relief

I got my hair cut last week and love it !  Went in to the appointment with three inches off in mind and ended up having her cut four.  At first, I thought "oh crap... what did I do...." but when I flat ironed it a few days later, I felt really good about it.  It feels completely healthy again and I can use half the shampoo and conditioner--not to mention it cuts down my blow drying and style time in half as well !  Maybe I will actually start doing my hair more often again.  Maybe.  I can't wait to see how it looks curled but I am a little nervous that it may have me end up looking like Shirley Temple.  It's happened in the distant past and seriously wasn't a good look for me !  I also dyed it to cover up the gray hair that is coming in at a rapid rate but all it did was make them look more like tiny blonde highlights everywhere.  Hey, whatever works, right ?

videos

Bud taught Brett a goofy little song that he remembered from a show on Cartoon Network.   "Mister... DJ...  Poopy Pants...."  They sing it together whenever Brett has a #2 diaper being changed.  It's also lovely when Brett sings it in the grocery store when I take him with me.  :]

Brett recently started to really love driving his power wheels truck around out front.  We bought it for him a year ago with some tax return money and he loved the huge box it came in, not the truck.  He was barely two at the time and couldn't reach the pedals very well at all so it's understandable.  It sat and sat and sat in the garage except for once on his birthday when his cousin was here and he drove them around in it.  It's so nice to see him enjoying it now and he has learned to steer it all on his own !  It was definitely a good investment because he will be able to use it for the next few years until his legs get too long.  Even then, we'll either sell it or keep it for the second baby. :]

Daddy hijacked his truck

Doing donuts in the street

goodnight moon

Brett loves the book "Goodnight Moon" and we have read it about 100 times so he knows what many of the pages say.  (or something close to it)  :]  What a cutie pie he is !  Where did my little boy go ??  :[  I'm hoping maybe now that he is a bit older, I can leave out his board books for him to look at during the day on his own.  He used to just bend them in ways they weren't meant to bend and rip them apart.  Let's hope he out grew that fun stage !

painting

I finally got around to downloading before and after pics off my phone from my painting recently.  It makes me about 2% less stressed to not have to see dirty walls downstairs anymore !

I started with the dining room wall (which was the worst because of the light switches.. little fingers trying to reach it for the past year or more !)  and the hallway where the garage, bathroom and closet are.

After.  The wall on the left will be the kitchen color--if I ever figure out what that color will be.

After.

 The stairs before--boy was that fun to tape !

After.  No more baby gate because it would have messed up the paint.  Yes !!!  I hated having that thing out all the time.  Brett would just climb over it to go upstairs so all it did was slow him down a little bit. 

I had to do this painting all with a small brush !  My wrists were not happy with me.

After.  Thank you to my lovely model for helping to show it off !

I wanted to continue upstairs in the loft area where we have the computer and treadmill, but I ran out of tape finishing the top part of the stairs (not pictured) and lost my "painting bug".  I dream of a day when my entire house will be done !!  But for now, this makes me very happy.  :]

the happiest place on earth

Our second trip to Disneyland proved to be much more successful than our first one a year earlier.  Brett now knows who all the characters are and even points out the "Disney Castle" when he sees it before Disney movies start.  He was fearless and loved every ride we went on, especially Splash Mountain !  We were in the park from 9am to about 6:30pm and decided to head home, even though Bud was dying to stay until midnight like he has always done in the past.  Brett had not napped and was getting restless while my feet were screaming at me and I was exhausted.  He couldn't go on some of the better rides because of his height and they had roped off an enormous section about two hours prior to fireworks and a parade so it was hard to get anywhere.  Bud and his uncle will be going back on February 29th for the special 24 hour day where Disneyland will be opening at 6am and closing at 6am on March 1st.  :]  I couldn't go that long so I will gladly stay at home with Brett and let the big boys have their fun ! 

I think this was after eating his first churro :]

He loves trains and could not wait to get on one !

He didn't really understand the concept of the Sword in the Stone so obviously, he didn't care.

Technically, he was not tall enough for Splash Mountain but it was the second ride of the morning (after going on Winnie the Pooh twice in a row) so the guys running it were cool and didn't even ask to check his height.    The first time around, Brett didn't know what was going to happen so he was fairly quiet until the drops, where he started laughing.  This picture was the second time around.  He laughed the entire time and happily screamed going down the big drop that he remembered doing before.  The afternoon shift was not cool and did not let him back on so we were very happy we went on in the morning.  :] 

Tea cup time !!!  He thought it was so fun to spin really fast !

This is about what my face looked like--minus the smile.  I have never been sick on the tea cups in my life until this day.  It's a fact.  I am getting old.  :[  I had to just close my eyes and keep chanting "don't throw up... don't throw up..." over and over in my head until about 10 minutes after the ride stopped. 

Small World was the only ride with it's Christmas decor left up.  Bummer !  But it was so pretty.  :]

We sure exhausted this big guy.  :] 

So exhausted that he couldn't even keep his head up !  I tried pushing it back up several times but it was like trying to balance a watermelon on his little body.  His head was so heavy and he didn't budge at all until traffic backed up and we had to brake.  He sure had a blast.  :]

new way to play the guitar

On the Ellen show today, she had a very unique singing group perform.  Thought I'd share the video in case this was new to anyone else.  (I'm usually the last to find out cool things.)  Five people playing one guitar at the same time and singing.  Pretty awesome !

walk off the earth

long time no write...

I know I haven't posted in a while and my sister finally questioned me as to why that is.  One word.  L-a-z-y.  Nothing exciting that prevented me from writing, I have just been exhausted since Christmas.  Here are a few quick recaps (we'll see how quick they end up being) from the events of the past few weeks.

*Christmas was a fairly nice day that had no major fails to report.  Brett and his cousin, Matthew, had a great time together as they always do.  We had lots of turkey, ham, chips and dip, veggies, nacho cheese sauce, mashed yams, Martinelli's Apple Cider and enough desserts to last for months.  (Probably why my pants are a little snug now.  Thanks mom !)  The boys loved their gifts and stocking stuffers and wore themselves out playing with all their new things.

*For New Years, we stayed home like we always do.  I learned my lesson to never go out on New Year's Eve after driving down the 18 from my parent's house a few years ago on our way to Bud's family's house.  It was raining, foggy and very dark out, so naturally, I ran over a pretty big rock that had slid it's way down the side of the mountain and into the slow lane.  It popped a hole in my tranny pan and we had to push my Subaru the last mile or so once the power steering gave out.  F-u-n !  So we stayed in our warm and safe house and did our usual thing with the added snacking on junk and not feeling bad about it because it was the last day of the year.  Brett stayed up until about 10pm and we put him to bed after realizing he had a rash from the cantaloupe he had eaten the past two days.  Yay for acidic baby poop !!  I hadn't planned on staying up until 12am but wanted to watch some of the New Year's Eve shows so we toasted Martinelli's at 12am and said goodbye to a not so kind year in hopes of a better one to come.

*New Year's day was pretty average.  Oh... except for the part when we all got locked in Brett's room.  No biggie.  (ha !)  Brett and I were playing with his new car ramp and cars in his room for a while when he decided to go lock and shut the door.  Now you are probably wondering why it's a big deal...  Well, we have a lock on the outside of the door to keep him safely in his room at night so he doesn't have any more parties at 1am downstairs by himself, or anywhere else in the house that could be dangerous.  He knocks on the door or I hear him calling our names over the baby monitor when he is ready to come out in the morning or during the night if he wakes up crying.  The system works for us because I don't lay in bed in a panic wondering if he's going to wake up, go downstairs and set off the house alarm, play with knives or open up all of our blu ray and dvd cases and scratch them all up.  (He likes to open them up and attempt to put them in the blu ray by himself, though he usually puts them in upside down !)  So Bud laughed at me and came over and unlocked the door.  He came in and started playing cars with us and about five minutes after he sat down, I happened to look up at the door and see that it was shut.  Instantly I knew it was locked but thought I'd ask Bud anyway if he was the one who shut it.  He said no, so I ran over to confirm my suspicions.  I immediately started to panic because the little emergency key was in the guest room.  We had no cell phones with us to calmly call a family member and have them drive 45 minutes up to our house to "let us out."  We took a nail off the wall and Bud tried to pick the lock.  That didn't work so we used Brett's vaseline container as a hammer to try and hammer the nail into the underside of the door hinge to try and pop it up.  Next.  Kick the door in ?  Nope.  Can't kick the door in when you're already in.  Go out the window ?  Not from the second story unless you have super powers.  Aha !  After about 10 minutes of me panicking, Brett having fun thinking it was a game and Bud getting irritated with the both of us, he realized he could just slide the curved part of Brett's cheap plastic hanger into the door jam and yank down on it to pull the lock mechanism in as he yanked down on the handle.  Ahhhhhhhh !  "You got it !" was Brett's reaction.  Crying and hugging Bud was mine.  It's funny that you don't realize you need to pee until you find yourself in a situation where you can't go.  We laughed and laughed about it afterwards as we called our loved ones to tell them the comical story.  Who knew a plastic hanger could pretty much save your life ?  He still has this obsession with locking doors, but as long as it's not in his room, we don't worry.  I cannot wait until Brett is older so I can tell him the stories of things he put us through.  And maybe pay him back, just a little.  :]

*I tried out my new 15lb kettle bell last week and felt pretty good after doing the 30 minute workout dvd that came with it.   It was fun and I love watching Bob Harper on The Biggest Loser so I definitely liked him on the instructional dvd.  Kettle bells are supposed to be really good at "shredding fat" so I was all ready to kick start that plan !  The next day, I thought my legs had gone through a meat grinder.  My thighs were in so much pain from all the squats that it was almost unbearable.  I tried to do as little walking as possible and stairs... oh, forget it.  I never wished to have a single story home more !  I have only had this happen one other time and that was a couple years ago when I did my Cindy Crawford workout dvd that I've had for years but hardly used.  I hurt for almost six days, though by day four, I was much better.  I'm sure Bud was thrilled that he had to get up constantly to check on Brett or get him out of something he shouldn't be in since I couldn't get up quickly or easily.  When I walked, my knees felt like they were going to give out, especially if I tried to walk quickly.  Thank goodness for the Target shopping cart when I had to get some groceries !  Then after talking to Bud's cousin who is big on exercise/fitness, he told me I should get some whey protein powder to speed up muscle repair.  Wish I'd asked him five days sooner !  Now I have some, though I'm still kinda hesitant to try the kettle bell again. :[   What really surprised me is that my arms didn't hurt at all !  Not.one.bit.  The 15lbs was heavy enough so maybe it was just all the pain in my legs made me not even realize that my arms were sore ? 

*Bud's court day (1/3) did not go in the direction we were praying for.  The judge decided to keep him on permanent disability status until after his back injection which is on 1/10.  That means we still only get 1/4 of the pay we were receiving when he was on temporary disability.  Not cool !  He then will see a new doctor regarding the pain relief from the injection.  Bud's lawyer advised him to tell the doctor it helped quite a bit, even if it didn't, so that they will hopefully put him back on temporary disability--though that could take 8-12 weeks for the report to come in and a decision on his status to be made.  So with that said, I am now looking for a job.  I don't want to go back to work yet but I do like having our home and will push aside my feelings towards working to do whatever it takes to keep it.  Worker's comp is awful.  Try not to ever injure yourself at work, especially your back.

*The past 6-7 days I have had numerous head aches on a daily basis.  The kind where if you stand up quickly (or even not so quickly), the blood rushes to that side of your head and it hurts to even open the eye of which ever side it's on.  I thought it was from staying up too late, but I went to bed at 10pm last night and woke up after 8:30 this morning and felt exhausted, just like the days prior.  I haven't wanted to go out or do anything this week because these head aches are absolutely draining on me--physically and mentally.  It isn't unusual for me to have a head ache like this, but I never get so many in a weeks time.  Medical insurance would definitely be helpful right now--another positive of me getting a job.  After having insurance my whole life and never having to worry about that, it definitely hasn't helped our stress over the past seven months or so since we were dropped.  Stupid worker's comp !  Sigh....  "God only gives you what you can handle" ....right ?  I'm not so sure that's true anymore.  Is it really handling it when you worry/argue about money and bills 24/7 and shed many tears over the situation ?  I am hoping to get a job with the blood bank I worked at when I had Brett.  It may not be the best management anymore and most people there hate their jobs (and their bosses), but the benefits are awesome and I'm comfortable there.  Wish me luck.  We need it !

Here are some cell phone pics from the last couple of weeks.

Tickle time after his shower.

He found the travel size baby powder containers in his diaper bag and tried out a new hair washing technique.

This totally would have made an awesome Christmas card picture.  "Bah Humbug.  Love, Brett"  :]

We gave him a vinegar (sitz) bath to help with his diaper rash and he loved getting wrapped up in his lion towel. 

I took this New Year's Eve while he was spending time with momma.  :]