick. I poured it out anyways because I don't want anyone else puking their guts up like I did! Definitely not a fun way to spend your Saturday night!

I have been neglecting my blog lately. I'm going to do better, it's just that I don't really have a lot going on right now so it's hard to come up with stuff to write about.

Here is a video of Finley telling Jason bye one morning :)

Things I have learned while living in California

1. It's expensive here. Everybody knows that, but here are some examples: It cost about $5 more to eat at McDonald's than it did in Las Vegas, today gas is $4.27 per gallon, a 12 pack of Coke is $6.99.

2. The highways her are TERRIBLE! They have potholes the size of my car!

3. A lot of California is farm land. I always thought that everywhere looks like L.A. or San Francisco, but in between those two huge cities is nothing but cows and fruit.

4.  There are a lot of women that play golf. We live on a golf course so every time I leave the house I see people teeing off and about 40% are women. I don't like to watch golf, so I can't imagine that it would be fun to play.

5. The only thing that is cheap here is alcohol. If you're a big drinker, this is the place for you. I don't drink much but maybe I should start so I feel like I'm getting a deal on something!

6. Housing is SUPER EXPENSIVE! We rent because we aren't planning on being here too long, but our rent is outrageous. Buying a house is even worse. There is a house for sale across the street from Tyler's school that is 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and 2,281 square feet. It's a nice house, it's older and has a small yard like most of the houses here. So if that house was in Birmingham it would sell for around $250,000. Guess what it cost here...$859,000!! I can't even wrap my head around paying that much for 2,281 square feet.

7.  There are more than 100 earthquakes in California EVERYDAY! Most are too small to notice so I haven't felt one yet. 

Here are some other interesting facts:

California produces more than 17 million gallons of wine each year. 

The highest and lowest points in the continental United States are within 100 miles of one another. 

Mount Whitney measures 14,495 feet and Bad Water in Death Valley is 282 feet below sea level.  

 California is the birthplace of the Frisbee, Barbie dolls, skateboards, bluejeans, and video arcade games. 

 The California Redwood Trees are the tallest and largest living organisms in the world.

 More turkeys are raised in California than in any other state in the United States (I believe this one because there are a TON of wild turkeys in our neighborhood, and there was a huge one on our deck this morning when we got up!).

Happy Birthday Jason!!

Yesterday was Jason's birthday. We got him a cake from The San Francisco Creamery and it was delicious! He wanted mint chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate cake. The kids do not like mint chocolate chip ice cream so we had to eat all our selves. I think from now on we will only get ice cream cakes that the kids don't like ;)

 

We did get him presents and cards, but I didn't take any pictures of that stuff. You see whats more important at our house!

Jason keeps getting older every year and I stay 23. It's funny how that works ;)

 Happy Birthday Jas, we love you!

16 months

Finley is 16 months old today!

Things she loves:
-Practicing jumping-it's so cute and she can almost get both feet off the floor.
-Still climbing-she is able to climb on more and more things as she grows taller.

-Brushing her teeth-even though she only has 3!
-Pushing her baby in the stroller
-Jumping off the couch or whatever it is that she has climbed on no matter how high it is. 
-Getting someones seat when they get up. She thinks that is so funny!
-Helping me do laundry. It's so fun to take the clothes out the dryer and drag them all over the house :)

She is entertaining herself more and more. She will find things to play with or look at books on her own now. I'm still not sure why we bought these toys because she doesn't hardly ever play with them. She would much rather carry around one of Bella's dolls or steal Tyler's cell phone than play with her Leap Frog drum.

I'm still amazed at how much she eats sometimes. I know the size of her stomach so I wonder where all that food goes.

Her sleeping is still pretty much the same. She will have a good night, like last night, where she only woke up 3 times, and then she will have nights where she is up every hour.

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's Day yesterday. Jason and Bella cooked my favorite breakfast. We had french toast, hash browns and bacon. It was so good!!

 

Tyler made me this cookie cake in his foods class at school.

We skipped lunch since we had a late breakfast. We headed out for an early dinner and as we drove by In-N-Out Burger we noticed that there were actually some parking spaces so we ate dinner there. In-N-Out is fast food, but it is so crowded 90% of the time we never go there. They have their own lane on the main road because the drive through line is always so long. Pretty much at any given time during the day you can ride buy there and it is so crowded that you can't pull through the parking lot. It's good, but not that good!

I started my second week of bootcamp today. I'm planning on going 4 days this week. I have found that I actually like it. The first day was not fun, but I have really enjoyed everyday after. 

There are only 22 days of school left!

It warmed up for a few days last week, but it is back in the 60's again this week. My allergies are still acting up, but it's supposed to start raining this weekend and rain for several days, hopefully it will wash all this pollen away.

 Finley standing on the table. I'm not sure why she likes to do that so much, but anytime a chair is pulled out she is on the table in 2 seconds flat.

Playing with babies. I love to watch her when she plays by herself. I always wonder what is going through her mind.

This and That

I started bootcamp on Monday. I signed up for a month to see how Finley likes it (and to see if I can make it past the first week).  I don't think she will be a problem. There are 5 or 6 babies her age give or take a month so she gets to socialize with kids her age, but she would rather pet the younger babies. She was trying to give a younger baby his cup today and handing him his toys. She loves bebe's (what she calls them)!

I also realize how independent and brave she is when we are around kids her age.  She is the one running of and climbing on the fountain edge and then jumping off and other dangerous things that a 15 month old girl should be too scared to do. Basically I spend about 45 minutes doing the workout while never taking my eyes of her and the other 15 minutes chasing her or grabbing her before she jumps off something.

                                                 Playing at Bella's basketball practice.

                                           Talking to her new friend at Bella's soccer practice.

                   Cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen, one of her favorite things to do.

My allergies have been killing me. Living in the desert the last two years I forgot how much I hate the spring and pollen. I love how green it is here and how there are flowers blooming everywhere, but after two months of itcy eyes,  a snotty nose and a sore throat I'm ready for summer to be here.

This car belongs to someone that lives up the street from us and then I saw it yesterday at the soccer fields and I had to take a picture of it. This is on of the strangest things I have ever seen done to a car.

It goes all the way around the car. I guess it is the feet of their family, but I'm not sure.


It really freaks me out when I see kids at Tyler's school holding hands (you know, like boyfriend/girlfriend). The when he gets in the car I always have to tell him he is too young for a grilfriend when really I think I'm the one that is too young for him to have a girlfriend. He is not interested in having a girlfriend yet, thank God, but I know that it won't be long. How do you prepare yourself for that? I think the best thing to do is not think about it and then maybe it won't happen, right???