Fourth of July

I love holiday weekends when I have more time to hang out with my sweetie! It is always nice to have an extra Saturday. On Friday, we went down to visit Nic's dad who just got back from a fabulous trip to Switzerland and Croatia. Max loved playing in the jets at the pool with his Grandpa.

Then, on Saturday, Max was so excited about the fourth of July that he woke up really early and during the night, too. So, while we planned on going to the pancake breakfast at church, we ended up all taking a nap around that time. We did get some yummy doughnuts before we conked out, though.
Once we were refreshed, we headed out to the Corona Fourth of July Parade. I am just so delighted that our town has a parade. There were a lot of people there, and it is really cute. I was afraid that Max wouldn't like the noise (there were a lot of sirens and honking). He didn't cry, but he wasn't impressed by the parade either. We couldn't get him to crack a smile for any of the pictures.

In the afternoon, my parents came over and we had a rousing game of Bocce Ball. I'd never played before, and it was really fun. I think if we'd played according to the regulations, I would be terrible, but on a smaller backyard court, I did alright. Nic was especially impressed with my overhand throwing technique.

Afterwards, we had a great barbeque--- at Wood Ranch Grill. No work or clean up! Then my parents headed home. We put our little guy in bed and resigned ourselves to missing the fireworks, but when we could hear them going off we checked to see if we could see any of them. It wasn't a great view, but we could see them. It was so nice to enjoy them together without even having to leave the house!

10 months old

Little Max is 10 months old!

This month he started doing a few signs. I've been trying to teach him sign language since he was 4 months old (I think I started too early). He will copy my signs for "all done" and "more". He will give me the sign for "milk" and "eat". Eat is his favorite. He tells me he wants to eat all the time! He also started waving hello and goodbye pretty consistently.

Max has been eating a lot more solids and has started on some table foods. We shared our first dinner with him the other day. It was messy, but he loved it!

On his ten month birthday, he started standing up on his own without pulling up on something, and once he's up he can stand for quite a while! Walking is just around the corner.

As I was writing this, I looked over and found him standing up on TOP of one of our footstools. Aack!

He loves rough housing with his mama, being outside, riding in his stroller, swinging in his swing, and looking for trouble wherever he can find it.

Nic's First Father's Day

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Nic made my first Mother's Day super special, so the pressure was on for Father's Day! Max and I worked on a secret craft project the day before, and it was much messier than I anticipated--- it was not exactly covert when we are both covered with red paint.

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Nic awoke to a sign on his door that Max left, explaining that he'd snuck out of bed in the night to leave Nic a Father's Day message. There were footsteps leading out of his bedroom into the hallway, and the halls were covered in ties with Father's Day songs on them. Too bad I decided on red paint at the store, it looked a little bit like a murder scene!

We had cinnamon rolls and opened presents. Nic got a tangelo tree, which will be fun because it will grow like little Max. One day we'll look back at our big tree and think of Nic's first Father's Day.

I wanted to make a special dinner, but that's hard when you aren't a great cook. I found a great recipe, though, and it turned out really nice. We had grilled steak with fruit salsa, and for dessert we had mud pie. Yum!

I can't say enough how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband. He's a great dad to our little boy, and he's my best friend. I hope he felt appreciated on Father's Day because we couldn't live without him!

World's First Conjoined Triplet Separation

This is my first year ever having a garden, and I am really liking it. Nic lovingly built me a few raised beds. We filled them with really nice soil, so growing has been easy. I've enjoyed spending the time outdoors, and it has been fun to watch all my plants grow from tiny seeds. I've been so excited every step of the way. Now, we can eat some of our veggies, and that is the best part. We've had snap peas, carrots, green onions, and zucchini. We have tomatoes, corn, peppers, and onions on the way. I'm definitely not a gardening expert, and when it came to thinning my vegetables I probably didn't thin as much as I should have. It just seemed a shame to pluck up perfectly good plants. Well, here's what happens when you let your carrots remain crowded. You get a Siamese triplet carrot.

We successfully separated the carrots, and they came out kind of cool and swirled. We, of course, ate them anyway, and it got us thinking how nice it is to know where your food comes from. We never would have bought such crazy carrots from the store, but we grew them ourselves and knew that there was nothing wrong with them . I'm hoping to add another bed to our garden next spring, so that we can produce more of our produce. :)

9 Months old

Camera is still broken. This is the most recent picture I have of Max. It is obviously cropped from a huge family picture. I'll probably post the whole picture soon in another blog.

It just seems so crazy that my little boy is 9 months old now. He learned how to do a lot this month, and he is getting in to trouble all the time. We had to bring out the big guns with childproofing, and now it's hard getting around my house with all the gates (there are really only two, but it feels like a lot!).

This past month Max:

-Started sleeping through the night!!! It took a couple rough nights of letting him get used to falling back to sleep on his own, but now he always goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes up around 6 or 6:30.

-Cruised around the room using furniture before he started to crawl. I thought he might go straight to walking.

-Started to crawl with his belly off the ground. He's so fast!

-Cut FIVE teeth. He now has a total of seven.

-Learned to climb up the stairs.

- Started standing on his own for a few seconds.

- Made lots of cute noises. He finally makes "mama" sounds, but I don't think he applies them to me. He also loves to yell while covering and uncovering his mouth because it makes a funny noise.

- Took swimming lessons and loved the water. It was so cute to watch him splash around, and he really looks like he's about to swim away when he's in the pool.

- Started initiating peek-a-boo. One day, he took off his bib, covered his face, then uncovered it really fast, and laughed. Now he plays peek-a-boo all the time.

- Developed a talent for finding any cupboard that isn't locked.

He is such a wonderful little guy, and I just love seeing his personality develop every day.

My first Mother's Day

I had such a wonderful Mother's Day! Nic really went all out to make it a nice day. It made me feel so appreciated. The day started with Nic making yummy cinnamon rolls and showing me my gift, which was gorgeous urns filled with flowers for our porch. They look great! Max was sweet enough to take a long morning nap, so I also got a long morning nap. Nic cooked up an awesome dinner and dessert. I wish my camera wasn't broken because his presentation was so beautiful.

Having my first Mother's Day made me really reflect on how grateful I am to be a mother. Having Max has changed my life in so many wonderful ways that I never would have imagined. He makes me laugh every day, and watching him grow is such a privilege. It just amazes and humbles me that I've been entrusted me to take care of this precious little gift. I'm so glad that I had such a wonderful mom to show me how it's done. I hope that one day I can be half as good as my mom!

A Tribute to Nic

So, Nic was looking at my blog the other day, and was disappointed at how little he was featured. He went on to point out that he only had one picture in the last month. I certainly do not want rivalry between my two favorite guys for space on my blog, so this blog is dedicated to my sweet husband.

I am so lucky to be married to such a great guy. I thought I would list some of the things he has done for me over the years.

When we first started dating:

- We'd only been dating a couple months, but Nic planned an elaborate surprise picnic on the beach for my birthday. I thought he had to go study, but he asked me to walk with him. We got out to the parking lot, and he had somehow packed everything up into my car (he didn't have one) without me knowing it!

- At the dorms, there is a list for packages. I would check it every day, but I NEVER got anything. One day I was surprised to see my name on the list. Inside the package was everything Nic had ever heard me mention that I liked. He'd been keeping a list!

When Nic moved to Chicago:

- When we found out that Nic got into grad school in Chicago, I thought we should just break up. I didn't want to do a long distance relationship because I thought we'd never see each other. Nic promised that he would come to see me every three weeks, and he did!

- When his program was almost over, and he was searching for a job he restricted his search to California so that we wouldn't have to be so far apart. A lot of his friends got much higher paying jobs in NY and elsewhere, but Nic didn't even consider any of those jobs.

When Nic moved back to California:

- I was still in school in San Luis Obispo, and Nic was working in Newport Beach. He drove up to see me every weekend. He HATES to drive. (I would drive down sometimes, but less often).

- We were engaged at this point, and knew that we were going to get married in Southern California. Nic totally took the lead in checking out all of our prospective wedding venues!

- For Easter, my parents were adamant that they would not be hiding eggs for me that year, as I was all grown up and about to be married. I was a little bit bummed that it would be my first year with no egg hunt, so Nic made sure I had one!

From the time we got married to now:

- Nic is the entertainer of children. Whenever we have family get-togethers, he is always outside making up a game for the kids. It is so cute.

- He gives really sweet and thoughtful gifts. Nic is known for his frugality, but when it comes to buying me presents, it all goes out the window. He will only buy me the best, which is so funny because I would never buy such nice things for myself. My birthdays and Christmas are awesome.

- When I was pregnant, there were a lot of foods that I didn't like. For Valentine's Day, he made me grilled cheese sandwiches because they were the only thing I ever wanted to eat!

- He is absolutely the best daddy, but takes no credit for it. He is always telling people that I do everything, and that my job is so hard. You'll notice, though, that he's always helping. On Sundays, he is always the one out in the hall with him. As soon as he gets home during the week, he's playing with Max and changing diapers!

This is just a small sampling of the nice things Nic does for me every day, but the main point is: Nic is the best!