Houseguest and Valentine's Rantings

It's a dog...

...the cutest black lab.  He is really gentle with the kids and very obedient.  I just love watching dogs while people go on vacation.  It gives me a taste of having a dog, without the long term commitment.  Someday I will have a dog and it will be great, but for now I have three children that take up all of my time, energy, and patience.
This has been one fast January in my estimation.  Normally it drags by with nothing exciting to do, but between Disneyland and now having a dog around it has not only gone quickly, it has also been very pleasant.

Already tomorrow is February.  I have Valentine's Day on the brain.  It is a bit of a sticky subject around here.  I think it is awesome because it is the one day that I am guaranteed a bit of romance.  And who can blame me when it is all the talk out there?  You see pictures of flowers and candy in the aisles and cheesy Romantic sayings everywhere you look.  My husband doesn't find the opportunity so inviting.  To all those stick in the mud people who are convinced this holiday is only about businesses getting to sell flowers, cards, and candy, I say "so what?"  I think it is awesome to spend a bit of time thinking about love.  How is this any different than Thanksgiving being a holiday where we celebrate gratitude?  Why not celebrate the loves in your life:  spouse, children, parents, grandparents?  Besides I am good with any reason to celebrate.  Heck, I love St. Patricks Day and make a big deal out of that, too.

Well, at any rate our disagreement has gone through a number of incarnations.  I have forced him to take me out against his will and pouted when he didn't choose to celebrate.  I have tried to do all the planning myself and had all out discussions that failed to convince either of us.  This year I am have given up.  I keep telling him that I don't care if there is no romance on February 14 exactly, but there better be some at some point this year.  We will see if that pans out.  I am just going to focus elsewhere.  I will work on fun Valentine's Day surprises and crafts and baking with my kids instead.

So Happy February Everyone.

DISNEYLAND!!!

We had the most amazing week this last week.  We went on vacation to California.  This totally broke up the monotony of January and got us out of the freezing weather.  It was so much fun.

The details: We drove all day Saturday and arrived at the Newport Beach Marriot Condo.  After Sunday we spent Monday at the beach and the pool.  It was a kickin' water day. 

 Tuesday and Wednesday were Disneyland days.  Thursday we spent doing anything we wanted to (for me it was reading, talking pics of the sunset and letterboxing) and trying to recoup from the Disney days.  Friday was our last Disneyland day, and finally we drove home Saturday.

 Favorite Rides:  Mike - Tower of Terror, Me - Space Mountain, Logan - Matterhorn, and Kaylinn - Alice in Wonderland

Maddie was a real trouper, being totally content to just hang out no matter what we put her through (waiting to eat, lack of sleep, lots of noise, really long time in the car seat).  The kids were great and had tons of fun.  They were really well behaved.

Three days later we had pretty much gone on every ride twice and met every Disney character.

My absolutely favorite thing was the warm weather.  It was 75-80 degrees the whole time with hardly a cloud in the sky.  I tried my best to soak it all in.  While I may be burnt out on Disneyland after this week, I could have spent another month in the beautiful weather.

They had birds of paradise everywhere in full bloom!!

Now...if only my house was clean, and I didn't have a list of things to catch up on...

Eating this January

Eating has been getting a lot of attention around here.  Maddie has been eating solid foods.  She loves cereal.  I have never had a child eat cereal like she does.  She will eat any fruit and vegetable, as long as it is mixed in with cereal.  I just started feeding her lunch and dinner, so 2 meals of solids a day.  She has a pretty quirky way of eating.  She sticks her 2 fingers in her mouth after each bite and sucks on the for a few seconds.  Then she pulls them out to let me know she is ready for another bite.  She ends up having a pretty gunky face and hand by the time she is done eating.  It gets even worse if she rubs it on the high chair or on her face.

I have been doing the January diet and exercise thing. Well, kind of.  I spent some of the fall starting the healthy lifestyle, took a bit of a break for the holidays and this week I am back on track.  I always feel so good when I eat right and work out, so why don't I do it more often?  Oh yeah, because of the stupid physical draw of being lazy and eating tasty junk until I am over full.  Well, at any rate I had an awesome week and hopefully I can keep it going.  My biggest goal was a salad for lunch everyday.  I have cut down my carbohydrates to one at breakfast, one at dinner, and a couple of pieces of fruit each day.

Kaylinn frustrates me with her eating habits.  She would eat Ramen three meals a day if I would let her, and when I push her to eat something else, she usually chooses bread or pasta.  I can usually get dairy down her, but fruits, veggies and proteins are nearly impossible.  I actually have eating fruit and vegetables on her chore list.  I find feeding that girl very emotionally frustrating.  Tell me that someday she will have better eating habits.

In other Maddie news: she has started doing the army crawl (you know: knees and forearms).  She is getting more mobile by the second it seems, which means I better start being better about cleaning the floors.  She finds every little thing that hasn't been vacuumed up, and straight into the mouth it goes.  She is actually my first baby that eats everything she sees.  Kaylinn and Logan never really did that.  She has also started sitting on her own. She has a few balance wobbles, so I have to stay close by when she is sitting, but she sure loves it. 

Kaylinn spent the week sick.  It ended up being an ear infection, but the first part of the week was a doozy (fever, chills, gunky cough, throwing up, ear ache).  Now that we have the awesome pink medicine going on (Amoxicillin) things are getting much better.  I just about went stir crazy, though.  I am not a stay at home person.  I like to be out and doing things.

We went to see the Carl Bloch Exhibit last night on a real, honest to goodness date. Between an hour in the car where we actually got to talk to each other, an awesome art exhibit, and dinner, it was so much fun I might do it again.  They had i-pads to rent, and that was so worth it.  It made a whole multimedia experience that was really interesting.  It took us about 2 hours to go through the exhibit which was rather small, but I think it would have been way faster without the i-pads.  After we drove through The Colony (where Mike and I met) and went out to eat at the Brick Oven (can we say carb overload for my body that is so not used to it at this point.)  This was my favorite paining at the exhibit (by the way this picture doesn't do it justice...you've gotta go see it!)

Carl Bloch:  Christ In Gethsemane - 1879

Before I go I have to leave you with my favorite new recipe this week:  Microwave Risotto
Seriously tastes just like you spent all that time stirring in liquid, but you really didn't.  It was a very fancy, but easy addition to a weeknight dinner. 

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

It must be new year resolution time, because here I am actually blogging and so far I have been eating right.  If I start exercising tomorrow, it will be a trio of attempted good habits.  Well, here's to hoping all goes well.

I really do love the beginning of January.  I mean, I really don't like the January blahs, and I don't like the inversion and yucky weather.  Here comes another New Year's Resolution (hereafter referred to as NYR's as this is getting ridiculous).  I should spend at least 3 or 4 days up in the mountains this winter.  Get some beautiful sunshine and mountain air.  Where was I when I started this paragraph?  Oh yeah, the beginning of January.  I feel partied out.  The house is one big Christmas explosion.  I am so ready for a normal schedule and a clean house.  I like the relative calm of January once it gets here.  Of course pretty soon the shut in, non-social schedule gets old and I am so ready for the warm outside gardening of spring.  That, of course, is the beauty of the year,  Once I get tired of one thing, the next thing comes along.  The traditions always bind it together without things getting old.

Our week in review:
All about the family and the parties.  We spent so much time with family and it was wonderful.  It was Allen family heavy.  This is okay though, because in 2 weeks we will be going to Disney Land with the Humphrey clan.  MaryIrene and Jeff were here, so we were trying to get together with them as much as possible.  We saw Tron with them (liked it).  We had a dinner at Fuji with Mike's siblings and parents. For some of them it was the first time going to a Japanese grill so it was so fun to watch their reactions.  We played Band Hero/Guitar Hero with Jeff and MaryIrene.  We had a New Year's Eve party at Steve and Jen's (I made it to midnight).  We had a New Year's Day Party with the extended Allen family (with a giant bounce house and slide...the kids were in heaven).  In between it all, I did my first sewing project with my new sewing machine that I got for Christmas.  I embellished a shirt and I think it turned out really cute: so proud of myself.  We played with Logan's new Lego game, and with his new Lego sets.  Kaylinn got lots of cats for Christmas mostly.  She has been happily playing make believe with them. 

Madeline update:
She is so close to crawling.  Just in the last couple of days she started sitting almost completely by herself.  She just has a bobble occasionally that send her over.  But it won't be long until she can do it completely by herself.  She has started pushing herself up to her side so that she can check things out from a higher vantage point.  She can scoot herself quite a bit now to get at what she wants.  My baby is almost a crawler.  It also means she is finding less pleasure in just sitting and cuddling with me.  I find each of these milestones to be bittersweet.  I am so happy for the strides she is making.  I love that she is growing right, but then I think how sad I am to reach these milestones for the last time.

I guess I better add take more pictures of the family to my list of NYR's as I have no pictures to post right now.  I have been a very bad archivist this Holiday season.  Yea for resolutions and the chance to start fresh in a new year!