Dog Trainer

This past weekend, Brock was watching a dog show. He was quite tickled at the dogs jumping over things, running through tunnels and on balance beams. He also pranced around the living room, jumping on couches (not that his parents let him do that) pretending he was a dog going through the "obstacle course". Well, when we got home Monday afternoon, he proceeded to set up his tent tunnels and empty our laundry basket to set up an obstacle course just for Sarge! I have to admit, he HAS POTENTIAL!

Sarge jumps the baby bathtub with ease!

And quickly races through the tunnel!

Sarge and his handler, Brock, finish in FIRST PLACE!

Big Helper

Brock has been quite funny lately. I've always thought he has gotten funnier as he gets older, but 4 1/2 must set a new record, once again! The things that pop out of his mouth are hilarious, and generally from left field somewhere. I have no idea where he gets these things, but he is definitely Tom's son!
Today I managed to get this "funny" on film.

Brock had finished his lunch and was "washing dishes". He will pull the chair up to the sink, use the dishwash wand to wash his cup and whatever else is lying around the sink at the time. I told him after he finished that, he could move the laundry to the dryer. Probably 5 minutes later, he was no where to be seen. After checking his room, the bathroom, our room, etc. I looked at the laundry room door which was closed. We opened the door to find:



I tried to get him to fold the laundry afterward, but maybe that will have to wait until age 5!

Oh, and if you're wondering about the costume, we found the Optimus Prime for a great deal at Toys R Us over the weekend...and he's been wearing it ever since! I hope it can hold up until Halloween!

Party for a Princess

Anyone who has been to a 1st birthday party will definitely agree...FIRST BIRTHDAYS are the BEST!!! It is always exciting to see if a 1-year old will approach their cake with caution and curiosity, or dive in head first with excitement! Aubree took the latter approach, but at least spared her head and decided to dig in hands first. It took all of about 15 seconds for her to get going. Once she did, you couldn't stop her! She did some major damage, and when you thought she was just about done having fun, she started banging the cake with the palms of her hands, causing cake chunks to fly across the room! It was definitely a sight to behold, and one my camera did not do justice. (I'm not smart enough to get my DVD video into chunks to share on my computer.)

"Before" pics of Aubree's cake, and the Guest cake

Going......................Going....................GONE!

Just LOOK at that smirk through the pink icing!

Half time to get the little Princess all cleaned up!

This is her After-Cake party dress!

Hamming it up with her honorary Aunt Loni

I have to boast just a little, the party was great! The house looked so cute, decorated in hot pink and bright green. Nana, Grammy, Aunt Dede & Aunt Meredith were a lot of help preparing for the festivities. They even took 1st place in the high chair decorating challenge I threw at them!
I know Aubree had a good time. She was, after all, the center of attention and held nearly the whole time. Two things she definitely loves! It was SO wonderful to have so many friends and family share the special day with us. The kids all had fun, the adults did too, and Aubree made out like a bandit in terms of birthday goodies! She should never be bored, and she will always be the best dressed kid at school!

Princess Aubree and some of her loot!

I love you baby girl! And I love 1st birthday parties!

1 year stats and pics

As promised! One Year Stats!


We went to the doctor on Tuesday for Aubree's official 1-year checkup!

My very big girl is already 31 inches tall! (She has grown 10 inches in one year. It's a good thing we don't keep up that trend.)

She weighed in at 22 pounds, 7 ounces.

Time to turn the carseat around!

Here are a handful of her 1-year pictures.











And because I like to do this type of thing...let's look at Brock and Aubree's 1-year pictures side-by-side. Everyone tells me how much they look alike. Some days I see it. Some days I don't. Most days I don't. It continues to amaze me how two children, raised by the same parents and with the same environment can be SO DIFFERENT!

I'm still here...

I'm still here...although, sometimes I think...just barely! Then I remember to just hold on because this is life. A very wild and crazy ride. These days I feel as if I'm stuck in the HOV lane, going 100 miles per hour with no on or off ramps and someone on my tail. Just gotta keep on going!

I'm not sure I could catch you up on all the happenings in the last couple weeks. What I can say is they have been very challenging. Trying to juggle 50-hour work weeks, Tom back at work, motherhood, house selling, and birthday party planning have me just worn out!
Work is going really well and I see opportunities opening all around me. Although, each opportunity also comes with more responsibility. More responsibility somehow comes with more hours. Funny how those things work out.
Tom started back to work this week and the kids will begin school on Monday.
The kids are wonderful and as active as ever. Aubree still refuses to walk which both excites me and saddens me.
Our house has been shown several times within the past few weeks. I'm still very skeptical of a sale because the sellers of the other house like ours in the neighborhood must be desperate. They've dropped their price over $30k from ours! Since we don't HAVE to move, we aren't dropping ours. We'll just see what happens. Unfortunately, a lot of the house showings have been in the evenings when all I want to do is come home!
And to wrap everything up, Aubree's FIRST birthday party is Saturday! This once VERY organized and prompt Lori is now scrambling to even make a to-do list! Thankfully I have lots of family coming in tomorrow to help me get everything organized and I know it will be great. After all, Aubree won't remember it.

I feel as if I'm just rambling. Next post will likely be something a bit more exciting, and a bit less "get-it-off-my-chest".

For all you other working moms out there, let me know what your tips for success are! ;)

ONE YEAR!

ONE YEAR! Who would think you could be so emotional about ONE YEAR?

My baby girl is one year old today. I knew going into this 2nd child that the time would fly by, just as it had with Brock. I love Aubree more and more every day. She shows you new glimpses into her indescribable personality every day! She is going to be very smart, very cute, very mischievous, very vocal, very adamant, very loving, and very strong. She still looks so much like her father, but I have a sneaky suspicion her strong willed personality will follow in line with her mother. Oh Lord help the men in her life!

We don't go for Aubree's 1 year checkup until next Tuesday, so I don't have her official stats. That will have to be a separate post. Our wonderful neighbors came over tonight to help us celebrate her birthday since her party will not be until next weekend. She had good practice for her birthday cake by devouring her birthday cupcake! I give her at least an 8!

I pray that God continues to bless her with health, happiness and a close family to mold her into the person she is meant to be! But before she gets to "that" person, is there a way to slow her down just a bit? I'm so sad my baby is one!


Before school this morning:
Your very pink and very chocolaty birthday cupcake!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUBREE!
Love,
Mommy, Daddy and Brock

Todos Santos - Day 4 - Trip to La Paz

Day 4 in Todos Santos took us on a bit of a car adventure. The boys set out early that morning to go fishing off the coast in La Paz. The girls got up much later, ate breakfast, and with our wonderful tour guide John Brown, headed to La Paz for some beach time and shopping!
La Paz was very pretty. It was not a tourist town, but a real Mexico city! We decided to go shopping first. The shops were pretty nice, but we only browsed for about an hour as it was SO HOT! When we got back into the car, the temperature showed us at 110 degrees! After shopping, John Brown took us to a secluded little beach. The drive was long and winding. It looked as if we were driving to no where. Then, all of a sudden, it appeared. The most beautiful beach I have EVER laid eyes on! The pictures I took don't do it justice.
After swimming, we went to a hotel to shower and get ready for dinner. The hotel was courtesy of John Brown and one of the many "guys" he knows. If we had taken shots for every time he said "I know a guy", I would have been drunk the entire time!
The hotel was interesting to say the least. Not one of us was fluent in Spanish, but we were pretty sure the sign out front was advertising $60 pesos for 6 hours! Our story is the rooms are rented by the hour, but we were able to rent by the person!!

Dinner was amazing. We ate at a place called Capricho's. We found that place because.......you guessed it....John Brown "knows a guy" who happens to be the head chef. He cooked the fish the guys caught on their fishing adventure. After that, he brought out nearly 10-15 of the finest dishes ever! Three kinds of fish, shrimp, mussels, two types of steak, veal scallopini, potatoes, vegetables and lasagna. Just to be followed by tiramisu, a sorbet and some watermelon slush with a shot of vodka (maybe?) to slush it up! Top that off with two bottles of wine, SEVERAL rounds of delicious sangria, beers and mixed drinks. It was hands-down, the best meal experience I've ever had in my life!

This bill had better be in pesos!!! (DIRT cheap for the amount of alcohol and entrees we had!)

Todos Santos - Day 3 - Trip to Town

Sunday we were all good Catholics and decided to go to church in town even if it WAS in spanish! After 30 years, I should be able to figure things out! Well, not really knowing what time(s) mass was (based off someone's translation of a conversation in town on Saturday), we figured they would have something around 1o:00. So we put on real clothes (not swim suits) and after another great breakfast headed down the washboard road to church. Well, wouldn't you know we arrived after the first mass and way too early for the second. So, we all went into church for some quiet prayer time on our own. The church was beautiful! It was simple, but with touches of amazing detail! The stations of the cross were etched in the windows. I didn't get a great picture (I felt a little funny taking pictures in church!), but hopefully you can see it well enough.

After "church", we went to the Hotel California! Right there in Todos Santos. Granted this was not necessarily the inspiration for the Eagles' hit song, but it is still pretty neat and a cool place to say I've been!

(Obviously I haven't photoshopped these pics yet! I thought it was quite tacky to put electric poles & lines in front of the largest tourist spot in Todos Santos!)
We went through the small market there in town and made the daily stop at Alejandro's for beer. Agenda for the rest of the day: POOL!

For those wondering, the surf was really strong. On Saturday they had projected 10-12 foot waves. I have no idea if they got that high, but they were definitely throwing around huge rocks as if they were feathers. We had no business playing in that when there was a perfectly good salt water pool waiting for us!

As you can tell, this is definitely proving to be a stressful trip! ;)

Todos Santos - Day 2 - POOL day

Saturday we had a pretty rough and stressful day. We woke up and ate a fabulous breakfast, put on our swim suits, and hit the pool. Jen found quite a deal with some $1 floaties before the trip so we blew up a few and spent the rest of the day in the pool. Or at least some of us did. I'm pretty sure I've never spent 8 hours in a pool before, but records are meant to be set on vacations, right?


My fabulous Aunt Kathy made some killer pool snacks and we also discovered that 42 (the domino game) can be played on a floatie in a swim up bar! Beer, Pool, Dominoes, Sun, combined with a beautiful view...does it get any better?

We also had entertainment. Leo, one of John Brown's employees is quite the hard worker. This was the first time I've ever seen a guy climb to the top of a palm tree to pull off the dead leaves! It was also the first time I've seen a full size van made into a convertible with one of the uses to haul the dead palm leaves! Another first moment was to watch Leo suck the hose of a gas tank to siphon the gas into the generator. It was an enlightening trip!

Leo climbing the tree.
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Leo using the van to haul palm leaves.
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Lori - Stressing, obviously.
Great Day!
Some of the damage.