She let me in!

Ali finally opened up yesterday- literally- and let me see inside that sweet little mouth... and boy was I surprised at all the little toofers I found! Missy Pants has her two front teeth, and the two next to those poking through! Amazing how they all popped up outta nowhere! She's also got the two bottom ones, next to the two middle ones (sorry I don't know the medical names) pushing their way up through the gums too. Those guys have a long way to go to reach the surface, and boy do they look painful- poor gal has what looks like blood veins where the teeth are stretching the gums, icky! Now I know why she's woken up the past 2 nights with a big time fever- wow those teeth must hurt like the dickens!

Oh and I'm suuuuuper excited! We found an AWESOME daycare to put Ali for the upcoming school year. She's actually going to start August 17th- so she can get used to it before going full time, and so mommy can get some stuff done around the house like paint her bathroom LIME GREEN!!!
Anyway, the daycare is actually a learning center, and it is inside a Lutheran Church. The pastor of the church has chapel with the kiddos every Monday, I'm so excited for Ali to learn all the Bible stories that I loved (and still love) as a child! I also am in love with her teacher, as well as all the fun activities they do with them, on a daily basis. They told me the kids go outside every day, rain, shine, or snow! Yay! Ali loves outside play! Also, they load up the kids in her class every Thursday into a big 6 seater stroller and take them to the library for lap sit story time- how fun is that!? Momma doesn't even do that! So yeah, lots of learning, signing, sensory, big muscle development play... oh it's wonderful! And affordable! I can't wait and I'm so excited for Ali to meet all the cute friends that were playing outside when we went today to sign her up... but my heart hurts a little when I think about not spending every moment with my baby girl- who's going to be 1 YEAR OLD on August 19th!

Another Family Visit

We loaded Ali up on Saturday and drove 6 hours (in theory) to visit KK's dad over on the west coast of Washington. Surprisingly, Ali did pretty good on the way home, but not so much on the way over. Thank goodness for graham crackers because they saved our sanity on that trip! The trip was good- not going to go into detail because Kris has such a surface relationship with his parents so it's odd anyway...

BUT on the way home, we stopped at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and had a blast! I thought before going, and still think, that I enjoyed the zoo way more than any other member of the family, but that's neither here nor there :) Here's me and Ali before we went in. They had this awesome polar bear wood carving at the entrance, and Ali thought that was pretty cool.

She also really enjoyed the meerkats and the polar bear. She also laughed her buns off when she was the puffins cleaning themselves in water. It was soo cute :) She did good, and let mommy and daddy see all the animals they wanted to see as well!

Here she is after the zoo:

It was a great idea to take her before our long ride back home- all that action really pooped her out!

It was her daddy's 1st trip to the zoo as well.. as his parents did not make efforts when he was little to ever do anything out of their way. It was such a great way to spend the morning, and we created a memory that will forever stay in our hearts and minds. I hope to get back there at least every other summer.

..and yesterday was a fun/scary day. Ali and I went with some friends out to their lake cabin to swim for the day. Ali and I were sitting on the steps after lunch, getting ready to go into the lake, and I was changing her diaper into a swim diaper. I was sitting on the deck steps, and when I went to take off her diaper, I realized she had pooped. So I stood up, while holding the diaper on, to get a wipe from the bag down on the lawn. Well somehow Ali managed to shift her weight forward as I was standing up, and it must have been the way I was holding her and that stupid diaper, but she fell face first out of my arms. It all happened really fast, but my mommy instincts swung into action and I grabbed her foot right before she did a face plant onto a stepping stone. She still hit her head, and has a sweet street burn on her forehead. I can't bring myself to take pictures because I still feel so horrible over it. I cried just as much as Ali did, and still cried after she had forgotten about it and was back playing in the sand. I cried when I told KK what happened and when I called my mom. We watched her eyes and no sign of concussion, but she seems to be fine, and today the owie looks even better and Ali could care less. I know every mom has a crazy story like that but that's horrible. I never want that to happen again and I keep beating myself up as to how I could have avoided it.

I just hope my sweet girl knows how much I love her and that I would never ever do anything to put her in danger, and that from the bottom of my heart and soul, I love her and hope she will forgive me for our accident.

Family Visit

My half-sister and her 3 kids are here visiting my parents from Western Washington. I have never been super close with my sister- she is 13 years older than me and was raised by her mom and step-dad over in the Seattle area... so we never spent much time together. But now that we are getting older- and thanks to the magic of Facebook- we are becoming a little closer.

Needless to say, I have really enjoyed this visit with her, and my nieces and nephew are just a delight. My oldest niece, Cassandra, plays basketball for Bellvue Community College, and my nephew, Nicko, who will be a junior in high school, is being looked at by U of Washington to play football. My littlest niece, Monica, is also an athlete.. and she's better then her brother and sister! It's awesome, I'm so proud of them- and not only are they great athletes, they are GREAT kids. Super nice and friendly and so excited to see their baby cousin, Ali. It makes me so thankful for family and so thankful we live close enough to spend at least some time together. I'm going to make it an effort to be a more proactive part of their lives, as well as have them stay connected to Ali. After all, they are her only cousins!

...And on another note- here is a picture of the first produce from my garden!!!

...I took this from my cell phone- and I'm not sure about the black and white... but this is a huge bowl of ITALIAN GREEN BEANS! Yummy, they were so good- Ali was even double-fistin' them!

Pictures

So KK got a new cell phone yesterday- a really cool touch screen that I'm totally jealous of... and he gifted me his Blackberry. And let me say, the Blackberry is AWESOME! I love it so much so far, much better then the Nokia flip phone I was sportin before.
Anyway, I was emailing all the pictures off my old phone to myself before retiring it to Ali's toy box, and I thought it would be fun to post some of what we had... brought me back to when our little lady WAS a tiny baby- she's so sweet and I CAN'T BELIEVE she'll be a year old in a month! Time just freakin flies!

(and I'm not sure why they are all in black and white... whatever )

Oh man I'm tired

So I feel like I've morphed back in time to when Ali was a brand new baby. I think our family slept a total of 4 hours last night. Poor baby- she went down for bed around 8:15, then at 10:00 she woke up crying. We tried to comfort her and put her back down in her crib, but the gal was not having it. So, Ali came and took over, I mean shared, our bed last night. She was tossing and turning and crying all night- it was horrible! Not to mention Matty, our dog, decided he was having bathroom issues and was up 4 times to go outside!

Needless to say, I'm one tired Mommy ! And KK is golfing this morning, so I am left alone with the beast:

Ok, I'm not fooling anyone- she's not a beast :) But I do hope that her right front tooth (her left one is already poking through!) makes an appearance soon... because "Teething Ali" does not have a very fun personality!

The weirdness continues

Ali and I made it through 5 days with "just the girls", and we both came out unscathed! It actually went really well- no major meltdowns; I didn't get bored and run out of stuff to do.. it was really nice! And I really did miss KK. I think that distance really does make the heart grow fonder, and it was so nice to have a little break to remember why we love each other and how much I really do appreciate him in my life. NOT having him home made me realize that, to some extent, he does help out around the house, and he does do a great job pulling his weight as Daddy. I think he missed us too, and we had fun having him back home again on Saturday night. We had a great day together yesterday, and had some of our closest friends over for dinner....
which brings me to my next point. KK just got off the phone with his mother, and told me that if she asks, to tell her we went to our friends' house for dinner, not vice versa. The reason? My stupid mother-in-law wanted to COME OVER during our dinner date, and say HI to OUR friends! She is sooooooo friggin weird!!!!!!!!!!! Why in the hell does she think that we want her to hang out with us and our friends?? I do not get her. Does she not realize how awkward and totally NOT NORMAL that would be She just doesn't get it, at all. This is not one big happy family that hangs out all the time. When your son and HIS FAMILY have their friends over for dinner, you just don't stop by.I mean, I'm best buds with my own mother, and I would never have her over to eat dinner with our friends! Oh man, when is it ever going to end?

Man, I love my Mom

So KK left yesterday for a 5 day recruiting trip (remember, he's now an assistant coaching basketball at the local junior college), and even though I'm glad for the break from one another (as both of us our teachers and have the summer's off, and are breathing down each other's neck half the time), I still really miss him. I think it's good, because it helps me to realize that sometimes I don't give the guy enough credit. He really does help out around here, not to mention makes me awesome dinner every night, and his little girl misses him! So sweet, I didn't know a 10 month old could spend so much time trying to find where her daddy is hiding- she's such a little angel cakes!

The nice thing is, although KK is gone, I have an amazing momma to help me out.
She called and had us over for dinner tonight, and she's coming over today to watch Ali so I can get a massage. Then, we're going to visit my Gramma and spend the day with "the girls."
My mom is just awesome. She is so kind and caring and loving, and she is a perfect grandma. She loves Ali so much, I think as much as she loves me :) and I just love to watch them together. I can see why I am so lovey dovey with Ali when I watch my mom. That woman has an endless abundance of love. She's a kisser- just like me- poor Ali gets smoochies non-stop!
My mom is so caring and optimistic- she can find the good in any light and will never say hardly a negative thing about anything (which is sometimes annoying!but in a good way). She plays so well with Ali, and always finds fun stuff to keep her occupied. Even though I want Ali to be little forever, I cannot wait until she's old enough to play with her Gram, because they are going to have a blast! My mom LOVES to color and do anything artsy craftsy. She loves sidewalk chalk, jumping rope, playing kitchen, playing wiffle ball, you name it. She always played with us growing up. And she always would invent some fun game to play. She was a super mom when I was little, and I stand in awe of her then and now. Ali and I are so blessed to have her, and I am so lucky to have a great mom to after which to model myself.

A little Liberation

I watched the best Oprah on Friday. It was all about mothers, and how we try to hide the truth behind the daily struggles of motherhood. I think it was titled "The Secret Lives of Moms", or something to that effect, and you should check it out if you missed it.
I like Oprah, but don't watch her show regularly. But I must say, this show moved me. I finally felt like it was OK to feel the way I feel about being a mom, and not feel guilty about it. That it's OK to not love being a mom every minute, every second, of every day. That there are gigantic highs and lows of raising a child. That there are more than numerous days you want to pull your hair out, or days you seriously think about hurting your husband in some way for not measuring up and helping out as much as you think he should.
It's amazing how our society tries to put out a good face all the time. People are so secretive of the truth: we only paint a picture of the good. We only give people the filtered versions of our lives. And I think it's because we (well in my case "I") are afraid of being judged. We are afraid that we are the only mom that isn't smiling all day long and remembering what a blessing having children are. We don't want people to think we long to be able to have a moment alone, or to be able to leave the house on a whim just because you forgot something at the store and not have that be a whole production.
Well, I'm over it. Especially in my blog. I created this blog as an outlet for myself. When I first started writing, I was looking for a way to share my feelings about trying to get pregnant. My blog isn't for my family, it's for myself. It's my online diary- a place I can share what I'm feeling and keep a running record. It's therapeutic. But I haven't been using it right. I only write the filtered version, because I'm so afraid of all the bloggers that I look up to, who I see as having a perfect marriages and perfect families, thinking that I am less of a person, wife, or mother. Well I've realized that I'm just not that. I'm proud of who I am as a wife, mother, and as a woman. I've worked my ass off to get where I am- I'm proud of all that I've accomplished thus far, and it's time for me to be real.
So no more filtering for me. When I'm having a bad day, I'm going to get it all out. When my husband is making me scream inside, I'm going to blog about it. When I feel like I just need to sit down and have a glass of wine and I'd pay any price to get it..well first I'm going to have that glass, but then I'm going to blog about it :). I hope that I can not only give myself some self-therapy, but also give some women out there some liberties to just get it all out. We're all doing the best we can, and it's OK to feel overwhelmed, exhausted, pissed off, etc. And... it's OK to BLOG ABOUT IT and at the end of the day, still be a good person.