Road Trip!

Tomorrow morning Jeremiah and I are off to Phoenix! Hopefully the rain wont' be too bad, and I especially hope that my grandmother will be true to her word and leave the driving up to my aunt and I. She is a very independent woman who prefers to do all the driving herself (especially since we will be taking her car; it's the most spacious of the three of our cars) and insists on doing most of the driving on road trips. To say that I"m terrified of my grandmother's driving is an understatement. I hate the stereotypes that elderly people are bad drivers, but this is such the case with my grandma. PLEASE PRAY!! We are leaving tomorrow morning around 10:30, hoping to get to Phoenix by 4:00 or so. We would leave earlier, but Mike and Stacy (my cousins that we are staying with and parents of Cheyenne,t he birthday girl) are working until around that time anyway. The rest of the family that is coming are flying out early in the evening. Smart people... but my grandma insists on driving to save money. If we weren't driving then I wouldn't be going. Cheyenne's 5th birthday party is on Saturday and we will be returning on Sunday. If it is raining on Saturday (which it is supposed to be) then the party will be moved from a local park to their brand new house (which we aren't staying at; barely anything is moved there yet and they haven't sold their old home yet). I am really looking forward to having all the kiddos around for Jeremiah to play with, including miss Sydney Anne, who is now 3 months old! I just pray that Jeremiah will be able to sleep alright in a playpen, and won't wake everyone up since we won't be having our own room. He still (once in a blue moon) wakes up around 1:00 a.m. for a sippy and then again between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. for another sippy, and usually conks right back out, but since we're not at home you never know. I hate staying in other people's homes in situations like this because I hate being an inconvenience to anybody, and I hate maneuvering around other people's homes that I"m not used to being in. I still have yet to hear back from Stacy as to whether or not I need to bring my playpen and high chair or if they still have theirs left from the girls (their youngest being 2 1/2). Hoping that if I need to bring mine, there will be enough room in my grandma's trunk for those things plus our luggage. Oh and Jeremiah's lightweight stroller, and a few toys to occupy him. Mike and Stacy gave me and Rayna (Sydney's mom) all of the toys from their kids for ages 2 and under, so there wouldn't be anything for him to play with over there.

Yesterday we spent the whole day at Disneyland with my friend Melissa. Jeremiah did wonderfully, and had such fun on Pirates of the Carribean, Dumbo, and the Toy Story Mania ride. It was his first trip to California Adventure and he would NOT STOP LAUGHING during that last ride! It was great. I'm so amazed at how brave my little boy is. Pirates scared me so much at his age (okay up until 8th grade I admit I wouldn't go on it!) but with my lil guy- no fear. Chattering through the whole ride. It's precious. I think it's just going to be the two of us next Wednesday, and then the following week we will meet up again with Braden and Michelle.

Anyway there's much to do before tomorrow morning. Have a safe weekend everyone!

I just had to say

...That I am slightly disturbed by the fact that some people are more concerned with what happened to my other blog or the frequency of my posts than the fact that I had a miscarriage.

I'm taking a blogging vacation for a few days

February!

Finally, January is over. The worst month of my life. Hopefully it wasn't a predecessor to what is left to come this year. All I can do is trust God that the rest of this year is in his hands. Not always the easiest thing in the world to do, but I am definitely trying.

Tomorrow Jeremiah turns 14 months old. I miss my little guy. I really honestly feel like I have barely seen him this month, which is nuts for me being a stay home mommy. Pregnancy, miscarriage and flu have left him in the caring hands of his grandparents for what I feel like a lot of the month. This month will be different. Louis is picking him up from his mother's house right now. She wanted to spend an afternoon with him, since lets face it, 99.9% of the time he's with my parents, even though she lives 10 min. from us. Honestly, it has nothing to do with her personally; she's just a very busy lady like my husband who works late nights and only takes Sundays off. It was nice to have an afternoon alone with Louis that didn't come about from me being sick. We barbecued carne asada, I made rice and guacamole, and watched (some of) the Superbowl. I can't stand football, and while Louis likes it, he wasn't into either team this year. Mostly we were just enjoying the HD picture on our screen. Our LCD TV has been living in our garage, being used as a monitor for Louis's computer. But since he's getting a new computer for his new job, we decided it was finally time to bring it inside, and tonight we're moving our other tv into our bedroom. I haven't had TV in our bedroom for nearly a year and a half and I"ve MISSED IT! When we switched from Time Warner to Verizon FIOS a few weeks ago, they gave us a DVR box for our bedroom. Not like I even NEED to record anything in there, but it will be nice to have more than just basic cable in our bedroom. While I'm hating the 1,000 channel line up of FIOS (it's so confusing having to re-learn all the channels I love, plus having lots of international, city programming and repeat channels), I"m loving that our package came with HBO and Cinemax. I love movies. I can watch my favorites over and over again, even if I just saw them. I don't keep the TV on too much during the day with Jeremiah, so I indulge during his naps and bedtime.

I really need to get back into taking lots of pictures of Jeremiah. I know these moments won't be around forever. I especially need to get better at uploading the pictures from my camera to my laptop, and lastly to my blog. I'm sorry my posts haven't been very visually appealing lately. I love looking at pics on the blogs that I read, Melissa's being my favorites =)

Anyway, the line up for this week:
Monday and Tuesday: helping my mom at her shop
Wednesday: Disneyland with Melissa (friend from Target, not the photorapher of the fabulous photos I just mentioned). I haven't seen her in over a year and we can't wait
Thursday- very tentative afternoon playdate at California Adventure with Michelle and Braden, but most likely not going to happen until next week. Pack for Phoenix
Friday morning- off to Phoenix with my grandma and Aunt Jenny! We will be there for the weekend to celebrate Cheyenne's 5th birthday party. We're not sure if we're staying at Mike and Stacy's house or at a motel yet; we just have to see how many people from Cali stay at their house. I hope we are able to stay there; I barely get to see the girls (Cheyenne- turning 5 and Kiara, 2 1/2) and Jasmine (15!!!). Plus Jeremiah will have more room to spread out and play than being in a motel room with three other people. We're returning Sunday. I'm going to miss my sweetie but I'm sure he already has plans with his boys lined up.

No more flu

This is going to be short tonight.

My flu is FINALLY gone. Finally. And Jeremiah is just fine, too. Whatever was the matter with him on Wednesday when he woke up from his nap disappeared as soon as Louis strapped him into his car seat to go see the dr. He was all smiles and laughs (until the examination of course) and did not have a fever or exhibit flu-like symptoms, but the dr. prescribed some medicine, just in case (and said I could take it too! But in a larger dosage of course). Today was the first day I have felt well since Tuesday. I'm so grateful that my brother babysat, without Lindsey, yesterday for me so I could get well! Not that I am happy that Lindsey was not there; I'm just trying to emphasize what a feat this was for Joe. Jeremiah worships his Uncle Joe, but Uncle Joe has never technically been left alone with him before. Yesterday Joe managed to not only diaper my son (a first), feed him lunch (only one container of stage 2 but what can you do) and PUT HIM DOWN FOR A NAP (I was worried about this one b/c Jeremiah hates the crib at my mom's house!) but they also had some other secret, hysterical adventures that I'm sure none of us will ever know about. My mom came home to find the two of them hanging out in the garage. Oh I wish I could have sneaked a peek. When it was time for Joe to leave for work my mom closed shop and took over. God bless my family. I felt so lazy staying in bed or on the couch all day, watching Juno a total of 3 times yesterday (but only being awake for one of those times) on HBO, among other things. But the day of rest was well worth it. Praise God I am well!

I also wanted to say hi to Theresa, Joe and Lindsey's friend from church and the mother of Levi, Jeremiah's co-ring bearer for the big day. Thanks for reading!

Anyway, my sweet husband just walked in with Subway so we are going to eat and call it a night =)

My lack of judgement...

I'm kicking myself right now. Or at least as well as I can when I'm battling the flu. Last night I had horrible body aches, an upset stomach (but didn't throw up) and a fever. I woke up with a normal temperature and a body that, miraculously, felt whole and new. I decided to keep my playdate at Disneyland with Michelle and her son today. Boy, what a mistake.

We didn't even make it on one ride. We were just about to climb in the submarines to go on Finding Nemo, and I had to run out of line (with Jeremiah; I wasn't thinking enough to think to leave him with Michelle; although two 14 month olds is a ton of work with only two hands!), ran to the bathroom and got sick. Jer was in his stroller at the time, and even though we were in the disabled handicapped stall, he was still closer to me than I would have liked. On the way to the restroom, I ran into my brother's good friend (son of my mom's best friend) whom I haven't seen in years, and his adorable 3 1/2 year old son (whom I'd never met before). He must have thought I was nuts, pretty much just saying hi and bye to him while he was trying to get a "catch up" in.

Needless to say, we left Disneyland afterwards. I was well enough to go take my picture for my pass (since the line was out the door when I arrived- thankfully no line when I went back), and made it home in one piece, feeling better after my little incident. However, about an hour ago, Jeremiah woke up from a nap, screaming like a banshee, doubled over in pain. Louis just took him to the doctor's and I pray to God that he is able to be seen before they close. Otherwise- to the hospital. Jeremiah must have passed his stomach bug (see prior entry) onto me, and when I passed it back to him today he got it in a much stronger form. All this could have possibly been prevented had we stayed home today rather than go to Disneyland, and I could have gotten sick in the comfort of my own home, with him in his crib rather than two feet away. Although he might have gotten sick anyway because I can't resist kissing him all day long. I swear to God that if I hadn't felt one million percent better this morning and on my way to Disney that we, without a doubt would NOT have gone. now its all a mess and I feel like the worst (sick) mother in the world

My poor lil guy

Poor Jeremiah hasn't been feeling too well since Friday. At first he was constipated, and somehow that turned into the complete opposite of constipation, if you catch my drift. He's pretty much been confined to the BRAT diet (bannanas, rice, apples and toast) since Saturday night and banned from his beloved milk, which seems to irritate his tummy more. Yesterday he was miserable for the first half of the day, but perked up after his second nap in time to go to my parent's house for dinner. Today he seems to feel fine, but still has some minor issues after eating. We've had to resort to force feeding him some pedialite and water with a medicine dropper because he flat out refuses to drink it by himself, in his sippy or a regular cup. I feel badly for him, but what can you do? The last thing I want is for him to wind up in the hospital, dehydrated and attached to an IV. I hate IVs. It hurt worse than my epidural when I was giving birth to him. I don't want him to have to go through that. So...we shall continue to pin him down and squirt yucky liquid into his mouth while he's crying =(

So on Saturday all of us bridesmaids went shopping for our dresses for my brother and Lindsey's wedding. I have to say that I am very pleased with the dress. The original plan was for all 7 of us to have our own dress in the same color, but with 7 girls of various sizes and shapes, and not a huge array of "must have" choices, you're bound to have girls that want the same dress. So rather than duking it out, the six regular bridesmaids paired up to choose the same dress (3 dresses for 6 girls) and the maid of honor, who didn't like any of our choices anyway, has her own dress. I wound up hitting it off with Lindsey's friend Stephanie (who, I didn't realize at the time, was the only other mother in the group!) and we chose a very cute dress. We were trying to decide between two dresses, and wound up choosing the cheaper one of the two because we couldn't pick which one we liked best. Lindsey thinks the other dress makes my butt look good... but my husband thinks it looks good all the time =) It did have a really cute "butt ruffle" as Lindsey calls it... but the way I look at it, the less $$ I have to spend on my dress, the more $$ I have for presents for her showers. (I tend to go a little nuts shopping for showers). Or to put towards the shower I'm throwing her. So it evens out in the long run =)

On Wednesday Jeremiah and I have a playdate at Disneyland with Michelle and Braden. Yay! I swear I've been counting down to going back since I arrived at home from our trip last week. And scouring the weather reports like crazy (sunny!!!). As far as I remember, we don't have anything else too exciting going on this week, but next Wednesday we're going back to Disneyland with my friend Melissa. We used to work at Target together and she has a pass, too =). It seems like Wednesdays are going to be our Disneyland days for some reason. Then on Friday, Jeremiah and I are going to Phoenix for the weekend with my grandma. My cousins Mike and Stacy are throwing their daughter Cheyenne's 5th birthday party at their home for a change, rather than driving out here like they always do (all the relatives from both sides live here). We are staying until Sunday. I've never been to their house in Phoenix before and am looking forward to the weekend away... but not to the drive. I honestly have no clue how Jeremiah will handle 5-6 hours in the car. We've never been on the road that long. But I guess it will be an indicator of how our flight to Washington, DC will be in April! And he'll be sitting on our lap then... oh boy.

Anyway, it's Monday. That means the Bachelor and the Secret Life are on. Goodnight!

Friday!

The weekend is here! Even though I don't work (I don't consider helping my mom "work" since it's just for a few hours a week and I like it!) I still get excited for the weekend. Louis and I usually go out to eat at least once and, even though he doesn't take Saturdays off, we usually see more of each other on the weekends than during the week. Tonight I'm going to be ambitious and make some spaghetti. I bought a jar of vodka sauce from Trader Joe's when I went for all my pregnancy snacks, and I'm going to cook that with some ground turkey and pasta. Should be yummy... I rarely (and I mean rarely) cook a big meal like this anymore. Louis's arrival every night is so unpredictable- as early as 6 or as late as 11:00. I don't even bother because I don't want to cook late at night or have food just sit around growing gooey and yucky. We'll eat light for dinner during the week and either go out to dinner on the weekends, or I'll cook. I love to cook! I can't wait for him to start working from home in a few weeks with his new job =) Then it will be yummy dinner every night! And hopefully Jeremiah will finally be off of baby food and can partake in the meals as well. He refuses to eat anything that isn't pureed baby food other than bread products and cheese. Picky, picky.

This weekend's going to be a busy one. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to David's Bridal with my wonderful soon-to-be sister to go bridesmaids dress shopping! OOOOH boy! Lindsey, it just dawned on me that your wedding is four months from today! Four months! We need to set a date for your lingere shower =) Anyway, so that's tomorrow afternoon, and on Sunday we're going to my parent's house for dinner.

Not much else is new between Wednesday and now. Have a great weekend, everyone!