Happy Birthday Scotty!

Happy Birthday Scotty! We had a great time celebrating with you today and we hope you had a fun day.

Andrew waiting for the party to start!

The fun birthday cake I made!

Uncle Scott and Little Buddy

Happy Birthday to you!

Free Time!!

The best part about being laid off is all of the free time I now have. I actually don't know how I ever had time to go to work because we have had a very busy schedule this week already. On Monday my mom and I went down to visit Oma. When I was on maternity leave, Andrew and I got to see Oma every week. We've been missing our weekly visits with Oma so it was great that we could go down and see her. The rest of the week has been spent playing and running errands.

Andrew and Oma playing

Crawling through the tables at Oma's

Bella, come play with me!

Let's play!!

Weekend Fun

Greg and Michelle came up to visit this weekend. Greg's birthday is next weekend and he wanted to go to the AleWorks and get a pint (or pitcher) of IPA with Brian. I was going to Jen's shower so it was up to Michelle to watch the grown-up boys and make sure they didn't get into too much trouble at the AleWorks! She did a great job and as a reward, they got to accompany her to Baby Depot to look at baby stuff. I hear that Brian was the "expert" and telling them what they did and didn't need!! (I wish I could have been there to hear his thoughts.)

While Michelle and the boys were at the AleWorks, I went to Jen's shower. Andrew wasn't feeling too well so my mom volunteered to watch him while I went to the shower. It was great see Jen and she got LOTS of stuff. Their little one won't have to wear the same outfit twice!!

Greg, Michelle and Andrew

Brian and Greg after having a pint (or two) at the AleWorks. They thought they were true Rock Stars!!

Greg was nice and let Andrew play too!

Jen and I at her shower

8 months

Andrew
8 Months Old

Dear Andrew,

Here are the top eight
About why you are go great!

Number One:

You wake up every morning smiling and laughing. When I come in to get you, you are normally just playing in your crib and you get the biggest smile and start laughing
when you see daddy or I.

Number Two:
You're attempt at crawling is just priceless! You have a combo army crawl/dolphin kick thing going on.

Number Three:

You are so great at entertaining yourself. This comes in very handy when I'm trying to do laundry, cook dinner or post on our blog!!

Number Four:

You are so curious about everything around you and must know exactly what is going on.

Number Five:

You found the fish tank this month and you try to grab the fishies as they swim my. It is one of the funniest things I have seen. You think it is pretty funny too.

Number Six:

You are the world's best eater, unless I try to feed you peas which you HATE! You are so good you can feed yourself crackers all by yourself.

Number 7:

You started saying DaDa this month. You have no clue what it means but daddy answers you each time hoping that soon you will figure it out. In fact, you talk and sing non-stop now!

Number 8:
The little boy in the mirror is your best friend. Every time you see yourself in the mirror or your reflection in the glass, you want to stop and check him out!

Happy 8 months little man. I can't wait to see the exciting things you start doing this month!!

Love,
Mommy

The good news and the bad news....

...you'll hear it all right here!!

I started this blog so our family and friends could stay up-to-date and I could look back one day and remember all of the fun times we have had. Unfortunately, not all of our lives can be fun and I found that out first hand this morning when I got laid off at work.

The last couple of weeks at work have been touch and go. Each week someone has gotten laid off and this morning my time came. The good news is the people that are left after this morning are in no threat of getting laid off. A few of my friends made it through the lay offs and I am happy that they are going to remain at the winery and won't have to go through the hassle of finding a new job.

This marks a new chapter in my life and hopefully I will be able to find a good job quickly. I have a couple of weeks of vacation and severance pay so I have a little bit of a buffer. Please pray for us and keep your finger's crossed that I will be able to find a good job quickly!

On a brighter note...I'm thinking of all of the positive aspects of this forced time off:
-shorter lines at the grocery store since I can shop during the day
-I can start going on daily walks again (Bella is excited about this!)
-more time spent with Andrew
-I can actually keep up with the cleaning and laundry
-dinner ready every night when Brian gets home (ok, not so much of a plus for me but Brian should benefit from this too somehow!!)
-I can watch my daily soap and Oprah live every day
-I can have my weekly lunch with Jen again!
-I get some of my tax money back when I collect unemployment!! (I don't think that any of my tax money actually goes toward this but let's just pretend!!)
-I can start going to playgroup every week again
-I can post every day on my blog because let's face it, what else will I do all day?!

Ooops, you're not Paige!

Perhaps I should pay a little more attention when people answer the phone. This is how my morning converstation with "Paige" went today:

**Ring, Ring, Ring**
Paige: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Paige: Umm, nothing.
Me: Did you write Courney's blog for her yesterday?
(side note: Paige's sister Courtney just had a baby yesterday)
Paige: Excuse me?
Me: I can tell that you wrote Courtney's blog because it doesn't look like any of her other ones.
Paige: I don't know any Courtney's.
Me: What?!
Paige: I think you have the wrong phone number!

AHHH! I wasn't talking to Paige at all! Apparently I dialed the wrong phone number and was talking to some random lady. I quickly told her I was so sorry an hung up. Then, I managed to call the real Paige and tell her my whole story. Sorry to the random lady who I called this morning!

Oh and in case you are wondering...yes, Paige did write Courtney's blog for her.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a great birthday weekend. Come on, we all know that birthday's don't just last one day!
It started Friday when I woke up with chills and my throat hurt. Oh wait, that was the crappy part of the weekend, I was sick the whole entire time. Oh well, I couldn't let a runny nose, plugged up ears and a cough slow me down.

Dale and Deana came to town on Friday and we met them at the Aleworks. We also met Scott, Michelle, Ryan, Kristy, Russel and Shawn there. Apparently, we were going to have to share Dale and Deana a little bit!!

On Saturday the four of us went to Winter Wineland. This is an annual event that Brian and I try to go to every year. We managed to hit 6 wineries and my industry discount came in quite handy since Dale and Deana wanted to stock up their cellar. I guess New Mexico wine just isn't the same! After Wine Tasting we came back home and had a great night of playing games and remembering the good old days. (A quick THANK YOU to Scott and Michelle for watching Andrew while we were out playing!)

Sunday morning Andrew and I had breakfast with my parents and then it was time to say goodbye to Dale and Deana. I had a great day relaxing at home and then out to dinner tonight.

Our Little Pilot and Big Pilot!

Deana and Andrew

This winery had a chocolate fountain! Probably the best stop!!

Deana and I wanted to know where the bottle of wine was that went with this corkscrew!

Dale*Deana*Brian*Me

A Day in My Life

What does a Event Manager do all day you ask? Here, I'll show you....

We sit down every day to a lavish meal and drink wine while being served by the staff!

We plan events that there is no way we could ever afford!
We attempt to not look at any of the cool merchandise while walking through the tasting room or we will spend our entire paycheck on chotski and wine!

We wonder how only 2 gardeners can keep our grounds looking so great when I can't even keep my grass green!

Mmmm, food!

I've been talk about making Andrew's baby food for awhile now and decided I should probably get to it. So, after 2 hours for steaming, mashing, pureeing, scooping and freezing Andrew has food! His menu selections for the next couple of weeks will be apple, pear, mango, avocado and sweet potato. These are his favorite foods so far so I thought we should start with something he likes and then move on to more adventurous foods later. I wasn't about to spend 2 hours making something he won't eat!

Professional Pictures

Back in the end of November, we had professional pictures of our family taken. I hadn't posted them yet because we were giving some of them away for Christmas presents. Since I want to remember these pictures forever, I decided they needed to make it into my blog! Plus, I think they are really cute and that you would all enjoy them too.

Our Little Pilot

Andrew looks so serious here!

Our Family

Happy Naked Baby!

Doesn't he have the cutest little bum!!

The Wings

Mommy and Andrew

Daddy and Andrew

Deep thoughts by me...

Here are two things that I was thinking about today....
1. What's up with Senior Citizen Discounts?
The argument one of my coworkers gave me for a senior discount is that they live on a fixed income. Well, so do we! Brian and I get paid the same amount of money every month. There isn't a magic tree in our backyard that sprouts out dollar bills at random times each month. We live on a budget each month just like the senior citizens do. To top it off, we have a mortgage payment, two cars payments, a child to feed, cloth and one day put through school. Most seniors that I know live in a house that was paid off a long time ago, have a minimal car payment if any and are no longer supporting their children! I think there should be a "Family trying to make it in 2009" discount. We're the ones who really need the help!!

2. Why do vacuum cleaners come in pretty girl colors and not manly colors?
If you look a various different vacuum cleaners online you will find them in an assortment of colors: basic black and white as well as pink, powder blue, purple, etc. Why don't they make camo vacuum cleaners or ones with sport logo's like the NY Yankee's? I'm convinced that if I bought a camo vacuum cleaner that had a TV screen on it so Brian could watch the game as well as a gun trigger and scope so he could target and shoot the dirt, he actually might use it once in awhile!

Planes, Showers and Phantom...oh my!

2009 is already in full swing! We had a busy, long and fun-filled day yesterday. It started at 5:00am when the alarm went off. I had to get Andrew and I ready so we could catch the plane to LA to go see Paige. Andrew did great on the plane and didn't cry at all. Amazingly, the flight wasn't full so I was able to bring his car seat on board with us. He only sat in it during take off and landing but it was nice to have a place to put him.

Once we got to LA, my mom and I headed to Paige's baby shower. We got there a little early so we had some time to spend with Paige by ourselves before the millions of people showed up! Paige sure has a lot of family and friends!! Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay very long because we had to catch our plane back home.

Once we got back to Oakland, my mom and dad took Andrew home with them while Brian and I went to San Francisco to go see Phantom of the Opera. This is one of my favorite shows and Brian bought me tickets for Christmas!! The show was amazing and I had such a great time.

On the way home, it finally hit me how tired I was. I could barely keep my eyes open and wasn't a very good co-pilot for Brian because I kept falling asleep. The crazy day was well worth it though.

Andrew and I on the plane

Jessica, Andrew, myself and Paige

Paige and I

Yippe for Phantom!!

In the theater waiting to go to our seats.