I'm 2 years old now!

I can't believe I'm 2 years old now. I've finally transitioned from having my age measured in months to years now! Just a quick recap of the last 2 years.

Over 3500 diapers,
10 airplane rides,
8 states (AZ, DE, HI, NJ, NV, NY, PA, WA),
8 unscheduled visits to the doctor,
1 visit to the ER, and
0 boyfriends (who has time?).

Go bananas

How many hrs does it take to change a nightlight?

Answer: 2 hrs to be exact.

What took so long was that there was no outlet on that wall so I had to wire a new outlet. That in itself shouldn't take more than an hour but there was some blocking in between the light switches (source for the power) and the outlet. I had to cut another hole in the closet so I could drill through the blocking and then fish the wire through that hole.

When we moved Lauren into her new room, there were no good spots for the nightlight and hence why I needed to add an outlet.

Here's the opening that I cut out for the outlet. One of my tricks for easy clean up is to tape a bag on the wall so all the drywall dust falls into the bag. That saves the vacuum from choking on drywall dust.



Here's the before picture with no outlet.

1st week

What's an air bag?


Here you can see me skyping on my dell mini9 netbook with my uncle and cousin in South Africa. I'm not quite sure where that is but I've heard it's far. I love the mini9. The built in webcam makes it very convenient for me to skype when I don't feel like getting out of my crib. Windows also takes less than a minutes to boot up and shutdown.

Another thing for those that don't want to leave the crib is to use diapers.com for diapers. My parents used it for the first time and the prices are better than other stores, you don't pay taxes and they have free shipping on orders over $50. My diapers were ordered on Monday and they were delivered on Tuesday. Can't beat that. In case anyone wants to order some diapers, you can enter this Referral Code, SMXN4697, and you'll get $10 off your first order. :)

Tiny toes

Chocolate on my face? Where?

I wish I were a baby

Babies get all the cool stuff like vibrating chairs, plush soft covered books...

Baby boy

3 days after the official due date, Cole was born at 5:29 AM on April 29th. He weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Everyone is doing great. Lauren is adjusting to being an older sister and mom and dad are adjusting to handling 2 little ones.

Here's Cole just after his first sponge bath.



Cole napping in the standard hospital issued cap and blankets. I think most hospitals use the same vendor or at least the same color palette.



Lauren meets her baby brother for the first time.



Cole posing for his first photo shoot. Little does he know what is in store for him every month.


Here you can see our room lighting. If you look carefully, you might notice that this is the light pattern from a flashlight pointing at the ceiling. Our hospital had construction going on and had no power between 10pm and 6am except for a few critical outlets. This normally isn't too much of a problem except we had to wake up every 2-3 hours to feed and change Cole. Changing diapers by flashlight is not something you should have to do in a hospital.

I'm 23 months old now!

Can you believe I'm almost 2 yrs old now! My little brother still hasn't shown up yet but it feels like he's already moved in. If you didn't notice, he has taken over my chair. My stuff has been replaced with boy stuff. Although he can have my crib. I much rather have my big cozy bed. :)

Indulgence

$5 oreo shake. Can you put a price on happiness?

From Africa to the desert

Lauren's cousins from South Africa visited Phoenix for the first time so we planned a trip to the Zoo and the train park. Here the kids are relaxing in Lauren's new room. I forget if this was before or after they started jumping on the bed. :)



Caroline on the endangered species carousel.



Lauren is enjoying the ride. She really loves riding the carousel.



"Caroline, don't look now but the paparazzi are here."


The next day we went to the Farm at South Mountain for some delicious brunch....



...and later we went to the train park. You can see Justin here sitting next to Lauren who is in disguise.



Caroline is showing her pearly whites before the train departs from the station.

TV Heaven

We have finally upgraded to Tivo HD. With number 2 coming, the odds of us going out are becoming even smaller now. In the past, we've been able to watch high def TV but not on our old Tivo. We would never really watch anything in HD since we prefer skipping commercials more than the improvement in picture quality from HD. But now we can have the quality of HD and the convenience of Tivo. Soon we'll be able to download movies from Amazon in HD as well. That is assuming we will be able to stay up past 10pm. :)

Goodbye crib, hello independence!

I'm officially a free toddler now! With my baby brother coming any week now, my parents have moved me out of the crib and into my own full size bed! This means I can stay up playing with my toys as late as I want now. And once I figure out how to open the door, I'll be able to watch cartoons early in the morning when my parents are still snoozing. :)

Strange weekend

Our Katch-a-kid pool net caught a duck this past weekend. We aren't really sure where the ducks came from but this is the second time they have come for a visit.


While visiting some garage sales on our street, one of our neighbors offered to make us some cotton candy in his machine for free. Who could turn down free cotton candy? Lauren has never had it before but it didn't take her long to acquire the taste. :)

I'm 22 months old now!

Cheeeeeeese!

Customer service

Our high chair harness developed a crack in it and was no longer locking in place. I called customer service and they asked for the standard model #, serial, #, Mfg date, and then proceeded to tell me it was outside of the 1 yr warranty. I didn't have my receipt indicating the exact date of purchase so I called back the next day with receipt in hand. The customer service person now tells me that they had just changed their warranty coverage for the harness only and that they could send me a new redesigned one for free. The harness on top has a redesigned latch (circled in red) that isn't as rigid as before. You can see the old latch on the bottom. The old design was always very difficult to open up whereas the new design is much easier to open and hopefully won't develop a crack again.

Who ya gonna call?

With #2 on the way in less than 7 weeks, we started cleaning out the guest bedroom. Lots of old tapes (mostly mix tapes) are headed for the garbage. Found this gem of a tape. It's a good thing our Lexus has a tape player. :)

All work and no play....

Finally someone who can push a swing.



Nothing like a good couch and some Baby Einstein on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

A little shopping at Trader Joe's

I love Trader Joe's! Finally I get my own cart. Now if they would just open up some more lanes!

Remotes = cool

There's definitely a unique challenge and skill in taking self timed photos without a tripod. Usually this involves propping the camera up on something to ensure you have the right angle and taking several test shots. Well in order to help ease the process, I bought a remote from buydig.com for our Nikon. Now I won't have to run across the room and get in position only to run back, see if the photo was good, and then repeat again if it wasn't.

I also bought a UV filter for our zoom lens in order to help protect it from any damage that a 2yr might inflict on it. I picked up a Hoya 72mm UV (Ultra Violet) Multi Coated Glass Filter from Adorama.com.

I'm 21 months old now!

Yes that's right, I'm wearing my PJs. All top models have this in their portfolio.

Chihuly Glass in the Desert

Target sponsored a free weekend at the Desert Botanical Gardens which was featuring a Chihuly exhibit: The Nature of Glass. You had to get reservations even though it was free so that they wouldn't be too crowded. Luckily we got ours before they sold out. We had been to the gardens before but the glass definitely adds a unique twist on the landscape.

Can I borrow the keys?

We are in trouble! She managed to get the car keys even without being able to see in the drawer.

Diaper duty

This isn't so bad. You guys make it seem like this is the worst thing in the world. It doesn't even smell!

Simple pleasures