My patio is complete.

So I covered all the dirt with wood chips and just last week we got a nice surprise, a new fence. The kids have been dragging all their toys out there almost every day now. I guess toys are more interesting when you're outside. Here is the finished patio.

Not much to look at but for us its heaven. No spider webs anywhere and the guys even pulled out the pathetic tree that was growing in the corner. I love it and so do the kids. Now I don't have to be out there with them, just watch them from the kitchen.

Lauren's first day of school

Lauren was ready for school, she had been pestering me all summer about going. My answer was always, "After your birthday, when summer is over then you can go." Time flew and I felt so weird driving to drop her off at school then really weird driving home without her. Todd and A.J. came with and we were surprised A.J. didn't put too much of a fuss when she left. I took her picture and some silly ones too. She came home with a picture, I can't believe she is so grown up already!

Lauren is 3

So when Lauren introduces herself to anyone, strangers and friends, she says this, "I'm Lauren Pensabene Blaquiere, I'm wearing underpants and I use the potty and I go to school!" Every time. She turned 3 on August 13th, we celebrated the night before with family. Unfortunately the video won't upload so I only have one photo and its of her cake. So that's what you'll get as of right now until I can figure the video out. I got the idea for her cake online, its two bundt cakes put together, really cool.

The craziest month ever

Oh August, I'm so glad you're over with. It was craziness, besides Lauren's birthday weekend. It all started with me getting sick, just a little head cold but enough to make me tired and unmotivated to do anything, which was really frustrating since I had family coming in for a weekend and had a lot to do. So this is how it went down, Monday-got sick. Tuesday-a.c. stopped working it's full capacity, called the manager and she said the repair man won't be there till Thursday. At 5:30, electricity went out, not for everybody though only three buildings in our complex, lucky us. (this week was also recorded as the hottest week of the summer) Luckily our neighbors invited us to their place till it was time to sleep. Wednesday morning at 10, electricity comes back on, a.c. still not really working. I had bought a new entertainment center on Tuesday morning and it was still in the boxes, I was in the heat with a cold and had no motivation. My family was arriving Friday afternoon and my house was complete chaos, it looked like we just moved in with all the laundry and boxes and toys everywhere. Wednesday afternoon I finally sat down and started going knowing if I waited any longer I would be so mad at myself. Thursday morning the repair man came and our home suddenly felt like paradise instead of the week long hell hole. Friday came and my family arrived. I still had a little cold lingering but it was mostly gone and the best part, we survived. That's how I felt when our house was miraculously put back in order, I walked around and felt like I had survived a boot camp.

       Our new entertainment center from IKEA

What the kids are saying...

We asked Lauren what her favorite word was one night last week...her response was "A.J." awwww.
A.J. is a boy of few words and lots of action, his words consist of "Ball, hot, pool, hi, mama" (but in a high pitch like the muppet Beaker), and yesterday he said "Gaige"!

Todd's business trip

Here are a few pics of his first business trip to Arizona, I finally got them from his phone.

                                                         

                                                   His hotel room, king size bed all to himself.

                                                       The view from his room, pretty cool.

                                                                     The home show.

My nephew's birthday party

Yesterday I took the kids to San Diego to celebrate Gaige's birthday. He turns 3 next wednesday. We had so much fun, the party was at a splash park a few miles from their house in Escondido and man, it was hot.

The kids zonked out afterwards most of the ride home. Happy birthday Gaige, we love you so much little man!

Mustache Monday

Here's a pic of Todd at work behind his huge desk and huge computer, that's his baby ;) It was mustache monday for some reason and here's Todd. Everyone at work told him he looked like a cop, pretty funny.

Todd's birthday

June 30th was Todd's birthday and it was so much fun! That afternoon we went over to the mall and had fun with the kids. In the evening we went out with friends. We all met at the restaurant Buca Di Beppo, so good! Then we went to a comedy club and the best comedian was the host but it was a fun night.

He's 32 now, an old man, haha. I still can't believe how time has flown, I met Todd when he just turned 26. He kept saying how the night was planned perfectly and everything ran smoothly, no problems and everyone was having a good time, I learned that from him being efficient and time management. But those things are at the bottom of the list of the things I've learned from him, at the top of the list is long suffering and personal control, I can't even start with the examples of those things to show you how great of a man he his, not just a husband but a father. I love you babe and I'm so glad you enjoyed your birthday!

June 18-29

I signed us all up for swimming lessons, all four of us. For two weeks, ten days at 6:30 we went to the Intermediate school and took Parent/Child lessons. Honestly if I knew now what I knew then I would have never done it, all we did was swim, which duh but the instructor wasn't really instructing. We blew bubbles the second day, by day 5/6 the kids were sitting on the side sliding into the pool, day 9 was safety day and they wore vests. The good thing was we spent time as a family and the kids got used to the water super fast. We could have done it in our pool at home but it helped that it was a commitment that we paid for, ha, so it forced us to be in the pool everyday. Now Lauren can swim by herself with her PuddleJumper, and A.J. can jump in all by himself. On day ten they got certificates and we were happy to be done!

                                          Day 2 

                                          


                                           Last day of class

                                       
                                           Their certificates

                                        

Going stir crazy

Our pool isn't heated until Memorial Day and the wading pools at the park don't start till the end of June, so with my stir crazy kids I put out a little wading pool in the back. They loved it for a couple of weeks then they were over it but by then our pool was ready to swim in. The "pool" is actually meant for their ball pit but I taped the hole up in the bottom because the manufacturers were trying to out do me but with my tape I saved the beginning of summer.

Garden update

A few months back I took pictures of my overgrown garden and patio, horrible, no place for the kids to play. So this was my plan, cover all the dirt and I'm ALMOST done, I know, I know, my patio is tiny so why is it taking so long, good question. I'm not going to answer it. ;) The first step was take out all the weeds and big rocks and lay down a liner, I put down newspaper because one, it's eco-friendly and second, it's wallet friendly. Then I "redistributed" wood chips from the playground in our complex to my patio, hey it's not stealing, it's still on the property just in another location. Todd found out what I was doing and laughed while shaking his head but hey he's not paying for it! I have one plant in a pot so I can move it around because they are mini roses, when the kids want to play back there once I have equipment for them to play with I can move the pot to the front porch so they don't mess with them. Here are some pictures of what I have so far.

25 year old swimming suit

This used to be my swimming suit when I was little that my mom saved. It's a little blurry but that's me.

 And now here is Lauren 25 years later wearing the same suit.

Now the question is...should I save this suit for the next 25 years???

Easter

I'm determined to not catch up all in one post since it's been so long so here we go, first one: Easter.
Here are our Easter baskets, my mom painted these and she passed some down to me to use with my kids, I need to paint my own, maybe when I have all my kids then they can choose what color rabbit they would like. We got movies from my mom for the kids and some candy,  the kids got new swim suits from Grams, I didn't go out of my way to buy any sweets at the store, I knew the kids would score at Aunt Kim's house and they did. Lauren's bucket was overflowing with eggs and the adults played the golden egg again this year. It was a long hunt, finally Todd's cousin Brittany got it, or was it her fiance Steve, either way they won the pot of over 100 bucks. It was a fun day and Lauren and A.J. wore their new Easter outfits, Lauren picked out her Easter dress and she wants to wear it every week to church.

Los Angeles Natural History Museum

So when Todd went on his first business trip to Arizona, I took the kids out to L.A. to check out some dinosaurs. First we went to the puppet show, and I highly recommend it, it is awesome. The puppet is so lifelike it freaked me out at first, Lauren wanted to ride it, she has no fear when it comes to animals. We went throughout the whole thing and even saw a stuffed bald eagle, which you already know about Lauren's obsession right? I took these kids to a new place to get their mind off of dad being gone for a few days and all Lauren can talk about it how she wants daddy to see the dinosaurs and the puppet. Oh well, she loves her daddy! A.J. ran around in every exhibit and the minute we drove out of the parking lot at the end he had passed out. Here are the pictures, sorry some of them are a little blurry, these kids won't stand still.

Todd's new career

Time for some catching up!  We have been super busy and and so here is what we've been up to lately.
Todd got a new job as the Marketing Director at EagleLIFT, it is such a blessing to have him get this position. There is so much potential at this company and Todd is on his way up. The company restores and lifts foundations. They have a patent for the filler they use to fill in the cavities in the ground and it's really impressive, Todd has done two home shows now and he's set up five more, he'll be super busy this summer. We sometimes have to drop off Todd at work because we sold our second car (it was really old) so the kids love it when we visit the office and everybody loves seeing the kids. I'll post a picture of his office after they paint it and he finishes decorating it, right now it's white walls and a massive desk. Because they are called EagleLIFT, their symbol is of an eagle, duh. Well now Lauren is obsessed with eagles, every single bird she sees she says is an eagle. Makes me laugh.
We have been so blessed and so many blessings have happened just this year already. Because of this new career Todd has which is the career he was meant to have, he absolutely loves it, we are looking at homes in the area. We finally got life insurance and while we were talking to our agent, he had a partner with him who also does real estate, she told us of a program for first time home-buyers and we were amazed, we had no idea, so now we have done all the paperwork and submitted it to our loan officer and we are just waiting now, it's looking good! We already know what area we want to live in, first on the priority list is the school district, there is no reason to move to a bad school district, at all. Next on the list was space, we want a four bedroom house, and we found a few, even a couple homes with a fifth bedroom in our price range. Again, we have been so blessed and can't believe this is all happening this year, 2012 is our year! Todd joked saying because we have such bad luck, it makes sense this is happening this year when the world is supposed to end, ha! Just our luck!
More posts coming soon, so much to catch up on!

Early Reading

This is one of two of his favorite books, they are the baby sesame street books, he "reads" them every day. I love this little guy so much, look at those thighs! He turned fourteen months old yesterday, only four more to go before he joins Lauren in the Nursery.

Block Puzzles

I got this idea from Pinterest...block puzzles. Best part, I had everything I needed. I printed a few images out and mod podged them onto wooden alphabet blocks-I used 9. Here are the pictures, it took me an hour and a half and the glue dries really quickly so the kids were busy with them a few minutes after being done.

Can you guess what games/shows we watch? I might do more, we'll see. For now Lauren is content with three more puzzles, she loves puzzles!

Did you know...

that Feb.15th is Buzz Lightyear's birthday? I actually made it up, it was raining that day and we decided to throw a birthday party to lighten things up a bit. First was making cookies, that's all I had on hand, peanut butter cookies, yummy. Then we had a little shoe box and filled it with toys that Lauren picked out for Buzz, how about that-toys for a toy.  Then we lit a candle and sang to him. It was fun, Lauren asked a couple days later if tomorrow was Buzz's birthday, so cute. Here's a picture.

Happy Valentine's Day

Todd made a video for me for Valentines Day, it was really neat and I'm glad he made me a video instead of signing a card. It's on youtube, here's the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPVrpIrYPQ&feature=plcp&context=C34fd00bUDOEgsToPDskKX3nxzwyuTBIG2sC8w7Oaz

Enjoy!

San Dimas Canyon Park

The kids love this park, it has way more than a regular park does...it has a little zoo! Owls, snakes, turtles, and deer etc. They also love the playground, here is Lauren being a big girl and running around all by herself.

Fun times

Mess free finger painting...was a hit!

don't mind the dirty diapers outside, oh well.

My Garden

When we first moved into our apartment I was excited for some dirt, we had a balcony patio in our one bedroom our first year of marriage. I had planted cucumber, squash, tomatoes, and pumpkins (rookie mistake, they took over the entire patio!) Last year I just never went out to the patio, ever, both kids were too little to play out there especially when the weeds took over everything. This year is different, I have plans and by golly I'm gonna do it, because both kids are driving me crazy in the house and they love being outside. Once I clean out everything and put in the mulch and flowers, then they can run and go crazy! I want to get a sprinkler for them to run through and a water/craft table for them to play with messy things outside. Here are the before pictures.

Valentines

I finished decorating my mantle for this month, I'm trying to mix it up this year instead of just Halloween and Christmas.

The banner says "Je t'aime" it's french for "I love you". I figured we needed to represent our romantic French lineage.( I'm not french I just inherited the last name but the other three people in the house are).

In the land of IKEA

I wanted to take the kids somewhere they haven't been before (well Lauren has been there before but I'm pretty sure she has no memory of it). A place where mom would like to go and be stimulated as well, light bulb moment happened one weekday morning last week and I thought "IKEA". So off we went and we went straight to the kids section. After looking around at toys we found the bedroom sets. They had four different bedrooms set up and I had two favorites, no three...whatever. Lauren was exploring all the bedrooms and pretending the beds were her own, so cute. Every time I leave I want to go back the next day because I feel like I didn't see everything. Here's a pic of them in the last bedroom, there was a little kitchen set up in it and Lauren played chef very well, I was surprised, my lessons in the kitchen so far have rubbed off on her already, so proud.

Baby Wipes

I've been doing home made baby wipes for over two months now. I've learned that Bounty towels are way better than the Viva ones, just FYI. Here is how I do them:

Cut a roll in half with a non-serrated knife (feel the burn, you'll work up a sweat, just a warning) Then in a container with a lid (I found mine at the 99 cent store) that will hold half of the roll fill with 2 cups of water, then add 1 T of baby oil, then 1 T of baby wash. With the cut side facing down, put the roll in the container of water. Then close it and flip it, letting the towels soak up the solution.

After the towels have soaked up the solution then you remove the lid and take out the cardboard center and voila the end of the roll will pop out of the middle.

 Remember, use Bounty. In these pictures I used Viva first and they don't have the "select a size" rolls so the wipes ended up being LONG. Buy Bounty select a size towels and you will love these wipes. Also I noticed that when my kids have a diaper rash, they don't cry when I wipe them with the homemade wipes, at all, not kidding. So big plus there on the no crying and screaming thing.