Playing catch up...

I've decided I'm going to blog more. I think I need an outlet, and blogging should be perfect for it, right? I'm also going to update the layout of this blog, seeing as it's years old.

So let's talk. What has gone on in the past year? Well... not a lot, I suppose. We'll start up about where I left off...

Ray bought me a Kindle for Mother's Day, and I fell in love with it immediately. I spend too much time with my nose buried deep in it. Then for Christmas, he upgraded my Kindle to a Kindle Paperwhite (I think he was just sick of the amount of batteries I was going through on the reading light!) Again, I found myself completely in love! The only way it could be better is if the E-Ink was in color, but that's not even available technology yet! Wesley also turned 2 that month, which marked the end of him being a baby at all. It was bittersweet!



Summer the boys and I (Did I mention I am babysitting another little boy during the day? Well, I am and have been since early 2012. Wesley and Paul are total BFFs and I am not quite sure what they would do without each other!) spent some time out in the backyard keeping cool. This year, my goal is to talk Ray into a bigger outdoor pool, but we'll see.


In early September, my amazing friend Megan and I attended the Kelly Clarkson concert at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. It was amazing as Kelly herself put on a good show, but the company I had was pretty great too!


Shortly after the concert, Ray and I packed up the kids and headed to California for a week at Disneyland. My mom was supposed to meet us there, but had some work conflicts at the last moment and didn't get to go. She sent my little sister, Jordan, in her place and we all had an amazing time. Other than one day where it was 104 degrees (In SoCal... What?!) the weather was beautiful and teetered in the 70s/80s. The only hitch? Indiana Jones was CLOSED! How dare you! GASP! So, I suppose that just means we'll have to go again soon. Wesley is still a bit too short for some of the rides, and while he enjoyed Cars Land, he'll be excited when he can ride all of the rides in that area too. (And also Star Tours.)



Oh, let's back up for a second. My son is COMPLETELY obsessed with Star Wars. Completely. I mean, he loves Toy Story and Cars, but Star Wars is his true love. He can name all of the characters, he loves to lightsaber duel, and his new thing is using his hand to Force Push you. Yes. Ray and I are very proud!


So, let's move on.

Carly started playing Basketball in November, and it recently just ended. She started out not knowing the game at all, and transformed into a pretty good first time player! Her team was awesome and ended up undefeated, plus she made some good friends along the way. I can't thank her coaches enough for having the time and patience to help Carly learn the game! We can't wait for next year!


Thanksgiving came and went, and we celebrated my oldest turning 9 (which makes me want to cringe and cry all at once!) with family here. Christmas was the same way, my spoiled kids became even more spoiled and enjoyed most of their Christmas presents.
Shortly after Christmas something happened I am not quite ready to talk about. Over the period of the next 3 months (leading up until now, March) would be some of the most happy and devastating moments we've had. Eventually, I'll talk about it, but for now I am not ready.


Last weekend, my friend Amber flew in to spend some time with us for the weekend. I hadn't seen Amber since the last time I was in Reno and so it was AMAZING to have her here! Mix my Reno BFF and my Bowling Green BFF and I was pleasantly surprised to see Amber and Megan immediately click! We all had a great time, getting tattoos (Yes, I'm not longer a tattoo virgin!) drinking, (Too little and too much all at once!) and seeing a Pink concert in Nashville (AMAZING!) There were several times over the weekend where I was doubled over laughing so hard. Ray watched the kids ALL weekend (I can't thank him enough!) and it was just so much fun. (Didn't bring an actual camera this time, so we didn't have too many great pictures at the Pink concert!)


So, I guess more went on than I thought... Tomorrow, Ray heads to Austin, Texas for work where he'll be for a week. Last year when he went, we were infested by Ants and the fridge broke. Let's hope for an uneventful week this time, huh?
Coming up in May, Ray and I are heading back to Florida without the kids for a long weekend by ourselves. We plan to be big kids, and hit Disney World the entire time. I'm pretty dang excited! Hopefully we'll be taking the kids later this year too.
My mom is talking about coming up in June, which will hit right after Wesley's birthday (And the birth of my Niece, however that's a different story for a different time. It's coming to a point where I have a lot of nieces [And one nephew!] and it's messed up how little I get to see any of them.)
So, that was 2012 (and a bit of 2013) in an instant. I'm going to keep this updated more regularly, and probably bore you with the events of my day/week/month. But... get over it! :)

Tis the Season...

Christmas pictures didn't go as well as I would have liked... Lately, Carly has been a bit of a terror, and today proved no different. Asking her to change out of her Christmas skirt and into some birthday clothes ended up with her in the dressing room for 30 minutes screaming. The portrait place was busy, and it was quite embarrassing. I'm calling her doctor tomorrow... something has to give and his last solution wasn't the solution.
Wesley did pretty good though, but didn't give his big smiles. I think our photographer was annoyed with Carly, and she hurried us along. Oh well, always next time, right? Those pictures can be seen here.We'll be sending off cards soon!
I hope none of the family minds, but Christmas presents are all mainly homemade this year. I'm actually kind of excited/proud of a few of them. I just need to put some finishing touches on them.
Short post, but will update more later!

Busy Christmas Week

Well we are coming down to the wire on our first Christmas together. Carly is super excited about Santa coming this week. Every time I ask her who is coming she says "Ho ho ho... Santa" in a whisper. She is really looking forward to making cookies for him Thursday and then getting to open the presents on Friday morning. We are looking forward to wrapping them and at this point it will probably only be on the presents for like 36 hours. But it will all be worth it. I am certain we will be video taping it since one of Jacie's presents to me was a video camera (which works great and I love it... Thanks Baby!). Speaking of the video camera, I got to open it early in honor of Carly's Christmas Program at school with her kindergarten class. It was great watching her sing and dance to Jingle Bell Rock. If you don't believe me (and I know that you actually do but that is not the point), you can check out the video here. It is about 18MB to download but I am working on trying to get a streaming version uploaded.
In other news, we have a former Christmas surprise (love you honey!). We had intended to wait until Christmas Day to tell people but Jacie caved to the peer pressure at the DMV and started telling people. We were going to alternate between saying girl and boy every time someone asked but it didn't quite work out that way. But we have told most people but it is still good to say that we are officially expecting a baby boy in June. It is even better with (2D and 3D ultrasound) pictures!

A foot!

Correctly referred to as Skeletor Face

His Back as he decides not to play any more

Boy Confirmation 1

Boy Confirmation 2

His side profile

For most of the 3D pictures he decided to hide. Like this one

Starting to come around

Just kidding!

She did manage to get one of his face in 3D

I think Jacie is still a little paranoid that the ultrasound lady might have gotten it wrong but everyone that has seen it seems to be pretty certain it's a boy. We have our "official" (we did this one separately to have some Christmas news) appointment on the 13th so it will just be double confirmation then I am sure.

Christmas with the DMV

Well, working at the DMV sure has it's drama attached, and the yearly Christmas Party is no exception. My first party working there was 2006, which was a blast. Then 2007 was really bad, and because the people from the Carson City office have 1000 and we only have 100, they tend to exclude us. The 2007 party resulted in turf war and drama. Reno DMV wasn't invited to the 2008 party, ha. Our new director who took over earlier this year made sure this party wouldn't be a bust, and that Reno was included. It was held at the Peppermill Casino (Same place we wished everyone could have stayed for the wedding) and was a lot nicer than years past (It's usually held at the Silver Legacy.) All season long people at work have been calling it the "Prom for Adults," and once we got in, Ray realized why. He dressed up all handsome-like (And with a tie to his utter dismay!) and I did my best to not look 8 months pregnant instead of almost 4. The evening consisted of our table getting pretty sloshed, and hooting things during the raffles (I, of course, don't need alcohol to participate!) We had a good dinner, danced, and just talked with a bunch of good people. The worst part of the DMV is the job itself- definitely not the people. Even my supervisors were getting crazy on the dance floor! We were there until about 10:30/11:00 pm and then drove home in a horrible blizzard. We probably passed 3 or 4 accidents on the interstate during the way. I'm sure Ray has mentioned, we have gotten almost 3 feet of snow in the past 2 weeks. We have so many people from California transplanted here, it makes for terrible road conditions.
Today we picked up Carly from her dad's and then went to take pictures for our Christmas Cards. My little sisters boyfriend is an aspiring photographer and does and awesome job, especially getting the moments you didn't know where there. During the session, Carly and my little sister, Jordan, engaged in a snowball fight, and Carly would run up to about 1 foot away from her before throwing it. The fight ended when Jordan accidentally got the Princess in the face, and started some tears. Carly really wanted to build a snowman, but our snow was so cold at first it wasn't sticking, so we will try to do that tomorrow and take some pictures. When Carly got home tonight, she realized the tree had presents under it, (Thanks Grandma Dawn, and Grandpa Tony!) And she asked about 3 times if she could open them.
We will be mailing out Christmas Cards and presents this week to everyone, so watch the mail later on! We have a baby appointment this Thursday, but it doesn't sound like anything too exciting. The big ultrasound is scheduled for January 13th, but any child of ours is bound to be difficult and either turn away or cross their legs! Hopefully one of us will be updating with some more snow pictures later on this week!

Carly's Birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Prep!

So, I suppose you could say that Carly didn't really have a birthDAY, she had more of a... BirthWEEK. Her birthday party with her friends was on Sunday the 22nd, Dinner with all of us was Wednesday the 25th, and then we did some little birthday things on her ACTUAL birthday, the 26th. Her birthday party was at a place called Coconut Bowl, where they have a huge play structure for children. She had a few friends and all in all had a blast! Then on the 25th we went to Texas Roadhouse for her birthday. She loves that place because it's loud and they yell "YEEHAW!" a lot. They also yell it to the birthday girl, which she enjoyed but I missed pictures because it was so cute. Thanksgiving was held in our house, and we did all the cooking, it was us three, my mother and my little sister, Jordan. It went well, and Carly opened the rest of her presents. She has had a nasty sinus infection for a week now, and has been a little cranky. But, all in all I think she had a good birthday!

She spent the weekend with her dad, so Ray and I took the opportunity to go shopping for Christmas supplies. Ray rappelled from the house and hung up Christmas lights in the freezing wind, and he did an excellent job! Carly came home yesterday and so we went to get a tree today. Ray trimmed it all nice with his shiny new saw, and we decorated it. The cats LOVE it, and think it's their Christmas present!

All in all, it was a busy weekend. Hopefully Carly is up for school tomorrow, but judging by how she is feeling, I'm gonna say she will want to stay home tomorrow. Hopefully she kicks this nasty illness soon There are more pictures of her party, and Ray being a daredevil here. Carly is now yelling weird things at the cat, so that might be a sign she is ready to go to bed!

Jacie

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Or more accurately, is already here in Reno. Jacie and I were out at the mall I think the week after Halloween and they were already setting up for Santa and we thought that was early to be setting up. Turns out it was because a couple of days later he was there (which still feels REALLY early). But the good news is that we figured we had plenty of time to get to work on Car to sit in his lap. Jacie told me last year about how she got all excited for it but as they got closer to the mall Carly just got quieter and quieter and eventually didn't want to do it at all so we figured we had better get to work.
The first time we walked by, Carly seemed kind of interested until it came time to actually try to walk in. This pretty much ended with her crying and both of us deciding this was going to take a while. But we kept trying to hype it up pretty much everyday and Carly would always say "Tomorrow" very excitedly but then follow it up with a "we don't have to go to the mall now though" (which was pretty cute). So it came to Veteran's Day and we decide to go again since we were out and about. The whole morning I could hear Carly tell Jacie she didn't want to go while they were getting ready and then tried to get other things in front of Santa (lunch, toy store, anything). We get down to the mall and get to the stand and she seems like she is doing much better than before. Not really happy to be there but not crying either. Well we go through the little setup and she finally sees Santa and now she gets excited. She can barely stand to wait but her turn comes up fast since there was just one group already with him. And when it's our turn she breaks out with "Hi, Santa!" and we figure we are going to be fine. She was still a little unsure because she would take a step back a few times when they were talking but she was still way into it. Finally it came to be picture time and she got on his knee and did great. We were both so happy she did so well and the picture turned out great! Santa had a great time too. He said that she made his day and if he didn't see any more kids that day it was fine because his day was made.
And now what you all really wanted to see:

She did so great!