Our Trip

We're home! Anderson and I had a wonderful trip to California to visit family and friends and I just have to start out by saying how GREAT he was the entire time! He was dragged around Orange County the entire time, woken up from naps (GASP!) many times, held by so many people and he never had any major melt downs! I was sooooo proud! (and relieved) Of course there were times he was fussy, but I can't blame him. Shoot! I was fussy at times too!

We arrived on Friday and got to celebrate Uncle Matt's birthday. We had a nice dinner at my moms with Matt, Kristin, Dave & my mom.

Helping blow out Uncle Matt's Bday candles


On Saturday, I met up with Shelly and got to have breakfast with her and her little cutie Jacob. It was so fun to catch up and see her little prego belly! Can't wait to meet her new little boy in March!

Later that day we went to lunch (yes, I ate the ENTIRE weekend!) with Jason's sisters, brother in law and niece and nephew. At this time AJ was pretty tired, but Mandy took over and had him giggling like crazy! It was a new laugh I'd never heard before and it was just adorable! Mandy and Michele are great with AJ because they steal him from me the second I walk in and I'm able to take a breath and have a few kid- free moments.

Sunday my Dad & Cory came down to hang out with us. We met up and went to lunch and then walked around downtown Huntington Beach. Then we went to Matt & Kristin's for dinner which was soooo nice! I can't remember the last time we all just sat around and ate dinner and talked together. Because we don't all live near each other, those times aren't as frequent as they used to be so being able to do that now is wonderful.

AJ breaking poor Pops back in the Bjorn...


Monday we visited a few more friends, did some shopping (of course) and then went to lunch with Jason's dad and sisters again. Paul is always so wonderful with Anderson and just loves him to pieces. I'm so glad that AJ got to see him again this trip.

With Grandpa Lew

On Tuesday we got to see some of my moms neighbors and then we met up with Matt for lunch before heading to the airport. We had to say goodbye which is always hard, but it's always a little easier knowing that we'll be back soon. We will all 3 be going back for Christmas :)

One last note, Anderson was FANTASTIC on the plane both times. He was awake for much of the flight on the way to Orange County as I had under medicated him. I wasn't totally sure how much Benadryl to give him so I didn't give him much. Thankfully, we were in the back of the plane and so I was able to stand up much of the flight. He was a hit with the flight attendants :) Then, I gave him a little more Benadryl on the way home and he slept the entire way! YA!!

Going Back to Cali...

Yep, that's right! Anderson and I are hoping on a plane in a few hours and heading back to visit our family again in Orange County. I learned A LOT from my last trip so this time I don't have things planned one thing after another. I have breaks in my schedule for naps and just relaxing; rather than running around all over town and making myself nuts! I've got a few lunches planned, as dinners are not AJ's thing :)

We're looking forward to seeing Grandma (my mom), Pop & Grammy (Dad & Cory), Uncle Matt & Aunt Kristin as well as Jason's sisters and Dad. I'm also going to meet up with some friends for coffee just to say hi and catch up. This trip will be a short on- I'm back on Tuesday, but then the three of us will go back for Christmas for a week.

Wish us luck on the plane! Last time was easy...but he's older now :)

Anderson & Buster

Here are Buster & AJ during our morning story time. They LOVE each other! (as we all completely expected..) AJ will lay there and talk to Buster and put his hands in his mouth, touch him and pull on his feet and Buster just sits there enjoying the attention. Sometimes tho, as you can see in this picture, he'll look at me like "What is going on right now??"

A Great Day for Anderson!

Wow! What a day! Anderson has been so wonderful! It all started out with a great nights sleep. AJ went down at 6pm last night and didn't wake again until 1am to eat. Quickly he went back down and then up again at 3:45am. Back down and then up for the day at 5:50am. Ya, that's soooo early, but that's about 12 hours of sleep, so I can't blame him.

I took him to Cindy's house for 2 hours while I worked out and came back to hear that he never cried and he took a 45 minute nap! YA AJ!!! For a while there, I would come back to get him and he'd either be crying when I walked in or she'd tell me that he cried for 30 mins or something. It broke my heart, so it's just great to hear that he did so well!

A few hours later I decided to take him and the dogs for a walk... this time he would go in the stroller, NOT the Baby Bjorn. My back just can't handle him in the Bjorn too much longer and he's GOT to get used to the stroller. So, I loaded it up with toys and we were off. I am SO proud to say that he only cried for about 2 minutes (near the middle of the walk) and the rest of the time was playing with toys or asleep. Who knows if he has turned over a new leaf or not, but I'll take it today! YIPPPEE!

He can ROLL!

It's official- Anderson can roll over; front to back and back to front. It's the cutest thing!

He's been able to roll from his tummy to his back for a few weeks now- but today as we were laying on the ground reading The Cat In The Hat, he went from back to tummy- a few times! I'm so proud of my little guy!

I hope to get it on video and will post it- I'll shoot for tomorrow unless he does it again at our afternoon story time.

We're off to the library to get more books today- one of our weekly adventures :)

Oh ya, the other thing that he did was roll himself right off his little Aloha chair (it's so small there's no way he could hurt himself). I was putting his clothes away standing right there and I heard this slide and I turn around and he's on the carpet! I don't even think it phased him... However, now I have to keep a closer eye on him :)

Longest day of the year???

I checked the news and the Internet, and I guess today isn't "officially" the longest day of the year. That's sometime in June they say. BUT.... I will go ahead and say that "unofficially" today was the longest day of the year for me. Thanks to Jason and I keeping Anderson up a long time yesterday (and therefore not getting an afternoon nap) and also thanks to daylight savings time, Anderson decided that 3:45am was a great time to be up for the day! Thankfully, I didn't think I'd get to sleep in much and last night I went to bed around 8:30pm, but let me tell you 3:45am is NOT a good time for anyone to be up and ready to rock n roll! (no matter what time you go to bed!) I was thrown off all day. Because I was up and reading The Cat In The Hat and singing songs so early, I was also hungry and ate breakfast at 4:45am. Totally screwed up my whole day with eating too! Luckily, AJ did nap from 5:30-7:30am so I did too.

We ended up having a really nice day. I went for a 4 mile run with Holly, came home, showered and then went to lunch (where AJ was a hit with all his talking and singing), then hit the Outlet mall and walked the dogs. It was a LOOOOONG day, but a good long day.

Talk, talk, talk!

Sorry for the headache you may get when watching this as it wasn't shot the best, but it gives you a good idea of the new thing AJ has been doing this past few days... Talking up a storm! He's hilarious! Enjoy!