The Many Adventures of Keira!

Parent/Teacher Conference

2009-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had my first Parent/Teacher Conference with Ms. Aurora for Keira's preschool. There were lots of things that we discussed. Since Keira is still fairly new to being in a preschool, she rated 'satisfactory' for most topics. She still has alot to learn with most of it being adjustments to being in a more structured environment throughout the day. There are definitely some 'areas of improvement' that we spent most of the time discussing. We'll be working on Keira's issue with controlling her body. What does that mean? She can't keep still!!! They have circle time in the morning for about 15 minutes and Keira is completely antsy by the time around 10 minutes rolls around. She starts fidgeting, tapping her legs, getting up on her knees, getting up and running around. UGH... Other issues that she has are all related to the problem with her staying still and being so antsy, I think those will resolve once we are able to get a handle on the antsy-ness. How DO you work on that with a 3 year old? Any help and tips are appreciated!!!

On the other hand, she got rave reviews for being so advanced with her letter recognition and pronunciation. She knows all of her letters and can pronounce the sounds that each of them make, so she is just steps away from reading..which is wonderful. Alot of that, I credit to the Letter Factory DVDs that belonged to Max. Gigi gave me them when Keira was still little and it really helps with recognizing sounds that the letters make. Gigi swears by it for helping Max to read as well as he does. I highly recommend it for any parents with little ones to get them geared up for reading.

Wish us luck and like I said, any tips on how to work with kids that are antsy is greatly appreciated! :)

BUSY BUSY BUSY

2009-05-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while. Things have been so hectic lately with my work schedule, with Keira' schedule etc. She is growing like a weed and has unfortunately been getting lots of time in the corner lately for her sassy attitude that she has picked up along the way with her terrible 3s. Yes, 3s can be terrible too LOL. Dan and I are very strict with her because she is very well aware of the fact that she is so darned cute and already knows how to work it to her advantage...complete with the posing and ' I know I'm adorable' looks...so from here on out until she is 30 NO ONE is allowed to call her cute anymore otherwise, she may BE in the corner until she is 30. LOL just kidding...

All in all though, in general, she really is a very well behaved little one knowing consistently to say please and thank you. She's a social butterfly that will wave and say hi to people until they can't help but smile and say hi back. She only does this though when Mommy and Daddy are right there and she is holding our hands knowing that we're right there with her. Daycare has been great for her, but her confidence has really blossomed since going to pre-school. She used to just play all by herself or wanted Dan and I to be the ones to play with her even when other children were around. Now, she makes friends everywhere she goes....

It really is something seeing our little girl growing up!

Chris Fisher- 3 Year Anniversary

2009-04-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

We love and miss you Chris!

3 Year Old Check up

2009-04-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since I've blogged! We've been so busy and so much has gone on, it's been so hard to get here. Keira is now in pre-school and having a great time. She is meeting lots of new friends and is as fun and active as ever! I took her to her 3 year old check up and she is doing great! She is 95% percentile for height (yes, she's a tall one) and is in the 50% percentile for weight! When we first brought her home, she was about 5% and was barely eating anything, now she eats everything in sight since she's just so active. She is still wearing size 3 clothes but they are starting to flood a little on her heightwise.

She loves watching "The Letter Factory" leapfrog DVD's that Kuya Max gave her. She is really understanding the pronunciations of the letters and is trying to read words by sounding out the letters. Dan has made her a bunch of templates that she likes using to trace out the Capital and lower case letters of the Alphabet. She LOVES to have story time and have us read to her. She loves trying to read to baby and her dolls. If I didn't know better, I would SWEAR that she really was reading Cat in the Hat since she knows all of the words just about! She loves trying to help me cook, help make Daddy coffee and loves to climb all of the fun things at the park that they built close to our house. She's talking up a storm and singing and dancing all the time. She is even practicing MC'ing where she stands in front of Dan and I and starts announcing the next show (it's pretty funny since she also makes sure we clap and respond appropriately LOL She's so bossy!) She loves playing with Amelia and giving her dog treats although I have to watch and make sure that she doesn't give her the whole thing. It's not like Amelia would tell me!

She is such a whirlwind and it's so fun to watch all of the changes happening in her world- I feel so blessed to get to be part of it. She's growing up so fast!

2 Year Anniversary!

2009-02-25T09:04:00.001-08:00

On this day 2 years ago, we met our crazy little girl for the first time. Things are so different than on that day. Things were so new for her and she was very scared...believe me...Dan and I were just as scared as she was! I was so worried about whether I was doing the right thing taking her from the only family that she had known up until that point in her young life...worried about whether I would be a good mother...

My how time flies! Here we are...2 years later. I'm still far from being a perfect mother, but who is??? She is in pre-school now and talking up a storm! She loves to run, play, pretend to dance ballet and sing songs from Phantom of the Opera. She knows her name is Keira Jade Curry and she is from China. Daddy and Mommy got on a big plane to bring Keira home from China to be our baby...one day I will explain more of it to her when she is ready...

2 years ago today was the happiest day of my life...when we became a family.

Van Gogh Curry

2009-02-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

Keira has been doing alot of drawing lately. They all kind of look like this... at least she didn't draw poop today! :)

Update- If you look closely at the picture...I think she DID draw poop! What is with this crazy girl's obsession??? LOL

Pre-School and Panda Bears

2009-02-05T04:28:00.001-08:00

Dan and I have been checking out a few pre-schools to have Keira go to for a few months now. The price ranges for some changed significantly depending on whether your child is potty trained or not. Keira was potty trained but was still having some accidents when taking a nap. She sometimes takes a nap for an hour..other times, she'll be down for almost 3-4 hours! I would think this would be an issue if she wasn't sleeping at night, but on those days, she still would sleep through the night! She's now been potty trained completely through the day including her naps for a few months now so I thought she might be ready until she started having a few accidents here and there. We held off on pre-school until we were SURE that there wouldn't be anymore accidents and she is doing great again.

Dan and I went to check out a really great pre-school yesterday. It was decorated nicely and spotless which is always nice to see. I guess I feel that a clean place that doesn't look run down shows that the teachers and staff care more about things than just collecting a paycheck. I really liked the philosophies and their curriculum. While in the waiting area for the tour, they had a little table with paper for children that were waiting to draw and color. Keira LOVES to color and it amazes me that she completely stays within the lines when she does. Is that normal for a 3 year old? She will sit there for a very long time being very careful about it and granted, Daisy Duck will be purple, it's still so neat and precise! LOL Well, yesterday was the first time that I have actually seen her DRAW something... not color someting, but DRAW it. She always asks Dan and I to draw things for her, but this was the first time I ever saw her actually do it! "Mommy! Mommy! Look! A panda bear!" There it was! Keira's version of a panda bear. It looked very much like that weird Quizno's singing rat thing (see picture above), but it was her panda bear and I loved it! "Mommy look! Panda bear poo poo!" Sure enough, she had taken a brown crayon and drawn something that was supposed to resemble...well, you get the picture. I laughed and told her how wonderful her drawing was. She started on her next masterpiece. "Mommy...look! A doggie!" Wow! Another cute drawing...which also remarkably resembled the Quizno's rat (am I sensing a theme here?) "Mommy look! Doggie poo poo!" What on earth??? I told her that was nice, but she should let them go poo poo in private. I could hear laughter in the other room before a couple of ladies came out laughing telling me how little ones always seem to get in that stage where it just fascinates them to no end! Later on that day, she proceeded to draw several other animals doing their business for me. I know that I'm not supposed to encourage that, but I just couldn't help but laugh a few times! LOL

I think we're going to fill out the paperwork to register her tomorrow. I am going to have Keira go to be in a learning environment for 3 days a weekdays. 1 day will be with me and I still want her to stay with her current daycare 1 day a week. I want her to be able to have a day of just play play play and I also didn't want to take her away from friends and what she has known as routine with her regular daycare out of the blue. I figured it might just be too much for her. I'm really excited and think this will be a wonderful thing for her! Maybe they will teach her to draw something else...LOL

The Dentist

2009-01-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

I finally got everything straightened out with my dental insurance and was able to bring Keira for her first trip to the Dentist. Since most people have a fear of the dentist, I just wasn't sure what to expect! She is a pretty brave little girl so I was hoping it wouldn't be too traumatic and I started preparing her a few days before explaining that she was going to the Dentist and little things about the procedures so that she wouldn't be caught off guard. I would ask her, "Keira, where are you going tomorrow?" She would tell me "I go Dentist, then open mouth look at teeth..then sticker!!!" She got the basics LOL

This was her playing in the waiting area. So far so good! She was laughing and playing with the toys and having a great time telling me about the pictures of the fish on the walls.

They called us in and she sat in the chair waiting to have her xrays done. I stood by telling her to go AAAAHHHHH and she did a great job. She got all of her xrays done without a problem.
After that, they moved her over to the chairs where she could have her teeth cleaned. They had pictures all over the ceilings for her to look at as well as Kung Fu Panda playing. Jack Black kind of drowned out the sound of one of the kids in a back room screaming bloody murder. YIKES! He obviously wasn't just getting a cleaning or a regular check up...at least I HOPE he wasn't!

Here she was being a good little helper. The paste was in a ring that Keira got to wear on her finger to hand to the lady cleaning her teeth. I didn't know how she would handled the tube that sucks the stuff out of your mouth. The look on her face was priceless...but after the initial weirdness, she didn't mind it.

Here she is! Stickers in hand and new toothbrush! She has healthy teeth and gums and did a great job!

The Birthday Girl in Princess Heaven

2008-12-24T15:05:00.001-08:00

December 20th, my little baby turned 3 years old!!! We spent the day at Disneyland and she was in absolute Princess Heaven! Mom, Gigi and Max arrived and Lorraine was able to come too. Disneyland is absolutely beautiful during the Christmas Season...all the lights...it's a "must do" for Christmas. This was Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We just happened to be right in front when they did the transformation from the regular lights to the Special Winterlights they put up.

Small World!!! They updated Small World for the Christmas Season. It is definitely a sight to behold. We go to Disneyland every Christmas, but I am always in awe everytime.

These were some pictures before we headed out to Disneyland. Max and Keira decided that since they couldn't make Snow Angels, they would make Tile Angels instead. Not quite the same effect, but just as fun...at least for us watching them :).

The gang's all here! This was when Doowa, Max and Auntie Gigi arrived. They all jumped on the couch to read "Where The Wild Things Are".

The next morning was when we headed to Disneyland. Here are Auntie Gigi, Max and Keira on the Tram from the Mickey and Friend's Parking Lot. This picture cracks me up since it's so typical of the family chaos that goes on. Max was playing around with Keira's hair and the look on her face is priceless! LOL

Here are Dan, Mom, Lorraine, Keira and Max all standing in Line at the Finding Nemo Submarine ride. WOW! Keira loved this ride. All through the ride, she was yelling and waving "Hi Nemo!!!" "Hi Dory!!!" She loves Finding Nemo and it's so much fun now that she recognizes all of the characters.

Uh OH! PRINCESS HEAVEN!!! We had lunch at Ariel's Grotto in the California Adventure Park. I had read mixed reviews on the food and the experience and it honestly looked like more of the bad experiences with late seating etc were all later in the day. Because of that, I decided to make our reservations for lunch as early as possible. Definitely the way to go!!! We were seated right away, the food was absolutely FANTASTIC and she saw just about EVERY princess.

When you first step in, you meet Ariel. Ariel and Cinderella are Keira's favorite princesses, so she was absolutely thrilled.

Each of the princesses were introduced one by one and went to each of the tables to meet the kids. Ours was one of the last tables even though we were right in front to see all the princesses come out (they went around in the opposite direction from where we were). It couldn't have been better. Because we were one of the last tables, each of them were able to really take the time to stop and take the time to talk to Keira and wish her a Happy Birthday. Here is Keira and Cinderella. Keira and Sleeping Beauty

Keira, Max and Belle

Keira and Snow White

Here we were waiting in line at the Haunted Mansion. They made it in the "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme which is always alot of fun.

We had a wonderful time. Keira is still not quite used to holding 3 fingers up as her age, but she'll get it soon! I can't believe my baby is 3!

Fun Downtown

2008-12-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

Dan and I were off this weekend and decided to take Keira to Downtown San Diego to go ice skating. Where else can you go ice skating in an outdoor skating rink in 75 degree weather??? Dan is from Maine, so he was pretty much born with ice skates on, but he hasn't been on ice skates in a few years. He broke a bone in his foot believe it or not when someone ran over his foot when he was on his motorcycle in traffic. Yes...ran over his foot with their car. Thanks to his super duper strong Harley Davidson Motorcycle boots, he was able to walk away from it. He didn't realize though that he had a broken bone until his foot really started hurting more and more when walking. He decided to go ahead and give ice skating a try.

Keira was much better at balancing herself on ice skates than I thought she would be! I think it's because she likes to walk around on her tiptoes all the time. Must have helped her with her balance. She went around once with Daddy, but after that first round, she was done. Dan skated around for a bit more until he was tired, but he really thinks that his foot is healed now and is looking forward to skating more.

She really did pretty good

After that, we headed over to the New Children's Museum. Keira painted the VW Bug and was able to handle getting a little paint on her better than last time. She really hates getting dirty and wanted to stop constantly to wash her hands!
We really had so much fun and need to try to make it down a little more often!

Thanksgiving Week

2008-11-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

I've been off for the past week and have had so much to do! The backyard was an absolute jungle, so I've been storming through it machete in hand filling the green recycling bin to the brim. I've taken care of tying up loose ends for the business as well as cleaning up the house and rounding up all of Keira's clothes for donations. Yes, it's been a busy week! Even as busy as it has been, I still love to cook the Thanksgiving meal so we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Kat and Matt who drove down from Studio City as well as Lorraine and Mike. It was great to get to spend the day with family. I was good this year and packed the majority of the leftovers in tupperwares for them to take home.

We headed down to Carlsbad to the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony they had at The Forum tonight. It is a great little annual event that they go all out for the kids. They had horse drawn carriage rides, crafts for the kids, cookies, brownies and mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Carolers, Santa..you name it. It's a great way to kick off the Christmas Season.

Here is Keira by a little Koi pond they have. There is a small waterfall along with a reindeer display which is really cute. Keira loved looking at the fish.

Here we were watching Santa make his way down the red carpet! Santa looked like he was about 4'9" tall! He was a tiny guy!

Here were some of the carolers entertaining the crowds. They also had dancers and other singers.

Here are Dan and Keira in the crowd enjoying the show. We alternated with her on our shoulders, but after a while, she finally wanted to be on the ground so that she could dance.

We had a great time and are very excited about the Christmas Season!!!

The Plug

2008-11-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, Dan has been working on a second business during his off-time from his current business. He's been a part time insurance agent and is taking the leap and starting his agency full time at the end of this month. He has not been added to the Farmer's website yet since it's all still pretty new, but he has his own site where it discusses all of the different insurance coverages he specializes in- including his specialty which is Motorcycle coverage.

The more clicks he gets on the site, the better positioning he gets in the search engines, so check out his site...and check it out often! :) Also, if you live in the state of California and your policies are expiring or you have any questions about your policies, consider giving Dan a call! THANKS!!!

www.dancurryagency.com

The Rating System

2008-11-12T06:12:00.001-08:00

Me: Keira, you know Mommy loves you,right?
Keira: (Nodding her head) Yes
Me: You know how much Mommy loves you? Very Very Much!
Keira: (Smiling) Yes
Me: Do you love Mommy?
Keira: (Nodding her head) I love you much
Me: How much?
Keira: 2 1/2

Yes. 2 1/2. LOL I noticed that whenever I would ask Keira "How Much" of anything, her response has been some number and a 1/2. I think it's actually from her trying to answer how old she is.
Here are the ratings so far...mind you, they change constantly and can go up or down at will.

Mommy- 2 1/2 sometimes 4 1/2
Daddy 3 1/2
Amelia 5 1/2

The last time I asked, I was down to 1 1/2. I better stop asking until I've done something to raise my stock, huh? LOL

Visiting The Family

2008-11-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

The past week or so has been such a whirlwind! Keira and I headed out to Illinois to visit with Auntie Gigi, Max and Doowa (Lola, my mom). I have been a little worried about how Keira would handle the flight, but she did so great! Dan had to stay behind to work, so he dropped us off at the Airport early in the morning. I was able to get everything for both of us in 2 carryons and already had the boarding passes printed out and ready to go. I thought I had it made until Keira wanted me to carry her everywhere. "Mommy! Carry Yooooouuuu!" That is how she asks me to carry her. I think it's from me saying "Do you want Mommy to Carry You?" LOL. I've been trying to get her to say "carry ME" instead...but it's just so darn cute how she says it! She wasn't quite getting it all until we started to board the plane. She buckled herself in and was really getting excited! She didn't cry for a second through the entire flight and really enjoyed herself. She watched a little of Cinderella and mainly looked at the clouds from the window or played Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo DS. I don't normally like her playing with it, but hey...it made for a nice flight! We had such a great time. I love going back to Illinois for Halloween. It really feels like Fall with the change of weather and colors and everyone really gets into the spirit with their decorations. This year was a Star Wars Theme and Max and Gigi decided that they wanted Keira to be Yoda. I promised Dan that she would also get to dress as a princess for the second round as well.

Here is Yoda! Princess Yoda that is. Rose, Gigi's sister in law put the purple flower antennae on her so that she would be Princess Yoda instead. Dan said that it wasn't a Yoda costume, but she looked more like a green pig in a bathrobe or Ted Kennedy- Think dirty bathrobe and a bottle of Scotch. He's nuts. Max and the cousins Caleb, Allie, Josh and Jacob were all dressed as Star Wars characters as well. Rose was even Padme Amidala! LOL We got to spend some time with the Fisher Family as well which is always wonderful. Mr. Fisher and I talked Politics and Jon (Chris' younger brother) flew the kids around like planes. They really were high up in the air considering that he's 6'7" tall! He however was protesting the Star Wars theme. He refused to be part of there not only being 2 Anakin Skywalkers, but there also being a separate Darth Vader in the same plane and space. How is that even possible??? LOL Funny thing was that a couple of people when we were out trick or treating asked how it was possible as well! Come on now all you Star Wars freaks! :)

The second time around, Max was Speed Racer and Keira was dressed as Sleeping Beauty. There was a little button on the side that you pushed and the whole skirt of the dress lit up with flickering blue, purple and white lights. She was tired and wanted to ride around in Max's Radio Flyer wagon. Allie was wonderful and pulled her around. Allie put on one of Max's shirts and was Max for Halloween the second round LOL. Keira was turning her lights on, so while riding around in the wagon, she looked like the Disney Electric Light Parade! LOL

We did a little bit of karaoke afterwards and here is Keira singing her Princess songs. She was really belting it out which kind of surprised me. I thought that she might be a little shy singing in front of everyone, but she just got up in front of everyone and took over. What a ham!

After Halloween, we spent some mellow time taking in some of the sights and just enjoying the unusually warm weather! It was such beautiful weather- around the early 70s. Here are some pictures of Keira and Max at the Riverwalk in Naperville. The Riverwalk was there back when I was in High School for a couple of years, but I just don't remember it being as beautiful as it really is. I don't know if they changed it any, or if I was just too dumb to notice how beautiful it is...probably the latter! LOL

Here was a structure built as a memorial for 9/11 at the Riverwalk. Max was taking a picture as well as you can see.

There were a few bridges along the river that we crossed to see the geese swimming around. The kids had a great time running along the edge of the water and back and forth on stairs. After this, we went to visit Chris' grave site. It still is so hard to believe that he is gone. I'm glad that we got a chance to visit.

We also got to take in Max's first basketball game of the season. Max's Uncle Jon (The Mocker of Star Wars ) is the coach and did a great job. I really thought that the kids were all so young and probably would just be running around not really knowing the game. BOY! I couldn't have been more wrong! It really was such an exciting game and the kids were fantastic! Max's team came back after being behind 18 points to tie the game at the last minute. Not too shabby considering that the other team looked like they were each about a foot taller than these kids. Size doesn't necessarily matter does it?

We spent some time at the Morton Arboretum where they had a beautiful children's garden. It is almost like a Children's Museum in a great outdoor setting. Max did such a great job with Keira! He was so patient and even though he looks kind of grumpy in this picture, they actually got along great!

Here he was helping her across some rocks. He was always helping her with everything and slowed down for her since she isn't quite as fast as he was. They truly adore each other which is wonderful.

We also went to the Children's Museum in Naperville. It really is a great hands on experience for the kids. So much for them to do and play with.

After about 5 days, we headed home. She did just as good on the flight home except for the fact that she got so engrossed in playing the Nintendo DS that she forgot to tell me that she had to go to the bathroom. She is pretty much potty trained except for naps and sleeping at night, but from what I hear, that takes some time.

We had such a wonderful time. Thank you Gigi, Mom and Max! Can't wait to see all of you for Christmas!

Bill O'Reilly

2008-10-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Me: Keira, what did you want to watch on tv?
Keira: I want to watch Bill O'Reilly.
Me: You want to watch what?
Keira: I want to watch Bill O'Reilly.
Me: Did you just say that you want to watch Bill O'Reilly?
Keira: Yes...I want to watch Bill O'Reilly.

The Pumpkin Station

2008-10-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

Keira and I are heading to Illinois to visit with Auntie Gigi, Doowa and Max this Halloween! It is going to be her first time on a plane since we came home from China so I'm not sure how she will be. The flight home from China was absolutely MISERABLE so I can't imagine this being worse LOL. We were still in the bonding stages and getting to really know each other back then not to mention it was an 18 hour flight. This time, Keira and I are totally in sync and it's a 4 hour flight. Hopefully that counts for something! LOL. I've been preparing her ahead of time by explaining that we were goin to be flying, so once in a while she asks me about the plane we'll be on.

Dan will be staying back to work, so he won't get to do any trick or treating with us. To make up for it some, this past weekend we headed over to the Pumpkin Station in Del Mar. They had tons of pumpkins of course as well as a petting zoo and carnival rides. Keira had a blast and although they totally killed us with the ticket prices (OUCH!) it was worth it to see her have so much fun.

Here she is going cruising in her Purple Buggie. There was a jolly big guy named Kemo manning the ride that let them ride FOREVER. That made it worth it as well.

She specifically asked to be in the Batman plane. Even though she loves her Princesses, she still loves pointing out Spiderman, Batman and Thomas things that she spots.

Ahh....the train ride. She loves trains and got to sit with the blue dinosaur until the dinosaur started crying and wanted OFF! LOL

We had a good time and still had lots of tickets left, so Dan and Keira are going to be there again while I'm working sometime this weekend. They are also going to pick up a pumpkin this time and work on carving it together. Hopefully I'll get to do it with them although honestly any pumpkin I have tried to carve in the past has been a complete disaster...

Pictures Pictures and More Pictures

2008-10-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

I lost my camera a while ago and finally found it again on the floor in my car while clearing out Keira's millions of toys and jackets. Isn't it funny how we do that? End up with so many toys in the car as well as old bags of snacks and jackets? I didn't even know that Keira HAD that many jackets...and what about shoes??? How does it happen that there are so many shoes in there? She must have at least started out wearing them at one time or another and ended up barefoot. Anyway, I had so many pictures on the camera that I hadn't posted, so I thought I would post them now!

Here are some Disneyland pictures. Yes, we actually stood in that huge line to take pictures with Pooh! The last time we attempted to stand in that line, Tigger passed out and they had to drag him off. We weren't sure to be honest whether it was from heatstroke or if Tigger was drunk. This time, just about as soon as we got up to Tigger, he left for a break. He remains the ever elusive one...

We WERE able to get pictures with Eeyore and Pooh though!

She was a little shy around Pooh first, until Pooh wanted a hug. After that, he was her best friend.
We got this crazy looking blow up frog pool that she liked to play in during the summer. Dan spent FOREVER blowing that thing up. You would think that gadget man would at least have something that could have inflated that thing somewhere in his work area in the garage. It was a great little pool though. It even had a little slide that she could go up and down on.
I love her face in this picture. You can't tell that the water was a little cold that day, can you?

Princess Keira with her tiara and magic wand. I got her a little princess outfit so that she can just run around and be a princess whenever she felt like it. So far, she likes to be in disguise by dressing in just her regular clothes with her wand. I can't get her to put on the whole getup!
I definitely don't remember THESE slide pictures! Dan was the one that took them on a day when he took her to the park. She likes to climb up slides instead of going up the stairs. As long as other children aren't trying to go down the slide, we let her once in a while.
Here, Dan said that she was trying to make Baby go up the slide. She still takes Baby EVERYWHERE she goes. Every once in a while, she will let Baby stay in the car if I am able to convince her that Baby is taking a nap. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and she says, "Oh Come on Mommy!" It's so funny how she says it too. Kind of in that "You're kidding, right?" voice. Funny how they pick up on things like that so easily.
This picture cracked me up. She put my dirty shoes on the wrong feet and was doing ballet around the house
Here she was running around the house with Max's hat on.

She really is such a funny happy little girl. It's a very rare exception that she isn't being silly or laughing and just being the joy that she is. Dan and I are so thankful every day for her being our daughter and that she is in our lives.

Disney On Ice

2008-10-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

Keira still loves everything having to do with Disney Princesses, so when I saw that Disney on Ice was in town, how could I not bring her? Dan came as well and joked that he had no problem seeing an ice skating show since he is comfortable enough with his masculinity...as long as Keira sat next to him so that people didn't think he came to see it alone! LOL

I've been telling Keira that we were going to see the Princesses to prepare her for the show, but I don't quite think that she got it. On the drive down, she had fallen asleep so I carried her in. She woke up as we were sitting in our seats and of course was a little confused with what was going on. The show started soon after and had little shorts of various Disney stories- Nemo, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and of course a short segment with all of the princesses! Keira sat through this completely silent and with a look on her face that was very difficult to interpret! Was she confused? Was she in awe? What was going on in her little brain?

During the intermission, she was still a little quiet and not her usual talkative self. It wasn't until the second half when we realized that she was just taking all of the sights and sounds in. When Mulan came out, she yelled, "Mommy...MULAN!!!!!" and from that point, she was excitedly pointing everything and everyone out to us..."Mommy...Princesses...Mommy...Castle! Daddy, Look! Spiderman!" (She thought the dad from the Incredibles was Spiderman LOL) She was having a great time.

We've been encouraging her to tell us about things that she has done during her day, so we asked her what she thought about the show when we were in the car. She was talking a mile a minute telling us about everything she saw...including how Ochidokio ate the whole shark by himself and he was going to bite you (This of course really means how Pinocchio was eaten by the whale LOL). We stopped to get something to eat and when she got out of the car, she immediately started shuffling around on the sidewalk spinning around pretending to ice skate. I'm glad she had a great time :) .

I Am My Mother...

2008-09-29T04:57:00.001-07:00

A while back, Keira was running around doing something, but not something that I wanted her to. To get her attention, I said "SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHT...Hey, Mommy said please go pick up your toy and put it back in your room!" Dan gives me a funny look laughing. "Did you just 'Dog Whisper' our daughter or something with that sound?" LOL I didn't even realize that I was doing it, but sure enough...there I was ...making that sound!

Most Filipinos know that familiar sound...SSSSSHHHHHHHHHT! It's how all of our parents got our attention when we were kids and something that we would all make fun of.

Every day when I'm with Keira, I'll find myself saying "OY!" or "Ayyyyyy!" or "Ayyy Nako!" Keira even says "Ayyyy Nako!" on a regular basis as an exclamation. Where is all of this coming from? My Mother! I have turned into my Mother LOL . Not that it's a bad thing...it's just something that I never saw happening as a kid. I HAVE stopped short of pointing at things with my lips though so I haven't completely lost it :).

Life Lessons and Pirates

2008-09-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

(Keira on her fake plastic remote that looks like an iPhone)

This weekend was Harbor Days here in my neck of the wood. Dan had a booth there for his business so we decided to head over for a visit and to check out the festivities.

We started with the intention of going on Saturday, but ended up going clothes shopping for Keira instead with Auntie Lorraine at the Carlsbad Outlet Mall. As we were getting ready, Keira decided to put some powder on Amelia. I guess Life Lesson #1 is that most dogs don't like to have make up on. She ran around the house rubbing her face on the carpet frantically then ran off and hid in the backyard and decided to dig a huge hole in the grass. Perhaps trying to hide so that no one would see her with makeup on? Who knows! Keira is getting to be such a tall beanpole now and we had to get her size 3/3T clothes! Shes still very slim, so the perfect size waist wise is 2T, but they usually end up being floods now, so I have to get her 3/3T clothes hopefully with adjustable waists.
We were finally able to make it to Harbor Days on Sunday. After church, Keira and I got changed and headed to the transit station where you could park and take a shuttle to the Harbor. This was definitely going to be the best way to go since there are thousands of people that show up! Life Lesson #2...as soon as you are able to carry less things do it!!! I stopped carrying a diaper bag months ago and now Keira carries around her little Hello Kitty backpack with some wipes, a couple of pulls ups just in case, a change of clothing and a book. Hey! They are her things, so why SHOULDN'T she carry them? LOL Actually, she does con me into carrying it sometimes as well too. Anyway, after somehow carrying her with her backpack and the stroller, we made it on the shuttle.

It was very fun! It was a pirate theme and there were lots of pirates walking around handing things out to the kids like gold coins, beads, stickers and tattoos! Jack Sparrow gave Keira a skull lollypop which of course was her favorite thing. They had tons of vendor booths there and we found Dan to show him all of Keira's loot. We watched a Pirate Ship take off and at the Pirate's cove where they were making balloon swords for the kids and giving them their own pirate names. Keira was named "Killer Kay" the pirate. LOL She got to wear her little pirate certificate, played with sword for a while and got and gave lots of "AAAARRRRRRRRHHHH"s until she just pooped out. Life Lesson #3- Even Killers have to take naps sometimes!

The booth right next to Dan sold those mini guitars and wrestler masks! I bought Keira her own little pink guitar to play. Unfortunately it doesn't really tune and doesn't play well...oh well, she enjoys strumming it and pretending to sing. I guess that is what is important. We also got Max a Nacho Libre mask. He LOOOOOOOVES that movie! We sent Max a picture on my cell with a little sound byte of Keira saying "NAAAAAAACCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Gigi sent me a text back saying that they kept playing it over and over laughing.

Well, on the way back to the Shuttle, I had a bit of a dilemma. Keira was now napping, I had a stroller and a few bags. There was a line of people waiting for the shuttle and just as we were all getting ready to get on. It was a mixed bag of people...Old people, young people, couples, families, people that were dressed as pirates, people that looked like they would be the equivalent of modern day pirates (in other words...like street people). As the shuttle approached, I started trying to get everything together. I was carrying Keira, still asleep with one hand, carrying bags in that same hand and trying to fold up her stroller with the other. It was a mess and although I never like to portray myself as a damsel in distress, I was pretty horrified about the fact that there was a line of all of these people standing there watching me struggle and not offering to help. If anything many of them seemed more annoyed that I might cause a delay in them getting on the shuttle even though I had gotten out of the way specifically not to slow things down. Next thing you know as I was struggling still and trying not to wake Keira up, when I hear "Did you need some help?" It was a couple that looked street people. I said "Yes! Thank you!" The lady took my bags and the guy helped me fold up the stroller. They put it on the shuttle and made their way to their seats. When we got to our destination, they grabbed my things and carried them off the shuttle for me and even helped me open the stroller. I was reaching in my pocket to see if I had any cash to give them for helping me out and the guy stopped me. "When you do nice things for people, it always comes back to you!" They smiled and off they went. This by far was probably the best lesson of all that has always kind of been a cliche, but now I see as so very true. Life Lesson #4- NEVER judge a book by it's cover.

Burn After Reading

2008-09-18T18:05:00.001-07:00

The other day after work, Dan and I had a little time in the afternoon before picking Keira up. We decided to have a "date afternoon". I had heard great things about Burn After Reading, so we thought we would go see it. The movie theatre is very close to us, so to save time since we were cutting it really close, I headed there straight from the office and Dan walked and met me there.

Burn After Reading is the newest movie from the Coen Brothers. Some other movies they have made were O Brother Where Art Thou, The Big Lebowski and Fargo. They usually do dark twisted comedies and this was no exception. The story is basically about a former CIA agent who decides to write his memoirs and some gym trainers that find his disk that they think is top secret CIA stuff and try to blackmail him. The story itself is kind of flimsy, and honestly, it really moves kind of slow at the beginning. The characters on the other hand are absolutely fantastic and although I'm not a big fan of Clooney or Pitt, they were GREAT and totally made the movie. Without giving too much away, my favorite person in the movie had a very small role as the CIA Director. He' a character actor and you may not know his name (J.K Simmons), but you will definitely know his face.

Dan and I left the theatre thinking to ourselves....It was ok. Nothing spectacular and even though there were some funny moments, it most certainly was not as hilarious as I had heard it was. Then something funny happened... a day later after thinking about it and remembering specific scenes, I would find myself laughing outloud- REALLY laughing. Dan and I were even in hysterics this afternoon talking about one scene in particular! It's one of those kind of movies...the delayed reaction.

I might have to see it again...on another "date afternoon"

Sunday Morning

2008-09-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

Dan is working on Sundays right now, so Sunday is Keira and Mommy day to hang out and enjoy the day. We do have our routines. She usually is wide awake by 6am and begins the day yelling for me to come and bring her to the potty. She has really been doing great with her potty training and is just about completely potty trained during the day. She hasn't had any accidents and consistently goes on her own now. She is still in a crib, so naps and sleeping at night she still wears diapers. I think that starting this week, I'm going to let her sleep in a regular bed during naps so that she can maybe start getting used to getting up if she needs to go potty or hopefully she can learn to hold it until she gets up. Sunday mornings Keira likes to make breakfast. She loves making scrambled eggs and runs to the kitchen yelling "MOMMY...EGGS!!!" in excitement. She runs to the kitchen table to grab a chair and drags it into the kitchen. I get her ingredients together so that she can work her magic. She's pretty good with breaking eggs, although she still gets some shells in the bowl. Here she is scrambling the eggs.
She has a little bowl with cheese and anything else that she wants to mix with her eggs. She sometimes likes to have mushrooms and onions. She takes small amounts of her ingredients and whisks it in with her eggs.

She love to make her eggs and is actually very good at it!
Ok, now I understand the concern that some of you probably have with the fact that she is actually at a stove cooking. I am always right there with her and she knows that she is ONLY allowed to use the stove with Mommy or Daddy there. She understands the concept of being careful with the stove being hot and that she has to be careful. If I get too close to the stove, she even tells me, "Mommy! Don't touch...it's HOT!!!" I let her stir the eggs for a minute, then Mommy finishes it off as she puts the bread in the toaster and gets set up in her chair to eat breakfast.

After breakfast, we head off to church. She loves one of the traffic security guards at church named Butch and always gives him a hug when we see him. She is really doing great at church and although she does get a little antsy towards the end, she loves singing the songs and saying "Peace Be With You!" LOL

After church, we grab Amelia and head down to the beach to give her a nice walk. It's kind of nice that summer is over because the beaches are less crowded.

Happy Sunday!

The Prayer

2008-09-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

Keira: God bless Daddy and Mommy and Keira and Amelia... and Doowa... and Nana...and baby and MeeMee (her blanket)...and bottle...and Cinderella...and Princesses...and bottle...and Legoland...and Ariel...and TV....and Teletubbies...and Amelia...and Keira...and potty...and Daddy...and Keira...and Mommy...and Max...and beach...and Mommy...and Elmo...and horsie...and all the Aunties and Uncles and Animals in the whole world...Amen

Fadda Fadda Fadda (Sign of the cross)

Sea Life

2008-08-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Sea Life opened not long ago at Legoland. It is a separate facility next to the entrance for Legoland that is a huge aquarium. It is set up almost in a maze pattern where you enter in groups. It kind of reminds me of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, where everyone goes into that crazy elevator thing before going on to the ride. When you first enter, you all go into an entry room where you hear the welcome and the instructions on not terrorizing the fish before you enter. It's really great! Now of course, it is no comparison to Sea World, but then again, what is??? There are lots of aquariums of all sizes as well as interactive areas for children.

Keira and I decided to head there early in the morning before her afternoon nap. Here she is with King Neptune. Sorry for the horrible quality of the pictures. They were all from my cell phone.

Here is Keira checking out some of the displays

Here is one of the wall murals. It's all indoors. It's kind of weird because it doesn't look like that big of a building, but they really do have alot going on in there!

One thing I like about Sea Life is that they do alot of the displays with kids in mind. Here was an aquarium that kids could crawl under and pop up in the middle of the tank to make it seem like they are looking from the inside.
Now what would an aquarium by Legoland be if it didn't have Legos in there? Some of the tanks had huge Lego submarines and people. They did a great job and we'll have alot of fun checking Sea Life out on the breaks when we can't get to Sea World!

4 Days and Counting...

2008-08-19T18:51:00.001-07:00

Just a real quick entry to say that it is 4 days and counting that Keira has been exclusively been going pee and poop in the potty. 4 DAYS!!! Granted, she still needs a diaper when she takes a nap or sleeps through the night, but when she is awake during the day, she not only pees and poops in the potty, but goes and does it herself! She runs into the bathroom when she feels the urge, throws her underpants into the hallway, climbs up on the step stool and gets on the potty by herself. She doesn't even like either of us in the bathroom. LOL

I think that it was the magical combination of bribery, chocolate and Princess Underwear! The first morning of the 4 day streak, I went out and bought her a 7 pack of Disney Princess Underwear as well as a bag of Cherry Chocolate Kisses. I decided that enough was enough with the stupid Training Pants. They obviously were doing nothing for her getting to understand when she needed to go. We would have to just bite the bullet and deal with the mishaps and mess if we were going to finally be successful with it. I promised that she could have 1 chocolate whenever she told mommy and daddy that she needed to go potty and didn't pee in her underwear AND if she was good and only peed and pooped in the potty, she can wear her special Princess underwear...well that was all it took. She was off and running. She completely stopped at that point with telling us when she had to go and wanted to go on her own so that she could try on all her new underwear! I started to just leave the pack in the bathroom and everytime she would go, I would help her wipe and after that, she would put different one on. This totally tells me that she had it all along and just needed that extra thing to push her into wanting to do it.

It was a big test to see if she would keep it up during her time at daycare and she has! Amanda told me today that she would just go by herself whenever she needed to. My little girl is growing up...which kind of makes me a little sad, but when I think of the savings in diapers...well, let's just say that it makes it a little easier to get over it! :)

The Little Princess

2008-08-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

In daycare, Keira is currently the only girl. She holds her own playing with the boys, but one of the things that I started to notice was that whenever she was in a play situation with boys and girls, she would always go to play with the boys Whenever a little girl would approach her to play, it was almost as if she didn't know what to make of it and would run off to play with the boys.

A funny thing that she would do is whenever you would ask if she was a big girl, she would stand up, put her hands on her hips and defiantly say "I not a big girl....I a BIG BOY!" It would make me laugh, but I promised Dan (who still wanted his little princess) that I wouldn't encourage it. I just figured that we had a little Tom-Boy on our hands...wanting to wear jeans, play with boys, watch Thomas the Tank Engine...you get the picture.

Last year, Gigi bought Keira a Disney Princesses towel when we were at Disneyland, but Keira didn't really think anything of the picture on the towel. When I first started trying to potty train Keira, I bought her pull ups that had the Disney Princesses on the front (I've since been buying other brands since they get so expensive!). While sitting on the potty, she asked me, "Mommy...what DAT?" I told her "Princesses!" She said princesses over and over again. That was a couple of months ago and she never really mentioned it until one day a couple of weeks ago when we were going to the beach, I pulled out her Disney towel. "MOMMY! PRINCESSES!!!!!" She's been obsessed ever since. She wants to bring her Princesses towel everywhere with her, she doesn't want to wear anything that snaps over her pull ups or underwear so that she can see the Princesses at all times. Yesterday when I told her not to pee on the Princesses, I think it worked! LOL She's been back to telling me whenever she has to pee and I've had her wearing Princess underwear (not training pants) some of yesterday and this morning and so far she has been back to telling me when she has to pee consistently.

She has a Disney Princesses DVD that she could have cared less about before that she loves to watch now. In the bath, she was singing one of the songs that Ariel sings on the DVD at the top of her lungs with her arms waving in the air (one of the characters is doing sign language during the song). At the beach yesterday, there were lots of little ones playing and she played with a little girl even though there were little boys running around throwing sand at each other. Last night because she was doing better with her potty training again, Dan brought her to Coldstone and let her pick her ice cream out. What did she pick? Pink ice cream with gummy bears...all of which is making Daddy very happy that he has his princess back...for now anyway LOL.

The Potty Go Round

2008-08-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ok...just a little frustration venting for a moment!

Keira has been doing so great with her potty training! She has consistently for the past few days been telling me that she needs to pee or poop. She would have good days and bad days, but now it was several days in a row. We would run to the bathroom, I would help her get on the potty and results every single time...all in the potty and none in the training pants. YAY!!! Time for underwear! We tried underwear for a while (even let her pick her own Dora and Elmo underwear), but she was just peeing all over the place and not even blinking an eye about it...but now she was ready!

All of a sudden out of nowhere, I don't know what happened, but she decided that she didn't want to tell me anymore and has started to pee in her training pants again. AAAAARRRRRGGGH!

The potty go round. Here we go! I got her some Princess training pants and told her "Don't pee pee on the princesses! The princesses don't want to be peed on!" She repeats it for me "No pee pee princesses!" It makes me laugh...even though I want to pull my hair out about this.

A Fun Summer

2008-08-03T15:43:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures as promised. Max took most of the pictures on his camera from their trip out and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to download them on my computer. So these are just the ones from my phone. Hopefully he will send them soon. For being so young, he really takes the time to plan out the pictures he is going to take. He'll tell Keira exactly where to pose and where to stand. It's pretty funny!
First we headed up to Vegas to pick Auntie Gigi and Max up. I was dying to see the new Palazzo Hotel and I have to be honest...I was pretty disappointed! I remember thinking about how beautiful the Venetian and Venezia are and wondering how they were going to be able to top it...looked like they didn't bother trying! There really was nothing very impressive about it and from the looks of the pictures, the rooms pretty much look exactly the same as the Venetian.
Here are Max and Keira in the lobby of the Palazzo. One thing I have to say is that the fountain there was beautiful. Something about it seemed to inspire the two of them to have a sudden desire to practice their Synchronized Swimming routine.
We headed to Disneyland and unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but I did get a couple of pictures of Keira at the beach. We were probably there every other day and Uncle Mike taught Max and Gigi to surf! They both did pretty good- much better than I ever did! I can't even stand up on the thing! Lorraine and I were watching from our little tent as Gigi was standing up. Apparently Mike didn't have much wax on the board and next thing you know...we see Gigi do this strange looking cartwheel looking thing from the surfboard! Both of us at the same time went "YEOW..that had to hurt!" She hurt her shoulder a little, but it wasn't too bad and laughed it off saying "Yay! My first surfing injury!" LOL
In case you are wondering, I wasn't originally planning for Keira to go in the water, but you know how it works with kids and plans. Her clothes got SO wet that she ended up having to run around in her training pants! She loved running around with the board and would sometimes put her sippy cup, her shoes and her clothes around on the thing. It was pretty funny to see.

Just Keira being silly
We did eventually get to head down to Sea World to see the new Bay of Play. They did such a FANTASTIC job with it! They have cute rides and fun things to climb just for the young kiddies. Here is Keira hugging Bert in case you are wondering what on earth that picture is supposed to be.
Here Keira is posing with Ernie and Bert! Max took one by himself and Bert took Max's hat off and showed him how to wear it to look exceptionally cool like a muppet.
Here are Max and Keira with Grover and Abbie. We had such a great time this summer as usual when Auntie Gigi and Max get to come to visit! We're hoping that we can visit sometime around Halloween. It would be great for Keira to get to visit Max at his home as well as meet all of the extended family and friends! We can't wait!

A Momentous Occasion

2008-07-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty crazy lately. Gigi and Max are here for the Summer visit and like usual, we are everywhere!

They flew into Las Vegas and we drove in to pick them up and spend a couple of days there. We did tons of walking and seeing the sights. After that, we drove back home and went to the beach, Disneyland and Legoland the next few days after that. We also drove up to San Clemente to have lunch at the pier and see the sights.

Things have been so busy and I will have some pictures as soon as I can. The momentous occasion I am talking about is that at Disneyland, Keira had a dry diaper just about the entire day. That is huge for her. She was consistently going to the potty.

When we got back from the beach today, we were home for a bit before I realized that Keira was nowhere to be found. Where was she? We searched through the house and there she was...sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. She was horrified that we opened the door when she was going potty and gave us a lecture (in baby talk of course) that she needed privacy while she went to the potty! LOL Dan and I quietly backed out and I waited until she called for me to help. She went to the potty all by herself! Granted, she had peed a little in her training pants just before, but that was a huge breakthrough for her to actually go to the potty all by herself! Yay! Hopefully this is a sign of more solo potty breaks and that she is on her way to going by herself from now on! We'll see :)

Here She Is!

2008-07-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to meet with Bea, the wonderful lady with the rescue that brought our dog to us! She is an amazing person and devotes her life to rescuing dogs. It takes a very special person to do that. They named her Socks at the Humane Society but she never responded to it. Bea said that we should rename her so that she can start off fresh so I decided to let Dan think of her name.

In typical Dan fashion, he came up with a very interesting one. He wanted to name her after a famous lost person since she was lost and we found her! Her new name? Amelia Earhart LOL. We just call her Amelia and she is already responding to it better than she ever responded to Socks! It's a good thing that our Amelia had a much happier ending than the real Amelia Earhart!

Keira adores her although we have really had to reinforce her giving Amelia her space. Like most toddlers, Keira isn't too great with her limits. I have really had to get on her about shoving her face in Amelia's face or screaming in her face because she's so excited. The first and second day we had Amelia, there was a little snapping incident. She didn't actually try to bite Keira, but was trying to give Keira a warning that she was invading her space. It really did concern me, but I corrected her right away (right on Cesar Milan! LOL) and there hasn't been an incident since. I actually could sense it was going to occur a split second before it did when I saw Amelia tense up when Keira was crouched by her petting her. That helped because I was able to react pretty fast in disciplining her immediately after. I've been kind of trying to let them each keep their own space until they get a little more used to each other. It's kind of hard on Keira because she wants to play and kiss Amelia, but I just do not want to take any chances of anything happening since Amelia is still stressed out getting used to her new environment.
Here are Keira and Amelia together. Hopefully they will get to be great buddies once they both learn each other's limits.

YAY! Not In Montana!

2008-07-08T20:52:00.001-07:00

The supervisor at the Humane Society had one of her assistants call me back. This was to let me know that she was going to be out of the office until Wednesday, but when she gets in, she will call me. I was finally able to get some answers...

Apparently what happened was when we were at the counter trying to process the adoption, the lady working at the counter was new. When we needed to put a hold, she put a hold for us, but put it as just a regular note in the general comments section instead of in the HOLD section. Ugh... So apparently what happened was when they were going to be transferring dogs out to rescues, they checked the holds sections and since she didn't have a "HOLD" (at least not in the right section where they could see) they released her. ARGH... That finally makes SO much more sense!

I asked why on earth they would transfer her out to a rescue all the way in Montana and she told me not to listen to anything that anyone else says since some people there have already given me some incorret information. She also said that the Supervisor was the only person who would have any information that was correct since she processed the transfer herself.

Where did I get Montana from? One of the customer service people after much poking and prodding finally told me the name of the rescue. I looked the name of the rescue up in Google and it was located in Billings Montana.

Well, the lady from Montana called me last night. She said that they didn't have the dog and couldn't understand why they would say that they transferred her there. What a mess!!! It really sounded like we were never going to find her!

While at work today, I had a moment where I was thinking about how sad it was that we lost her. Then it hit me... what if there were a rescue closer by that had the SAME name as the rescue in Montana??? I decided to Google the name again. Still lots of hits on the rescue in Montana...then it happened. About the 3rd page..there it was! A rescue by the SAME name in Ramona! I called and left a message and received the call today on my way home from work.

I found her!!! You can only imagine how happy I was! The lady and I talked about our dog and how crazy it was that everything happened like it did...and especially how much I went through trying to track her down. I guess there wasn't much doubt that we really truly wanted to adopt her, huh? LOL She was shocked and said, "Wow! You would have driven all the way to Ramona to get her?" My response was "Are you kidding??? I was going to drive to Montana, so Ramona is WAY better!" LOL

I'm meeting with her tomorrow to bring OUR dog home! :)

Montana

2008-07-07T11:52:00.001-07:00

MONTANA! They shipped our dog off to Montana! How on earth does that happen?!??!?! No one I have spoken to so far can explain how it happened when we had a hold on her and obviously wanted to adopt her. That was OUR dog and they shipped her off to Montana...

Heartbroken...

2008-07-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

...I'm very sad right now.

I've been going back and forth with the idea of getting a dog for a little while now. One day a few weeks ago, I looked online and there was an absolutely adorable Cocker Spaniel that was at the local SPCA. His name was Socks and he was described as the typical adorable Cocker Spaniel and was a very sweet boy. I decided to take Keira there with me one day to meet him. She has been a little scared of dogs lately since the incident with The Tonka Truck, but when they let us in the play yard to interact with Socks, she immediately took to him. He really was a very sweet gentle guy and she would even give him treats from her hand with no fear because he was so gentle with her. I thought it was a little unusual that he squatted when he peed. Was he maybe alot younger than they thought he was? (2 years old)

I didn't want to make any decisions without Dan there, so the next day, I brought Dan with me to meet him. He was not in his Kennel so the volunteer brought him to the play yard and he was such a sweet, gentle dog. EXACTLY what we were looking for. Funny though, because when he was squatting to pee, I asked the volunteer, "Are you guys SURE that he's a boy?" He said yes. That was when Socks rolled over for me to pat his tummy. HE was a SHE!!! We played with her for a while longer when we decided to go ahead and adopt her! I was really happy and excited. We went to the desk and she started to process our paperwork. As she was doing this, a guy comes up and says, "You can't release the dog, it is sick". Sick??? What's wrong with her? Apparently the Vet was by earlier and said that she had Kennel Cough. Ok, I've had 2 dogs now that have gotten Kennel Cough before and I was really shocked when they said that Socks had this. I even said to them, "You know, I spent 30-45 minutes with her today and the same amount of time with her yesterday and she hasn't once coughed, hacked or wheezed. Are they sure that she was sick? I even offered to take her home and have her go to my Vet. They said that they would put a hold on her and for me to check on her in a few days. I called back a couple of days later and they said to call back Monday after 3. I called at 3:01..no exaggeration! I really was anxious to take her home. They said that they just put her on Antibiotics and for me to call back and check on her on Thursday after 3. What????? She's been sick for a week and they were JUST putting her on antibiotics??? I offered to take her home so that I could bring her to my vet for the medication, but they said that they couldn't release her.

Well, today is Thursday, and at 2:59, I started trying to call the SPCA to get a status on Socks. I was HOPING that the status would be that we could take her home! I got voice mail a few times and finally reached a person. She checked for a few minutes and came back to the phone reporting that Socks had been released to a Rescue. HUH?!?!?!? What??!??! How on earth did THAT happen??? Why would she be released to a Rescue if she already was on hold for a family that wanted to adopt her right away??

I was so upset and I wanted answers! What happened??? How could she be released to a shelter when we had a hold!

I asked to speak to a supervisor and they told me that the supervisor would be back at 4:30 and was transferred to voice mail. I called back at 4:30 and they transferred me to voice mail again. I was transferred 3 times and finally just put on hold before they disconnected me 5 minutes before they were closing at 5pm.

I just don't even know what to say. I hate to be a suspicious person, but there is something really weird going on. I mean, I'll be honest, I really don't think that she had Kennel Cough. Don't you usually have a COUGH when you have Kennel Cough? Also, not putting her on antibiotics until an entire week that she was being quarantined??? Then knowing that there was a hold for a family that obviously REALLY wanted to adopt her..why would she go to a Rescue???

None of this makes sense, but I do know this, I'll be calling them on Monday to have someone explain to me how all of this happens. I already felt in my heart that this was our dog. We already bonded with her and I'm so sad thinking that something weird is happening with her. I just want to know what happened to her and bring her home :(.

Baby Sings The Blues

2008-06-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Dan is a big fan of the blues. Whenever Keira and him are driving around, instead of playing children's songs, he plays the blues in his car. She bops along to the music and really gets into it!

He has a really funny story where many many years ago when he was just discovering the blues, he was in a bar in Maine and this amazing guy was playing on stage. After the show, the man was sitting at a table with some fellow musicians. Dan approached him to tell him how much he enjoyed the show, which the guy was very happy to hear. They chatted for a bit and Dan told him that he was amazing and he really should think about doing it full time because of how great he was. The guy laughed and thanked Dan for his kindness. It wasn't until a few years later that he realized that he was giving career advice to B.B. King. Obviously he was already doing just fine without it, huh? LOL

Dan has always wanted to play an instrument and I tried to teach him piano once. He was doing really well, but his busy schedule was keeping him from getting practice. One day, Keira and I were at the mall and I saw an instruction CD for learning to play the harmonica. I thought it would be a perfect instrument since he could mess around with it while he was working on other things since a harmonica is so compact and easy to bring with you. That was a while ago and he hasn't had the time to mess around with it.

Keira found it the other day and wanted to know what it was. I took it and blew into it for a second and that was all it took! She was having a BLAST playing it and next thing I knew, she was singing the blues. She sounded great! She would play the harmonica, then stop and sing "Mommy Mommy Mommy!" Play again, then stop and sing "Daddy Daddy Daddy!" Play again, then stop and sing "Keira Keira Keira!" We were laughing and having such a good time! She wouldn't do it on video, but she did allow me to take a picture of her doing it, so here she is! The next blues phenomenon!

More Summer Movies and Father's Day!

2008-06-14T12:46:00.001-07:00

We've had a great start of the weekend so far! Keira and I went to UTC to go meet Uncle Rod for lunch at Red Robin. He said that he didn't even know that they existed up until a couple of years ago. I'd never even been to one all the years they have been around. I'll tell you, I've been missing out. The food was great and what is not to love about bottomless french fries, huh? WOO HOO! :D

We're celebrating an early Father's Day today since Dan has to work tomorrow. We started the day out taking Keira to see Kung Fu Panda this morning and she did GREAT! Yay us! :) There were some scenes that were a little intense for her and she started to get a little antsy the last 15 minutes or so, but all in all, she did fantastic! It was pretty early in the morning, so there weren't alot of people which was good. The people that were there all had kids, so that way if she started to get a little freaked out, it would be ok. I LOVED it. It was so well done and there was just enough funny stuff with Jack Black to keep the parents amused. I laughed out loud several times through the movie and I think that you all will love it as well.

Dan and I also snuck away to see Indiana Jones this past week as well. It was great to see Harrison Ford back as Indy again, but I have to be honest... I didn't like it as anywhere near as much as the other ones. It was good, but I think that Dan and I have gotten to analyze things and situations too much in our older age LOL. We were just too perplexed about why anyone would take the skull in the first place...but hey....that is just us :)

I WAS excited to see the Happening at first when it was announced, but it's not getting that great of reviews. That could mean nothing, since the critics seem to hate M. Night, but we'll see. I can't wait to see The Mummy 3, but that definitely is going to be one that Dan and I will have to sneak away for. No WAY Keira would be able to watch that!

A wonderful Happy Early Father's Day to all of you great Dads out there! Have fun!

Why???

2008-06-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

Like all children growing and learning what they can and can't say, it all started with "NO!" Her answer for everything was "NO!"...even if she really meant "YES!".

"Keira, do you want to have apple juice?"
"NO!" ...as she is reaching for the sippy cup of apple juice

See? She still says NO alot, but now she is saying it when she actually means it more than anything.

After the "Mommy...watch THIS!" stage, (she does still want me to watch everything that she does, but it's at least changed from her saying it 20 times for each separate activity lol) on to the next stage... What's THIS/THAT???

She wanted to know EVERYTHING...What's this Mommy? a leaf! What's THIS Mommy? Grass! Mommy, What's THIS? a Tree. Mommy...what's THAT? a leaf! Everything!!! It was great though because that was the stage where she really increased her vocabulary and it grows everyday. As a matter of fact, even though it's been going on for a while now, I just noticed the other day that Keira and I were spending most of the day having full conversations now. Granted, the average person walking into the room may not understand everything that we are talking about, but I definitely understand her enough to really have conversations now--usually breaking into song somewhere in between!

Now for the next stage! It was a couple of weeks ago that it really started...the WHY's. Almost everything you say nowadays has a "WHY?" attached to the end. I do answer her and I sometimes find myself doing it subconsciously now...but I'll be honest...many of the answers are "Because I said so!" LOL

She now counts up to about 15 and sings her ABCs all the time and is really starting to recognize numbers, colors and letters. She repeats things so much really trying to catch on with what it all means. I love all of the progressions and stages that she goes through and watching her grow and learn so much. She is such a little sponge right now and really does pick up EVERYTHING around her. I've always heard that this is a really fun stage in her life and now I know why! I can't wait to see what's next!

Uncle Eric and Auntie Kelley

2008-06-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Eric Dukat and Dan's sister Laura married several years ago and ever since, the Dukats and the Currys have kind of blended into one big happy family. That includes sisters, fathers..the whole family! Eric's sister Kelley lives here in San Diego, so when Eric came out for work (he's in the military) both of them were able to come up for a visit! Dan went to pick up Eric at the train station and Kelley drove up separately after work. When Dan and Eric walked through the door, Keira looked at him kind of funny for a second, then walked over to the picture of the Curry family from Christine's wedding. Since most of our family is all over the place, we try to show Keira pictures so that she will recognize everyone. Dan has been introducing all of his family through Christine's wedding picture. Well, she looked at the picture and recognized Uncle Eric but was looking back and forth kind of confused. We then realized what the problem was. Eric had grown out a moustache since then! It was pretty funny how she did that though. Dan said that she was checking out the approved list of people that she can play with before interacting with him LOL
Here he is with his new moustache. Ok,it probably isn't that new....but we haven't seen him for a while, so it's new to us!
Here is Auntie Kelley! Kelley does alot of volunteer work with animals in shelters. She adopted a beautiful white shephard named Kita that she takes on road trips with her. They recently went to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah for a visit. In case you aren't familiar with Best Friends, it is a no kill animal sanctuary for animals that have been abandoned, mistreated and left behind. It is a wonderful organization that I actually donate to through work.
We all decided to go out to dinner and first headed to The Armenian Cafe in Carlsbad. It was closed! After that, we headed over to Azafran in Oceanside. It's a great little place on Coast Highway that has great Cuban food and if you go at JUST the right time, they have a band that plays Cuban music. Here is Keira looking like a little adult trying to keep up with the conversation. It was great seeing Eric and Kelley again! Hopefully we'll get to see them really soon!

Summer Movies!

2008-05-31T10:49:00.001-07:00

On Friday, I worked a night shift, so I had the morning to myself. Keira was at daycare for a few hours so that she could play and that I could get some work in and get some sleep in order to stay awake for the shift to come. I'm such a wimp when it comes to sleeping now. I'm usually in bed and asleep by 7PM in order to get up for work lately since I normally work at 3:30am. Keira and Dan tuck me in by pulling my blankets over me and singing me a "night night song". Hey! Shouldn't I be the one tucking her in??? Well, I guess it doesn't really matter because she LOVES the routine- she even gets my earplugs for me! LOL

Well, since I had a couple of hours to spare in the morning, I decided to go and see Sex and the City! I watched the show every week when it was on HBO and even though sometimes their characters would get on my nerves with their shallowness---it still was all in all a fun show. Since Dan didn't want to be banished into the room while I watched MY show on MY night (Hey! I can't tell you how many episodes of American Chopper, American Thunder or Myth Busters that I've seen with him lol) he usually ended up watching it with me.

Boy was I excited when I heard they were making a movie! I really missed watching the new episodes on Sunday Nights when it finally ended. I've seen every episode at least twice and couldn't wait to see where their characters left off when we saw them last. I think that I can honestly say that I was most excited about this movie coming out this summer than any other...Well, Indiana Jones and Mummy 3 as well (Dan's sister Kat just wrapped up working on effects on this film not long ago).

They were showing it at 9:15am at the big theatre in Vista, so I headed over after dropping Keira off. I was thinking to myself along the way...it's going to feel silly to be the only person there at the theatre that early! Boy was I wrong! There was a line of people for that early showing...all women of course and 1 guy lol.

What's the consensus? I absolutely LOVED it! Now granted, everyone there seemed to love it because only people that were already fans would be there that early in the morning to watch it. For someone that hadn't watched the show before, it probably wouldn't be that great.

I was so happy to finally get to see a movie this Summer. There are so many coming out (or ones that have already come out) that just look great! Dan and I decided that on Mondays since we are both home early, that we are going to try and see 1 movie a week or every other week. Kind of like a "Date Day". It should be fun!

Auntie Bee and The Frucheys!

2008-05-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Kind of sounds like some weird name for a retro band, huh? LOL Auntie Bee, Dan's sister Brenda came all the way from New York to visit with the family! She's been so wonderful and supportive through everything with the adoption that it was so nice to finally have her meet Keira! Since she isn't able to come out too often, Kat and Matt (Dan's sister and husband) as well as the Fruchey clan (Dan's sister Christine and family) came out to visit as well!
As you can tell, Keira just absolutely adored Auntie Bee and would yell out "Auntie Bee!" just to make sure she was still around to play frog or rabbit hopping with. The last time Fallon and Aria, Keira's cousins were able to come out...there was a little bit of a rivalry going on! When Christine was coming off the plane, Dan offered to carry Aria to help out and Keira definitely didn't like her Daddy carrying another cute little kid around other than her! LOL We weren't sure how they were all going to be getting along this time around, but they got along great!
Here are Aria and Keira hamming it up for the camera at the Wild Animal Park. Uncle Todd and Fallon were there as well checking out the sites. It was Fallon's 5th birthday after the weekend, so we celebrated it while they were out. Aria is 2 months younger than Keira is.
Little Monkeys! Just kidding...actually, they had a little help from Uncle Todd although you can't quite see all of him.
Here are Keira and Auntie Bee at the Wild Animal Park
Uncle Matt and Auntie Kat live up in LA and they drove down for the day to celebrate Fallon's birthday. Here is Uncle Matt working on the computer with Keira. He read Where The Wild Things Are with her a couple of times and she just wouldn't let him stop!
Notice the beautiful castle cake that Auntie Bee made for Fallon's birthday. WAAAAAY better than the cake I made, huh? LOL
Auntie Christine, Aria, Auntie Bee, Keira and Fallon all watched on as Uncle Todd cut the first slice. It was a really big 3 layer cake and we didn't come anywhere NEAR finishing it that night!
What better way to end a dinner than a Hula Dance! Keira found me and gave me a lei to wear and dance with as well. Somewhere along the way, Aria decided that I needed a ziploc bag to complete my outfit, so she ran in the room to get it for me. LOL Isn't it funny what children come up with? LOL I thought I looked FINE without the ziploc bag! :)
Here are Aria and Keira giving each other a big hug. We had a really great time and hope that we can see you all again sometime soon!

The Tonka Truck

2008-05-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

Those of you that know me know how much I loved my dogs Jackson and Lucy and how heartbreaking it was to lose both of them. Lucy was the kindest, gentlest little girl and adored children. Jackson was my baby boy for 16 years. When each of them went over the Rainbow Bridge, I knew that I would not be able to get another dog for quite some time... it would be just too painful.

Lately, about a year later, I have found myself with a void that I've wanted to have filled---the need to have a dog in my life again. I am home more and would be able to devote more time to a dog and feel that I could open my heart to a pet again. I made the decision that there were a few things that were extremely important to me:

1. That any dog we find be gentle and get along well with Keira. Having a small one, all of you know that what that means when looking for a dog. Keira loves dogs and gets so excited to see them at the pet store. She is gentle with them but little ones sometimes do things they don't mean, like pull a tail etc. I would never ever allow Keira to hurt any animal and she would never mean to...but she is still a toddler and toddlers do toddler things. It would be really important to find a dog that would be tolerant of little things and little people.

2. Not be too high energy. Although it's great to go on walks and do fun things together, working and having a little one would not allow me to do high energy activities with a dog. A nice, happy but mellow dog would fit in great with our family. One that we could take on walks and to the park, but not have to spend hours throwing a frisbee back and forth while wrangling Keira up- that would be great!

3. That the dog be from an owner trying to find a new home for their dog, the Humane Society, shelter or rescue. I did not want to buy a dog. I know that many people want dogs that are purebred and from breeders. That is fine and totally a personal decision. I know that there are many reputable breeders out there, but so many dogs are from Puppy Mills, which treat the dogs so inhumanely and horribly just to turn a profit. I just don't want to take any chances in supporting the Mills at all in what they are doing....especially when there are so many dogs out there that need homes already. That is in no way meant to slam those that have dogs from breeders...any dog that can have a home is wonderful. Just a personal choice with me on how I would like to find my dog.

4. One that didn't look anything like Jackson and Lucy. The reason for this is that I didn't want to get a dog to "replace" my fur babies. I wanted a dog that we could start fresh with and that would have to go through any comparisons.

I have always loved French Bulldogs, so I decided that was the breed that I would look for. Granted, I am open to any dog that would be a good dog for our family that wasn't too big, but I decided that I wanted to see what was out there for a little Frenchie.

There is a French Bulldog Rescue Network (http://www.frenchbulldogrescue.org/) that does fantastic work rescuing abandoned and abused dogs. Some are owner surrenders, but many were rescued from Puppy Mills. The stories would make you cry had badly they have been abused. One of the dogs had sores, mites, was going blind and was going deaf from all of the infections in her ears. Her abdomen was totally full of scar tissue from them doing homemade C sections on her to pull the puppies out. I had my heart set on adopting a rescue dog from there (an was even in the finals to adopt one), but I also wanted to see if there were any dogs closer by that needed homes as well. I started looking through the shelters and Craigslist and found a French Bulldog up in L.A that needed a home. His owner got a new job where he had to travel out of town so much that this dog spent most of it's time sleeping waiting 12 hours a day for him to come home or in a kennel. He loved his dog enough to know that he wanted him to be around people more. We corresponded for a while through email and I asked a billion questions. Was he housebroken? How was he with small children? What was his demeanor? Has he had a history of aggression? Everything sounded great with this dog...so we made arrangements for him to bring the dog to our house so that we could meet him and see how we all got along.

After making plans, I realized that I never asked him what the dog's name was, so I did. Ready for this? The dog's name is Jackson. Yep...you read that right....Jackson! That isn't that common of a name and was the same as my Jackson. Was it some kind of sign? What did this all mean? Was it a BAD sign--because I was trying to hard to find a dog that didn't remind me of my previous dogs and now here was one with the SAME name? Or was it a good sign? Maybe something telling me that it was ok! Wow! I was now totally excited to meet him! By the way, when I was telling Dan about the dog, he just happened to be driving on Jackson Street in Westminster. What are the odds????

Well, they came up to bring Jackson to meet us and things were just great! He was a funny little guy...well little probably isn't the proper description! LOL Picture this....the average size of a Frenchie is in the mid 20 pounds or so....Jackson was 45 pounds! WOW! He is a TANK! He is so funny and sounds like a pig with how he grunts...so much personality. We introduced him to Keira and she was excited...until he jumped on her a little. Then she was scared. That's ok...it's easy enough to try and get a dog to stop jumping. Plus we figured that it was just the excitement of everything being new since he's normally very very mellow. We decided to keep him and the owners, although very sad to leave him...they were glad that we were a family that would be able to spend more time with him.

Everything was going great. We knew that we wouldn't want to keep the name Jackson since that already belonged to our Jackson, so Dan decided he wanted to name him Tonka....as in Tonka truck! LOL

After a little while was when the problems started. Everytime Keira would jump around just being a toddler, he would jump at her. It was really starting to freak her out. He was just a goofy big lug and didn't appear to be trying to be aggressive...he was just getting excited, right?

I had to go to work the next morning, so I went to bed. After a couple of hours, Dan woke me up. He said he was so sorry to wake me up but he really didn't think that things were going to work out with the dog. It had gotten to the point where if she even MOVED, he would jump on her. Keira was afraid to leave the couch for fear of being knocked down and now Dan said he even snapped at her. Dan called the owner and told him the bad news and he was fine with taking Jackson back. I came out to the living room to watch Jackson/Tonka and the first thing Keira said to me from the couch shaking her head was "Me no wan no new doggie". She looked miserable, sad and scared. Dan took Keira in to brush her teeth and settled into bed. After they finished, I went back to bed, but I tell you, I couldn't sleep....

I felt so horrible! I realized now that I made a terrible mistake and how I possibly could have put my daughter in danger. I think that I allowed myself to get so wrapped up in "the signs" that I was just so dead set on this dog "belonging" with us and being "meant to be" that I was ignoring everything else. Apparently the signs were to say, No! It's a bad idea....and when I wouldn't listen, the signs moved over to Dan and he didn't want to listen either!

So we have to say goodbye to the Tonka Truck. When I woke up to go to work, I gave him a hug and said goodbye. He really truly is a very nice dog and hopefully will go to a good family that will take care of him with either no children or children that are much older. He's just too much of a big boy...mind you, he's 45 pounds, which isn't very big, but that is 45 pounds of all muscle in a little compact body. That combination can do some serious damage to a small child. Laura, Keira's godmother is going to watch Keira this morning while Dan takes Jackson/Tonka back up to L.A. He was even afraid to have them in the car together for fear that he might snap at her in the car and they would have possibly ended up in a car accident with Dan trying to hold him back. I'm sad about it. He really was a great guy, but Keira is and will always be our first priority....and I know that we made the right decision to let him go back home.

One of these days, we'll find the right dog that fits in perfectly with our family...ones of these days! I haven't given up hope....I know that he/she is out there, but this definitely was an eye opener and I'll have to make sure that I'm much more careful with the decisions that we make for the sake of everyone involved.

The Ugliest Cake Ever...No, Really...EVER!

2008-05-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

I like to cook. Really, I do! I can cook up a storm and am actually pretty good at it...but baking??? Yikes! I'm so bad at baking it's actually quite frightening. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Everytime I try to bake brownies, it turns into cake. I once made these cream cheese cookies that were supposed to be fool-proof. Apparently I'm the fool they didn't proof it against because the dozen cookies I was trying to make turned into one big flat pancake. Most of the time it tastes pretty good but WOW is it ugly! The really absurd part of it is that one day I would like to own a coffee/dessert type of shop. Well, I'll tell you what, I would be pretty broke trying to live off of any money made from my baking! lol I don't know if I can even be saved through getting years of culinary school even. I've been told that my problem is that when you cook, you don't have to be precise, it's a pinch of this a dash of that. If you miss something, then you can always add it later. With baking, it's very precise. If you miss anything from the get-go or didn't measure something just right...you are pretty much done and have to start over. Take a look at the picture and you tell me if I just missed something...lol. It also doesn't help that I am VERY impatient....something that I hear that baking takes a lot of.

I'm the first to admit...that is the ugliest cake in the world. Ever. Period...EVER...and even though Keira was the one that put the letters on the cake (did you catch that we ran out of "D's" and had to try and substitute an "I" and a "C" to try and form a "D" for Daddy?) I can't lie and pretend that she made the cake! LOL

After I took the cake out of the oven, I let it cool for a while. Normally, I get too impatient to wait and end up with melted frosting because it was too hot still. This time, I wanted to make a nice cake for Dan's birthday, so I waited. Well, when I started trying to frost the cake, I took the bottom layer and leveled it out. So far so good! It was straight...kind of! After that, I put some frosting on and started to try and smooth it out before putting the other layer on. That was where things went terribly wrong. I put the top layer on, then after that as I was trying to frost the thing, big chunks of the cake just started to fall off! Oh NO! What do you do now??? Well, I started to take the frosting and use it as paste to stick the fallen pieces back on the cake. Is that even what you are supposed to do? Is something like that even salvagable?? Well, that kind of explains the lumpiness.

After that, I gave Keira the letters one by one and had her put them on the cake. We started out great with the "Happy". After that, it turned into baby chaos! LOL Here is Keira admiring her work...in case you didn't notice, she also stuck her finger in and was licking her finger. The thing was such a mess anyway, Dan probably wouldn't notice the big new hole on top now from where her finger stuck in! :)
Dan got up from sleeping and started opening up his birthday presents. We gave him some really cool shirts and a couple of hats. He has been wearing baseball hats for a while now, but I wanted to get him something a little different as well. I got him a really cool plaid hat with a brim. It's taking a while to get used to it, but he does like it. I'll see if I can get a picture sometime. Keira likes wearing it as well.

Sometime in the afternoon, we presented the cake to Dan. We sang happy birthday and Keira helped him blow out the candles. What does he say? "Happy Birthday Dadicy??" LOL I guess he did notice that we ran out of D's!

Mike and Lorraine joined us for his Birthday Dinner where we tore up some pretty fabulous Sushi! All in all, an end to a great birthday. Well, technically, his birthday is today, but he has to work today :(.

Dan said that he loves Keira and I AND the ugly cake! I'm glad that I have such a great husband!

The Quail Botanical Garden

2008-05-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, Keira has still been taking 2 naps a day on average! Yes, I know that most people move their kids down to 1 nap a day before they are 18 months old or so, but Keira has been the happiest and the least grumpy when she gets her 2 in a day--PLUS she still has been sleeping through the night! That is alot of sleep! Once in a while, we would try to move her down to one nap, but she would get so crabby, you would not believe it. I figured that if she wants the sleep, it wasn't a harmful thing for her to keep getting it.

About 2 weeks ago, she started to not want her afternoon nap. "Me no wan iiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!! was usually her answer if I would ask her if she wanted a nap. Alrighty then! Well, I guess that she's finally ready for just 1 nap a day! lol

There are pros and cons to her finally going down to 1 nap a day. I'll be honest. I SURE miss having that extra nap time to get stuff done! That was usually my time to do dishes, laundry and sometimes just get my fix on non-kid friendly shows like Law and Order. Something that is wonderful though is that there have been activities that I've always wanted Keira and I to do that were during her usual nap time. Now that her nap time has changed YAY! We can finally do some of these things!

One thing that I've always wanted to check out was the Arts and Crafts Playtime at the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. We finally got a chance to check it out today and it was alot of fun!

Here she is in front of the Children's Garden doing her best "Blue Steel" Zoolander pose. They have storytime, crafts and "Seeds of Wonder" which teaches children all about flowers, plants and nature. Today was arts and crafts day, so here were some of the fun things there:
There was a little train. You can't quite see it from this picture, but Keira loved watching it go around the track saying "Choo Choo!"
Here was a little water pump that you actually got to pour water in and prime to get the water to come out. It was filled with nets and little toy animals and fish for the kids to fish out.
There were easels and tables set up for painting and doing clay and paper crafts. It was so cute how they had these great big men's shirts for the kids to use as aprons. Keira painted a lovely masterpiece that Mommy messed up and accidentally dropped when I was trying to hang it to dry. It ended up on the ground with paint and woodchips mixed up. I guess she'll have to gather inspiration and make me another masterpiece sometime when we go again. Oops! The craft of the day was to make a Ladybug! We cut up pieces of black paper to make the legs and head. Keira then painted the body red and balled up black tissue to make the dots.
After walking around the garden and playing with the big tub of bubbles, she potted a plant for Daddy. As we were leaving, she accidentally dropped it in the parking lot. We were able to salvage it some, but it definitely needs more soil after that spill!

All in all we had a great time and for the first time in a long time, she actually fell asleep in the car- completely zonked out before we got home! I STILL got to clean and watch Law and Order while she took her nap....AND we got to hang out and have fun for a much longer time today since she only slept once. I'd say the 1 nap a day isn't a bad thing :)

Mother's Day and the "Non-Mom"

2008-05-12T03:45:00.001-07:00

After reading the title, you are probably wondering what I'm talking about in regard to "Non-Mom". Apparently NBC was airing a Mother's Day special and decided that adoptive moms should be categorized as "Non-moms". First off, why on earth would they think that there needs to be categorization in the first place? I as an adoptive parent am a Mom, plain and simple. If for some reason, they wanted to put a "title" or "category" around it...why something with such a negative connotation as "Non"...how about uh....."Adoptive Mom"? Either way, I'm just so appalled by that. Granted, I'm glad that they saw the error of their ways and changed it, but still...I can't even believe the insensitivity of it in the first place.

Anyway, despite things like this, I had a WONDERFUL Mother's Day and hope that all of you Mothers out there did as well!

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b136172_who_you_calling_non-mom.html

UPDATE: Apparently they have changed the categorization...but they still don't get it. The idea of the show was to nominate "America's Favorite Mom". They had different categorizations such as Working Moms, Single Moms, then the "Non-Mom" which was a category meant for Grandmothers, Adoptive Moms etc. Grandmothers don't count as Moms? HUH???? Well, after all of the complaints they decided to change the Non-Mom category and have a separate category for "Adoptive Mom". They still don't get it. Why is it that they seem to feel that being an Adoptive Mom deserves to be in a separate category? I'm a Mom. Because I didn't give birth to Keira doesn't mean that I haven't been there to take care of her when she is sick, when she is scared or when she just wants her Mommy. I don't think that they will ever get it...

Chinglish!

2008-05-10T12:34:00.001-07:00

When Chinese to English translation is done for the signs in public areas back in China, sometimes the translation is a LITTLE off...just a little :) This is called "Chinglish" and I remember one of the other families traveling with us saying that they were trying to clean up some of the signs before the Olympics, but I hope that they don't. I think they are GREAT!

On another adoptive family's blog (Thanks Amy!), they found and posted the link to a website devoted to showing pictures of these signs. They are so funny, so when you get a chance...they are definitely worth a look!

http://www.engrish.com/category_index.php?category=CHINGLISH

The New Children's Museum!!!

2008-05-08T18:13:00.001-07:00

I don't know if I have ever mentioned it before but I've been so excited WAITING for the New Children's Museum to open since last year!!! Back when we went to visit Max back in Illinois, they have a FANTASTIC Children's Museum in Naperville that is so amazing. It is just such a fun place for children to go to with so many hands on activities to play, learn and be creative. I was so sad that we didn't have anything like that out here in San Diego. I started looking up any children's museums that would be opening up and found the information for the San Diego one. I just couldn't wait...and now it's open! I was off on Wednesday, so Keira and I ventured downtown on the Coaster. The picture above is Keira eating her snack on the Coaster. The coaster dropped us off at the Santa Fe Station on Kettner and we walked the rest of the way to Island where the Museum is. I should probably say Keira walked a little while and I walked the rest of the way pushing the stroller and carrying her! lol We stopped off to get a quick bite to eat at a little deli on the way and were on our way again...
...and there it was!!! The Children's Museum! We got to the door so anxious to get inside and see what kinds of fun things we could get into...and it was closed! YES! Closed!!! Can you believe it??? We trekked all the way across San Diego County and apparently, the museum is closed every Wednesday! Argh! I felt like we just got to Wallyworld and we were the Griswalds!

We ended up walking to Horton Plaza where Keira at least got to run around for a bit and burn off some of her crazy energy. After that, we headed back to the Coaster.
We told the Conductor what happened and he was such a nice guy, he let Keira be the conductor for the day! She got to sit in the conductor's seat and blow the horn. CHOO CHOO! She LOVED it!
After she drove the train (just kidding), she got to let everyone off the train. The conductor showed her the buttons to push to get the doors to open. She had so much fun being the conductor...
Here she is smiling for the camera for a picture for Daddy with her Hello Kitty "boppy bop" (lollipop) that we sent to his phone to see what we were up to for the day.

Well, I wasn't going to let that stop us! I decided that we were going to try again the next day. We headed down to the Children's Museum this afternoon after her nap to try our luck again. This time I decided to drive. YAY! It was open! It is a great place for children to play...and for all of you with toddlers and young children, this is mainly the age that will LOVE this place! It is a little different from the Children's Museum in Illinois. The one there is more geared towards fun and hands-on activities like the space theatre at Balboa Park. This Children's Museum does have some hands on activities, but it definitely IS more geared towards art.

Keira put on an apron and got to work painting an old V'Dub outside on the patio. It was kind of hard to do because she is such a neat freak, she wanted to keep stopping to wash her hands every time she got a little bit of paint on them. I finally had to convince her that it was ok to have it on her hands...although just barely!

After that, we headed upstairs to a little area where you can make little wooden cars and put them on a ramp to race them.
Here she is racing her masterpiece that she put together....with a little help from Mommy of course.
There are a few little areas with bouncy, cushioned pillows to tumble around over . Including a great room full of pillows and mattresses piled up for kids to jump up and down on. Keira and I did some jumping in there for a while until we were pooped. After that, Keira wanted to try rock climbing. Here she is admiring the artwork on the wall of the rock climbing wall.
Here she is climbing up the wall. She was able to get to about the center of the small wall and up maybe two foot pegs. Not bad for a 2 1/2 year old! lol

Well, it was definitely worth the trek downtown even if we ended up making it two days in a row! I highly recommend it for all of your parents with toddlers and small children. There are lots of bubbles on the patio, art tables for kids to do crafts like painting and play with clay. There is even a little Ipod shaped booth on one of the floors with a little disco ball that music plays in for the kids to dance around in privacy. They SHOULD have had a little sneaky window that the parents could use to take pictures of the kids dancing without them knowing...I know...sneaky :)

Have fun!!!

Bring Me Hope

2008-05-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

I love this clip and hope that you enjoy it as well. I'll be honest though, Dan and I have never really thought of us adopting Keira as being something nice that we were doing. She had a wonderful foster family that loved her very much and she was well taken care of. On the contrary, she has done so much more for us by allowing us to be her family and bring her home with us than she will ever know...
I truly am thankful everyday for how blessed we have been.

How Quickly They Learn!

2008-05-04T06:35:00.001-07:00

With potty training, one of the things that I have learned is that consistency is so important. I've been putting Keira on the potty at intervals and she is going in her training pants less and less. Some days, she stays pretty dry the entire day...even through her naps. Amanda (daycare) has been really great about being consistent as well and when I go to pick her up will give me the low-down on everything that happened on the potty and in her diaper that day. She won't go on the potty in public place yet since I have to hold her over the potty. She definitely doesn't like that...so I have found myself limiting us on some days to either just short trips out to get home in time to use the potty or going to Westfield malls where they have great Family Bathrooms with small toilets for her to use. I'll be honest...sometimes it really gets hard and feels like your life just revolves around the potty...but it will hopefully be worth it some day soon! lol

She still isn't consistently letting me know when she has to go to the potty, but she definitely knows that she is supposed to! Let me explain...

When I ask her if she has to go potty, she usually says no. But when she doesn't want to do something...like eat or take a nap...she'll say "Mommy, pee poo poo potty!" Well, for consistency, I'll immediately get her up from whatever she is doing and put her on the potty...where she then reads or blows bubbles for a while. Does she actually go? Nope! But hey, it gets her out of her bed for a little while. After a while, when we figure out that she isn't really going to go, I take her off the potty and bring her back to her previous activity. She'll eat or nap for a bit..then guess what? "Mommy, pee poo poo potty!". Sometimes I'll tell her that she just went, but if she says it again, I've GOT to put her back on the potty so that she will tie it all together. This will happen sometimes a few times in the span of when she is supposed to be napping or eating. When she is playing or doing anything fun, of course she NEVER has to go potty... you get the picture. How quickly they learn, huh? ;)

Some people tell me to be patient. It took months of potty training to finally work. Others tell me Wow! Potty training was so easy! My child learned in just a couple of days and I really didn't have to do anything. Those are the people that I really would like to just kick really hard....REALLY hard! Just kidding :)...kind of....LOL.

The No Pants Dance

2008-04-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

I've never been able to get this on video, but since we've been trying to potty train Keira, she does something called the "No Pants Dance". It is one of the funniest things you've ever seen.
After she goes to the potty and before she gets her new training pants on, she'll stop and do this wild crazy dance running around back and forth laughing hysterically. It is totally hilarious and so hard to explain if you can't see it!

The best I could do is include a little video from my cellphone of The "Paper Towel Dance". She likes to grab the cardboard roll from the paper towels and dance around with it. It's not quite the "No Pants Dance", but the closest I could get to it so you could KIND OF get the idea! lol

Sorry about the horrible quality of the video!

Potty Update II

2008-04-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we're on week two of the serious potty training attempts. She has been doing great at Amanda's and has only been peeing in her training pants when she is napping. Otherwise, she's been great about going in the potty. She still has not been TELLING any of us when she has to go and we've just been taking her every hour or so.

The other day, I had her home with me and every single time that I would take her to the potty...nothing. Well, within 5-10 minutes later, sure enough, she would fill up her training pants. What on earth??? What was going on? Well, I figured out that the only reason that she's been doing so well with going is because we've been taking her so much that she hasn't had a chance to go in her diaper!

I think what she really needs to do is associate the feeling of peeing and pooping with having to go to the potty. I bought some training pants before that she was supposed to feel wetness. Nope, nothing! I bought some training pants that are supposed to feel cold when you pee so that she would feel it easier. Nope, nothing! Well, today, I decided that she would really have to just feel what it feels like, so I've been taking her every hour and half or so and have her only in her new underwear. I'm only going to put her in training pants when we go somewhere but have her in just underwear when we are home. I mean, most people before training pants, just let their kids just wear underwear when they potty trained and followed them around cleaning up the mess, right? Well, so far, it's about 9:30am and I've cleaned up 3 puddles...with one of them being on me! lol I have kind of noticed a pattern though, which I guess is good. She would kind of wander off into her room and that is when it would happen. My friend Terri said that when she was potty training, her girls would hide behind a chair when they would be trying to go to the bathroom. So if only I can catch her now before it happens...we'll see! I have a feeling I'm in for ALOT more accidents today, but that's part of it I guess!

Update: Ok, just minutes after writing this, I took Keira in to brush her teeth. As she stood there brushing her teeth, she just peed and peed and peed a huge puddle without even stopping with brushing her teeth. Granted, I moved her as fast as I could to the toilet, but she definitely isn't recognizing that she has to pee yet. I'm wondering if maybe it's too soon for her? Any opinions? I have a feeling I'm in for a long day equiped with Clorox Clean Ups! lol

Two Years

2008-04-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

It has been two years now since Chris passed away. It's amazing how fast time flies. I can still remember so many fun times that we had with him as a part of our family. There were so many laughs and good times throughout the years and I feel so lucky to have been able to be part of that. You could always depend on Chris for a smile and a laugh that you couldn't help but laugh along with as well since it was so contagious!
Here was Chris giving me a crazy goofy face for the camera during a family vacation to Maui. We laughed so much and had such a great time. I will always remember that vacation. We all would see something funny happen and all we had to do was look at each other and just KNEW what each other would be thinking. You could especially look at Chris and just tell that he was ready to laugh about something because he had such an expressive face and such a great sense of humor.
On a family trip out to Vegas, we gave Max the camera and let him take pictures of whatever he wanted. He was about 4 years old and took pictures of the wall, the carpet and even pictures of pictures and the tv. The funniest was this picture that he took of his daddy sleeping. Everytime I see this picture, it makes me laugh.
Chris was not only always there to make you laugh, but you always knew that you could depend on him to lend an ear to listen to you whenever you had a problem or just be there whenever you needed him for anything. He was so inspirational and even when he was sick, he was always thinking of others before himself. He even inspired people that he didn't know personally through his faith and it definitely showed with all of the people that came out to say goodbye to him during the wake. There were lines going around the building of people that came from all over to see him and to share stories of funny memories and how he inspired them.

We miss you Chris!

Potty Update

2008-04-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

Well, so far so good! Yesterday, I put her in her training pants and she only wet them twice...but a very small amount. I pretty much took her to the potty about every hour to an hour and a half. She protested the very first time like she always does when she first wakes up in the morning. I convinced her to do it since she wanted a sticker.

I placed a paper chart on the wall that says "Keira's Potty Chart". This is where she puts her stickers after she gets them. She LOVES the stickers! That seems to be working really well. Whenever she finishes on the potty she says YAY! Sticker!!! and just about runs to where I keep them to pick one out.

Yesterday we went to Babies R Us to see if we could find the Potty Power DVD. They didn't have it, so I bought Once Upon a Potty instead. She really likes it. She starts singing "My Potty Potty". It's really cute. We also got her some books and a bubble blower for her to play with while she's in the bathroom. I also let her pick out some new underwear! She was really excited and ended up with Dora, Little Mermaid and Elmo underwear. I haven't put them on her yet since I wanted to wash them first and I'm not sure when I should! She's been using the trainers, but to be honest, I'm not convinced that she can feel that they are wet. I think that her feeling what it's like to get wet is part of the training, isn't it? Maybe after she's gone a good amount, I'll go ahead and have her run around the house in them for an hour or so. Speaking of running around, she was SOOO funny! We were in the grocery store and she had just finished watching the DVD in the car. She was walking around the store saying "Bye Bye Pee Pee! Bye Bye Poo Poo!" She made a dash around the meat section yelling that, when all of a sudden her training pants fell down! She was still trying to run with them down to her knees yelling "Mommy, I did it! I did it!!!" I couldn't stop laughing....but of course I pulled her training pants up for her in the meantime lol.

We'll see how it goes. The main concern that I have is that she still isn't recognizing when she actually has to go. I'm not sure if my taking her every hour is causing problems with that. Should I keep doing that or should I be waiting for her to tell me when she has to go? I guess I'll try that and see what happens!

Oh, and by the way...yes, that is a picture of Keira on the toilet with her Dora underwear on her head.

Potty Power!!!

2008-04-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

I am off for the next couple of days and have decided this is it! Keira has been able to go for longer periods of time lately without wetting her diaper, so that apparently means that she has developed the muscle control needed to start really getting serious about potty training. When she was about 18 months old, she was very interested in her potty. I would sit her down once in a while to go to the potty never forcing her when she said she didn't want to. Well, for some reason lately, she has decided that she doesn't want anything to do with the potty. "No no wan pee pee in potty!" She will tell me sometimes when she has pooped but usually after it's already been done. She hasn't figured out yet to tell me when she pees.

I've heard pros and cons to using training pants. I bought some that she can supposedly feel when it's wet, but so far, they were pretty full and she didn't bat an eyelash. I'm getting the feeling that those aren't going to work. I think I'm just going to have to go the route that I've been reading about where you just have her wear only underpants instead of diapers for an hour at a time to get her used to the actual feeling of getting wet. I'm going to take her shopping to pick out her own underwear that she can wear. I'm also going to get the Potty Power DVD for her to watch. I've heard great things about it. I got her Go Potty Go!, but other than liking the dancing pandas, she doesn't seem to be getting anything else out of it. lol We'll see! I'm sure I'm probably in for a mess, but I've got Folex and cleaning supplies ready! lol

I'm also going to try some sort of reward system where she'll get stickers to put on a potty board whenever she sits on the potty and pees. Gigi did this with Max and it worked great. Hopefully it will work with Keira....we'll see.

Anyway...wish me luck. I know that it may not work and if she's not ready, she's just not ready, but I've got to start sometime, right? Anyone with any advice?

Biopsy Update

2008-04-11T04:47:00.000-07:00

I wanted to give family and friends and update on Keira's Biopsy because I know that so many of you have asked and are concerned with what has been going on. Last night Dan and I made the decision to cancel Keira's biopsy....for now. It was a difficult decision to make and I have moments where I still question whether we made the right decision. There were just so many factors to consider that we just weren't sure it was the right thing for her right now. Now, eventually somewhere down the road she will probably need to have one. Now just really is not the right time and did not feel right. I don't want to go into alot of detail about it here, but if any of you have any questions, feel free to email me! Thanks

Needles and Owies

2008-04-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today I took Keira in for all of the lab work that was required before her biopsy on Friday. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible it was. We're used to Keira having to get lots and lots of blood taken whenever she has tests, but this time was very different. Someone forgot to tell her veins that they were supposed to cooperate with us.

The same thing happened like it always does. The person taking blood calls us in and they ask if I'm the one that they will be taking blood from. Once they realize that it's Keira, they suddenly go bug-eyed and their jaws drop to the ground. They always end up going into the back to consult with the computer again and the doctor to make sure that they weren't reading the request wrong or to find out what the doctor was smoking when they decided to order this much blood from such a small child.

Normally she needs anywhere from 6-8 vials of blood for tests. Most of the tests can work with smaller amount of blood, but this time, there were at least 2 vials that needed to be full... as well as about 6 others that had to be about half full. It was just crazy. Does she even HAVE that much blood in her little body???

The nurse took me in the back to "bag" Keira for a urine sample. She had already filled a diaper, but I wasn't worried about whether we would be able to get her to pee since she most likely would once she saw the needles! If any of you aren't familiar with "bagging", it's what they use to get urine samples from babies and toddlers. Obviously you can't squeeze out a diaper to get the sample (ok...I'll admit that was what I thought they expected me to do the first time they told me they needed a sample lol), so they have a special bag for little girls with an adhesive that sticks directly to the skin so that the pee will go in the bag instead of the diaper. It really looks VERY uncomfortable.

After that, we were called into the back to start the blood drawing. The second that we bagged Keira, she started to get a little suspicious. Once we went into the room and she saw the empty vials, she realized what was about to happen and just started to scream "NO!!!! MOMMY NO OWIE!!!" Tears just started to stream down her face. I just felt so horrible....but it had to be done to prep for her biopsy on Friday. They brought in a few people to help since she was so small and they did their first poke. The blood started flowing as well as the screams and the tears....everything was going quickly thank goodness, but all of a sudden...the blood flow just stopped. They had to move the the needle around a bit which of course caused more screaming...but still nothing. They moved over to the other arm and started the second poke. The screams and crying were so loud and sad...It just broke my heart. I started to cry as well feeling so horrible for what was happening to her. They told me that it's actually a little easier to get the blood when they are crying because the blood flows faster (adrenaline). Next thing you know....it stops again. After the third time with the blood flow stopping as well (she for some reason was clotting very quickly)we had to stop for a bit. It was just too much.

I took her out of the room and cradled her in my arms while she drank water from her sippy. They wanted her to hydrate a little and rest for a minute before we tried again. She was drinking her water and tears were still coming out. After a couple of minutes, she started to fall asleep probably from being so tired from all of the crying. I had to wake her up to try and get more blood...this was so horrible. They were finally able to get just enough blood to fulfill the amount that they needed for the tests. There was one other test that they needed- but it was one that could be done the day of the biopsy, so we were fine with waiting until then.

Now for the urine sample. Believe it or not...through all of this, she hadn't peed! We waited for a while longer at the hospital, but she was falling asleep. I asked if I could take her home so that she could take a nap at home and I would bring her back for the urine sample. They were closing at 12:30, but were fine with that. We left with her still bagged and she went to sleep.

I woke her up after her nap and she STILL hadn't peed! I brought her back to the hospital and talked to the nurse for a bit. She said that she wanted to double check if the urine sample was really necessary and it turns out that it wasn't. Not only did Keira have to endure having all of the blood drained out of her poor little body, but had to have the adhesive from the bag pulled off a VERY sensitive area of your body for nothing! OUCH!!! Through all of this, she was such a trooper and was showing everyone that would listen where her owies were on her arm.

I'm so glad that the tests were over and hopefully the biopsy will go smoothly with this being the worst part of it. Time will tell...

Baptism Day!

2008-04-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

We have so much going on this week, that we decided to have a quiet baptism for Keira. The church was very particular in who we were able to have as Keira's Godparents. They had to be baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church as well as be married in a Catholic Church if married. My friend Laura Chun graciously agreed to be Keira's Godmother. Gigi and Max had to leave to go back to Chicago and were not able to attend and Lorraine and Mike were witnesses. They will all play a big part in guiding Keira in her faith as well of course.
The church we go to does a full immersion for the Baptism. The water is nice and warm and we were worried that Keira would think it was time to go swimming! Brother Raul did a count of three and she was thrilled about the first two dunks...that is until she was completely under water for the third dunk! This was the "before" picture!

...and "After"!

As you can tell from the pictures, she looks thrilled! Actually she really was a trooper! She was the 7th child baptized that day and we were joking that Brother Raul might have to start working out a bit! The 6 families before us were Samoan and had pretty big kids! Keira was probably the smallest one there and even though the youngest child was about 6 months old, he looked like he had about 10 pounds more on him than Keira did! lol

They all wore white onesies for the water with Swimmer Diapers, then we had to quickly change them into their white gown and outfits for the rest of the Baptism ceremony.
Here were (from left to right) Me, Father Peter, Keira, Dan, Brother Raul and Laura after the ceremony. We took the Chun family, Lorraine and Mike to Brunch afterwards and had a wonderful time with great food!

At the end of this week on Friday will be Keira's Biopsy. I have a couple of doctor's appointments as well as labwork scheduled for her this week. She will be having the procedure first thing this Friday and we'll be staying overnight for them to observe her and make sure that there is no internal bleeding from the procedure. I'm not as worried about the procedure anymore as I am about having to somehow keep this bundle of energy still for the day after the procedure. How do you keep a bouncing crazy little girl like this still? Wish me luck!

36- the Magic Number (Fisher Week Part 2)

2008-04-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

We rounded out the rest of Fisher Week with trips to Legoland and Sea World and we had a blast! Keira and I go to Legoland all the time, but something wonderful and magical happened in what seemed like overnight! What is that you ask? Why, she turned 36 inches tall!!! She was 35 inches tall and out of the blue, her little head hit the 36 inch bar. This really opened up a whole new world at Legoland for her because now she could suddenly ride just about every ride! She got to ride her first roller coaster- The Coasterasaurus! She was a little scared, but ended up being a real trooper. By the end of the ride, she was saying "WEEEEEE!"
In the new section of the park, they have a ride like the Frog Hopper that you see everywhere. Her and Auntie Gigi got to ride it together and I thought for sure it was going to scare her, but now! She had so much fun.
Max is about 48 inches tall and really can ride every ride now in Legoland and a couple at Disneyland that he was never able to ride before! (California Screamin' and Indiana Jones). Here he is on one of his favorite things to do at Sea World, the bungee jumper. There were NO lines and we got to ride the Journey to Atlantis 3 times in a row and got totally soaked. That really is a great ride! I love how it starts out as a water ride, then you end up in an elevator that takes you up to the rest of the ride.

I had a game card for the gamezone so we used it up on carnival games. Max had his heart set on winning a big Luigi which meant that he would have to knock down 3 of those doll things on the shelf. Ok, I have to be honest, I didn't think he would have been able to do it. I can't even do that! You know what? He suprised me and won the thing! There was a guy with this girlfriend standing next to him with his jaw on the ground, "He's doing better than me!" He tried again after seeing Max so easily win the Luigi and of course, he lost. Wow...Max really is a natural athlete!

Here are Keira and Max showing off their prizes! Max won Luigi and although Keira didn't really win anything, she loves showing off her bucket of popcorn! :)

Gigi and Max left to go back home to Chicago yesterday....we had a great time guys! See you in August!

Fisher Week!

2008-04-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's Fisher Week! Do you know what that means? It usually means that Keira and I go into training for about a month ahead of time to prepare for "The Arrival" of the Fisher Clan! Going to the gym on a regular basis, push ups and taking vitamin supplements. Just kidding...but hey! Any of you that know Gigi and Max know that one of the great mysteries of the world is figuring out where on EARTH they get all of the energy that they have to do all of the things that they want to do in a week! Gigi's even been in training for a mini-triathlon which scared me because that could only mean that she would have even MORE energy and that is a SCARY thought!
They flew out from Chicago to Vegas and stayed in Paris with some great comps courtesy of Mom's itchy slot machine arm. They were originally going to rent a car and drive out to San Diego, but I was able to start my vacation a little early, so hey! Why not? Lorraine, Keira and I decided to drive out to Vegas to meet them! We started out early in the morning, but ended up getting stopped for a while by Stateline where a big rig had turned over. Thankfully, it wasn't long since I was falling asleep! We got to Vegas and boy...Keira was in heaven! She just LOVES Max to death and torments the poor boy by forcing him to hold her hand all the time. He does love her as well, but when you are a 6 year old, having a little 2 year old chase you around copying everything you do can cramp your style! lol Just kidding. Max has been so great with her and very patient. I'm not kidding...she copies EVERYTHING that he does and says.
Here is a picture of them sharing a chair at Starbucks
Riding a ride...she had to be EVERYWHERE that he was
Well, this was one of the only exceptions. She totally has a thing about those dancing video games.I have no idea where she got it from!

We ended up staying at Whiskey Pete's at Stateline on the way back. Somehow Mom had a bunch of comps from there too! You've all seen it. We were kind of scared and weren't sure WHAT to expect. "Icky Pete's". Well, we were really in for a surprise. The rooms were pretty nice, the food was good, the service was good and Lorraine and Gigi saw a great Lounge band that they raved about. Who would have thought??? The only problem was that the elevators smelled like a very big fart. We would joke that everyone probably got so excited that Whiskey Pete's wasn't as big of a dive as they thought it would be, so they couldn't contain their excitement once they hit the elevator! "Whiskey Pete's is GREAT!" Pooooooot! lol

We went over to Buffalo Bill's and rode the log ride. The water was kind of stinky so we were joking around calling it "Poo Poo Water" What did we do that for...They have a machine set up at one of the bridges where people can shoot water at you as you are going by. Can you believe that they shot at us? Even with a baby??? lol We were all laughing saying, "What kind of person would shoot at a baby???" Well Keira was so disturbed by it that to this day, she still talks about "Baby with the Poo Poo Water!!!" Gigi and I went to the top of the bridge and discovered a malfunction with the shooting machine where you didn't need to put money in. We would stand at the top of the bridge and when people would go by, we would look around pretending that we were talking, but we were really the ones shooting at them! I mean, who would suspect two women with a toddler to be the culprits? :) It was so funny and I promise that I didn't shoot water at any babies!

The next day we headed off to...where else? Disneyland! Gigi's friend Chela used to work P.R. for Disneyland and she was wonderful enough to call in a favor for us. We got hoppers for both parks for free!
Here is Max...can you believe how big he has gotten?
Here are the two cousin in front of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. She just absolutely adores him. She started yelling out for him whenever he's not around. It was so funny the other morning, she woke up and looked around. She cupped her hand to her mouth and started yelling, "Keira! Keira!" Uh, Keira, you're here already. She thought about it for a second then realized that she meant to be calling for Max. "Max! Max!" It still makes me laugh.
The happiest place on earth...that is until she starts copying him and annoying him again! lol

Well, we're only a little less than halfway through Fisher Week, so I need to conserve my energy for the rest of the week when we'll be at the beach, Sea World, Old Town, The Zoo and the Space Theatre as well as anything else that Gigi can think of! See you all later!

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Our Easter celebration actually started yesterday. Auntie Lorraine, Dan, Keira and I headed over to the annual Easter Egg Hunt in Encinitas. They had an Easter Bunny to take pictures with, jumpers, arts and crafts and all sorts of fun things to do. They had the hunts broken down into age groups with the first group of 2 and under at 10:15am. There was a huge crowd of us that lined up behind the line and once they waved the flag we were on our way! They laid down the ground rules that parents were allowed to point the eggs out to the children, but couldn't touch them or pick them up. Last year, the parents were picking up all of the eggs...competitive, huh? lol

Last year, Keira just didn't get it and wanted me to carry her around the whole time. She wanted the eggs, but wouldn't let me put her on the ground. Because of that, ok, I'll admit it. I was one of the parents that were picking up eggs for her...guilty...I know. Well, this year, all it took was pointing out one egg and she was off and running! Here are some pictures of Dan pointing eggs out to Keira.

There was an Easter Bunny there to take pictures with and Keira was happy to do it...that is until the 2 kids in front of her started crying and were screaming hysterically. She changed her mind, but just like most kids, a "High Five" will usually make them a little more open to things.
Here's Dan carrying Keira's basket. He thinks that he's trying to prove that he can still look macho carrying a Hello Kitty basket. I think he failed miserably.
As many of you may know, Dan and I gave up chocolate for Lent, so of course the first thing Dan did was buy lots of chocolate for Easter! He had to work this morning so Keira and I headed to Easter Mass by ourselves. Keira was being a ham and after mass, several people stopped me to tell me how fun it was to watch her laughing, clapping, singing and dancing around during mass. She really is a total ham. We didn't get to do much today after that because I ended up with a low grade fever and wasn't feeling too good. To make up for it, I made an Easter Dinner for when Dan came home. After that, I hid eggs in the backyard for Keira to look for.

Now I tried to hide them in spots that weren't going to be too hard to find, but she is definitely getting the Easter thing. She found them in a couple of minute and wanted more!

I hope that everyone had a WONDERFUL Easter!!!

Nursemaid's Elbow

2008-03-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

I was just arriving home last night when I saw Dan in the driveway. I was making a U turn to go and check the mail when he started flagging me down to hurry up and come over. I rushed over to see what he wanted and he had already gone back inside the house. I parked the car, went inside and almost bumped into him rushing back out carrying Keira. She was screaming and crying hysterically. "Hurry! Get in the car!" I asked what happened a couple of times and he said that he would explain it on the way to the hospital. I wanted to know what was going on, but obviously I wasn't going to make him stop and explain everything to me. We got into the car and as we started driving he explained what happened. Keira and Dan were at the grocery store just up the street. When they were walking out to the car, Keira was holding Dan's hand and she apparently thought Dan was walking too slow and started pulling his arm to walk faster to the car. She lost her footing and almost fell forward. To stop her fall, Dan pulled her arm back a little and that was when it happened. She let out a scream and started crying hysterically. He was in a panic and called the dr's office and we were on our way to the hospital.

I was able to get her to stop crying for a bit on the way, but the whole time, her left arm was laying limp on her side not moving at all. I tried to hand her something to see if she would reach for it at all and she still wouldn't move her arm. Oh please don't tell me her arm was broken! We reached the hospital and Dan dropped us off in the front so that we could rush in while he found parking. She started screaming and crying again as I was getting her out of the carseat. I brought her in and Dan joined us and after a pretty short amount of time, they brought us in. The nurse took her vitals and asked what happened. Dan started to explain what happened and once he got to the part with her falling forward, she knew exactly what was wrong. "Ahh, sounds like Nursemaid's Elbow". What on earth?!?!?

Apparently Nursemaid's Elbow is a very common injury that happens with 1-3 year olds. It's more common for some reason with girls than boys and happens when the child's arm extends and the arm holding the arm doesn't let go. There are 2 ligaments around a joint in the arm and with the extension that happens with the arm, one of the ligaments crosses over the head of the joint. The doctor came over, took her arm, moved it around for a second around her elbow to move the ligament back over and boom! All fixed! We gasped and she cried for a second more, but was now about to reach out to get the sticker that the nurse gave her. Thank goodness she was ok. She was good as new and was her laughing happy self again on the way home!

I guess the moral of the story is:

1. When you are holding your baby/toddler's hand, make sure that there isn't alot of tension with them pulling your hand.

2. Be careful when dressing your child. When you are pulling their arms through the armholes of their tops, make sure you are aware of the angles that their arms are in.

3. Finally, you've probably all seen the family walking where the toddler is in between Mom and Dad. They are all holding hands and then on the count of three WEEEEEEE! They swing the toddler between them. Perhaps you yourself has done that. I know that we have. If you are doing that, STOP IMMEDIATELY! That is the most common way that toddlers are getting this painful injury.

Is It So Wrong Of Me?

2008-03-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, I ran into a co-worker that I hadn't seen for quite some time. She's been so buried in projects and meetings that she rarely gets to peek her head out from cubicle world, much less leave her desk to go to lunch. We crossed paths and the first thing she asked me was "Hey Sharon! How is your baby?" I told her how great Keira has been doing and how big she is getting. As we were parting ways, she said, "Oh! Well, I guess I shouldn't call her a baby anymore, huh? I mean, she is officially no longer a baby and a toddler now that she is 2!" She had already walked away as I continued standing there like an idiot talking to myself...."No! She's still a baby...isn't she?" She's still a baby, right?"

When DO you stop calling your baby a baby? The thought makes me so sad! Even though I don't necessarily SEE it because I see her every day, I KNOW Keira is getting bigger just by little things like her pants! I'll buy her a new pair of pants and before she's worn it a second time, they are already floods. She talks more and more each day and even though I don't understand everything that she says, her communication gets clearer and clearer as time goes by. Every day I look at Keira and marvel at how fast she is growing without necessarily thinking that one day I wouldn't be calling her my baby.

I love the fact that she is becoming a wonderful, smart, happy, beautiful little girl and that I have been so blessed to be part of that, but is it so wrong of me to wish that she would always stay a baby??? I love the funny silly little things that she and I do and the silly songs that we sing with her as a baby that in a few years she would NEVER do in front of her friends out of fear of not being cool. I love the fact that Mommy and Daddy mean love and feeling safe as a baby and when you are a kid, you're usually hoping that they won't do something to embarrass you! I also love the times when she wants nothing more than for Mommy to carry her and give her kisses or when she wants to be EVERYWHERE with you, including the bathroom! I KNOW that the time will come when she would rather go out and do things with friends. That's ok...it's a normal part of growing up. But does she HAVE to grow up???

It's such a wonderful time and it goes by so fast. I just want to enjoy every second of it.
I know, I know, it's selfish of me and I know that she isn't going to stay a baby forever, but I don't care...Whether she likes it or not, she will ALWAYS be my baby and that's that! ;)

On the other hand though, it could be fun! I remember my dad would pick me up from school in our car, which was a bright Orange Gremlin. He would be dancing around in the driver's seat really silly with the windows rolled down and BLASTING some crazy Rick James song totally on purpose just to embarrass me! I guess if it's going to happen eventually whether I like it or not, I can start thinking of fun things to do that will embarrass her when she gets to the "cool" stage! lol

The Return to Legoland

2008-03-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

When I was picking what days I wanted off from work, I thought that I had figured everything out. I decided to go with the weekend (of course!) as well as Wednesday. I know that most people like to have their days off all together, but believe it or not, there were a few advantages to this schedule:

1. This year I would get pretty much all holidays off with the exception of the one that I volunteered for. Granted, I would have gotten them off anyway, but this way it would be an EXTRA day instead of just one of my regular days off!

2. With this schedule I'm pretty much never away from Keira more than 2 days at a time.

3 After your brain being beaten down on conference calls all day, it's kind of nice to know that you will not have more than 2 days of it at a time! :)

I thought that I had it all worked out...until I realized that off season, Legoland is closed every Wednesday! Oh no! We have such a fun time at Legoland and now that she is over 34 inches tall, there are so many more rides that she can go on.

I know that I could take Keira to Legoland on the weekends, but the crowds are so much bigger and the lines are so much longer. The weekdays are so much better!

Well, Legoland opened up for Spring Breaks on Wednesdays again! YAY! We made our way there today. They have a new area that they just built called "Land of Adventure". Anyway, we had a great time. Yay for Legoland!!! :)

The Extra Poopy Day

2008-03-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

Now, I understand that some people may not find this all that interesting or even funny, but I think that every parent has probably experienced this at one time or another. If you HAVEN'T, just wait! Your turn is coming so be ready ;).
I was working on Saturday, so Dan and Keira got to hang out and spend some Daddy and Keira time together. He did have to do some marketing at some of the local motorcycle shops for his insurance business that he is starting up, so Auntie Lorraine volunteered to watch Keira for a couple of hours. The day started out with a couple of poops...enough to where Dan was going to tell Lorraine that she was lucky since that many poops early on pretty much guarantees that she wouldn't have to worry about another one for the rest of the day. Little did he know...

Well, Auntie Lorraine and Keira spent a couple of hours running errands and playing before she brought Keira back home. By the time they got home, there was ANOTHER poop waiting for Dan. What was that? Four in a day? He started to change her when he realized that he didn't have a garbage bag to throw the diaper away in. He ran out to the kitchen to get a bag and by the time he got back, Keira had pretty much gotten poop all over the place. What a MESS! He cleaned it up and decided with as poopy as she had been through the day, he should give her a bath. He ran the bath and Keira was having a blast like she always does playing with her toys and splashing around. As she was playing, she decided to give daddy a little surprise! A floating Baby Ruth in the bathtub! Any of you that have seen Caddyshack know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Now, I wasn't there to see it for myself, but when I think of how much Dan must have been freaking out, I STILL laugh! The next day Dan had to work, so we spent Mommy and Keira day together. Later in the evening, we took Auntie Lorraine and Uncle Mike out for dinner at King's to celebrate Auntie's birthday! I can honestly say that I have never had a bad experience there! Keira got to help Auntie unwrap her birthday presents before tearing up some sushi! She LOVES California Rolls and eats them up seaweed and all.
Here is the picture over her head that was just fascinating to her. She kept saying "Mommy,what's THAT???"
This was our version of the picture.

By the way...since I spent the whole day with Keira having Mommy and Keira day, Dan was curious whether I experienced and Extra Poopy Day as well. The truth? She pooped once...and it was in the potty! :) FLUSH and that was the end of it! lol Poor Dan!

A Year Ago...

2008-02-24T16:46:00.001-08:00

...I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Dan and I boarded a plane to go to Guiyang not knowing what kind of flight we were in for. It was such a rocky flight. I remember at one point being in a cold sweat and reaching over grabbing Dan's hand closing my eyes and praying and squeezing it so tight out of fear that we weren't going to make it. PLEASE don't tell me that we would end up dying in a plane crash on the way to meet our little girl for the first time! We'd come so far! I had never been so relieved in my life when we were taxiing in that we made it in one piece. A young man met us at the airport and along with a driver brought us to the hotel. I don't remember his name anymore because he was only with us for that trip.

We were so tired and beat up from the flight. I actually had bruises from being thrown around on the plane so much! We settled into the hotel and the phone rang. It was Aggie, the guide that would be with us for the duration of the trip. Dan was having a hard time understanding her because she was talking so fast, but we understood that she was going to be meeting us at 8:30AM in our room----with the baby. Wow! We had some dinner and went to bed. Believe it or not, I was able to sleep just fine---I think it's because it really still hadn't sunk in!

We woke up in the morning, grabbed some breakfast and headed up to the room. It was about 8:05am and Dan and I were pacing around the room waiting for the phone to ring. Dan had the camcorder all ready to go and once in a while, we would just hug each other and squeeze each other's hands. I can't even begin to describe how I felt. I was nervous, happy, scared, and excited all at the same time. I wanted to laugh, cry, scream... we had waited SO long for what was about to happen and the moment was finally here. Our lives were about to change SO much in a matter of minutes. What if she didn't like me? What if she rejected me? What if I'm a bad mother? What if she cries and doesn't want anything to do with me?

The phone rang and I almost jumped. I answered the phone and it was Aggie. They were downstairs with "the baby" and were on their way up. DAN! DAN! DAN! Get the camera ready! They are here!!!! I opened the door. Should I keep it closed? Should I wait in the hallway for them? Would it better to be in the room? Should I be sitting? Should I stand up? This was all SO crazy! Just as I went to the door closing it again for about the 4th time of closing and opening it up, I could hear talking. I KNEW it was them... Opened? Closed? Isn't it crazy that I was so obsessed with what to do with the stupid door??? I have no idea why!

Before I could do anything with the door, there they were. I didn't even know if Dan had the camcorder on or not...I was in a daze. First was Aggie. She introduced herself and introduced some of the instructors from the orphanage. I greeted them and turned around to see a man and a woman holding a baby. It took me a split second for it to sink in....oh my gosh...this is MY baby!!! The only pictures I had seen of Keira was when she was 5 months old. She was now 14 months old and right in front of me. I remember looking at her thinking that she had more hair! lol Of COURSE she would...duh! Her foster mother and I stood there for a second looking at each other. Actually I have no idea how long we stood there...it could have been hours for all I know. I could hear Aggie saying, "Here she is! You can hold her!" I rubbed her back for a second then finally started making the motions to take her. There we were...Mom and baby...

I could see Keira's foster mother start to cry. I couldn't even imagine how sad she felt having to bring Keira to us---having raised her since she was 3 days old. I started to cry as well and so did Keira! There we all were standing there hugging and crying. I thanked her and realized she didn't understand what I was saying. I told Aggie that we wanted to thank them for all of the love and care that they gave her and that we promised that we would be good parents to her and take good care of her. We all talked a little bit here and there. I remember one of the teachers from the Orphanage pulling me aside to show me the pictures of the children from the orphanage and to tell me that they were a Christian Orphanage. I told her that we were Christians as well (Catholic) and she seemed to be so happy. Somewhere along the way, we gave them all some gifts---this part was kind of a blur. The whole time I was holding Keira. She would look at me with such a confused look on her face. She would cry here and there...but not much. More than anything, she seems curious. Her foster mother gave us a duck backpack with Keira's rice crackers, some of her milk, a bottle and some precious pictures of Keira as a baby with their family. We cried a few more times and somewhere along the way in all of the commotion, Dan and I were in the room with Keira and Aggie. It was such a blur..but somehow here we were. I remember trying to change her diaper that she had through her split pants and Aggie was making fun of me because I just couldn't do it! YOU try changing a diaper through split pants! lol We got her changed into a different outfit and headed out to walk to the place to take pictures and get her paperwork ready. I put her facing me in the baby bjorn. She had been through so much that she fell asleep. Here was my sleeping baby right there with me. I was afraid to break her! We got to the office to take pictures and she woke up for a bit to take the picture, then went right back to sleep. She woke up while we were doing the paperwork and looked at me with a very confused look on her face. I had some Sweet Potato Puffs and gave them to her rubbing her back. We bonded over puffs and she looked at me and for the first time smiled. I will always remember that moment...always.

Here we are...a year later. Part of me feels like it was just yesterday...yet the other part of me feels like it was SOOOO long ago because I just can't remember what life was like without her! She is 100% our child and I absolutely could not imagine life without her.

Happy Family Anniversary Keira! Mommy and Daddy love you so very much!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

The timing of Lent was a little different this year. Normally it's a little later in the month, but this year it came very early. So early that Valentine's Day just happens to fall right in the season of Lent. Dan and I gave up chocolate for Lent so no chocolate heart shaped boxes for me this year!

Dan made up for it by making a candy bouquet for me out of lollypops, runts, jelly beans, mints and just about any candy you could imagine that was non-chocolate! Isn't that sweet?

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

This Weekend

2008-02-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

This weekend ended up being very different than originally planned. Keira was very sick last weekend with a water faucet nose and 102.4 degree temperature. She became a little velcro monkey and would not let go of me. I had to wash dishes, cook and basically do everything including go to the bathroom carrying my poor sick little girl. By Monday, her fever was gone, but she still had a horrible cough. Because of this, we decided to postpone her liver biopsy. I recall the doctors saying that having a cold and congestion was not good mixing with the anesthesia. She was pretty much completely recovered by this weekend, but I still feel better about not taking any chances. We will most likely be rescheduled sometime in April.

Because she didn't go the hospital, she WAS able to make it to Maddie's birthday party! Maddie turned 4 and had a birthday party at The Little Gym. She was so bummed when she heard that Keira wasn't going to be able to make it at first. "It just won't be the same without Keira- now that she's two!" I'm not sure how the cut off for fun became two, but somehow it was for Maddie! Keira had a BLAST but unfortunately, her disorganized Mommy brought a camera with dead batteries so I wasn't able to take any pictures. Mark, Maddie's daddy took lots of pictures and promised me that he would send me some copies. I'll post them when I get some.

Sunday, Keira and I headed over to the Chun's for a Chinese New Year Celebration. My friend Laura Chun will be Keira's Godmother. It was a great celebration with lots of great food (Chinese of course :) ) and even a traditional Lion Dance performed by the White Dragon Kung Fu school--where Dan takes Tai Chi.

Here is Laura explaining to all of the kids what to do with the red envelopes. You feed the Lions or course! :) She even had Chinese firecrackers.

Laura did such a great job organizing everything! They even had the head of lettuce hanging from the tree for the Lions. The Lion eats the lettuce symbolizing good luck.

Here were the Lion Dancers. Keira saw the Lion Dancing back when we were in China, but this time, it was really up close. It scared her to death! I don't think her feet touched the ground the whole time there were there since she climbed on me the second they came close.

Here is the Lion "eating the lettuce"

We had such a fun weekend. Thanks to our friends for allowing us to enjoy this special weekend with all of you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-02-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone happiness and prosperity for the new year!

The Little Mouse Emergency Fund

2008-02-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

Last year around this time, the weather was very different in China. It was chilly in Beijing, but in Guiyang and Guangzhou, it was warm enough most of the time to where you didn't need to wear a jacket.

This year, the winter weather has hit China very hard and very unexpectedly. Many of the SWIs (what orphanages are called) have little if no heat, running water or electricity and are running out of food, blankets and diapers. Many of the children are sick and need treatment. I thank god that Keira is home with us, but my heart just breaks for all of these children in the orphanages that are suffering from the conditions.

Half The Sky is a wonderful organization that helps the orphanages in China. They have listed the some of the different SWIs in China and the needs that they have due to the harsh conditions. Keira was taken care of by a foster family, but she was sponsored by the SWI in Guiyang, Guizhou. Here is the site for more information and if you want to know how to help the children. The Little Mouse Emergency Fund was set up specifically to help the orphanages experiencing hardship due to the current weather conditions in China

http://www.halfthesky.org/work/littlemouse.php

The Terrible Twos???

2008-01-31T12:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my beautiful, sweet angel of a daughter was swallowed by the Tantrum Beast, who spit out a child that is equally as beautiful, but not quite as sweet! LOL Granted, this is a first time Mother talking that has always heard about the "Terrible Twos" but never actually experienced it for myself.

Is it as bad as I am making it out to be? Nah! I can still picture the little boy laying on the floor in Target kicking and screaming because he wanted to be the one to put the trashbags in the shopping cart. I remember looking at his mother as I was walking around the screaming bundle of a child on the floor and seeing the frantic look in her eyes silently pleading with me to understand that she's not a bad mother. Would that be me one day???

I know that before we have children, we always say "No, that just won't be me! There is no way that I would put up with that!" That's great and everything, but what about when reality hits? Will you stick to your guns?

Normally Keira is a happy, laughing, smiling, singing little girl. Every once in a while, sure, she'll cry over having to hear a "No" from Mommy or Daddy, but it's almost always short lived. After that, she's happy, laughing and smiling again.

Yesterday and this morning was a different story. It came out of NOWHERE! I can't even begin to count all of the times that she would burst into crying fits when she didn't get everything that she wanted. It was CONSTANT! Now, it wasn't the screaming, back arching tantrums that you normally see from kids, but it was SO much crying and whining. Well, that wasn't working too well since I would pick her up, make her look me in the face while I talked to her in a calm, low voice explaining that if it didn't stop, she would have to go in the corner. I would get her to respond to me on whether she wanted to stand in the corner (which of course the answer was no) and she would stop soon after.

Well, that worked just fine! That is....until the "No's" started. Now she was crying and yelling "NOOO!!!!!" I got her most of the time to change her "NOOOO!!!!!" to a "No thank you!" but you know that would only be as consistent as it can be for a 2 year old!

I lost track of how many times she ended up in the corner. As a matter of fact, After she cried about SOMETHING and said "NOOO!!!" while hitting the table, I looked over at her and gave her the "Oh no you DIDN'T!" look and she walked HERSELF to the corner and stood there! LOL That crazy girl...

I talked to some people at work that have children about it and the general answer was the same, "Yes, sounds like the Terrible Twos! Brace yourself!"

So here we are....The Terrible Twos. One of the good things about having her go in "The Corner" when she's misbehaving is that there are Corners EVERYWHERE....I'm getting the feeling that she will be visiting them a little more often than before! ;)

Old Town

2008-01-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

The Magnum/ Blue Steel Pose
Keira and I were originally going to try to take the Coaster down to Old Town the other day, but we didn't make it. We decided to go ahead and make another go at it---this time Dan came along! We headed to the Coaster station, got our tickets and we were on our way!

(Picture of Daddy and Keira on the Coaster)

We made it in good time and even though there was constantly the threat of rain, we stayed dry. There was a fountain in front of the Mexican Restaurant that we ate lunch at. Keira was dipping her fingers in and doing the sign of the cross. I wonder where she learned THAT from? I didn't think that she noticed me doing that at church...but that just goes to show that children watch EVERYTHING that you do!
We sat down to have lunch and Keira dove right into the salsa and chips!
After that, we went to the Candle shop where Daddy and Keira dipped a candle. Once she got the hang of it, she wanted to dip it in every color. By the time if was finished, it was this really weird poopy color. No matter, after it was glazed, she loved it and was showing anyone that would listen to her "This is a Kitty Cat!"
First Color
I think this was color number 6She was so proud of her poopy Kitty Cat!
Here she is walking through the park showing everyone that walked by her Kitty Cat Candle.
Back on the Coaster, she was OUT as you can see. We had a great time and can't wait to do it again on a trip Downtown!

Mommy and Keira Day

2008-01-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

Since I get one less day off from work a week now, I really appreciate the time that Keira and I get together even more (if that's possible!). I love to just plan little days for us to hang out and do stuff together. The original plan for today after she got up from her morning nap was to take the Coaster down to Old Town. I've been dying to take the Coaster since there are free trams that will take you to popular locations. Apparently there are so many people where I work that take the Coaster that there is even a free tram that will take you from the Coaster Station and drop you off pretty much right at the front door of my building.

Well, those plans were pretty much a bust. The only times that we would have been able to go were during Keira's nap times. That wouldn't have worked out too well.

We decided to go to the Wild Animal Park instead! Not a bad backup plan, huh? We had such a fun time! She loved looking at all of the big animals up close. The Lion was right up against the glass staring right at us. It's a good thing that the glass is thick and he wouldn't have been able to jump over the enclosure. It actually was making me a little nervous being THAT close to a big lion! After that, we headed over to the Elephant show where she got to be right up close as well. She was thrilled since The Elephant is her favorite animal.

We headed over to the Safari Tour after that and she did great! The last time I brought her she was about 16 months old and it was really hard because she was getting so antsy being cooped up in a tram for 30-40 minutes. Wow what a difference a few months makes! She sat still and was able to pay attention and really enjoy herself looking at all of the animals. We had such a good time. She saw lots of giraffes and rhinos (that she called elephants) and pretty much paid attention through the whole ride. What a relief!
We went over to the play area that NORMALLY has water spouting out, but because it's still winter and was freezing cold...there was no water thank goodness! We had alot of fun running around and jumping on the animals. The funniest part was when she put her face in the megaphone looking thing and didn't realize that people can talk to you from the other megaphones. A funny man said hello to her from a megaphone thing at the other end of the playarea and you should have seen her face! It was priceless!
Here she was sticking her head in the megaphone
I wasn't able to get a picture the exact second she first heard the man's voice saying hi, but this was close!
Our final stop was at the petting zoo area where they had so many deer walking through. Keira and I got to pet deer and goats and although she was a little scared to begin with, she warmed right up to them and had a great time...she didn't even want to leave.

Our membership expires at the end of the month and I've been contemplating whether to renew or not since we haven't been able to go to often. After seeing how much more she "gets" it now...I think my decision has been made :).

Ni Hau, Kai-lan!

2008-01-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

I'm SOOOOO excited!!! February 7th is Chinese New Year and The Year of the Rat. No, I'm not a rat, Keira and I are both actually Roosters and Dan is a Dragon (poor Dan being surrounded by us Roosters lol). What I'm so excited over is that Nick Jr. is coming out with a brand new show for it's regular line-up that will be debuting for Chinese New Year! It's called "Ni Hau, Kai-lan!" and it's about a little 5 year old Chinese girl that teaches pre-schoolers about Chinese culture as well as words in Mandarin. Think Dora the Explorer, but for Asian Children. I think that it will be wonderful for Keira and other Asian children to have a cartoon character that they can identify with. Can you just imagine the marketing that will be out there??? I think it would also be great for her to learn some words in Mandarin....as a matter of fact, Dan and I are excited to learn a few words here and there as well!

Everytime Keira and I see the commercial, we wave and say "Ni Hau!" ,which means "Hello!" in Mandarin. See? It starts already! :)

Anyway, hopefully all of you will get a chance to check it out when it comes out. Here is a link with more infomation on the show.

http://www.nickjr.com/shows/ni-hao-kai-lan/kai-lan-about-the-show/ni-hao-kai-lan-about-the-show.jhtml

Where Has The Time Gone?

2008-01-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty hectic around here lately, so I haven't had a chance to get caught up on stuff. My schedule changed a little at work as of January 1st and now I have to go in one extra day a week than before. I know that I've been spoiled only having to go into the office 3 days a week. Although they have been long days, it still was nice to have one less day of a commute, one less day of headache and one more day to spend with Keira. It's taken a bit to get used to, but I think I'm getting a little more used to it now. One thing that I have gotten out of the change is to be more appreciative of every second that I get with her.

She's growing SO fast and SO quickly! Where has all of the time gone? She had a doctor's appointment with her specialist the other day and she is now 26 pounds and 35 inches tall and is just growing out of her clothes and shoes faster than you can imagine. I'll put a pair of pants on her that are the perfect length and the next time I put them on her, they are total floods.

She is talking, dancing and singing so much! No matter what she is doing, she will stop immediately to sing and dance along to the Backyardigans. I know that I probably sound like a crazy mom but it really is amazing how ever since she was about 15 months old, she has been able to sing along with songs in it's entirety keeping up with the exact timing of the songs. Granted, it is in her own little baby language, but you know exactly what she is trying to sing because the timing is perfect. She loves music and really is a ham. "BaBEE...Watch THIS!" is what she says constantly for you to watch something that she is doing that she KNOWS is cute. lol

Anyway, one of the reasons for her visit to the specialist is because we needed to discuss her having a biopsy of her liver. Her doctor has wanted to do a biopsy so that he can get a better picture of exactly what is happening with her liver. Her test results LOOK like although there is definite viral activity, that it is still probably very minor liver damage. I've been avoiding it as much as possible for a few reasons. There is never any guarantees with anesthesia...especially with a baby/toddler. I've also been afraid of risks from internal bleeding from the procedure. Dan and I have just been so concerned about risks unless the procedure is absolutely necessary. It sounds like it's starting to get to the point where it is becoming more of a necessity, so we finally relented. She really has a wonderful doctor and he will be performing the procedure himself, so I trust him...but you know how it is. I'm just worried...

The procedure will take place on a Friday and she will have to stay overnight. He is allowing Dan and I to stay there with her every second, so I'm happy about that.

Keira and Daddy taking a walk along Oceanside Pier. She loves to stop to take a look at the water or just to jump up and down.
Lola (Doowa) sent a Dora playhouse for Christmas. Keira loves taking all of her toys in it to play with it. The great thing is that it collapses and folds up so we can very easily put it away when she is done playing with it. Here is Keira catching up on her email.

"Be Careful of What You Wish For..."

2008-01-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

A while back...what now seems like an eternity, I remember being kind of bummed out. Keira seemed to know everyone's names. Daddy was "Dahdee", Lola was "Doowah!"...everyone had a name- except me. Oh, she did address me as "Ba!" once in a while but everyone else was "Ba!" as well. There was no distinction between me and anyone else. (Ba, by the way in Chinese means "Daddy"- go figure).

Hey! I'm the one that was with her 24/7 for 7 months and that's the thanks I get??? Just kidding. I know that it's much harder for babies to say Mommy than Daddy, so even though it was kind of a bummer...still. I kept saying "I can't WAIT for the day that she knows my name and calls me by it!". What is the saying? "Be careful of what you wish for..."

Fast forward to months later...Here is a typical conversation between Keira and I in the car:

Keira: BahBEE!!!! (This means "Mommy" by the way)
Me: Yes baby?
K: BahBEE???
M: Yes honey?
K: BahBEE???.....BahBEE???...BahBEE...Watch! (She then moves her head back and forth to the music)
M: Oh! That's very nice honey!!! (I then move my head back and forth along with her--she laughs)
K: BahBEE? BahBEE?
M: Yes honey?
K:BahBEE?
M: Yes honey?
K:BahBEE?
M: Yes sweetheart?
K:BahBEE?
M: Yes?
K:BahBEE BahBEE??
M:Yes honey?
K: BahBEE....watch! (she once again moves her head back and forth in time with the song)

You get the picture...from the second she wakes up in the morning to the second just before she falls asleep, it's "BahBEE?"

Ah....be careful of what you wish for. For sanity's sake, I've learned the old ancient parenting skill of once in a while blocking it out. Keep in mind, when she calls me, she is calling me to get my attention and my attention has never left her. I'm still looking right at her when she's calling me to look at her. I think more than anything, she's just proud of the fact that she can say it now. That's my baby!

Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy that she finally knows me by name so I am very happy about that part of my wish. I just think that next time I make that kind of wish, I would wish that everyone else wouldn't be "BahBEE" as well. That's right...I was "Ba" and everyone else was "Ba". Now I'm "BahBEE" and so is everyone else...

That's the next wish I guess!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful and safe New Years! I was pretty tired and went to sleep by about 9pm. I asked Dan to wake me up at Midnight so that we could at least PRETEND that we stayed up to ring in the New Year. He fell asleep by 9:30pm...
Ahh....to be old and boring! At least we can be old and boring together ;)

Anyway, Happy New Years and wishing everyone a wonderful and prosperous 2008!

Hands of Hatred

2007-12-31T14:37:00.000-08:00

My friend Tom Biagini got a cameo on this short music film. The music is by Five A.M. and it came out great. He's the one that beats Edward Furlong up at the top of the stairs lol. Click twice on the arrow to watch and check it out!

Here is the info from YouTube on the clip:
Hands Of Hatred is a short narrative film starring Ice-T, Rumer Willis and Edward Furlong that demonstrates the social and political effects of violence and hate. The film features the song "Still In Love With You" by Five A.M. To find out how you can promote peace, please visit the L.O.V.E. (LoveOverViolenceEverywhere) section of www.FIVEAM.com.

The Lullaby

2007-12-30T18:10:00.001-08:00

I don't always get a chance to sing Keira lullabies before she goes to bed. Unfortunately, she is still completely uninterested in reading a book with me before bed, but once in a while...she'll let me cradle her, stroke her hair and face and sing a song for her. Normally, she kind of stares off in the distance when I'm doing this, but over the past few weeks or so, when I do this, she actually stares right into my eyes the whole time. This may not seem like a big deal, but with adoptive families, it's a very big deal. There are always the concerns of attachment and even though you may THINK that your baby has attached with you, there are sometimes some signs that show that they just MAY NOT be as attached as you may think they are....such as not making eye contact with you. Keira makes eye contact with me when I ask her to or when we're playing, but there are times when she doesn't look me in the eye. Things have seemed a little different lately...in a very good way.

Sometimes when she is crying or upset, I'll hold her and hum a certain song for her and she will immediately stop crying and gently pat or rub me on the arm or back copying my movements...which is wonderful...

The other day, she was laying on the couch drinking some juice watching The Grinch. She is VERY ritualistic and always has to go through a specific routine when she lays down to watch a show. 1. She has to have her shoes off 2. She has to have her MeeMee (blankie) 3. She has to have Baby (her Hello Kitty doll) 4. She has to have her sippy of juice or milk. Lately, a new step has been added to this. 5. She wants either Dan or I to lay down with her. She pats the pillow next to her saying "Dooooooowwwwwn". I was the one that day that she wanted to lay next to her. I put my head on the pillow next to her head and watched the Grinch with her. I was so tired and started to fall asleep. I felt something on my face and woke up to a wonderful surprise! Keira was stroking my face and singing me a lullaby. Now granted, I couldn't understand the song since it was in her own baby language, but whatever she was singing was the most beautiful song I have ever heard :). After she finished she smiled at me and went back to watching The Grinch.

I don't think that she realizes it, but she gave me such a wonderful memory that I will always cherish...

Merry Christmas!!!

2007-12-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!!! It's been a crazy and hectic few days. We've been taking Keira to a few places to see different types of Christmas Lights and Christmas Trees. One very original tree was the one at Legoland. Of course it was made completely by Legos. Here is Keira playing in the Duplo Lego Room. Duplo blocks are the really big ones that are easier for toddlers to put together, so she has a great time with them.Going to get more Legos to play withKeira running around in front of the Lego Christmas tree.

Later that night, we headed up to Irvine for the Holiday Party that we held at Dave and Busters for Dan's employees. It was also Armani, Luis' daughter's 2nd birthday, so they brought her a brownie with a candle on it to blow out. She didn't want anything to do with it, so Keira blew it out.

After a big dinner, we all headed over to the game midway to play some games. Dan and Keira played the Harley game, which is the only way that Keira gets to ride a motorcycle with Daddy.
Here she played a different driving game which she did really well with! I think that she drove the car better than I would have! lol

Today for Christmas, we opened gifts a little late and Auntie Lorraine and Uncle Mike came over for Christmas lunch. Keira got so many great gifts. Here she is playing with the Pucca doll that Auntie Gigi and Max got her.

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

The "Boo Boo" Method

2007-12-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

Amanda (she watches Keira when Dan and I are working) and I were laughing while discussing "The Boo Boo Method" the other day. She has 2 sons Nathen and Landen. Nathen is 2 and a 1/2 and he and Keira are great buddies. One of the things that we discovered is that Nathen and Keira have figured out a great way to distract us and hopefully keep from having to do something that they don't want to do. Whenever they have to go take a nap or have to sit down and eat and just don't feel like it that second, they pull at their pants and exclaim "Boo Boo!" This of course means "Hurry Mommy! I have a poo poo in my diaper!" Considering that we're starting the process of getting them used to the potty, what do we do? We immediately jump up, grab them and rush to the bathroom trying to catch them going number 2 in their diapers. I have to admit, it has worked a few times where I ended up distracted enough to where she probably saved herself a couple of times from having to stand in the corner when she was misbehaving. By the time we finished in the bathroom (of course there WAS no poop, but I figured I'd keep her there in case she was trying to tell me that one was on it's way) I had forgotten that the corner was where we were originally heading!

Anyway, we have them both figured out now. I brought Keira over to Amanda's yesterday to play with the kids and also brought a cake for her birthday (yesterday, December 20th is her real birthday). The kids were all sitting down eating lunch and as soon as they saw the cake, they all started yelling "Cake! Cake! Yay Cake!" They started trying to get up from their seats and Amanda said that they had to finish eating first...what was the response? "Boo Boo!" I guess they were thinking that if they could just get taken to the bathroom, they could make a mad dash for the kitchen and get some cake. Sounds like plotting and planning a prison break...Pretend you're sick, get taken to the infirmary, make your escape. It's pretty funny.

It doesn't work so well anymore, so I'm sure they will both come up with some new method of distraction soon. That is how young mind works... pretty amazing.

One of the things that we were laughing about was imagining trying to use that kind of method as an adult. Can you imagine being in a meeting and getting hit with having to do a presentation? I don't think that you can get out of it by grabbing your pants and exclaiming "Boo Boo!"

UPDATE: Ok, apparently Dan says that I'm very wrong here. We discussed this issue further and he pretty much says that if you were in a meeting with your boss and your peers and your boss asked you to do a presentation that you didn't want to do...grabbing your pants and yelling "BOO BOO!" would DEFINITELY get you at least a couple of minutes to get up and leave the meeting. I think it would probably get you some mandatory leave of absence time as well lol.

Keira Day!

2007-12-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Keira Day! It was her birthday party for her 2nd birthday and it was a ton of fun! The day started out with her waking up at about 5 in the morning. I took her out in the livingroom where she saw her first birthday gift. It was a new wagon from us. She pointed at it screaming and couldn't wait to get in.

Here is Keira being strapped into the wagon by daddy. After this, they got dressed in warmer clothes and took a stroll around the block in her new wheels.

A little later in the day, we got everything ready and headed to the park to prepare for her birthday party. The Dora the Explorer jumper arrived about 30 minutes later and she went nuts! Some of the other kids playing in the park came by and jumped in it with her. Everyone started to arrive soon after and we had such a great time getting to see some friends that we haven't seen in such a long time. It was nice for everyone to finally get a chance to come out and meet Keira.

Cindy and Vivian
Chloe, Rod, Al and Glenn
Keira's buddy Nathan and Amanda.
Mark, Michelle and Maddie
My godson Isaac getting his face painted

It started out as my balloon hat that Nicky is wearing. I must have a bigger head.

Maddie and Keira playing with their balloon animals

Keira blowing out the candles on her cake. I gave her a handful of candles and just let her put them wherever she wanted to.

After everyone left, Keira and daddy played in the jumper for a bit more. She still wasn't even tired believe it or not!

Once we got home, she opened up her presents. She got so many wonderful presents from everyone. She was having so much fun and was so overwhelmed, she jumped back and forth between all of the toys, clothes and books to try to play with everything. At times she was carrying 3 different toys trying to play with all of them at the same time!

Thank you so much to everyone that was able to share this special day with us!

San Diego Restaurant Week

2007-12-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well folks...it's almost that time again! San Diego Restaurant Week!!!

A friend at work turned me on to San Diego Restaurant Week a few years ago and Dan and I have enjoyed it ever since. What is it pray tell?

For any of you that that are not familiar with it, it's a week or so (most of the time they extend the time to 2 weeks) where some of the best restaurants in town offer a special "prix fixe" menu (fixed price) of $30 or $40 per person. This includes your appetizer, main course and dessert with this price and doesn't include drinks, tax or the tip.

Now, if you were planning on visiting TGI Fridays, it doesn't sound like that great of a deal, right? Well, there are places like Bertrands at Mr. A's, Georges, Top of the Cove, The Marine Room...the list goes on and on! Lots of FuFuShiShi places that normally have appetizers that cost $30 alone.

It really is a fantastic way to plan those special date nights out without completely busting your budget, so have fun! The menus can be found at:

http://www.sandiegorestaurantweek.com

Just click on "participating restaurants" and when you click on the restaurant name, you can see the menus...yum yum yum! :D

Thanksgiving

2007-11-27T06:56:00.000-08:00

We've had so much to be thankful for over the past year. It was around this time last year that we saw the face of our little girl for the first time. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I KNEW deep in my heart that I was looking at our daughter. Not long before Thanksgiving arrived, we finally received word from our adoption agency that we were approved to be Keira's parents. It seems so long ago and here we are...another Thanksgiving has come and gone and it's hard to believe that our funny little monkey has been with us for several months now.

We spent Thanksgiving up in LA with Auntie Kat, Uncle Matt and Grandma (Nana) Curry. This was Dan's mom's first time getting to meet Keira and they got along great. Dan says it's because they are the same height lol.

She's been staying with us for about a week getting to know Keira before heading off to Arizona to spend some time with Fallon and Aria, Keira's cousins. Here are some pictures of us all spending a nice relaxing day at Oceanside Harbor.

I'm normally one of those weirdos that HAVE to have my Christmas tree and lights up HOURS after Thanksgiving is over, but I at least waited a day or two this year! Not for any other reason except for laziness of course. I put it up while Keira was taking a nap and boy was she surprised when she woke up and saw this thing in her living room!

Here are Keira and baby inspecting the weird thing in her house.

Nana and Keira taking a closer look.

Dan and Nana were helping Keira hang an ornament. It was a mermaid dressed in black that Auntie Bee sent a while back.

Just a little something funny that I wanted to include. For Chloe Cuizon's birthday party, Keira won the costume contest. Now, granted, it was by default since she was the only kid left by the time the prizes were awarded, but HEY! We'll take it! lol

The prize was a Halloween Mr. Potato Head! Now, Keira didn't really know what to do with it, so Daddy showed her how you can take the body parts off and put them back in. After that, you can't take it away from her! She loves her "hat" as she calls it and as you can see from the pictures below, They are....well....you just have to see them for yourselves! :)

Daddy showing Keira Mr. Potato Head

You can only see her arm, but here she is proudly displaying her first creation

Masterpiece number 2. It can't be too nice having your nose that close to your butt, but hey, what can ya do?

The Classics

2007-11-14T17:52:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving hasn't even passed and the malls are already decorated and playing Christmas music! As a matter of fact, some stores are having Black Friday sales, which is traditionally the day after Thanksgiving shopping, this Saturday! It's crazy!

Keira and I went to the mall today to pick a couple of things up and as we were walking through the mall, Keira stopped dead in her tracks. There was some man dressed in red with a white beard sitting in a big chair in the middle of the mall. He was waving at her and motioning for her to come over. She looked at me at first to make sure it was ok and I told her, "Look Keira! It's Santa!" The look on her face was just priceless...and only something magical that you see in the face of an innocent child. She has no idea who Santa is, but she was just mesmerized by him! She held tightly onto my hand as we came closer to him. I prompted her to say hello and she said it so quietly. The quietest that I have EVER heard her say it. Santa handed her a candy cane and had her give him a high five. Well, from that point, he was her best friend! They chitchat for a bit about what she wanted for Christmas and about the weather---you know...the usual things that an almost 2 year old discusses with Santa and we were on our way. Every once in a while as we continued our walk, she would turn around, point towards him and say "Da da di do DO!"

It really brought back memories of how much I LOVED the classic Christmas cartoons that before DVDs or DVRs, I waited so long to see. I would get so excited when my favorite- 'The Year Without A Santa' would be coming on. I decided to get some of them for Keira so that she would know the Christmas cartoons that I loved so much as a child. Maybe after watching them, it will click who that nice man with the white beard was at the mall! :)

Remember these guys?

The Abominable Snowman used to actually kind of scare me as a kid!

"I Want To Be A Dentist!"

Need I Say More? ;)

Sick Baby

2007-11-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Keira has been pretty sick the past few days. It started a few days ago with a runny nose that came out of nowhere. She still was in great spirits, but a couple of days ago, she started to get a sore throat--so the coughing really started. For the past couple of mornings, whenever she woke up, she started to throw up. Friday, Dan was trying to get her ready to take to daycare and she threw up all over him 3-4 times. Ahhh...the joys of parenthood :). I came home from work early to take her to the doctor and they couldn't find anything unusual other than a bad cold. The doctor suspects that she threw up from such hard coughing that she was doing. We left with her getting 6 shots! No, it had nothing to do with her cold, but coincidentally, she was ready for her next immunization updates with a flu shot thrown in for good measure. It was a horrible thing to get all of the shots, but what made it all so much better was the Wiggles sticker that she got for being so brave! She made sure to show EVERYONE that she could get to look at her "Weegos!" I decided since I was there as well, I might as well get a flu shot too. I've never had one before and when I let the nurse know that, she asked me if I was allergic to eggs. Huh??? I'm sure it was supposed to make sense somehow...it just didn't make sense to me!

She's been so cranky since then. I'm suspecting that her arms are still in some pain from all of the shots. I only got a flu shot and shoot! My arm hurts! She got 6. Well, on and off, she has been really whiny and cranky. I'm sure that alot of it is also just because she doesn't feel good. Last night, she woke up probably once every 20 minutes or so crying. Normally, once you go in and let her know you are there, she is fine and goes back to sleep. Dan and I were at wits end after waking up so many times through the night when Dan noticed that she hadn't moved from the same spot in her crib at all through the night. The last time she was crying, I picked her up and noticed that the poor thing had spilled water out of her sippy and was laying in a small pool of water that whole time. I just couldn't understand why she didn't move out of the water! I changed her into dry, warm clothes and brought her into our bed to sleep the rest of the night. That didn't work out too well since she was ready to play after that, but it just felt better knowing that she was with us.

This morning, she was still a little cranky and was getting a little antsy having to stay at home. We wanted to make sure that she got enough rest and not too much exposure, so we took her for a quick walk along the pier to get some of her energy out. She was feeling a little better, so I was able to get some pictures of her actually smiling.

Walking along the pier

Here she was catching up with daddy. She's so independant now and likes to do her own thing. She still has to walk between Dan and I no matter what though for safety!

Keira and daddy playing hide and seek around the lamppost. She's a tiny little girl, but I think I can still see her ;)

After we got home, she took a nice long nap then practiced some Tai Chi with daddy.

I miss her happy smiling face, so I hope that she feels better soon!

Halloween Fun!

2007-11-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

Keira had such a full Halloween! First, she went to the gym daycare, where all of the children dressed up in costumes playing. After that, I took her to her regular daycare where they were having a Halloween party. She made her first arts and crafts pumpkin! No, not the one pictured above. That is one that she won't be able to do for at LEAST another year or two ;). Amanda made a big sandwich for their lunch that looked like a colorful snake. All of the kids loved it.

For trick or treating, we decided to take Keira to the "Safe Trick or Treating" Halloween event in Encinitas. We accidentally left Keira's Hello Kitty basket at home, so we ran into a lady at the 7-11 that LOVED Keira's costume and very graciously gave Keira her pink shopping bag! There was so much going on. Just about all of the shops along Highway 101 had black and orange balloons in the front of their store showing that they were giving away candy. There were pumpkins carved on display as well as games and a band playing children's music with a big area for the kids to dance. We really had a great time!

Here are some examples of the pumpkins on display. There were about 3-4 displays set up in various areas along the highway.

This was Keira's first time trick or treating and she just loved the concept! Wow! You go up to people, say a little something and they give you lollypops! She would get so excited everytime she got a new lollypop that she would try to eat all of them at the same time as they came along.

It was very hard keeping the candy in her bag! She kept trying to dig each and every one of the candies out to eat.

Whadda ya MEAN, you don't have anymore lollypops????

She was able to walk and run about 5-6 blocks and she was DONE. Good thing we brought the stroller just in case.

Here was the band that was playing at The Lumberyard. They had a silly name. Something like "Peanut Butter Cookies" or something like that and played songs like Old MacDonald---but the kids had a lot of fun dancing to their songs.

Daddy and Keira dancing

Keira playing one of the games they had set up for the kids. It was kind of like the beanbag throw.

She had so much fun that I think she put 5 beanbags into the hole

The festivities didn't just end after Halloween. Chloe Cuizon's birthday was originally scheduled as a Halloween Party the Saturday before Halloween. Unfortunately because of the fires, they had to reschedule. That's ok! It just extended all of the Halloween fun since all of the kids still got to get dressed up!

Here is Chloe, mom and dad (Dawn and Rod) blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.

Keira just LOVED a little bike that Chloe had in the backyard

The group photo. This was one with all of the kids. Chloe was sitting at the end opposite of Keira in this picture and Kellen Tolentino was standing behind her holding a small pumpkin. All of a sudden, he accidentally dropped it on Chloe's head! She had a bit of a delayed reaction, but eventually realized what happened and started to cry. She was so cute how it took her a little while to figure out that something just clonked her on the head!

This picture was pre-pumpkin drop

This picture was post-pumpkin drop.

Keira had a great time playing and running around with daddy. We had a great time! Can't wait for Halloween next year!

The Gift

2007-11-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Lately Keira has become very aware of her diaper. Ever since we started letting her practice sitting on her Dora potty, she has not liked having her diaper on much. She's gotten better at tugging at her diaper and saying "boo boo". Sometimes one is in there, and sometimes she's just peed. Either way, it's an After The Fact warning and we aren't able to get her to tell us before it happens so that we can get her to a potty on time.

According to the books that I've read, she doesn't seem to have the muscle control yet to keep herself from peeing in her diaper during naps or through the night although she HAS woken up with a dry diaper a few times after a nap. It's still not consistent.

A couple of times now Dan has gone into her room to get her up from her nap and she has had a little gift for him. There she is, standing in her crib. As Dan approaches, she hands him her diaper with a big smile on her face. Thank goodness so far, it hasn't been anything TOO messy :).

Cabin Fever

2007-10-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

We were very very fortunate during the fires. The fires got close a few times, but everytime we really started to sweat about possibly getting evacuated, the wind would change direction and we would be safe. The fires are still going on although I think that for now we're out of danger. There were so many people that lost their homes to the fires. Hopefully all of those people were able to make it out safely and are able to be with their loved ones.

The air quality has been so horrible. Everything was covered in a layer of ash and soot. The skies are still very gray, but at least the orange glow is gone. That was surreal. Because the air has been so horrible, we've pretty much been housebound. Even going in the garage for a few days, you needed an airmask. Now all of you that know Keira KNOW that she is a very busy little girl that loves to be out and about, so needless to say, she has had MAJOR cabin fever...not to mention a constantly dripping nose from allergies from the polluted air. She was running around all over the place trying to entertain us. For example:

Here she was doing a little Karaoke for us carrying her little Tinky Winky purse...

We didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't plugged in.

It's been pretty warm lately also because of all of the heat from the fires and Santa Ana winds. The air was so bad so we couldn't open the doors, so the air cond was on the whole time. Our air cond is out of hand and really really cold so we've been turning it on and off so that we don't die of heat or freeze at the same time! I bought Keira some new pajamas to keep her warm just in case her room got cold from the air conditioner...plus it's getting to be winter, so she needed warmer pajamas!

Here she is modeling her new outfit.

As you can see, the feet on the pajamas were a little slippery.

She decided to take full advantage of this and practice her ice skating routine.

Dan checked up on her a little while ago and her pajamas were thrown on the floor outside of her crib along with her diaper. So much for that...

The Fires

2007-10-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

I'm working oncall from home tonight and although I've taken some outage calls, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be here in our home. So far, they have not called for an evacuation of Oceanside, but they have blocked off the 76 to Bonsall, which is just up the street, so we'll probably be next. As of right now, we're all ok. Lorraine and Mike came by with the dogs and their cat since their area was being evacuated in Encinitas. I started packing things up this morning into the car. The usual evacuation things they tell you to...pillows, blankets, medicines, food, lots of fresh water, important papers and pictures. It's hard to believe that our lives are pretty much packed in our car right now.

There are fires burning not only close by us and all over San Diego County, but in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, Ventura... everywhere. It's hard to believe. A few years ago, right around this time was the fires that occurred hitting Scripps Ranch and Crest. I remember feeling so horrible and helpless that the fires just kept growing and spreading and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. It's even harder to believe that this fire is worse. If we have to leave, I'm not exactly sure where we are going to go! Things and areas are burning up so quickly that all of the shelters are starting to fill up or change because the shelters end up in areas that are burning up too...but we'll be just fine. We're as prepared as we can be and we're all together as a family.

My prayers are with all of you out there tonight. Please be safe...

The Search for Childcare

2007-10-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

Mom has been such an enormous help to Dan, Keira and I over the past few months. I don't know what we would have done without her. She offered to stay a couple of months longer for her trip out here to help with my transition back to work. She has been helping around the house, taking wonderful care of Keira and when we get home from work, there is always a fantastic dinner ready for us! We've been so spoiled lately, that it's going to be a huge change now that she's leaving in a couple of weeks!

The time has come to transition Keira to childcare during the day. Boy has that been a task--finding a daycare. I'll tell you, I am HUGE on research which I think any parent that is going to have to trust their child with a stranger HAS to be. I searched through various means and to be honest--it was looking kind of bleak. There are SAHM moms that will watch our child that aren't licensed (which is apparently ok as long as it's just one child), daycare centers and home daycares. Since I have not been working for a while, the daycare centers were out since they were out of our price range for now. I understand that many people go with daycare providers that are not licensed so that they can more one-on-one time, but we opted to go with someone licensed. It was our personal decision to go with someone that is subject to monitoring and regulations. Besides, we preferred that she be around other children her age for better socialization.

Whenever I made contact with any potential daycare provider, I checked the usual- references and for licensing violations. I also made sure that I watched their interaction with Keira and the other children under their care. I am very good with reading people, so I can usually tell when someone is trying to snow me. I also do some unconventional research as well. I google their cell phone numbers and email addresses. I check their address on the Megan's Law website (http://www.meganslaw.org/) to make sure that there are no child predators in the area AND I also check their email addresses out on MySpace. Granted, I don't expect people to be complete angels, but it definitely gives you a different perspective of that person with how they carry themselves when they think that their daycare families aren't looking.

I came in contact with several people and wow. I have to be honest, some interactions were just plain scary.
1. One lady always left the front door wide open through the day with nothing but a baby gate blocking the doorway. I asked her about this and she didn't seem to think that there were any safety concerns with this. While we were talking about this, one of the fathers stepped over the babygate to drop his daughter off without either of us even hearing him. He was pretty much in the living room before either of us realized that he was there. This still was not a safety concern for her.

2. One lady seems to have the worst short term memory. I called her twice in a day to discuss a few things (about an hour apart). She talked to me totally like she didn't remember ANYTHING that we discussed. We were having some trouble with coordinating an interview time so I had to call her several times throughout the week. Each time, I had to completely repeat everything we discussed and she still wouldn't remember me. I became increasingly scared that she would lose Keira somewhere and not remember where she left her.

3. One lady pretty much refused to let me come over to see her during the day. She insisted that we could only meet in the evening. I explained to her that there was no way I would let someone watch Keira if I hadn't seen her interaction with them in her normal setting first. She still refused. That was a big red flag...

4. Several people that I spoke to over the phone, would openingly in the middle of our conversation start SCREAMING at the kids they were watching at the top of their lungs.

5. Looking through ads, I found an ad for a girl looking for a live-in nanny position. Although we weren't looking for a nanny. Her ad caught my eye. She sounded very good. GREAT credentials. After googling her cell phone number, turns out she is also an escort.

6. Looking at a MySpace, one daycare provider had all sorts of obscene pictures as well as a statement about her "horniness". Yikes...

After all that, believe it or not. We found a GREAT lady named Amanda. She passed all of my tests with flying colors and has a sense of humor and personality very similar to my own. So many of the things that she does with the children as well as discipline are very similar to my own methods. I started taking Keira there on a trial run for a couple of hours a day to help with the transition. So far she's doing GREAT! I'm hoping that everything will go fine and I'm sure that it will. Although, being the paranoid parent that most of us are, it is nice to find someone that you have a good vibe about. I'm hoping that my intuition is correct. Keira seems to really enjoy being there!

Here are just some pictures of Keira being silly...

She's become such a little monkey lately. She copies EVERYTHING that Dan, Lola and I do. Here she is wearing Daddy's shoes around the house. She will even sometimes wear my shoes that have heels and walks in them better than I do! :)

I've been lucky enough to have some on-call weeks where I've been working back-up shifts from home. If I get called, I'm pretty much on conference calls with a headset on. This fascinates Keira, so here she is trying to be like mommy.

Hats and Mooncakes

2007-10-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last week was the Mid-Autumn Festival. In Chinese tradition, it is one of the two most important holidays next to the Chinese New Year. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date and traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the mid-autumn harvest moon at it's brightest and fullest, and eat moon cakes. The San Diego chapter of Families with Children from China had a celebration honoring this tradition. This was the first event that we have participated in. It was nice to get to talk to and meet some of the families that have also made the journey to China to complete their families and share stories. I am embarassed to say being part Chinese that I have NEVER had a mooncake! Well, Keira, Mom and I made the trip out to 99 Ranch Market to buy some for the celebration. There are SO many different kinds! The traditional mooncakes have lotus seed, ham, melon seeds etc along with a salted egg yolk in the middle. There are others that are popular as well that have mixed nuts and red bean paste. There were SO many to choose from, it was hard deciding, but we finally ended up getting some tradition ones along with non-traditional ones like pineapple etc. The red bean paste ones remind me of hopia and weren't bad! They also had a lantern parade where all of the children walked on the park path carrying all sorts of different kinds of lanterns. I ordered a beautiful red and yellow silk lantern online- and unfortunately didn't check the size. So here were all of the kids carrying these cute small lanterns and here was Keira carrying a lantern that was beautiful, but about as big as her whole body. She was a trooper and carried it to the end, although she did get tired a few times and had me carry her. I wasn't able to get pictures, just video. I'll see if I can somehow get them on here. All of the kids were SO cute and it really was wonderful to see them all walking with the lanterns.

Speaking of being a trooper, I've finally gotten her to wear a hat on her head for more than 30 seconds!!! She doesn't like it much of course, but she's being a trooper for Mommy. Thank you honey! Here are some pictures I managed to get of her wearing a few.

Here is Keira totally getting busted checking herself out.

Keira loves to bust into Lola's room so that she can wake her up to show her whatever outfit she's wearing that day. Way too much of a ham! Poor Lola!

Here she was dancing around the living room in her pink hat. She looks like a pink Paddington Bear.

She looks like she's doing the Charleston or something!

'Just Cuz...

2007-09-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some cute pictures that Mike and Suzanne Lagman took of Keira and Max playing this summer!

Brain Age

2007-09-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'll admit it. I'm 38 years old and own a Gameboy. I am pretty addicted to the Mario series of games and have completed Super Mario Advance, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario Advance (I think number 4?) Yes, I'm a nerd. I was on my second run through of Yoshi's Island and attempting to get perfect scores on each level when suddenly the light burned out on my Gameboy. Oh, it's still playable, but it's so dark now that I can only play it when I'm in the bathroom where we have very bright lights. Once in a while, I'll be in the bathroom for a VERY long time and Dan will come into the room asking me "Are you alright??? Did you fall into the toilet or something???" I then have to confess what I'm doing. "I'm fine honey...I'm playing Yoshi's Island".

I finally couldn't stand it anymore when my feet went numb from sitting on the toilet trying to get a perfect score on Level 4 Secret Level 5. Besides, I'm going to be on Jury Duty Thursday and if they will let me bring it in the waiting area, it will make the day go by MUCH faster if I have something to occupy my time. I broke down and bought a new Nintendo DS Lite. It was a special package where it was the Crimson color (gee...apparently it's trendy to have certain colors?) and it came with a game called "Brain Age II". It is a really fun game that you can test yourself everyday to improve your "brain age". Plus there is a funny little Japanese man that talks to you. What more can you ask for, huh? Apparently, if you don't keep your brain active, your brain ages- not a good thing. Before you get to that though, you have to do a math test to figure out the age of your brain. I have to confess, I'm not very good with math unless I have an opportunity to scribble things out on a piece of paper and write everything out. I know...excuses, excuses :). Anyway, the test is where you have to subtract a certain number from a larger number. Once you figure that out, it scratches the number out and you have to remember what the last number was and you subtract the number again from that number you had to memorize. This goes on and on until you can't subtract the number anymore. After that, it calculates your brain age.

Dan and I each did this test. The ideal brain age is 20 years old. What were the results? Dan's brain is 29 years old and I apparently have the brain of a 59 year old. Yikes... Looks like I'm going to be doing the little brain exercises everyday to at least get close to my chronological age! lol

The Wild Animal Park

2007-09-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

Annual memberships are great! When I was home with Keira, I pretty much bought up every kind there was- with the exception of Disneyland. It's so nice to be able to go to any of these places any time we wanted to and not feel like you had to be there all day long to get your money's worth. Today we headed up to the Wild Animal Park knowing that we would probably only be there a couple of hours or so. ESPECIALLY since it was about 90 some degrees! When we got there, they were showing everyone a Kangaroo. Keira just loved being right up next to it. After that, we headed over to the Meerkats as you can see in the pictures below.

There are so many different types of animals at the Wild Animal Park. The Giraffe, Elephants, Gorillas- you name it! Even with all of those wild animals, guess what is Keira's favorite? Yep, ducks. We can see ducks anywhere, but she always ends up more fascinated by them than anything else. She's a funny baby!

Here she is trying to get a really close up look at the ducks!

Feeding the Ducks

The braver ducks really did get pretty close!

Not long after that, we had to head home since it started looking like Keira was allergic to
SOMETHING at the WAP. Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running like CRAZY. One the way home, she treated us to her lovely rendition of the song from The Little Mermaid. I taped it on my camera phone, but I can't quite figure out how to post it. I'll see if I can post it though You Tube tomorrow.

After we got back, Mom volunteered to watch Keira while Dan and I had a date night! Wow! 2 in a month! We're going to get so spoiled! ;) What did we do? We ended up at The Melting Pot in University City. If you haven't been there, definitely go! It's a bit pricey, but the experience is worth it...besides...what more can you ask for other than getting cheese and chocolate???? EXACTLY ;)

Back to Work

2007-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I went back to work. It was kind of weird. Even though it really hadn't been THAT long since I left, it still seemed like an eternity. It was really hard getting used to sleeping at 8:30 at night again so that I could get used to waking up at 3:30am. I headed into work and next thing I know, I'm in the parking lot. Wow! I somehow made it to work on auto-pilot. The mind does strange things.

I got to spend Thursday and Friday catching up on new procedures and policies as well as catching up on emails etc. There were still thousands of them, even after most probably already aged off. I checked in on Keira and mom a few times during the day to see how things were going. Mom let me talk to Keira on the phone. She was so cute just jibber jabbering away. I even put her on speaker phone so that everyone could hear her. Mom was doing a great job with her and I wasn't worried at all that she was being taken care of. I think mom really loved getting Keira all to herself as well. It was wonderful baby and Lola bonding time.

When I got home, Keira looked at me screaming and started to cry. It was a trip! It was almost like she didn't realize that I was gone all day until she saw me. Then she realized that I had been missing all day.

The weekend went by so fast. I'm back to work again tomorrow, but this time, I'm back to facilitating system outages instead of catching up. Wish me luck that I remember what to do! lol

Labor Day!

2007-09-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

What better way is there to spend Labor Day than at your bosses house for a barbecue- especially when it's a surprise to your boss that you're coming! lol

Dan has a great crew at Budget and he truly loves working with all of them. They all have fantastic chemistry and work so well together. He always has funny stories to tell me of things that happened throughout the day. He can always depend on them to get things done---and at the same time making it fun as well. They are all such a riot and I do sometimes miss going in to work with them on my days off from my regular job although I think now everyone is so much more advanced than I am in doing everything on the computers that I would probably be banished outside to wash cars since I would just slow everyone else down now! Plus being a full time mom to Keira was a big enough job on it's own :).

Sandy called me a few days before Labor Day asking if everyone from Budget could come over for a barbecue at our house. Of course! We'd love having everyone over! The trick was that it was supposed to be a surprise for Dan. It's been a long time since Dan has had a 3 day weekend, so keeping him in on Labor Day without telling him why was going to be tough. Fortunately, the heat made it much easier for him to want to stay in without too much of a fight!

They brought a ton of food and we had a ton as well...so we did ALOT of eating that day!
Luis and Mabel brought their daughter Armanie. She is only a couple of days younger than Keira so it was great to have her over for Keira to play with. At first, they were a little competitive with each other (Keira was especially for Luis' attention-who she was just madly in love with!) but as time went on, they were sharing not only toys, but trading shoes. Keira came running out with Armanie's sandals and Armanie came running out with Keira's Crocs. It was very cute.

We had a great time and really had fun with everyone here...thanks to you all for making it such a great Labor Day!

Speaking of Labor... I go back to work tomorrow. Wow! Time really flies! I'll see all of you guys back at work :)

Here is Keira with Luis- who by the way, was able to get her to do the impossible--wear a hat for an extended period of time!

"The Budget Band"

featuring Freddy on vocals, Efrain on the Ukelele and Danny on keyboards

Freddy's solo with Sandy on backup

The End of Summer

2007-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Time has flown by so quickly. It seems like yesterday that it was just starting to get a little warmer and Summer was starting. Now tomorrow is Labor Day, which pretty much marks the end of summer. Keira and I have been spending quite a bit of time at the beach taking advantage of the warmer weather and a great little cabana that I got at Walmart! I think that it was only $15, but it's a little beach tent that pops up pretty quickly and comfortably fits about 3 people. It packs up pretty small, so I can carry it very easily in her stroller. It gives great shade and has made it so much funner to stay at the beach without being under the blazing sun. As you can see from the pictures below, Keira thinks it was a pretty good investment :)

Here she is loading rocks into her Crocs that Auntie Gigi and Max got her

What to do with your foot when your shoes are full of rocks

We spent the beginning of the weekend down in South Bay at the Military Beach by Coronado for Robin Sese's birthday. Uncle Omi and Auntie Lulu brought their dog. Keira loves dogs so much! She was petting the dog and gave him lots of kisses...unfortunately, she doesn't usually distinguish where those kisses land, so they pretty much landed on his behind! lol Maybe one day a few years from now, we can get a dog for her to grow up with. I'm not going to be ready for a dog for a while after losing both Jackson and Lucy so recently. We'll see...

Anyway, we had a great time getting to see the Bernardo Clan that day---all 5,000 of them! lol Just kidding. They are a very big family though and have been like a family to us as well since I can remember.

Date Night

2007-08-27T19:08:00.001-07:00

Dan and I missed the Summer Movies this year. Although, we have lots of friends and family that would love to watch Keira if we wanted to go out...all of you parents know how it is. You do sometimes need time to yourselves, but the best times are times as a family which Keira is-our family.

Lorraine has watched Keira in the past and Mom so graciously volunteered to watch Keira while Dan and I had a date night. It's the end of summer---would any of the big summer movies still be on the screen? Now, I HAVE seen a couple of the summer movies, but they were with Keira, so of course they were movies like Surfs Up and Shrek 3. What to see...what to see...Dan offered a couple of suggestions, but there was no WAY we were going to use up a precious date night on a stinker of a movie. The decision was made- The Bourne Ultimatum it was!

I can't even tell you the last time that we saw a movie on a Saturday Night! Wow! To all of you Saturday Date Night veterans, is it ALWAYS that packed at the movie theatre??? Yikes! We got there kind of early because we're freaks like that, but wow! I think this movie has been out for a while now and the theatre was still completely packed. So packed that unfortunately I got stuck sitting next to a man that was wearing a shirt that smelled like sour moldy rags. Everytime I would get used to the smell, he would shift in his seat, bringing the smell back. Wow--powerful...

To those that have not had a chance to see The Bourne Ultimatum- GO SEE IT! It was really good! I think that I even liked it better than the first two Bourne movies, although, you will be lost in the movie seeing the third one if you haven't seen the first two.

Date nights are great, but you know for a fact that the second I was walking out of the theatre, I was on the phone calling to see how Keira was doing... I really am a parent now.

By the way...wanted to make sure that we said a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Keira's Auntie Bee! Hope it was a good one! :)

Saying Goodbye and Shamu

2007-08-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the time came for Keira to have to say goodbye to Auntie Gigi and Cousin Max. We weren't sure how she was going to take it since she had grown so close to them. We waited until it was time for her to take her morning nap and she got to say a quick goodbye to them and they were gone when she woke up. She seemed unphased since it happened sometimes that they would go to the beach or somewhere when she was napping. She has adjusted pretty well and will sometimes show me their pictures, so she knows they are gone now and is ok. Mom will be staying with us until November and I'm going to be going back to work in September. Man has time flown by! I'm going to be going back to work a little earlier than planned, so Mom is sticking around to help with the transition before we start Keira at a daycare. I have to do a little more shopping around to find the right one. I also wanted to make sure that we have all attachment issues worked out as much as possible before I'm gone from her for longer periods of time during the day. I think that I'm going to see if I can work it out to where I'll do one weekend day a week so that she will only be away from me 2 days a week. We'll see...

Before Gi and Max left though, the day before, we had a great day "Dining with Shamu"! We had wonderful seats as you can see from the pictures where we were right next to the whales when they would jump up on the platform. We had a great time and the food was fantastic! If any of you haven't had the chance to do this, try it when you can! It's fun!

Here comes Shamu! I missed the great shot when he lifted his tail and was THIIIIIIIS close!

Eating lunch and listening to the trainer talk about Shamu

Finally, I've included a couple more pictures of the Frenemies playing in the fountain! Gi and Max will be back possibly in the Spring. I'll have to make sure to take my vitamins to keep up with those crazies! :)

The Best of "Frenemies"

2007-08-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

This has really been a jam packed fun week. All of the activities have included trips to the beach, Sea World, Legoland (of course) and 2 days at Disneyland---yes, you read that right. ALL of that in one week! Keira and Max absolutely adore each other, yet use every possible opportunity to antagonize each other. Thus the name "frenemies". One second, it's a love fest, the next they are slyly hitting each other when they think that no one is looking. They really are acting just like a couple of crazy siblings and it's so funny to watch! For example.....

One example of the Love Fest. Love Love Love...

Oh no!!! What usually happens next. Don't worry, they are friends again 2 seconds later.

As many of you know, Keira is an old veteran of Legoland as well as Sea World, but this was her first experience with Disneyland. Wow! She LOVED Small World as well as the Disneyland Parade. The way her eyes just lit up was a sight to behold. She was clapping, singing and dancing. It was pretty hot (about 93-95 degrees), but it was worth every second in the heat seeing her face. She was also able to ride so many of the rides, which was a bonus. She was actually shooting the gun on the Buzz Lightyear ride and got a pretty good score considering that she's a baby lol.

The main characters that she recognized were the Monsters Inc. characters... go figure, considering that she looks so much like Boo!

One thing that she wasn't too crazy about was posing for pictures with the Disney characters. Poor Pluto almost got his eardrums shattered with how loud she screamed when we took the picture with him. I think you can also get the picture of how loud it was by the look on my face. I guess she liked him as much as she liked Oprah in Vegas. She did a little better with Minnie Mouse as long as she was a little further away from her. That's ok...in a couple of years, she'll probably get it :)

Something really great that happened was that they were giving away prizes. We won these things called "Dream Fast Passes". Basically it was a fast pass that you could use on most of the major rides at both the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure whenever you wanted that day. How incredibly COOL is that?!?!?!?!

Here is Max with Pluto. Pluto is wearing Max's Pluto cap in case you can't tell.

Here is Keira with Pluto. At the moment that this picture was taken, Pluto and I both lost our eardrums.

Minnie and the Familia

Max breaking free from the pound.

Ahhh......hotel beds are so comfortable!

On Monday, Mike Lagman will be taking pictures of Max and Keira together in their Chinese Outfits that we brought back from China! I'll make sure to try and post some pictures.