5 years ago right now...

My beautiful baby boy was being born....

Happy Birthday big boy!!!!!!!!

Testing the density of objects with her head

My poor baby girl looks like I've beaten her with a baseball bat... In the past few days she's fallen.run into. smashed her forehead into countless objects around the house and it's giving me a heart attack. I'm trying to remember that it's just part of the walking/running stage and she'll be fine, but it's hard to watch. I try to keep her away from things that look like they may wreck her tiny head, but she always seems to smack into them. Her latest talent was acquired by watching her brother climb onto our well-loved leather couch, and then run back and forth across the cushions before throwing himself backward onto the couch... I went to refill her sippy yesterday and as I turned around I heard her mischievous little giggle and saw her pull her booty onto the couch and proceed to wobble back and forth from end to end... I luckily got to her before she attempted her back inward triple axle onto the cushions but it about stopped my heart.

The girl has NO fear. I mean none. She runs full force down the driveway toward impending doom if she manages to get out of our front gate and loves to attempt somersaults over the dog. I'm seeing many trips to the Er in our future. It really helps to have a nurse in the family!

Photos from Stinson Beach Trip

As promised, here is a photo collage of our trip last weekend to Stinson Beach....

Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Stinson Beach for Vanetine's Day Weekend

We decided to fore go the traditional over-priced flowers, chocolates and dinner for a family trip to Stinson Beach this Valentine's Day and it was more than we could have hoped for... The weather was perfect (hey, it's California... We're spoiled), the kids were in a great mood during the drive down and the beach was beautiful. Stinson Beach is located off of highway 1 on the California coast about an hour outside of San Francisco.



As usual, I took WAY too many photos that I will share as soon as I get them organized!

She Speaks!

So, over the weekend the kids got to hang out at Grandma & Grandpa's house so mommy and daddy could have date night. When we came to pick them up on Sunday, Miss Brooklyn looked right at my mom, handed her a toy, and said "thank you" clear as day! She's been wandering the house all week saying thank you over and over again.... I think she's pretty proud of herself! She's also currently a big fan of "Oohhh," "hi doggy," and of course, "mama" and "dada." Crazy how fast they turn into mini adults :)

I'm lame.... I know....

My beautiful B's birthday came and went without me blogging about it: Bad Mommmy! Her birthday was awesome, quieter than usual, but still awesome in the same. My sis had one of our friends use this crafty scrapbooking tool thing to cut out Dr. Seuss-ish styled letters in the phrase, "Oh, the places we'll go!" which looked awesome as a backdrop to the food table... She received a ton of super cute clothes as well as a bunch of toys that have been keeping her quite busy for the past few weeks. We took a few photos but I haven't had a moment to download them to post. I promise to get them loaded soon and posted here so everyone can see...

I can't believe she's a year old.... Wow, that went by so very quickly. Now on too wild and crazy wedding prep for my sister's big day in May!!!

Countdown to B's B-Day

I can't believe she's going to be 1 on Saturday.... Where the heck did all 365 of those days go? In the mad rush of planning and executing her birthday after spacing on all of that throughout the holidays (NOTE TO SELF: Next year, don't wait until two weeks before the big day to plan and figure out a theme!!!), I've been a bad blogger and just noticed I haven't posted anything in almost two weeks. I'm going to try to post at least a few more times before the big day....

Birthday Plans:
(Theme)Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the places you'll go"
(Colors) hot pink, lime, teal and violet
(Invites) template designed/ordered, addressed and sent out
(Food) Still not 100% sure, but will probably do a make-your-own sandwich bar
(Decorations/Supplies) Bought and waiting for Friday night
(Cake) Gotta order today, thinkin' maybe cupcakes for party-goers and a mini cake
for Miss Brooklyn
(Prep) Still have to clean off the back porch, sweep, mop and clean the bathroom, but other than that we're good!
(Weather) Good thing we planned to throw the party inside because it's been raining all week and it doesn't look like it's going to let up until early next week




** Wish us luck for a beautiful, fun first birthday for our baby girl!! **

Happy NEw YEar!

Lukey Duke made it to the ball drop this year! Happy New Year all!!!


Hug your spouse, kiss your babies and live in the moment!

Where We've Been....

I am so blessed and there is no other way to say it.... I can't even remember my life before my babies.

Birthday Theme Ideas

HELP! I need ideas for Miss Brooklyn's first birthday and stat! With all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays I spaced on planning my gal's birthday party!

I've been kicking around a few ideas but am not sure on how feasible they are in the time crunch that I've created for myself.... I love the Dr. Seuss book "Oh, the places you'll go," and was thinking that that might be really cute but am not sure on what to do for decorations, cake, invitations, etc. I was also thinking of maybe doing a winter wonderland theme being as it is winter here and it would be VERY easy to find cute decorations. My thought was maybe buy cheapy plastic snowflake ornaments and spray them light pink, light green and silver and then glitter them and hang them throughout the house and have her cake done all white with silver glittery snowflakes all over the top.... Anyone else have any cute ideas??/ I cutting it really close on time to plan, buy everything and get invitations out and I've totally learned my lesson for next year.


** Note to self: Plan and shop for Brooklyn's birthday BEFORE Thanksgiving and Christmas so it's not a mad dash right before the party!!!! **

10 Months

She's now got all four of her front teeth (2 top/2 bottom), after 2 weeks of crappy sleep, crankiness, really bad diaper rash and LOTS of frozen washcloths. Hopefully she'll be taking a break on the popping out new teeth front for a while so we can try to get her back onto some semblance of a sleeping routine again. And our major milestone that she decided to hit around 8 pm last night.... Drum roll please....

She STANDS! Fully un-assisted, and can even drop it like it's hot while standing! Nothing better than watching your baby shakin' it like a fly girl and laughing her head off!

I promise I'll snap a few pictures as soon as I can catch her in the act again!

Tooth Action

We now have 3 teeth through, and another preparing to make it's big entrance sometimes this week. With the entrance of these beautiful pearly whites we've seen consistent sleep fly right out the window... For the past few nights it's like she's got a tapeworm. From 7:45 to 11pm (now her usual party & pig out time) she's drinking (2) 4oz. bottles and eating a half cup of cereal while laughing at my futile attempts to get her to go to sleep. I guess to most people this really isn't an issue, but my girl's been sleeping through the night (7:45pm to 6:15am) since she was about 2 1/2 months old so I've been really spoiled and thrive on the consistency of her routine. The growth spurt plus tooth cutting have been crazy and I feel so bad for her and just wish all of those teeth would just bust through already. I'm going to attempt to snap a picture of those pretty pearly whites and hopefully I can do it without putting my finger in there... She just may chomp it off!

9 month doctor's visit

Brooklyn had her 9 month well baby visit yesterday. She is 16lbs. 10oz. (30% percentile), 27 inches long (50% percentile), and has a 45.5 cm head circumference (90% percentile). They gave her the mandatory 9 month vaccines that she took like a champ and then did a blood draw to check for anemia as she is a breastfed baby and I guess anemia is quite common for breastfed babies. The blood draw came back negative for anemia and then we headed off to have her hips X-rayed to check for any issues related to her frank breech positioning while in the womb. Her hips checked out just fine which means we have a happy, healthy growing girl!

Yesterday also marked the end of our breastfeeding. I was getting to a point where I wasn't really producing much during my 3 pump sessions at work during the day and it was really starting to wear on me. Though I LOVED breastfeeding her and she made it ever so easy, we decided to start weening a few weeks ago and she had her last taste last night and it made me a little sad. It really is quite an amazing thing and it is incredibly empowering and I am quite proud of myself for making it so long. We kept on going through growth spurts and 3 outbreaks of excruciatingly painful thrush, and I am sure that it is the main reason she hasn't had anything but 1 cold in her first 9 months of life. Cheers to Boobies!

Luke's Birthday Party

First off, Mom, Dad and Mel, You rock! Thank you for all of your help before during and after the Duke's party!

Aside from the bounce house delivery guys getting stuck in traffic and showing up a little late, the party was awesome and I'm so happy it went off without any real hitches. All of the little ones had a blast and Lukey Duke made out like a total bandit! I'm not joking, it looks like Toys*R*Us threw up all over my toy room. We have Tech Decks, and army guys, and Transformers, and race cars, and, and, and! Thinking that Luke would be exhausted from the party I mistakenly assumed that he'd crash in the car and take a little nap after the days shenanigans, but boy was I wrong. Not only did he not take a nap, but he stayed up until 10:30pm taking dudes and trucks out of boxes and racing them around the toy room.

The cake was awesome (and free I might add! Cashier error, oops!), the skull and crossbones pinata was a big hit and everyone raved about the burgers. Thank God for my fam and their help with keeping the thank you list, refilling food as it got empty and supervising kiddos as they attempted to smash the pinata. Without them it would have been absolute hell.


And an extra huge THANK YOU to my sister for being the paparrazi! You took some killer pictures!!! Luv Ya!

8 Months Old Today

Wow.... I know I say this every time, but it's like I blink and she's a month older.... I don't remember it going so fast with Luke! I know we're busy and all but geez! Can't a mommy get a break and enjoy the babyness?

I'm pretty sure Miss Brooklyn is cutting 4 teeth all at the same time... This must be what hell is like! I'm playing, but it's really hard to watch her be in so much pain. She's grabbing at her mouth and biting down on anything she can get her chubby little sausage finger on including her food supply (ouch!), the dog's ears, Luke's nose and pretty much anything else that will fit into Godzilla's little chompers.

She's eating solid food like and champ and in true Dobber baby fashion she absolutely HATES peas, just like her brother. Miss Carrie met me at the door about a week ago as I was arriving to pick up the squirts, covered in green goo and laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes. Brooklyn was wedged on her hip, facing me, covered in peas from the top of her head to in between her toes. Thank god for Carrie because I'm not sure I'd be laughing covered in pea puke... Brooklyn had peas up her nose, smeared in her hair and her eye lashes, and even spackled between her toes. How does that happen? Carrie told me that every time she'd attempt to raise the spoon to Brooklyn's lips she's snatch the spoon and smear the contents all over herself in an attempt to avoid having to taste even one bite. The few bites that did manage to make it into her mouth were promptly spit back with the force of a fire hose. Note to self: Brooklyn doesn't like peas! Do not force that hell upon the child and the sweet daycare lady ever again!

Standing is now WAY cooler than crawling(Oh GOD! Not Yet!!!)and it is rare for me to walk into her room in the morning without getting an impromptu booty dance show of her bobbing up and down giggling like a crazed elf. She's pulling up on everything and I'm guessing that she'll be close to if not totally cruising between pieces of furniture by Halloween.

Video of Brooklyn crawling!

She's getting fast all! I'm so in trouble once she figures out how to walk!

She crawls!

So last weekend was our 4th anniversary and both of the munchkins were at my mom and dad's house so we could have a little parent time. When I dropped Brooklyn off I casually mentioned to my mom that it looked like she had all of the movements down to crawl, but had yet to figure out the putting it all together part. Her arms were doing the army crawl thing and her legs were shuffling forward, but they couldn't both do it at the same time.

By the time we picked them up, 24 hrs later, she was full on crawling and damn proud of her cool new skill! Crap... Does that mean that I really have to keep up with 2 kids on the move now? Where did the last 7 months go? It's so cool to watch her pop herself up into a downward facing dogish position, wiggle for a bit, and then drop to her knees and be off like a little lightning bolt. I'm so in for it people... I can already tell that girl's got quite a lot of me in her and I'm really in for it.

She's hit so many milestones lately... Maybe we'll finally be getting a tooth here soon?

We have push-ups!

I'm scared people, she's doing push-ups and I remember from Luke that that is a really strong sign that crawling is about to commence.

What am I going to do with a 4 year old running around and a little one crawling all over the place? I knew this was all coming but I didn't think it would happen so fast. She's going to be cruising around the toy room, sticking everything she can find in her mouth and generally trying to choke herself to death with all of Luke's tiny bouncy balls and Legos and balls of dried up Play Doh.

She's up to 2 feedings of solids a day and we bought her her very own inaugural hot pink sippy cup and have been giving her 1 shot a day at attempting to drink water out of it. She really isn't interested in drinking out of it, or the water inside, but she does love chewing on the spout. She's got to be teething. All day long she's chewing on something whether it be a sippy, a toy, or a finger and nothing can control her drool. I made her some pureed acorn squash that she LOVES and she's getting more nimble at using the mesh feeder to eat chunks of peaches and plums and avocado.

I think I'm hearin' things

I could swear my little munchkin muttered "ma-ma" and "da-da" back to back while I was driving the squirts to daycare this morning... Wishful thinking maybe... She;s so damn cute. I know I'm her mom, and it's sort of my job to say that, and every mom thinks their baby is gorgeous, but damn! Can anyone else see how much friggin' trouble I'm going to be in once she gets to be about 15-16? Bright hazel eyes, brunette, great skin tone, oh yeah, and a booty like the girls from the sir mix-a-lot video! It's funny because everyone always told me that I'd be blessed with one just like me.... A hell raiser bent on trying to make me prematurely gray at 40! We'll have to she if she lives up to the hype!

Lukey Duke is getting more and more brilliant with each and every passing day. He's working on writing his letters with me every night and colors me the most beautiful works of art every day at daycare. He also has been silently sneaking out of his room after we put him to bed, hiding under the kitchen table with his blankie and catching a few episodes of So You Think You Can Dance! He's so stealth about getting under there that the other night he must have watched a full hour not 5 feet behind me before I finally realized he was there! The only thing that even tipped me off was the dog hunched under the table curled up next to him!

6 Months Old

THEN










How has 6 months gone by already? Can she really already be half way to her first birthday? I know I say it all the time, but it feels like we stepped into that hospital room yesterday. I remember being so happy to meet her and at the same time so heartbroken that I'd have to have a C-section. I think the part that bothered me the most is that I knew my body was fully capable of giving birth to her and I knew that with such a short labor with Lukey Duke that it would probably go pretty quickly. I've never had major surgery, other than the D&C from my miscarriage, and the thought of being opened up on a table was really frightening. I was really worried about being unable to move and having to take care of an incredibly needy newborn without the use of my stomach muscles for a few weeks. Luckily, it all went really well and I healed pretty quickly and thanks to super grandma, I had tons of help with taking care of her through the entire process. My mom was such a lifesaver during the week following her birth. She stayed with me late into every night that I was in the hospital to help lift Brooklyn so I could breastfeed, and changed lots of diapers because the position needed to accomplish that feat wasn't going to happen. Thank you Mom. I know you'd just say no problem honey and that it was no big deal, but it was a big deal and I'll always be grateful to have you there for me and for Miss Brookie.

I'm really looking forward to being a part of my sister's "village." Like my mom with the birth of both of my children, I'll be there for support and help, and I can't wait to be an auntie! Actually, I can wait for a little bit! Lets get through the wedding first and then you can make me an auntie!!!

NOW