Water Weekend

It was another unusually hot weekend. I took Gabby to the doctor Friday morning and we were roasting. On the way home I picked up a water play table for the girls from Toys R US. I have been wanting this table for awhile but I didn't really want to pay 30 bucks for it. So I went in and it was on sale for 19.99!! It must had been fate. The girls had a lot of fun with it. Alyssa brought out the Polly Pockets and made that their swimming pool. Later that night the power went out and Alyssa's neighbor friend and her sister came over to play Polly Pocket pool party too. I didnt get any pictures of that because I had to leave for a women's meeting at church.

Saturday I went to my sister Melinda 10th birthday party. I didn't take any pictures because I took pictures for my step mom with her camera. I did get to see my Buela (grandma) who I have not seen since my baby shower in October of 2006. She was suprised how much Gabby and Alyssa have grown. I really need to go visit her more often. I took pictures of the girls with her with my stepmom's camera so I will post those when my stepmom emails them to me. Here is Gabby in her super cute outfit though on her way to the party.

Sunday we went to church and afterwards went to Papa and Grandma Tammi's house to swim. I love that they have a pool in their backyard. We have a pool here in our townhomes but kids jump the fence all the time and I don't want swim with a bunch of rowdy kids. I have also seen ducks in the pool and heard of poo stories... so I just try to stay away. On hot days we just call up Tammi and see if we can swim there. If not we just suffer. Anyway they had a barbeque today with us, Aaron, Abi and the kids and Lety & Roy. Here are some cute pictures of Gabby in her swimsuit. Alyssa did not want to take pictures for me!!!


Gabby and her cousin Talore:
Talore, Gabby and Coleson:

The only picture I got of Alyssa:

Happy 1 1/2 Year Birthday to my baby!!

Here are Gabby's 18 month stats:

Weight: 24 lbs 7 oz

Height: 32 3/4 inches

Head Size: 18 1/2 inches

Gabby's new words:

QUIET!! She tells my step mom's dog QUIET when she barks. She tells the kids who are fighting in the church nursery to QUIET! My step mom says sometimes it sounds like Gabby is trying to say Doggie Quiet!

DADDIE!! She says this all the time and calls me DADDIE!!

MOM... yeah that would be me.

Oh WOW!!

Stop it.

Monchichi - Remember those little monkey's from the 80's? I still have mine which Gabby stole from me.

I will sing "One little duck when out for a walk... Mama duck says..." and then Gabby will say "QUACK QUACK QUACK!!" Alyssa brought that song home from preschool.

She will sing "Night Night Baby, Baby Night Night"

Mother's Day Weekend

Happy Mother's Day everyone!! We had a good weekend... meaning I got to sit on my butt alllllll weekend and do.... NOTHING!!
Well Friday I did go and see my Grandma Anita. The girls and I headed out to Oakland and brought her lunch. For Mother's Day I wish I could buy her a new house in a new neighborhood. My poor grandma has to go up and down her stairs to do laundry with her arthritic knee.... plus all of the houses in her neighborhood have bars on them. Notice the speed bumps?? That is to deter side shows, j/k... but really it's probably so when you do a drive by you have to slow down every two seconds giving the OPD a chance to catch you. Just kidding again.... sort of.


What I love about my Grandma's House is that it is so clean that you can eat off the floor. So clean that is until my kids come over:

My Grandma doesn't mind... She even gives the kids an annoying harmonica to play:

Anyway I brought my Grandma Sonoma Chicken Salad from Costco and we made sandwiches. I also made her the Pioneer Woman's Oatmeal Crispies. They were really good if I do say so myself. My grandma was impressed and asked for the recipe. Which I need to remember to print out for her. Then we went outside to play... the kids loved playing on the swing set.

Grandma got in on the action too... bad knee and all:

HIGHER GRANDMA!!

Grandma's yard totally rocks. I had my first birthday party in this yard.

It was the end of the day and I make the kids take pictures with Grandma. Grandma, Alyssa & Alyssa's bear from the Zoo Honey.
Yeah... Gabby was ready for a nap. Had to take a pic though!

So on Saturday I did nothing while Brian took Alyssa to our 9 y/o nephew's Coleson Little Leauge Game. After that Talore (Coleson's 12 y/o sister) and Coleson came over. I was sitting in bed in my PJ's (I did shower FYI!!) watching America's Next Top Model and on Brian's laptop when Talore jumped right in bed with me and watched ANTM and occasionally asked what was going on with the web site I was looking at. I have never felt so lazy in my life. Or well in my married with kids life. Abi my sister in law came and got the kids after she got off work and I decided to get my lazy butt up and go to the mall with my family to get my sister a birthday gift. We did that and that was pretty much our day.

Sunday morning I woke up to these:

Isn't my husband the nicest. His card said: "Besides Christ you are the one that keeps this family together!!" Aww that meant more to me than the flowers. We went to church and afterwards came home and I did.... nothing again! Imagine that! Alyssa and I watched E.T. on video because she has never seen it before. Then I went in the closet looking for more video's and I found our wedding video. It was SOOO Funny... the year 2000 was not that long ago but dang we look really young and inexperienced. It was funny seeing relatives and how they looked 7 years ago too.

While we were watching video's Alyssa said she was thirsty and I said give me a second. She left the room and came back with a glass of milk. I asked her how she got it and she said "I poured it myself! Wanna see?" So she showed me how she poured her own glass of milk!! I was impressed!! She also had M&M's today and gave me the blue one's because blue is my favorite color. A girl after my own heart. Now she is screaming she just wiped her poop on her own so I better go investigate.... (my apologies to anyone eating right now)

I could cry!!

I bought a bunch of clothes from Children's Place online because they were on sale. So the package came from UPS and I showed Alyssa all of her new shirts for school and she was really excited. The conversation went like this:

Alyssa: Mom who are all these clothes for?
Me: Mostly you, I bought Gabby a sweater.
Alyssa: REALLY?? THIS IS ALL FOR ME?? Mom thank you so much, I am so happy I could cry!!

LOL!

Miss Independent...

Refuses to let us hold her anymore. Miss Independent refuses to hold our hands while she walks. She goes where she wants to go WHEN she wants to go.



She doesn't need help from her older sister either:

And she's off....

I am SOOOO 80's!!!!

So I bought Alyssa that video of Beauty and the Beast. She watched it once and then asked to watch it again. So I said okay happy to finally put our VHS/DVD player to work. I said let me rewind the video. A minute passes.... "MOM!! I want to watch the movie again!!" I said "Hold on I am rewinding it!!" She gives me this crazy look and I realize she has no idea what rewinding is!!! She gets frustrated and says "Just forget it, I am going to play in my room!" Oh my goodness!! My 5 year old could not wait for me to rewind the video... it would have only taken 3 minutes!! It is insane that now a days she doesn't have to wait for video's to rewind or if she has a show Tivo'd that she doesn't have to watch commercials. How did we survive when we were kids?? I didn't have video's when I was her age... I had a record player! I think we were more patient back then but now a days these kids get instant gratification. I feel really old right now!!

Our Trip to the Oakland Zoo

This is the first weekend in a long time that we have spent actual "family time" together. We are usually going to parties or family events that have been pre-planned for us. This Saturday we had the option of going to the Delta with Brian's Dad or go to the Zoo like we planned because the Delta was something that was planned a few days before today. Brian was too tired to go to the Delta so we went to the Zoo. We had such a great time! I hope we can do more things as a family more often. We took Erika with us because my Dad had to coach Melinda's Little League game and Zenaida had to go to CPR class for her daycare licence. I am glad she went her and Alyssa are best friends even though they are Aunt and Niece with a 10 month age difference. Well the day started off with Erika calling me asking me when was I going to pick her up?? It was only 9:30 am and I was going to pick her up at 10 so I was surprised she called me. She told me later that she thought I went to the Zoo without her! Awww!! So I picked her up then I stopped at a garage sale down the street from her house because they had this little ride on horse that the lady sold me for 3 bucks!! I knew Gabby would die when she saw it. I also bought a brand new Dora rolling backpack for Gabbs, a princess cone hat for Alyssa and Beauty and the Beast VHS for Alyssa which we are watching now. All for 7 bucks! I need to go garage selling more often!
Anyway back to our Zoo trip. It was nap time for Gabby so she wasn't into the animals at all. The girls loved all of the animals but wanted to rush from place to place. They had their maps in their hands and we would just get to the giraffe exhibit then wanted to go to the elephant exhibit right away! So we had to slow them down. Their favorite was the elephants. We got to see them being fed and one elephant threw a stick at this guy who was sitting down on a bench!! It was crazy! They had the most personality in the zoo. The other favorite exhibit was the monkeys. There was one monkey who just sat in front of a mirror for a long time looking at himself! This other monkey showed off by climbing all over the trees and would look at all of us to make sure we were all still watching him. We took the kids to the children's part of the Zoo. They had a play area where Miss Gabby decided to start walking ALL OVER THE PLACE! This girl is officially a walker! I have lots of video!! We went to eat after the Children's Zoo and after we were finished Gabby decided that she was done and ready to walk back into the Zoo all by herself! I tried to hold her hand but she would not have any of it!
After eating we went to where the rides were and the girls went on a few rides. Alyssa was on a car ride with Erika and I waved to her and she totally ignored me!! Erika waved back at me. I told Brian, "Alyssa is ignoring me!!" So he tried to wave and she rolled her eyes!!! The next go round we both started waving and she yelled "MOM, DAD STOP WAVING!!!" Oh my goodness she used to LOVE to wave to us... but all of a sudden that is not cool anymore... *sniff, sniff* Brian took Gabby and the girls on the Merry Go Round and she started crying!! I know she was tired or else maybe she would have liked it. A few minutes later she knocked out... only to wake up to some screaming kid that woke her up ten minutes later!! All in all it was a fun day we spent 5 hours there and Gabby had a 10 minute nap with no real meltdowns... that is what I call a GREAT day! Here are some pictures from our day!! Next year we are going to the SF Zoo when Gabby is more into animals. The Oakland Zoo had slim pickings with it's animal exhibits.

Best Friends Forever:

Gabby crying on the Merry Go Round:

Alyssa and Erika with a Lion:
Alyssa and Erika with their bears from the gift shop. The bears were looking at the REAL bear.I thought that was cute so I took a pic:
Watching giraffes:

I love this picture.... Daddy and Gabby with sunglasses:

This is one of my favorites too... if you look closely behind the girls you can see an alligators body!!
Shhhh... we are in the QUIET ZONE!
Too small for the ride...

*** I am having issues with trying to load video on Blogger. So if one day Blogger would like to cooperate and let me download video I will post the video of Gabby walking at the Zoo.