Just Call Me Detective Morrill

As some of you may or may not be aware last Sunday night we had our stroller stolen from our front door! I was pissed! Although we did not discover that it was stolen/missing until Thursday when we were in need of it. We started looking everywhere and quickly realized that in was not in our posession. I then started thinking back to the last time we used it and remembered that on Sunday night Adam was removing our storage box on top of the Volvo so I decided to take the girls for walk. I took Samantha in the stroller, Hannah rode her bike and Tulip & I walked. When we got back we put Hannah's bike in the garage but I pulled the stroller up to the front door so that I could unload Samantha. Obviously we forgot the stroller out there.

Fast forward to Thursday when we can't find it and I realized that someone must have stolen it from our front door. I was so upset and I felt to violated that someone had the guts to walk up to our door...which isn't that easy to get to, and take it. That night I looked on Craigslist and did a search for Graco Strollers. I looked at a lot of Graco stroller being sold but none of them were ours until I ran across a Graco stroller posting that was put up on Craigslist Monday, so the day after our stroller was stolen, and it was posted as being in Davis for $40 and what do you know, it matched our stroller (our stroller is blue and yellow plaid...Aggie colors)! Our stroller is 4 years old and so that pattern is not made anymore. The advertisement said that it was almost brand new, willing to trade for a girl stroller, was expecting a boy. That didn't make too much sense to me, why WERE they expecting a boy and not anymore. And when you looked at the pictures the posted the stroller looked in good condition (we keep our strollers looking good) but the wheels looked really worn, which ours were really worn...I mean we have had it for 4 years! I kept studying the pictures and finally decided to email the person and ask if it was still available.

On Friday morning I posted on "Facebook" that my stroller was stolen and was really upset at what the world was coming to that someone needs to steal a stroller from someones front door. Under the advice of wonderful Tara I filed a police report that my stroller was stolen and that it had some distinguishing marks. I also let them know that I was pretty sure it was on Craigslist and I was waiting to hear back from the person to see if it was still available. While the Specialist that took my report was very nice she said without the serial numbers there was no way to prove it was mine. That sucks! I was not happy b/c of course I did not have serial numbers...all you peeps out there with strollers/trailers or any other kid items or anything that can be stolen, write your serial numbers down b/c I ran into the same problem when my bike trailer was stolen.

So by Friday afternoon I still hadn't heard from the person so I emailed again asking if was still available. That night after the girls were in bed I checked my email and low and behold the girl had emailed me back and yes the stroller was still available!! She wanted me to call her at a number she gave me and told me that if I can't get a hold of her at the number to give her my phone number. I didn't know at that point what I should do and my assistant detective Adam told me to reverse number search the phone number on "Google" to hopefully come up with an address b/c the phone number was clearly a Davis number. So I googled the number and when I saw the address and name that came up I felt my heart jump into my throat and I felt sick...it was my next door neighbor...like right next door!!!!! That house has always been ghetto and the older lady that owns it really has no clue what goes on in her house...plus in the 7 years we have lived here we have barely spoken to her b/c she is kind of reclusive. Her grandson lives with her and he is strange and always brings all sorts of strange people by, girls go in and out of that house a lot and you never really know who is visiting and who lives there. The rest of the neighborhood isn't thrilled with the lady either. I was sure one of those delinquent kids that go in and out of that house had stolen it and she probably had no idea this was even happening under her roof. I was at a complete loss and didn't know how to handle the situation now that I was fairly sure it was my neighbor that had stolen our stroller! I called my friend Denise who is a police officer for advice. She said to email her back, not to call her and find out what her address is to confirm it is my neighbor. She also said once I do that to get the police to do a standby and come with me to mediate the situation b/c they do that all the time.

So this morning I emailed her back and told her what time would work best for me and asked her what worked for her and where did she live? I did this about 9:30am. Bear in mind that all last night I was shaking I was so mad/nervous/shocked that this was happening to us and my stomach was in knots. I could barely sleep. Around 11am this morning I got a call from the Specialist that took my report and she said she found the Craigslist posting I was talking about and was pretty sure it was my stroller too. She asked me if I had contact the person and I told her my whole story about how I had and how I reverse searched her phone number and discovered it was my neighbor! She seemed pretty impressed with all I had done...you don't mess with me! She asked me to forward her the emails I had with the girl and she also looked up the address and came up with the same one. She said she would give the girl and hour and a half to respond back and if she did not then she would come over there and get my stroller back. I was shocked! I couldn't believe the Davis PD was all of a sudden coming through for me! I later found out my wonderful neighbor who is a dispatcher with the Davis PD had called and followed up with them on my case even though she is out of town! She rocks! It truly is all about who you know in this world.

So exactly an hour and a half passed and I get a call back from the Davis PD asking if she had emailed me back. She had not so she told me she and an officer were going to come to the house and get my stroller back. I would have to identify it and they wanted to know if I wanted to press charges. If I did the stroller would be taken as evidence and held until the D.A. figured out if they wanted to try the case. I went back and forth on this but Adam really wanted to press charges b/c he said it was not about the stroller but the fact that these people came onto our property and stole from us and then tried to sell it. Plus this way it would be recorded that something had happened so that if in the future something else happened we would have this to help us.

I saw the specialist and the officer arrive and they walked straight over to house. I was so nervous b/c I had no idea what was going to happen! I was especially nervous b/c I was scared that for some reason it wouldn't be our stroller but I had to keep thinking it had to be b/c there was too many clues that it was. They were over there for over 20 minutes and finally there was a knock on our door! I opened up the door and there was the officer and there was our stroller! She said you recognize this? Of course I did! It totally was our stroller distinguishing marks and everything. She asked if she could come in. She explained that the lady who owned the house of course had no clue this was going on. She had let this 16 year old pregnant girl and her 19 year old husband live with them b/c they were homeless and the girl was pregnant. This couple was brought into the house of course by her grandson...I believe...it even sounded like the officers were confused. Anyway, at first they didn't own up to it but really quickly they told the whole story. The 16 year old pregnant girl wanted to take the fall for it all but it came out that her 19 year old husband was the one who came up to our door and stole it and then she put it on Craigslist. The grandmother who owns the house was mortified and was worried about what her neighbors would think of her...personally I really don't care about her, she needs to know who she is letting stay at her house and what is going on under her roof! The office told me if I pressed charges this 16 year old pregnant girl would be arrested and I didn't want to do that to someone who is already in a bad situation and as the officer said they did confess real quick. I told her my main concern was that I wanted this on record somewhere in case something else happened since this house was so shaddy. They agreed with me that the goings on in that house were weird but told me that this was a case on file with the guilty parties names and everything so it was definitely on record even if I didn't press charges. So I made the call not to send a 16 year old pregnant girl to jail...I was hoping I could only send her 19 year old husband since he was the one that actually stole it but the officer said both would be arrested. Those 2 are lucky I am so nice. The officer gave me her card and said I could call her anytime if I feel there is anything weird going on with the house or anyone it and she would be right over. She gives someones a pass once but definitely not the second time. I felt very comforted by this. The highlight of the whole thing was when the officer told me, "Hey by the way nice detective work on your part". I felt so proud...so that is why you can call me Det. Morrill.

Hopefully they realize they shouldn't mess with me anymore and all will be over. It was also be nice for the lady that owns the house to come over and apologize to me, but I doubt that will happen. So we have our stroller back...and all is well. The whole neighborhood came out for the action that ensued here this afternoon and all are shocked at what happened. But as I said hopefully this won't happen again. Thanks for all the concern by everyone! And of course I couldn't have done all my detective work without all the help I got along the way.

Happy 1st Birthday to Samantha!

I cannot believe it has already been one year! Happy 1st Birthday to my little Samantha! She made a few noises this morning at 4:50am and I woke up...I realized that at this time one year ago I had gotten up to go the bathroom and that is when my contractions started. Then at 6am when Adam's alarm went off I realized one year ago we were in the car and I was screaming my head off on the way to Sacramento to the hospital. Then at 7:25 am when Hannah woke up I realized that Samantha had already been born 35 minutes earlier at 6:49am. Craziness how is all happened so fast! Hannah, Samantha & I went to breakfast this morning to get pancakes for Samantha's birthday breakfast. After her nap we are going to visit Daddy for lunch, go to the park and then nap again. Tonight we have a special cupcake for her and we are going to have her favorite meal...mac & cheese (concidentally it is Hannah's favorite meal too...funny how that works). I will post pictures of x-mas and her birthday later tonight or tomorrow when MY vacation officially starts and I get to have 3 days at home by myself...so looking forward to that!!

Tree Time

On Sunday we went and got our Christmas Tree. Yay! We always go to the Boy Scout lot here in Davis b/c Adam was a boy scout and he always likes to support them. When Hannah heard her Daddy was a boy scout she said in a really grown up tone "Daddy I didn't know you were a boy scout, you never told me that before." It was very cute. Hannah did a great job letting us know which tree was her favorite:



Clearly she is a "tree hugger". :)

She also did a great job helping Adam carry the tree out of the lot:


We have to put our tree on a table this year so that Samantha "The Destructor" does not take it apart and eat every ornament on the tree. This created a lot of lifting of Hannah to get the tree decorated b/c of course she wanted to put on the star and ornaments up top.



While we decorated Samantha enjoyed pulling ornaments out of the box and chucking them across the room and crawling under the table. It was kind of crazy but it is done. That night Samantha also cut her finger on a decoration...although we didn't know it until we saw blood just about everywhere and finally traced it back to Samantha's little finger. We had to put a band aid on her finger, which she did NOT like! She did everything she could to pull that thing off:







Still workin' on it at dinner time:



Here is a great picture of both Hannah and Samantha. This smile that Samantha has on her face is a classic Hannah "cheesy" smile as we use to call it when Hannah was little. I guess they are related:



While eating dinner Hannah for some reason asked about how much milk she had left in her glass...well Adam being Adam decided to give her the full on explanation. He told her that she had about a ounce left and when Hannah asked what an ounce was he brought out a shot glass for her as an example. Well of course then Hannah really thought it would be a lot of fun to drink milk from a shot glass and she continued to do so throughout dinner. Here she is getting "drunk" off milk:







And finally Samantha has started walking with her "walker" or push car. For the longest time she just did this to push it around the house:



But then on Sunday she did this finally:


And then she started getting all crazy!


Although when she runs into something she hasn't figured out how to get herself turned around or backed away from the object, so she just stands there. Luckily Hannah helps her out and gets her going back on her way, only to about a few seconds later run into something again and get stuck. :)

Samantha is really trying to walk. Yesterday the Infant Room teachers said that she was free standing...which she does a lot these days, she has really good balance...and then she moved one foot forward and then stood there looking like she was thinking about if she should make the effort to move the other foot. She decided against it, apparently it was too much trouble, so she just sat down and started crawling...ah our lazy girl. At least she has finally started rolling over...only about 6 months late. :)

The Power of Santa Claus

On Saturday Hannah spent most of the day with Adam's Dad and his wife getting their x-mas tree, decorating it, and baking cookies. We arranged with them that when they dropped Hannah off they would stay a couple of hours longer and watch both of the girls so that Adam and I could go and see "The Blind Side" (highly recommend it!!). When we were getting ready to leave Hannah melted down...she did not want me to leave and I started to feel guilty since I had not been with her all day. Adam, being the quick thinker that he is, told Hannah that we have a conference call with Santa to talk to him about how our kids have been this year. Every parent has a time where they go and talk to Santa and that we had to go to our appt. Immediately the crying stopped and she was so excited that we were going to go talk to Santa Claus. Then she was even thoughtful enough to say, tell Santa Claus not to forget my sister Samantha and to get a bone for my other sister Tulip...so sweet! After that she was practically kicking us out of the door to go talk to Santa in our conference call.

The next day Hannah was behaving very poorly, and so Adam said I am going to call Santa and let him know about this horrible behavior. Again immediately the tantrum/crying stopped and she turned into an angel. Then yesterday morning Hannah was having a tantrum again (don't ask me what her deal is lately, I am blaming it on her surgery recovery and it better stop quick) and Adam pulled out the Santa card again...and once again she started behaving really well and said "Please don't call Santa!". About 10 minutes later after Adam had left for work, Hannah was watching "Caillou" on PBS and I picked up the phone to call Adam to tell him something and in a frantic voice Hannah asks "Are you calling Santa?!". I calmed her down and told her I was not, as I was laughing about the power of Santa Claus. It was actually quite amazing that she even saw me pick up the phone b/c usually while watching t.v. Hannah is in the zone and you usually can't get her attention for anything.

Very Late Halloween Pics

I should have posted these a long time ago...just never got to it. Here I present to you the Princess Snow White and a Turtle:


This picture was taken at my work where we started our trick or treating adventures on Friday the 30th.


After here we headed to Downtown Davis to trick or treat at the local business...


Downtown we ran into our neighbors Alice & Evan...Samantha was really exicited to pull Alice's hair here:



The back of the very cute Turtle costume...take a look at that adorable little tail:


Here is a silly Turtle...Samantha loves to lean back and hang upside down...maybe we should have dressed her up as a bat. :)



Babi and Snow White walking:


Silly Picture with Mommy:


That night we also took Hannah to see "Disney Princesses on Ice" at Arco Arena where she again got to wear her costume...she LOVED the show.

The next day, which was actually Halloween Hannah went to gymnastics and then we met my friend Jill, her kids Logan & Reese and my friend Natasha who I have not seen in years. It was fun for her to finally meet my girls and while at first Hannah was a little scared of her she quickly warmed up to her b/c Natasha loves to play with kids. Here she is with Hannah on the swing:



Here are Reese, Logan & Hannah enjoying an ice cream in a fun tree...



It is some much fun to see our kids getting a long so well and playing with each other ...it is neat when you grow up with someone practically your whole life and then your kids like each other too.

Here is an adorable picture of Samantha giving my mom a very big and unexpected hug:



On Halloween night we headed up to Roseville to a Halloween party at a friend's house. There were a lot of little kids there...here are some in line to hit a pinta:



We did lots of trick or treating and here are a few kids (including our Snow White & Abby as Snow White) enjoying their candy:



Samantha trying to get at the family dogs...did I mention how much she loves dogs?!:)


And here are some random pics of something that Samantha tries to do constantly!...play in Tulip's water bowl:



What?! I am not doing a thing...can't you tell by my grin:

Hannah's surgery is complete!

Hannah went into surgery today to fix faulty sealing bladder tubes and she is recovering well. She has pretty much been asleep all day and right now is enjoying watching Winnie the Pooh in her hospital room.

Before the surgery they gave her some drugs to drink before they stuck her with anything...so that was nice. Those drugs made her sleepy and loopy and it was like watching Hannah drunk...it was hilarious!!! She totally started slurring her speech and then started tripping out on her name tags around her legs...totally hilarious. Adam and I were laughing so hard we were crying. :) The nurses told us to enjoy her now b/c when they come out of surgery 95% of the kids cry inconsolably for a long time b/c of the anesthesia wearing off and the tubes running out of them etc. So while we waited the 3 hours for her surgery to be complete I was trying to enjoy the "Calm Before the Storm" b/c I totally thought Hannah was going to be one of those 95%. But somehow she turned out to be one of those 5% b/c she pretty much as been sleeping all day only to wake up here and there, space out for a little bit and then go back to sleep. She also hasn't spoken very much today which is really strange to us b/c normally she talks non-stop. I get to spend the night here tonight, so we will see how it goes. The nurse says with these kinds of surgeries a lot of times the kids wake up at about 3 am ready to go wanting to play and eat...lets hope Hannah also doesn't meet those statistics and stays asleep all night.

The doctor said the surgery went really well...it was text book. I knew he was good doctor but it was nice to hear all the nurses telling us what a really good doctor he was too.

Oink Oink

I know I know...I am past due to post pictures from Halloween and I will get them up soon. The Turtle and Snow White pictures will make their appearance shortly. :)

In the mean time let me occupy your mind with another story. My dad's company "Novartis" makes the season flu and now the H1N1 vaccines and are offering it to employees and families for free. Since my doctor's office does not have the H1N1 vaccine yet and don't know when they will get it my doctor recommended I get it where we can even though Samantha cannot get it at my dad's work b/c they are only offering it to kids over 4 years of age...Hannah just made the cut off! Our doctor also highly recommended I get Hannah the shot before her surgery/hospital stay next Friday but to keep in mind that it is possible to get a fever within 7 days of the shot and if she has a fever they will not do the surgery. Well that is a total catch 22 b/c we are now 7 days out from the surgery but I decided to go ahead and take the risk that she will not develop a fever and get her the shot to help keep her immune from any germs lurking around the hospital.

Originally I thought I was going to have to go to Emeryville where my dad works but he found out that the Novartis in Vacaville was administering the shots and arranged for us to go there instead. YAY! I left work this morning and off I went to go get my mom (she is up visiting) and then Hannah at school to go get this shot. Poor Hannah...she was all excited to see us only to find out the reason we were there was to get her this shot. She was fine the whole way there but became very shy when we arrived at the nurse's office. The nurse was very nice and gave Hannah a pink pig hat to wear which was great and I thought it would be a great distraction. Hannah wanted me to go first and she was fine watching me get the shot but when I told her it was her turn she went running out the door and down the hallway screaming "NO!". I really don't know where she thought she was going. Of course I caught up to her and brought her back in. She was now screaming "No I don't want to do this, I don't want a shot!". Being the sympathetic mother that I am I told her we could do this the nice way where she sits o my lap and I hold her hand while she is given the shot or we could do this the not nice way and I could pin her down and she could get the shot. She chose the first option...smart girl. All was somewhat o.k. until the shot hit her arm and then more screaming occurred and she tried to move but I held her tight. Then she screamed for like 5 minutes aftewards indicating that she did not like that. Sorry. And because she is under 9 we get to repeat this again in 3-4 weeks...good times.

Next week Adam and I get to tackle how to explain to her that she is having surgery on Friday...wish us luck. Any suggestions would be great!