And to finish the week- a wedding!

The grand finale of the reunion-birthday-birthday week was Dylan's brother Craig's wedding. (man, it's no wonder we're exhausted!)

We had a great time and are excited to welcome Kimberly into the family!



Dylan was the best man and the kids were in it too, so I had a great time seeing them all dressed up and stalking them with my camera.....

30

In other news this week, Dylan turned 30.
Unfortunately, this milestone birthday went largely uncelebrated too. Maybe when he's 31 I'll have my act together enough to throw him a big party... wish me luck on that one, okay!

The night before his birthday, I was convinced that I was in labor- you know, painful contractions for hours. So we stayed up late (10pm) installing the infant car seat, doing dishes, packing our bags for the hospital and counting contractions. Then they stopped :(

Needless to say, thinking that we would be going to the hospital any minute kinda made him panic because he had a LOT of work that needed to be done. So apart from going out to breakfast, he spent the day working frantically. That night, our friends took us out to dinner at Claim Jumper and he was so worn out from working so hard that he only ate a bowl of clam chowder. (Yes, it was 150 degrees outside but that's all he wanted!).

That night, in a moment of contemplation over his old age, he announced to me that he is content in life. (Good, right?!) Instead of wishing that he had done something really cool for his birthday, he was satisfied doing what he does... spending time with his family, working (he really does like his job), and sitting around in the evening doing a sudoku puzzle. To some, this may sound totally boring- I'll even admit that I can only hope to feel the same on my own 30th- but what a great testimony of God's goodness that Dylan could say that. And what a blessing to me to be married to such a great guy!

Happy Birthday Dylan! I Love You!


ps, in case you were wondering what kind of gifts this 30-year-old got, here's a partial list:
a bag of buttered popcorn jelly bellies
a homemade banana creme pie
a homemade ice cream pie
a box of lucky charms
...hmmm, do you think he has a sweet tooth?!

Hey Grady, are you two? NOOOO

Even though he won't admit it, Grady turned two this week.

Because of life and craziness and reunions and weddings, he didn't have an official birthday party but he didn't seem to mind at all ;)

(riding a scooter and eating a cupcake)

(eating a cupcake with his favorite person at the church picnic)

(enjoying his very favorite food: pizza!)

Some stats about our birthday boy:
~He is 30lbs 7ozs- 2 lbs less than his sister's current weight!
~He can pedal a bike with training wheels and he is super fast on a scooter.
~He loves jumping, climbing, tackling and wrestling- preferably while making awesome sound effects.
~He talks a lot and he talks loud. Unfortunately, I'm pretty much the only person that can understand what he's saying!
~He loves vegetables, especially the green ones.
~If we let him, he would eat all day, every day.
~When he's not making sound effects or talking loudly, he's singing loudly. His favorite songs are "Deep and wide" and "This Little Light of Mine," but he also loves making up songs to sing.
~He is ALWAYS dirty and sticky. His favorite toy in the backyard is a big pile of dirt.
~Even though he's usually busy being a boy, he loves cuddling and snuggling and reading books.

Happy Birthday Grady William!

Has it been 10 years already?

Last summer I went with Dylan to his 10 year high school reunion. Prior to going, I scoffed at the idea of actually wanting to see people from high school again. But afterwards, I decided that it wasn't too bad (even considering that I didn't go to his highschool) and that I was going to make sure that my alma mater- Concord High School- had an awesome reunion. It was going to cost less, have better food and be at a way cooler location.

So, thanks to Facebook, I got in touch with a few people from our senior leadership class and we started planning... in February. Our plans started out fine. We got in contact with hundreds of our former classmates, polled people about what type of event they wanted and picked a date. We settled on dinner and drinks at Pyramid Brewery, chose a DJ that was going to provide background music-NOT loud party/dancing music, and sent out an evite to 300 people.

Then the drama started. Who knew that 10 years after highschool people could still be SOOOOO dramatic. Some examples of emails and conversations that I had:

"I didn't get the evite so I think that you didn't invite me on purpose and so I'm not coming and I'm telling everyone else that I know not to come." "I don't like that restaurant so I'm not coming and I'm going to a bar across the street with my friends." Or my favorite, "I know that I'm helping plan the reunion, but I never bought my plane ticket so I'm not going to be able to make it."

Sheesh. Just get over yourselves and come already!

Two weeks before the reunion, we almost had to cancel because not enough people had signed up and paid. We finally got just enough people to break even (50!) when people started cancelling and asking for their money back. Um, no, the money has been spent.

Finally, after 9 months of planning (the amount of time it takes to plan a wedding or for a fetus to fully develop in it's mother's womb) the Concord High School Class of '99 had our reunion.

It turned out great.

Lots of extra people showed up (and didn't pay, but whatever, there was plenty of food).

People actually had a good time.

I got to see some friends who I hadn't seen in 10 years.

I talked with lots of people who I've never talked with before in my life (like I had to look up their pics in the yearbook to figure out who they were).

The DJ played music that was WAAAAAYYY to loud but, oh well, my hearing was back to normal by the next day.

I didn't go into early labor (yes, this was a concern of mine after all of the stress and drama).

And I officially resigned from ever planning another reunion ever again.

Of course, since I was so busy socializing (more like yelling at people over the music), I didn't take many pics. And the pics I did take are of people that you don't know so they won't be very exciting for you.... so I'll include the two that I have that include myself (the GIANT pregnant lady in the green dress). If you want to see more, there are some on facebook....

Keri and Me, with awkward expressions (thanks Dylan)... she is the ONLY person from my class that I've actually kept in contact with consistently since highschool!

Me and some seriously skinny and short people- hey, maybe it's just the angle of the camera, but I look like a giant!

Shameless Obsession

I love Craigslist. I can find pretty much anything that I want or need on the site. Like my new car for instance. Or the kids' new beds... or our new nightstands... or a new bookshelf... or a couch- you get the idea. We used Craigslist to start Dylan's company and still use it to advertise when things slow down. Lately, I've turned it around and started selling stuff that I've had cluttering my garage for years. It's amazing how much I've brought in in just a few weeks!

However, when I decided that I wanted to clean out my collection of strollers and buy just one double stroller that would fit all of my needs (and wants), Craigslist let me down. There just isn't anyone out there selling it and there is NO WAY I'm going to pay retail prices for it. So I've become obsessed with entering contests online where people are giving one away.



One of the ways to enter the contests is to put a link to the giveaway on my blog so that all of you will enter too. Please don't ;)

The Shopping Mama Bumbleride Giveaway

Thrifty and Chic Mom Bumbleride Giveaway

Babes and Kids Reviews Bumbleride Giveaway


Wish me luck!

A Perfect Shower

Since I'm having my third child and I already pretty much have everything that I need to bring this new baby into the world, I was pretty surprised when my sister, sister-in law, and cousin threw me a baby shower.

I have to admit that I wasn't super excited to play shower games and eat shower food and sit around and swap birthing stories. Thankfully, the planning committee wasn't excited about those ideas either and instead, they threw me the perfect Julie shower.

The menu: tea party. (ie. sandwiches, quiche, fruit, sweet cream, scones, muffins, etc). If I could, I would eat like this every day.
(not the best picture of the food but you get the idea)

The game: pictionary with baby related words. (ie. midwife, contractions, dirty diaper, bottle). Pictionary is one of the best games ever.
(my mom drawing a box of cherrios)

The gifts: the little kids who came all decorated onsies for the new baby. The drawings include spider man, monsters, rainbows, birdies and 3-year-old's scribbles. This baby's wardrobe is going to be amazing!

The dessert: ice cream sundae bar. Ice cream is my all time favorite dessert. Add some peaches and caramel sauce on top and I'm in heaven.
(Me with Jackie Dowd and Julie Cambier.... our husbands ditched us and went camping for the weekend)

It really was a blessing to be surrounded and supported and encouraged by such an amazing community of women who are standing by me even in the midst of the craziness that this new baby is sure to bring into our lives.

Thank you girls for the best baby shower ever!

Summertime

August happened. Our blog didn't. Here's some of what we did:

1. We used our zoo passes and hung out at the Oakland Zoo.


2. The family camping trip was canceled. I can't say that I was too upset about it since I was 7+ months pregnant and the thought of spending the week sleeping in a tent with two toddlers and our dog didn't sound too great. Instead we went to my aunts house in Huntington Beach and lounged around, went to the beach, went to the park, went to the pool, took full advantage of our traveling partner (my mom) and went out on some dates and became addicted to Sudoku.



3. We ate a billion tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini from our garden. And I got a new cookbook called "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" and started baking bread. Yum!


4. We marked the anniversary of having Dylan's grandma living with us.

5. And, among lots of other things that I'm certain we did but can't quite remember, the kids had fun being kids.

Happy?

Do you think someone was excited to start preschool?