Happy Lover's Day!

So... I'm not a huge fan of Valentines Day... but it sure was fun dressing this guy up! My mom had bought this fabric so I made him a little Valentines Day tie for church today... then I used some of the leftovers to make a cute onesie... I figure he can still wear both even when it's not Valentines day...

Anyhew.. Here's a little Valentine's Day Lovin' from us!

Milkdrunk

So... my kids a messy drunk! Lately after he chows down... and makes a total mess of himself... he just starts smiling and laughing... well as much as a 7 week old baby can laugh! The camera happened to be nearby so I snapped a few pics... the last one was from a few weeks ago... he fell asleep eating and this big line of milk drooled out... it was classic :)

Carter's Blessing!

So this past Sunday we were able to bless Carter.... it was spiritual and fun-filled day and we are so glad to have friends and family there! Great-Gma Wilson was even here from Utah, and Aunt Nancy and my cuzzin Eric flew in from Australia the night before so they were able to make it before they left to go back to Utah! It was such a fun day... my parents let us do a little luncheon at their house... it would have been chaos in our townhome... well.. more chaos :) Great way to start off Superbowl Sunday! The sun decided to come out a blazin' right when we started taking pics... thus all the squintage!

My "New" Rocking Chair...

So... I refuse to pay full price for just about ANYTHING... call me a cheapskate... I don't even care... I wanted a rocking chair/glider thing... but they are all ugly and expensive... two things I dislike greatly...

So I've been scouring Craigslist for a good deal... I found one for $40... it was hardly even used and the guy kept telling me this... I guess he wanted me to offer more than the $60 he was asking. I offered $40 and that I could come get it tonight... he had OK... so I grabbed it...

Then I went to Joanns and bought some upholstery fabric to cover the nasty biege... and then I covered an old pillow with the leftover fabric to jazz it up some... I'm pretty darn proud of it! One of these days I'll actually get his room put together... Probably by the time he's walking...

Strikin a Pose

Here's my little stud... Kristin Fuller took some cute pics of him... in his (MY) favorite blanket... He's just such a sweetie! He hardly ever cries... but I put one pic in so you know he does! He's been so great so far... he sleeps thru the night... so I always get a good 7 hours of sleep each night which I am VERY grateful for! And yes... I know he looks like his dad! I claim his eyes (even though danny and I both have blue eyes... I take what I can)! I also claim his feet... becuase they are long and skinny... which are just like mine... Not a glamorous thing to claim... but what do you do! His hair takes a mind of it's own.. Its funny, he's had this really long hair since he was born, but it's in a strip right down the middle and down the back! the sides are almost bare! So I swear I did not shave my kids hair into a mohawk... it just does it! I refuse to do a combover so he's gettin the fo-hawk look until the rest grows in!

Carter WIlson Stoddart - December 21st, 2009

Well... it's taken me FOREVER to put anything up on the blog... but here I go... We had our sweet little boy on December 21st, 2009. I was due the 14th so he was exactly a week late. I was actually set to be induced at 10pm that night, but... at 3am that morning my water broke and we headed for the hospital... and at 11pm on the dot this cutie was born! He also now shares his birthday with his favorite uncle Brandon ;) Carter was 7lbs, 7oz and 21 inches long... so... long and skinny!! We were shocked he was so skinny since I was such a chub.. and everyone thought he was gonna be a 9-10 pounder... turns out I had a TON of amniotic fluid so it threw the doc off. (NOT complaining... I don't know HOW my mom had me at 19 inches and 10 pounds... and NO epidural).

SPEAKING of EPIDURAL... that is the best. I see NO reason to go au natural unless it's necessary. YOU CRAZY if you do! It made things MUCH easier. Though I don't know if it just is that painful, or my epidural just started to wear off since I got it 9 hours before he came out, but by the time I hit 9-10 cms, I was FEELIN that pain!! Thus the final picture... this was me relieved that that pain was instantly over...

It's such a crazy, indescribable feeling... but as soon as you hold that sweet little baby in your arms it's all worth it!!! So crazy.

I love him to bits... And we were SO glad to get out of the hospital the next day. It took alot of nagging but we were able to get out by nighttime on the 22nd.

I had Danny, my mom and Tif there most of the day and they were just great... (oh and Ricky too... he's a trooper.. he sat out in the lobby the whole day... I don't think he realized what he signed up for.)

The whole experience just made me realize even more how awesome my parents are... It was so good to have them there and meet the first grandbaby!

I've lost my brain til the baby comes out...

So... I'm glad I live in Murrieta... otherwise I think I would be much much more broke. In the past few weeks I have:

*Left my keys at the bank
*Left my purse at the bank (seperate trip)
*Left my car doors wide open for hours
*Left my dog Bailee outside in the front (though that was partly my husbands fault ;)
*Left my wallet in the cart at BabysRus
*Left my credit card at Albertsons
*Left my groceries at Stater Brothers
*Left my bags at Walmart
*Left my purse in a cart at Joanns while I went off somewhere...
*Left my keys AND wallet at the Post Office

Yeah. Thankfully no one's ever stolen any of it, and usually, if they even notice I've left it there, they either chase after me to tell me or turn it in to a store so I can get it.

UPDATE... so... after writing all the things I've forgotten lately...

I go to leave the house, got my shoes on... my purse/wallet, cell phone, waterbottle, keys, turned off all the lights... open the door, then...

WHOOSH... cold air comes flowing in and I realize I FORGOT TO PUT ON PANTS! Whoops. Add that to the list. Good thing it was cold or I probably never would have realized it.

My Parents Are Awesome

FYI.... in case you didn't know... I scored the Lotto on parents. Just thought I'd share that.

Lately I've seen some not so terrific examples of parents and it pisses me off.... slash makes me sad.

I'm not calling anyone out, but rather just making a generalization of an unfortunate trend I seem to be seeing.

Some "parents" are oblivious to the consequences of their actions. Some think that because they donate the genetic material required to make a child, that they are entitled to the title of parent. Other "parents" seem to be more child-like than thier kids. Some of the bad examples of parenting I get angry about, others just make me sad.

If you make the decision to have kids, and are blessed to be able to have them, you have to realize it's a life-long commitment. As I get closer to having this first kid (who by the way needs to hurry up and get here), I'm becoming more and more aware how every decision you make will affect their lives. Every decision I make does not just effect me, or me and Danny, but also our children, and one day our decisions will have an impact on their children. As soon-to-be parents we are already having to make decisions that will affect our kids... and it's hard to make decisions that might hurt those we love.

Granted, I was a brat sometimes growing up, but I secretly always knew, and have become more aware, how right my parents always were. They are awesome examples of how parents should be. They sacrificed more than I"ll probably ever know. I'm sure it would have been easier to be more of "the friend" parent instead of disciplining. My parents weren't afraid of being "a parent", they were concerned about making sure that they did all they could to help us know right from wrong, and tried their best to give me and my brother every oppourtunity possible to succeed.

They were and always are there for us. They've never made a promise they couldn't keep.

They've never dissapointed me or let me down. I've never been ashamed of anything they've done or said (even the crazy Kenny Loggins stalking).

They've welcomed my husband with open arms and treat him like one of their own, and I know he appreciates it.

So just to summarize, my parents ROCK.

Baby Dresser!

So... I was gonna go garage shopping on Saturday to see if I could find a dresser that I could redo for the baby's room instead of buying a brand new one... but my mom said she had an old one sitting in the garage... and I could do whatever I want with it... ( I needed to make sure I could do whatever I wanted cuz it was an old antique and I knew if it had any value... it would probably be gone by the time I was done with it... but some of the drawers needed repair and it was old and some of the hinges had fallen apart... and there were water stains so it wasn't worth anything anyway...

Anyhew... so I sanded everything down and fixed the doors... and took of the old hinges... then went to town painting it... The most expensive part was just the knobs... had to spend 20 bucks since there were 20 holes... i guess i shoulda puttied half the wholes up before I painted it and only used 10 knobs... but oh well.

I got the little sample paint cans at Lowes for like... 2 bucks each... anyhew... so now I have this super funky dresser for the baby room ;) What do you do ;)

VEGAS baby...Barefoot AND pregnant most of the time...

So I never posted our pics from Vegas... so heeeeeere you go! Granted, being uber-pregnant and going to Vegas wasn't quite as fun as Vegas normally is... but we still had fun ;) We went and saw BlueManGroup... which was great... Danny loved it more than I did but I thought it was pretty good. (I wanted to see LionKing... but i got the promise of "next time we'll go to Lion King for SURE....) uh huh. ;) Anyhew... This BlueMan was just DYING to take a picture with me... as you can tell by his face.

This tree was at the Bellagio Conservatory... He was kiiiinda creepy and kept whispering at us... I think he thought Danny was hot...

Classic Danny.... Doing something silly while I'm looking around to make sure there aren't any cops.

Danny was enamoured with this mini-bellagio... it was really cool... they made a miniature of the hotel but made it look really cottage-y... Danny took many shots till he got one with the fountains going off...

I think this is when we took a break from the pool and went to the ESPN zone to watch some of the football games... there was like.... at 2 1/2 hr wait for a table... but then we went upstairs and we got lucky finding a table open in the bar area... which ended up workin out great since we were surrounded by a ton of TVs. Some crazy pregnant lady bumped the pepper shaker with her belly and the thing shattered everywhere... silly pregnant ladies. I went and told the waitress "someone" knocked over a pepper shaker.... i don't think she bought it.

We ended up getting 4th row for BlueManGroup... they actually pulled us aside as we were coming in and asked if we wanted to be part of the show... at 1st we said yes but then realized it was this tiny bit part and they would have moved us out of our seats... to further back ones... so we were really glad we went back and told them no... cuz our seats were AWESOME. 4th row right in the middle.

Me alone with creepy tree...

Danny taking a Dumpty...pardon the pun.

More BlueMan... So my pictures aren't in order.... I'm too lazy to put the BlueMan Pics together...

I loved this tree... it was my favorite... he was like an old soul...

OH and for Serendipity the MOVIE... fans... they just opened Serendipity3 at Ceaser's Palace... I simply ADORE this movie... and have always wanted to eat at the Serendipity in NY... but seeing as I've never actually GONE to NY... I hadn't... So we went... I was hoping to sit outside.. but it was FAAAAREEEEEZING that nite. Some hints if you go there... the desserts loooook amazing. I say LOOK amazing... because I was so saddened to not actually EAT one of their delicious sundaes. We ordered some nachos and this chicken pizza... turns out their portions are HUUUUGE. we were STUFFED. I was literally upset that we bought food and couldn't eat a dessert... it was the main reason I was going... but we couldn't even finish our meals. The pizza was really good. (the nachos... not so much, i've made better at home). Anyhew... It was a cute little place but I still want to go to the NY one... And now I'm better prepared. I'll be going there with only BigHuge Sundae on the brain. (NO not the 1,000 dessert though they do serve it at this one...) Anyhew... there's Vegas.

Lion Pillow

I like this pillow much better than the Monkey Pillow... But the Monkey Pillow was my first try... ;) This one was fun and it's about the same size... Now if I can keep the cats from thinking it's a bed and the dogs from thinking its a very large toy.....

Doggy Anxiety Attacks...

Turns out my dogs are spoiled... and they get anxiety attacks when we leave them alone in the house... or outside for that matter... Only at our house... When we ARE home... they are on their best behavior... but we leave and they go SKITZO! We'd been leaving them in the house since it's been so friggin HOT outside... plus the nieghbor dogs are crazy and try to attack our dogs thru the fence... so then our dogs try to attack them... CHAOS. Anyhew... after I came home to THIS (which was the worst by far... usually they just chew some pens or run toiletpaper thru the house) we decided they have to stay outside when we aren't home... so we borrowed a metal dog gate thing that covers the entire fence on the neighbors side... HOPEfully that will stop the destruction! Oh by the way after I took the pictures we saw they had eaten the toggles off danny's xbox controllers as well... GRRRRRRRR. expensive treat!

Course... I try to yell at Zeke and I simply CANT DO IT!!!! He does this double paw thing and looks so scared becuase he knows he did something wrong but isnt sure quite what... so he starts shaking and sits and shakes with both his paws at the same time... I can't help but laugh... I literally had to bury my head and turn away cuz I was smiling and laughing!

crafty when I wanna be....

So.... I got this idea to make this rug for the baby room while me and my mom were at JoAnns... Turns out I LOVE how it turned out! It's pretty big too! Then I still had lots of extra so I figured I'd keep experimenting... and tried making a monkey head pillow! It's pretty big too... It still needs to get the lumps worked out so it's a bit rounder... but for doing it from scratch and now pattern I think they both turned out pretty cute! And even better... both of em only cost like... 15 bucks total! (I'm a cheapskate... so I like when I save money... what of it?!) Course when you factor in all the time it took to make it I guess it aint so cheap... but it was fun ;) In case you couldn't tell we are going for a jungle! ;) Next up... I wanna try n make a Lion pillow!

They don't have a clue...

These dogs don't have a CLUE whats gonna hit em in 3 months.... Cuz right now we spoil them like crazy... But how can I not!!! I frigggin love these guys!

PS... Zeke looks possessed in this last picture... such a contrast to his actual self... he wouldn't hurt a fly!

This Bird stole the Show...

So I took my new camera to the beach to take pictures of Danny and Nate surfing... But of course there weren't any waves so... I ended up taking a few pics of this "white eagle" that was chomping on a mackerel... Now I'm taking the word of the old men googily-eyed and staring who say this was a cool thing to take a picture of... so I took a few. There ended up being a big crowd of people watching the bird annihilate this dead fish...

There wasn't any surf to watch so this baby took the show!Fig'd I'd share in case theres any bird lovers out there ;)

Or if you just like to see a fish getting gutted by an eagle... I'm just here to please ;)