Christmas!

Hello!

Well..we had a wonderful christmas! It all started Christmas eve morning-we got ready and headed to Kirsten's home for a visit with her, her mom Cheri, dad Jim and the doggies! We opened presents and had a wonderful time! Next, Kirsten rode with us to Bayside Church for their noon family service. We met Lorilee, CK, Sierra and Natalie there as well and all sat together. It was a great fun kid service. After, we drove Kirsten back home and we went home to get a little rest before heading over to Aimee and Matt's at 4 for the big celebration dinner! Alyson wasn't the best this evening-don't know if she was just overloaded already and tired...but the next day (Christmas) she was back to her normal self and very pleasant!

After we got back from Aimee's around 8:30 and made the Santa cookies and then put Alyson and MOlly to bed (around 9:30), Vincie's friend John helped Mike with the new kitchen! They started at 9:45 and finished at 12:45! WHEW! I went to bed at 12:30 and MIke said that he came to bed about 1:15 after John left to go home. 3 hours! The next morning, I woke up to Molly on the monitor around 5:45 a.m. I got up and as I was opening my bedroom door, there was a light on and then I heard a scuffle. I thought for sure Alyson was already in the loot! I walked out and she was standing in the kitchen looking so innocent. She said, "Hi, mama! There's a KITCHEN and it's MINE!!! It has a stove and everything!!". So CUTE!! She went upstairs with me to get Molly and wake up Nona sleeping on our purple couch. Then, she woke up Mike. Once coffee was brewing, we sat down to open presents. She was THRILLED when she saw that Santa brought her a scooter and dollhouse-both of which she asked for. Morning was great. Mike made breakfast after presents and then we started getting the house ready for his sister, Laura and family. We made an Apple Walnut stuffed pork roast. It a great evening and by the time everyone left-we were EXHAUSTED! I fell asleep at about 10 on the couch.

Oh...one more exciting note-I am no longer working! I resigned from County Bank so that I can be a stay at home mommy! We thought long and hard about this decision and feel it is the right one for our family. :)

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!! Here is a link to the pics!

http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hdc0iwz.bx9ap3vf&x=0&y=fte6rc&localeid=en_US

Pre-Christmas Blog!

Hi!

We are all ready to go for Christmas! All the presents are bought, wrapped and under the tree! Yeah!! Very excited about Christmas this year-Alyson is really into it now. Santa is bringing her a scooter and she's getting a dollhouse from Gma Patt and Gpa Joe! She's going to be thrilled. And, she's wanted a kitchen for a long time and Gma Vincie got that! What wonderful surprises! Those are the big items and we got her a bunch of other stuff-probably too much, but hey-she's a kid! :) Over-indulge during the holidays is my motto! :)

Molly won't get as much...she's only 4 months old-what does she really need anyway! New clothes, couple new baby toys. Now next year she might get some cool stuff from santa, but this year it's very basic! She had her 4 month doctor visit on the 16th. She is 15 lbs. 1.5 oz. and 25 3/4" long. Doc said her motor skills are that of a 6-8 month old (already trying to get those knees and hands up to a crawling position) and she's been rolling over both ways for some time now. She scoots herself on her tummy around the floor-it's pretty cute. She's a generally happy child, sleeping through the night now (7 p.m.-6 a.m.). She's only a grouch when she wants to nurse! I can't give it to her quick enough! She's grabbing at toys now and putting them in her mouth-her bottom two teeth are going to pop out any time now I predict (and so did doctor) which is early. We have given her rice cereal just a couple times and smooshed up banana-she LOVES the banana!!! She's really growing and doing so much now each day!

I am doing well. Weight loss wise, stayed the same but haven't really been focused on it. Too busy taking care of the kiddies! I asked Mike if I could re-join CA Family fitness after the holidays and he said if we can afford it, he's all for it. I really would like to get back to the gym. I could go M/W mornings after I drop off Alyson at school and Molly can go into the childcare there at the gym when she is 6 months old. I'm looking forward to that.

Exciting news on the work front. I am scheduled to go back on January 5th, however after much discussion and working out the numbers with daycare and such, it doesn't make sense-so I am resigning from my position in a couple of days. I am really excited because I really wanted to stay home when Alyson was a baby but since we had the house then, there was no way financially for us to do that. But, this time, we live in a great rental and Mike is now making enough with his trainor position to make up for my income-so we can make it work. The only suckey thing is Mike is gone all week and we only see him 1 day (Saturdays). But, our goal is to get all of our credit debt paid down (only a year and half to go for it to be paid off!!) and then he can stop working so hard. We see the light!

We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! We are headed to Aimee and Matt's Christmas eve and then having a nice dinner with Mike's sister, Laura and her family on Christmas day. My mom, Vincie, is coming as well and will be here with us. Will post after Christmas with pics!

Oh! If you haven't gotten your Christmas card from us yet-don't fret-I haven't sent ANY out yet. They are all ready to go but I just need to get to the post office, which I plan to do tomorrow (Monday). :)

Here is a link to random pictures from this past month!

Love,
Angel :)
http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hdc0iwz.atbw7y8b&x=0&y=-cnwqsj&localeid=en_US

November 2008!!!

Hello!

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Alyson, Molly and I drove to Fresno to stay with Mom, Hank, Raf, Murphy Dog and Kitty. We had a great time and it was very relaxing! Molly did great on the drive-stopped once in Modesto to feed her and change her diaper-big blowout!! That was a bit tough because I didn't know she had a blow out and it was pouring rain-I had to run outside with her half naked to the car to get another outfit and then run back into Starbucks. Challenges of being by myself. Alyson was great-she was very helpful on the road and at Nona's house! Molly slept most of the car ride there and back! WOOHOO!!

Molly is almost 4 months old now and weighs 15 lbs!!! She has her appointment next week so I'll get all the official stats! She is already rolling over both ways (tummy to back and back to tummy) and she is teething. Baby Orajel works like magic! Alyson is doing great-she still loves preschool. She is excited about Santa this year and actually sat on his lap! First year we could get her to do it (other than when she was 3 months old and didn't have a clue what was going on). She told Santa she wanted a dollhouse and a scooter-both of which she is getting. Patt asked Rob to make her a dollhouse, which is already finished. Aunt Aimee is getting some dollhouse furniture. We ordered her the scooter, which just arrived to Aimee's house so I can keep it top secret! I need to go through upstairs and purge things to make room for all the new fun things she will get! :)

Christmas shopping is almost done! YAY! I did brave the Black friday but not at the early morning hours...nothing really that spectacular for me this year to get up at 3 a.m.!

Mike is still gone a lot. He's actually looking for another job-tired of the trainor position that almost got him killed the other day. His trainnee almost rolled the truck taking an off ramp at 50 when the posted sign was 20 (for cars by the way-trucks should go even slower) in the bay area. Anyway, he is looking around and hopefully might find something more local so he can get home more. I hope so. He misses his ladies and we miss him.

Here is a link to pictures! Yay! Shelbie took some great picks of us too which I'm attaching that link as well. We used a couple for our Christmas cards this year!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZM27Ni5Zt3Qw

http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hdc0iwz.97iw7ctn&x=0&y=-1f0300&localeid=en_US

Happy December!
Love,
Angel, Mike, Alyson and Molly
(and Ginger the Cat and fishies, Momasnaka-alyson named the big fish-and the Ploclaustamases-probably spelled wrong)