So, it's been two years now...

Thanks to my friend Tiffanie, I have reconnected to my blog. I can't believe it's been nearly two years since I have updated it. So, to bring things up to date, I will go back to January of 2008 and go from there.
Some major events that have happened are that after job sharing and teaching third grade part time for two years, I went back full time for last year. I will do full time again this year, too. This means Alex was in daycare everyday for 9 hours a day for 5 days! We made sure that we found the best spot for him and he is well cared for and definitely enjoys going to Ms. Pam's house. The only thing is that the other children she cares for are all girls! So Alex is definitely learning how to hang out with them. Sometimes they can have a little too much of an influence...
Sadly, our dog Sweet P died tragically on Thanksgiving and we miss her so much still. We have not found another pet yet and will probably wait a little longer so Alex can take care of it.
What else is new? Josh started a new job after being at Costco for 13 years! He is now working in the IT Department of Fort McDowell Casino in Fountain Hills. He just loves it and is able to learn how to do all sorts of things there.
Now that school is out for the summer we are enjoying our time at home together. Alex is talking up a storm and will be 3 years old in a little more than a month. He's super active and loves running, jumping, and riding his Plasma cars around.
I will post some pictures soon!

A fun and busy weekend...

Sunday, July 16, 2006

What a great weekend we had!!! Josh was off of work Wednesday through Friday which was so nice for everyone. Loni and Ron flew in from Chicago on Friday and they drove up from Tucson to spend the day with us. Ron's friend hooked us all up with tickets to the Diamondbacks/Brewers game at Chase Stadium. Loni couldn't believe we were going to a baseball stadium with a roof over our heads. We were thankful for it, though, because it was sooo hot that day.

We had planned on taking Alex with us after a lot of thought and debating between Josh and I. We thought we'd try it and if we had to leave early, we would leave. Alex is so used to going to sleep around 7 pm that we weren't sure how he would be. Kathy called us and she and Leon offered to watch Alex since they would be on the way anyhow. We thought that would be best, knowing he wouldn't be in the big crowds and he could go to bed at a better hour. So that was great. Diamondbacks won in the last inning, too! Whoo Hoo! It was a great game. We really thought the Brewers were going to win.

On Saturday morning Loni and I made a delicious breakfast with scrambled eggs (the only way I know how to cook them!), pancakes, bacon, and oh yes, Ron did make the coffee. Josh had to go to work a little after 9 a.m. and he called me shortly after he left to tell me he had both sets of car keys! Yikes - that means I couldn't drive anywhere that day and I had planned on driving to Cave Creek to see my dad. Ron was nice enough to drive to Costco and pick up the keys for me. That was such a great thing. Thanks Ron!

Here's Loni and Ron with Alex before they left on Saturday to go back to Tucson.


After they left, Alex and I headed out to see my dad. We had a delicious lunch, played, and even put our feet in the pool. It was really overcast and dark and a storm was coming in. So around 4:30 we packed up and headed back home. Some how we missed the storm all together which I was thankful for.

On Sunday we had a relaxing morning and I went to this local donut shop to get some for breakfast but they were closed for some reason. Around 5 we drove over to Jacqui and John's house for dinner. They made tacos and John's parents were there, too. We had a fun time playing on Bradley's Little Tykes playset in the backyard. Alex went down the slide about a dozen times. (Should have brought the camera...I know, I know...) He loved it! I need to check their website to see the different types of sets they have. Thanks for dinner, Jacqui and John and Bradley!

We came home and Alex had a bottle and fell asleep around 8 p.m. Josh and I are on our computers and we are again having some relaxing "me" time. Hope your weekend was fun, too.

Superstar!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

We all know this blog is mostly about Alex, the superstar. So I thought I would post some pictures that Josh took today while I was out tutoring for a few hours. Tutoring was challenging today. My normally sweet, people-pleasing soon to be 4th grader declared, "I'm not writing today..." Hmmm, well, that is going to make things more challenging, I thought. After about 10 minutes of debating, I finally talked him into it or wore him down, whichever way you want to think about it. I wish I could say I inspired him to write. I wish that was the case...but he did do a nice job on his journal. Writing is very hard for him so we just do a bit. Anyhow, on to the pictures...

Here is Alex with Sweet P ( I think this is her first appearance..)



Josh said Alex was attempting to take his truck up the steps. Mission Impossible!



Otherwise...I thought something was going wrong with my truck. I didn't have very good acceleration all day today. I finally called Nissan to schedule an appointment, but they can't see me until Wednesday of next week! ARG! Josh looked at the truck and made some adjustments and took it for a test drive around the neighborhood and said it ran pretty good. So hopefully it will be fine and I can cancel with Nissan. Oh, they don't even offer "loaner" cars to people at that dealership. Does that happen anywhere these days?

Loni and Ron are flying out tomorrow morning to surprise Ron's mom for her birthday. His family lives in Marana, outside of Tucson. They are driving up to spend the day with us and we can't wait! I'll post some pictures after they visit.

Swimming With Dad

Here's proud papa and Alex before the lesson starts.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Well today we had fun at Mesquite Pool in Gilbert. Alex takes swimming "lessons" :) there at 10 a.m. each morning. This is more like, "getting to have fun in the water because mom and dad don't have a pool...." kind of lessons. Since Josh was off today he got to go in with Alex while I took pictures on the sidelines - It was so hot that I wanted to jump in, clothes and all... - But I didn't. The teacher is probably 16 years old, but so good. Josh was the only dad there today but he seemed just fine, surrounded by all those mammas! :) Our friend Jacqui is there with us, taking lessons with Bradley, her little guy. Here are some action shots.

Here's Jacqui and Bradley.


They are working on "big arms."


One part of the lesson has the little ones try to climb out of the pool so they would know what to do if they ever fell in. Alex loves this part and this is after he climbed out and saw me standing there in front of him. He's learning to wave so this is part wave, part excitement.


Needless to say, we have a lot of fun in the water.

After swimming Alex took a well deserved nap and when he woke up, Bradley and Jacqui were here to play. After taking about 20 minutes to wake up, have a bottle, and understand that there was another little person in his house, Alex played, not necessarily WITH Bradley, but they hung out together and even gave each other a Hi-5 when Bradley and Jacqui were leaving. We had some fun today so by oh.....5:45 tonight, Alex was ready for bed. He had dinner and a bath and fell asleep around 6:30 tonight!

I'm off to get some things prepared for my tutoring students tomorrow. I have to brush up on the Pythagorean Theorem for my soon to be 7th grader! We'll post more tomorrow.

No pirates but the teeth will be here soon

Yesterday was Sunday and Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Leon drove out to watch Alex while Josh and I went to see Pirates of the Carribean 2. Well, we went to the Harkins closest to us which is about 40 minutes away...and their 1:50 and 2:30 times were sold out. So we drove to Chandler Mall and their times were sold out until 3:50. We didn't want to be out too late and the movie lasts at least 2 and a half hours so we just had lunch at Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que restaurant and then did some window shopping. Our lunch was delicious. Their motto is "If it walks or flys....we'll bar-b-que it." Well, I don't know if that is their motto but it was on a sign on their wall. The waitress brought us some fries to sample their 6 different sauces. They were all pretty good. Josh liked the hottest one called, Devil's Spit, and I liked Sweet and Sassy or maybe it was Sweet and Zesty...I can't remember. But Josh's burger was good and grilled the way he likes it and my pulled pork sandwich was yummy, too. I forgot the camera again to take pictures on here. Shoot.
Afterward we found a cute t-shirt and short sport set for Alex all for under $10. We got home and Grandma and Grandpa stayed for a while then they drove home. Alex slept through the night again from 7:15 pm to 6 am! This is the 2nd night in a row.
So this morning, Monday July 10th, we were supposed to start our swimming lessons with Alex. Well, I thought I could put him down for a nap around 8 am since he had been up 2 hours. He was not having that. So we looked at books for a bit then I put him back in his crib and he criiiiiieeeeeddddd for about 30 minutes. I knew there was no sleep happening and I wanted to get him. His little face was all splotchy and he was just so happy to get out of his crib. His bottom teeth are so close to coming in that I know they are hurting him. We went downstairs and had some juice in his sippy cup. Here you can see his splotches in the picture above. After a snack Alex was still hungry so he had a bottle and was soon snoozing. All is well, but now that he is sleeping, there is no way I am going to wake him up to drive 45 minutes to swimming lessons in Gilbert. They will have to wait until tomorrow.

Wow! My first blog!

Today is Sunday and Alex is napping. Ahhhh, both Josh and I are on the computers. I think he is working on a game and I am trying this for the first time.

The reason why I chose to start a blog is to have a place to journal and keep a diary of sorts, of what our family is doing.

Saturday, July 8, 2006

We decided to take a trip to Chandler Mall. We of course had to get everything packed up for Alex. We're getting pretty quick assembling all of his necessary items now. We couldn't wait to go because we were going to have lunch at P.F. Chang's China Bistro. That is one of our favorite restaurants and we haven't been in such a long time. So, after a 45 minute drive, we get there and the hostess seats us wayyyyy in the back since we had a baby with us. So funny but we didn't mind. Once Alex was settled in his little booster seat we gave him some fruit puffs to munch on while we checked out the menu. Of course we had to order the chicken lettuce wraps to start with. They are so delicious that we are going to try to replicate the recipe at home. We also decided to split the orange peel beef. Yummy! Alex even tried some of the chicken. He made such a funny face when he ate it I think because it had so much flavor. He also tried some rice. Not a huge fan. He must take after his Grandma Kathy for that.
We can't get over how good Alex was while in the restaurant. Such a good baby!

After lunch we made our way over to the mall. We checked out a few stores and Alex ended up getting a t-shirt that says, "Built Tough" with a skull!!!! and two pistons crossing each other. So tough that Josh had to get it for him. Josh bought two shirts for work and I bought two shirts at the gap that were on sale. So we had fun and then headed home. Alex slept on the way home then didn't want anymore sleep once we got home.

Alex went to sleep shortly after 6:30 pm and we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner. Alex slept all the way through the night until 6:15 am! That was so great! He is so smart and constantly amazes us. I will have to remember to take the camera with us to take pictures to post here.