Masonic Weekend

This last weekend, well starting Thursday actually we headed down to S.F. for Adam's last Grand Lodge weekend. We got to stay in the Fairmont Hotel which is always nice and super fancy too. We started off on Thursday night by going to the Cliff House Restaurant for our last Grand Lodge Family dinner. I must say we got a really good family picture there...



The dinner also lasted a little longer then anticipated and Hannah passed out...even before Samantha, which was surprising.



The next day Adam had meetings all day so the girls and I started out the morning by taking a walk to the park near by but took a little detour to walk some really steep hills b/c Hannah was very curious about them.



And then of course we needed to rest b/c she was "so tired"...we need to get her out of the valley more often.



After Hannah was done resting we finally made it to the park and fun was had...




After this I drove with the girls to the East Bay to visit my dad at work and then we drove over to Marin to visit Nali at work and pick her up. I was dropping the girls off with her for the night b/c Adam and I were having our first overnight by ourselves since Samantha was born. I dropped them off and then headed back to the city for our formal dinner evening in the Carnelian Room at the top of the B of A building. Here are the views from way up there (a little scary but amazing at the same time!)..





Can you tell we were happy to be away from the kids for one night!


I was so excited to sleep that night and the next morning! Adam had early morning meetings again the next day...sucker! But I slept until 9:30am and then I did not get out of bed until 12:30pm...that's right PM!! I finally dragged myself out of bed to go back to Marin to pick up Adam's mom (Nali) and the girls to bring them back to the hotel to stay with us on Saturday night. Adam and I had another formal dinner but this time it was in the Fairmont Hotel and Adam's mom watched the girls in our room. Although while Adam and I were getting ready for our dinner we were wondering why we didn't just leave everyone in Marin b/c it might have been easier on everyone. Oh well.

The next day Nali, the girls and I went for a cable car ride. We walked down Powell St. in S.F. to the bottom so that we could ride the cable car all the way back up. The walk down Hannah was grouchy and I kept threatening her that if she didn't behave that she was going to be walking back up and we would be waving at her from the cable car...I know I know that is not very nice but she was being a pain. Even Samantha was being grouchy in the bjorn and so I decided to take this lovely picture at Union Square which perfectly reflects Samantha's grouchiness.



We finally made it to the bottom of the hill and got on the cable car and Samantha looked a little nervous on the ride...she wasn't too sure what to make of it...


Here we all are on the cable car...and might I add that all these pictures taken on the cable car and at Union Square are with me just holding the camera out there and taking a picture...I must say I have pretty good aim.



I think the ride stressed Samantha out b/c we got back to the hotel room and she fell fast asleep in her fancy Fairmont Hotel crib with a fancy sheet and bumper...no porta-a-crib here.



It was a nice weekend...tiring but nice. Here are a few more pics...

Hannah made a "friend" at the park. This adorable bull dog followed her around everywhere and kept pace with her...when Hannah stopped he stopped...he was too cute. I have always wanted a bulldog.


Samantha decided it would be fun to lean back and watch the sky while in the swing...it was too funny b/c she kept doing it over and over...it was like she was in her own little world.



Shopping at Safeway with the girls and for the first time putting them in the same shopping cart car to ride in...they argued a bit over who was touching who's steering wheel...ahh I can just see the future fights over other items:


Back at home at the end of Sept. Samantha continued to fine tune her crawling skills. She also enjoyed sticking a toy in her mouth and carrying it around as if she were a dog...probably b/c Tulip is her idol.



She also enjoyed riding on Tulip...Tulip is such a trooper.



On the 29th of Sept I was "lucky" enough to take the girls to the doctor for Samantha's 9 month appt and to get us all our flu shots. We had to pin Hannah down for hers but mine and Samantha's were pretty uneventful. Here are the girls with our awesome doctor, Dr. Seimens (before Hannah even knew we were there for shots)



Last, Samantha is in a growling phase...she likes to growl at people...again I think it is because Tulip is her idol. Here is a picture of Samantha growling at Dr. Seimens and Dr. Seimens growling back at her...too cute.



Only 2 weeks before Hannah's 4th b-day and she CANNOT wait. She also talks non-stop about her princess party coming as well...it should be interesting.

Samantha's Crawling!!!...FINALLY!!

On Friday afternoon Samantha finally decided she was going to lift her bottom off the floor and attempt to crawl! Hannah, Samantha and I were playing in the living room when Samantha made her first attempts at crawling. I was so excited I called Adam and was saying into the phone with excitement..."Samantha's crawling! Samantha's crawling!" Rather then saying, "Yay, how exciting!" He says..."Well she's not an invalid"...way to go Dad on being happy for your daughter's major accomplishment. So here is a sequence of her crawling. Hannah and I set up toys out of her reach and off she went...

Hannah giving her sister a "helping" push...


And she's off..


Almost there..


Just about there...when Samantha gets almost to where she is going rather then crawl all the way there, she flattens herself out and stretches. Talk about lazy!! She also crawls at near a snails pace...I guess I should be thankful of that right now.


My next sequence of photos is Samantha discovering that Tulip's bone looks pretty good to chew on...and Tulip does it so why can't she have it too.

"Hey Tulip I will trade you your bone for my blue cup."


"I will just take that since you are not looking."


"Ha-ha I have it!"


"I don't know if this was worth all the effort."


"Oh well it is still something to chew on."


Tonight the girls took a bubble bath together..Samantha's first bubble bath...I cannot believe I haven't given Samantha a bubble bath yet and she is almost 9 months old!! Anyway, she LOVED it! She was squealing with delight and Hannah came up with this skit (which she frequently does in the bathtub with Samantha and I have to present them and there are imaginary curtains) about "The Bubble Girls".

So here is Hannah getting the little bubble girl ready for the show...


"Mom, what is she doing to me?"


The Big Bubble girl ready for the show...


"Hey, this is a lot of fun!"


"Bubble splashing is so much fun!" Squeal! Squeal!


More squeals of delight..


Let me try and stand again in the most dangerous place I can...


Last we were hanging out in Hannah's room having a snack b/c Adam was vacuuming in the living room and I just thought this was a cute picture of the two girls having a snack over a mini table on the floor.



Here is just one more picture...I always post happy pictures of Hannah so I thought I might post one of her not so good moments...because believe me we have several of them. I have no idea why she is crying here...it is just one of Hannah's moments of breakdown that disappear as quickly as they come on...as I said in a previous post...I can't wait for the hormones to kick in when she is a teenager. :)

I know...I know...I need to blog more often.

I really really need to update more often. It's not like I don't have anything to blog about...I really have quite a lot, it is just this thing called work, taking care of the kids (including Adam & Tulip :) ), the house, etc. just keep getting in the way...darn it! Anyway, I will do my best to blog more often, not that I have tons of fans out there wondering where I have been, but I would just like to keep this little blog more up to date.

So let's see...I will start with Samantha. She still refuses to roll over...it could be that she still hates to be on her stomach, but she is great at sitting!! She has great posture, really great posture and she is attempting to crawl, but you know that really takes too much work so she would rather sit on her bottom and master the art of sitting. Here is her attempt at crawling.



Another thing Samantha is trying her best to do it stand up...of course she loves to attempt this in the most dangerous place she can...the bathtub! Here are some cute rear views of Samantha doing her best to stand during bath time with Hannah...





Sister playing time...


Samantha hamming it up...she really thinks she is quite the comedian and laughs at a lot of things she does...





Samantha saw my dad in August also and she hasn't seen him too much in her life. At first she seemed quite curious about him and this mustache on his face..



But then she decided she wasn't too sure about this guy and Dedo didn't help by making fun of her...



Hannah continues to be Hannah, so difficult one minute and incredibly pleasant the next...ah the life of an almost 4 year old...can't wait until those hormones kick in when she is teenager, it should be interesting.

In August we went to the Yolo County Fair. It is free to get in but then they get you on the rides. Well one of the rides Hannah made friends with a little boy named Luke, who believe it or not had a Grandma who had a VIP pass to get on all the rides for free! Way to go Hannah! After that ride where they met, the two were inseparable and Hannah would not stop holding that little boy's hand! She got a lot of free rides in thanks to her friendliness.





There were so MANY more rides these two went on but I won't post them all. We had a fabulous time at the fair until we wanted to go home and were so tired and were looking forward to a shower and dinner and we came to the car to find this...



Flat tires suck!! Adam changed the tire but then the spare had no air in it so after searching the Yolo County Fair for someone with a portable air compressor we called AAA. What a frustrating end to a nice day. We were exhausted!!

Another exciting thing that happened for Hannah in August was that she FINALLY learned to ride a tricycle!! YAY!! I was really getting worried about her b/c her friends were literally riding circles around her on their 2 wheeled bikes. The problem as it turned out was that her short little legs just couldn't properly reach the many many tricycles she had tried. My mom and Hannah finally found one at a garage sale that even has one of those push handles in the back and a cute little basket in the front. So now Hannah is peddling all over the place.





So that is that. I am back to work full time and it sucks big time, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Big Words and Big Questions

BIG WORDS:
Hannah frequently says things like "Actually I would like this..." or "Actually I think this..."...she really likes the word actually. Then the other day we were sitting and eating dinner and she says to me "I would appreciate it if you could sit over there." I was quite shocked to hear the word "appreciate" come out of her mouth and used in the proper way. Adam and I both just looked at each other shocked yet proud of her to be using big words.

BIG QUESTIONS:
Hannah has been in the "why" phase for quite some time...it is really exhausting! Everything is "why?", and then you answer the question and another "why?" follows. I am sure most of you reading this blog are very familiar with "why?" questions. But lately I have received some "why?" questions that I am not prepared for. At night Hannah either takes a bath with Samantha...on the few days Samantha takes a bath... or as has been for many years now she takes a shower with either me or Adam. Just in the last week she was sitting and playing in the water while I showered and I look down and she is examining herself down there and points to her clitoris and asks "Mommy what's this?". I tell her it is her clitoris and she says "Why is it there?". You see...I am not prepared for these questions! I tell her because that is what girls have...it then gets followed up with a "why?" and I again just tell her that this is what girls have. She then clarifies that boys don't have this and I say yes. Then last night the topic comes up again and she asks what do boys have...I tell her they have a penis and girls have a vagina. Then she starts looking at my blue flower tattoo which for those of you that don't know I have on my lower left abdomen and she asks if boys have flower tattoos...I tell her most don't...and I hear "why?". I tell her because boys don't always like flowers like girls do they have different kinds of tattoos....why? UGHHH!! Because they do. Then she looks a little below my tattoo and says "And Mommy why do you have all this fluff?". I thought I was just going to bust out laughing...I let her know that older girls have this but little girls don't...why? Because that is just how things happen...I didn't want to get into puberty with her at that point. OMG!!

I think it is time for me to stop showering with the girl...but it is just so fast and convenient and has never posed a problem...but lately all these detailed "why?" questions are killin' me!

Weekend News

This past weekend we had our bi-monthly friends dinner at Denise & Ken's house. It was a lot of fun b/c hanging out with friends always is but in addition to that Denise & Ken announced Denise was 10 weeks pregnant and Andy & Laura announced that Laura was 8 weeks pregnant! How exciting! Congrats again to both couples we can't wait until February 2010 when these little ones will be born. In September the bi-monthly dinner will be at our house and we look forward to it. :)

Now before we went to Denise & Ken's house on Saturday I thought I would take the girls to get their first ever professional portraits done. Thanks to Christina's blog I printed off my free pictures coupon for the Picture People and it expired Saturday so I had to go! Adam hates these portrait things so I had to drag him but he was only willing to agree to it b/c it was free. I had to promise him I would not get suckered into more pictures. So along with Hannah's friend Sydney's family (who had the appt after us) we went to the Picture People at Arden Fair Mall and had our first ever professional photography experience. I must say those photographers have to have an incredible amount of patience. When we would get Hannah actually looking and smiling at the camera Samantha would be doing something else or just starring at the camera. Normally Samantha is a very smiley girl but she was just so taken aback by the lights and camera pointed at her face that she didn't know what to do so she just starred at the camera. Towards the end we got her to crack a few smiles...she even had an incredibly cute one with her tongue sticking out but then Hannah wasn't looking at the camera and had a strange smile...aahhhh!!! So this is the one that we finally settled on for our free 8 X 10, 2 free 5 X 7s, and 8 wallets:



Turns out it really wasn't that hard not to pick more then one pose since the girls really didn't photograph great at the same time...although I still LOVE this picture. Of course there were a few other shots that I thought would be cute to get but then the Picture People make it easy for you to get them b/c they make your pictures available on line to order as well. You can view them here: http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/my/images?cg=207294587120863729.

By the way since my last post about Samantha finally rolling over, she has not done it again...she just refuses to roll over...strange little girl. :)

It's About Time!!!

Samantha finally rolled over from her belly to her back! Adam was the one that managed to get her to do it and he called me at work to let me know. Of course I was sad to not be there but I am glad she finally did it. At around 5 months Hannah was rolling all over the place and Samantha is now almost 7 months and up until now pretty much had no interest in rolling over...she does a mighty fine job of sitting though. Anyway, we went to the Farmer's Market last night and Adam showed me Samantha's new skill. She does it in segments and in a sort of slow motion action. We met the Telfords (Sr. & Jr.) at the Market last night and when Samantha rolled over we all clapped for her...she gave us a kind of weird look like "What the hell are you people clapping at?". I am so proud of her. I will take pictures soon and post them.

In other news...Hannah is finally home after her 4 day adventure "camping" (she stayed in a condo in Lake Tahoe but really was suppose to go tent camping until Adam's Dad hurt his back) with Adam's Dad, his wife Susie, and her two cousins Kathryn & Krystina. She had a GREAT time and did fabulous but we are happy she is home...I don't know that she is happy to be back from her vacation but we are happy. :) Back to life with 2 kids...life with one was super easy! We forgot how easy it was...so much free time on our hands, didn't quite know what to do. :)

Happy Birthday to Me, I Celebrated Classy!

Saturday was my 34th birthday. It was quite exciting to have my birthday on a weekend. We started off the day by going to the "Black Bear Diner" for breakfast, then Hannah had gymnastics, afterwards Hannah & I went home and took a nap together, and then we went to this fun water park in West Sacramento right near Andy & Laura's new house. I had been to the park before with Hannah & Samantha with my mom's group and we had so much fun that I planned to do this on my birthday with the girls again and Laura & Andy had their niece Lily for the the night and Tara and the twins came too. We had a lot of fun again! That night we were dropping Hannah off in Elk Grove with Adam's dad b/c she was going camping with him and her cousins to Tahoe for several days. Since we were dropping Hannah off we also left Samantha there for several hours so we could go out to dinner for my birthday. Now this is where the classy part comes in...originally we were suppose to go to McCormicks & Schimicks, which is a nice restaurant in Sacramento. So we had packed nice clothes that we were going to change into at Adam's dad's wife house. We had reservations at 8pm but had to push them back to 8:30pm b/c we were running late. When we made the call to change the reservations they let us know they close at 9pm...what???!!! On a Saturday night???!! That is crazy. We didn't feel like driving all the way to downtown Sac from Elk Grove to be rushed through dinner. So we decided to go see a 9:05pm movie.."The Proposal" (great movie...go see it) and thought we will grab something to eat on the way there. Well we did not leave the house until 8:45pm and realized that we did not have time to go get something to eat. We were both starving and so when we got to the theater we got movie theater hot dogs in our fancy clothes...so classy. I have never had a movie theater hot dog and I was so scared to eat it but I was so hungry that I just sucked it up and ate it. It felt so weird being dressed up , eating a hot dog at the movies...I don't think I will soon forget that birthday meal. Here are some pictures of the water park we were at on my b-day:



Samantha loves splashing in the water:


I love this picture b/c poor Abby is curled up in ball on her towel with long sleeves just freezing and next to her is Hannah sprawled out on her towel soakin' up the sun:



A cool "artistic" shot of Hannah & Lily:


Adam getting dumped with water...I am so proud of myself that I captured this shot:



And since it has been soooooo long since I posted last here are some updated pictures of the last month and things that happened:

For Father's Day I decided to get a picture of the girls and put it in a frame. I didn't realize how much effort it would take to get ONE good shot of the two of them. After many many pictures and positions here is the winner:



Cute, huh?

More pics from Father's Day:

One of my favorites..


Daddy & his girls:



Samantha found her feet:



Samantha started day care at Hannah's school on July 1st (and has had 2 ear infections already!) and Hannah was more than happy to bring her to the infant room on her first day:



We went to visit my friend Jill in Novato and her daughter, Reese, who is 6 enjoyed playing with Hannah and they both enjoyed dressing up as princesses. Reese even did Hannah's make up...Adam was "thrilled".



I found out it is dangerous to leave stickers in a 3 1/2 year olds room when she refuses to take a nap...this is how she spent her "rest" time:



Samantha went skinny dipping with Ryan (Hannah's friend Sydney's younger brother):



...and went in for her first kiss:



Hannah and I went on a "date" and I took her to see her first movie at the free family theater fun fest in Sac. It was a free movie and we saw "Horton Hears a Who". Hannah was nervous at some parts but in the end enjoyed it a lot and I enjoyed our "date". Here she is in the theater...she could not take her eyes of the commercials that run before the movie long enough to look at the camera while I took this picture:



We've gone to the pool a lot and here are Hannah and Samantha sunbathing:



Finally, since Hannah is gone through Wednesday camping Samantha and I went back down to Novato to visit Jill & cool off. Jill lives a little further out in the country and has some really nice trails right near her home. So I took the back pack carrier for Samantha and we went hiking today with Jill. Samantha LOVED it! She kept laughing and squealing up there and simply just enjoying the ride. It was a great workout for me b/c we went up a good hill and Samantha and the carrier together put some good weight on my back. I am already sore right now from the and it hasn't even been 12 hours! Here we are just before we took off.