Somehow we all ended up on the floor as 'dolls' for Zoey's thanksgiving tea party!

An angel with her halo.

Our Special Dinner

Sometimes, you just have to find the time to have some real quality time together as a married couple. Brian and I have found that we love having candle lit dinners together every night and once in a while, he will even go to the store and pick us out something 'special' and will make it for us. Then, we get Zoey fed early and either, to bed or happily watching cartoons before we sit down together. That way, we get to pretend that we are on a first date and think of fun, philosophical topics or ideas about our future to talk about.

Here, Brian took the liberty of making us, steak, steamed asparagus and baby crab cakes. This is my little "fall season" table decor. Bamboo placemats, an iron tri-candle holder and some orange fall leaves to set the theme.

Brian, the crazy person, pouring the "morman wine" (sparkling apple cider) for our special dinner together.

"Mommy-Daughter Day"

It is important for me to still find time to spend with Zoey, even though I never seem to have any time left. So, I try to leave the house 15 minutes early some days to take her up to our park to play.

"I'm Free, I'm Free! I can run and play"

Zoey is enthralled with the grass, she acts like she has never seen any before and I guess, she really hasn't. Here she is acting like she is swimming in it and tasting a few blades.

"Oh, what a beautiful flower. I need to get a better look.."

"Hmm, I wonder what this tastes like.."

"Yuck, that doesn't taste as good as I thought it would."

A cool toy to play with up on the slide.

Here is Zoey on the swingset. She loves it when I push her really high and here, she is laughing so hard that she started drooling!

Zoey at the bottom of the slide. "Hi Mama!"

Mommy and Baby after a fun day at the park.

Our Housing Complex & Park

Mom and Dad asked what our housing complex, park and area looked like so here are some photos and descriptive details. Since, as you will soon read, we have some not-so-great neighbors, I thought that I would add in that we do have a super fun set of neighbors right across from us and have already had them over for dinner. You win some, You lose some, right?

A side View.

This is the three story on the right side of us. First, we don't know what ethnicity they are but, when they argue, they switch from English to a foriegn tongue and can get quite loud. Brian and I are only upset because we figure if weve got to listen to it, they could, at least, make it interesting for us by making it in a language that we can understand and eavesdrop on! Second, They have ridiculously loud parties until 3 or 4 in the morning, playing some crazy Greek or Indian drum circle music, which, normally, I would think was cool but, not while we are all trying to sleep. Otherwise, the rest of our neighbors seem freindly enough or else they are just never home, like us, working all the time.

This is our street facing South West. The big mountain is part of the Western mountain range. We are nestled back iside of them. It makes it feel like we are living in Utah or some other place to wake up in the "mountains".

This is a photo of the model homes from our park. The swimming pool and other mountains are just off to the right, Lone mountain is to the left, the 215 and city strip is straight ahead to the east and behind me is the western mountain range.

This is our complex pool area. Behind it our the model homes. Recognize the third one over? Thats our model.

Zoey standing and posing in front of our pool area on the park side.

This is Zoey running down the side of the ampitheatere-like grassy feild at our park. It will be fun to have outdoor BBQs and family and friends over to play here next summer.

This is our park within the housing complex. It is only about a 3 minute walk from our house.

This is Zoey's favorite place. The park has a slide, swing set and sand pit where she likes to get mouth fulls of dirt when I am not paying attention. They even have a little baby climbing wall, which, I recently discovered, she can actually successfully climb up; little monkey.

Here are some photos of the veiws from our park. This is Lone mountain to the North of us. The empty dirt lots are where the next phase of houses are waiting to be built.

Here is the daytime veiw of the city and the strip taken from the picnic area of our mini park. The white strip between the two 50 ft. walls at the bottom of the photo is the 215 freeway; only 5 minutes from home.

This is the nighttime veiw of the entire city strip that we see when coming home into our complex.

Okay, here is me with my new glasses. (and wrinkles!)

As promised..here is the 'Desitin mess' that I spoke of in my 'I got Tagged' session. She actually did this twice in one day because Mama was such a goof, I forgot what I was doing and out of habit put it right back into the drawer when I was done cleaning it off. By the way, in case you wondered, Desitin is about the most difficult thing to clean up; especially out of hair but, not the messiest nor the most disgusting. No, No...just imagine everywhere you see white turned to a lovely shade of brown and then add in a horrific smell along with an entire crib covered in "choclate pudding paint". Now that is a sight to see! I calculated once that on average, if I forget to put little Zoey monster to sleep in jammies with snaps or zippers, the diaper 'extraveganza' happens nearly once every week and has for about the last three months. Something to look forward to for all you new moms out there!

I Got Tagged!

Okay, we just got our computer back again and it 4:01 am. I just finished all my papers that are due and so; it is, of course, time to play on blogspot.com, my new favorite pastime that is bordering on an obsession and “lo and behold”, I find out that Mom has tagged me! Not knowing what the heck that meant, I read Mom’s entries, assumed that I was supposed to just rant and rave about whatever odd thing came to mind and so, that’s just what I did. Then, I read Erica’s and realized how to play the game and so I tried my best to make everything fit into 6 things and they are definitely things I don’t think anybody would know. Enjoy! Especially since I don’t even have someone left to tag! You should only get to tag one person.

1. I work at Sam’s Club now and it kills my bad back, shoulder and feet and I suspect that I will soon have arthritis too. So, to make my job more enjoyable and keep me from going insane, I have found pleasure and bizarre enjoyment in the repetition of swiping the items past the scanner, hearing the little beeping noise and pushing the buttons as fast as I can with a little flourish of my wrist at the end. I especially enjoy using the scanning gun, laying everything across the belt on its front and then going from one side to the other, scanning everything super fast. The game is to see if I can make a constant beeping noise without a pause before I am done. If I have to pause, then it is because I didn’t catch a bar code fast enough and then, I lose points in my deranged head game. I also like flipping items from one hand to another and pretending that I am the Tetris master when I am loading the items into the carts. (We don’t have bags and almost everything is either a box or a cylinder shape; fun, fun, fun). My favorite part is trying to read people’s names on their club cards before I hand them back to them and I have been complimented many a time on my accuracy in pronouncing Spanish, Russian, Polish, Asian and Indian names, just to name a few.

2. At school, I am doing really well in my classes and I just finished a six hour marathon of typing and retyping papers or essays to go into my final portfolio for teaching (that is due in a week) since we just got our computer back after sending in for repairs for the second time this month. Tomorrow, I will be writing and typing my entire Cultural Diversity paper that is due next Tuesday in one day, like usual. My favorite quark about school and writing papers is that I can type fast and finish my paper within an hour or two but, will sit for another half hour, monkeying with fonts and type sizes, underlining, bold and adding decorative bullets.

3. I take pictures of everything and then, all of my pictures get lost in the camera or in the computer never to be heard of again. I especially like to take pictures of Zoey’s disasters, such as, her lovely poo-poo creations after she has taken off her diaper or the latest extravaganza, smearing desitin all over her body, clothing, face and hair after climbing out of the crib and onto the changing table. (Yes, pictures will be coming soon to my blog of that episode.) Zoey is turning two this month and driving me crazy with all her antics. Sometimes to get back at her, I wait until she is totally involved in her cartoon and then, I come over and drive her crazy, trying to hug her to death, tickle her, talk to her or ask silly questions or steal kisses, which makes her scream, “nnnnoo”. I also like to squirt her with my spray bottle when she won’t get out of my stuff in the bathroom and I flick water on her like Mom used to do to us from the kitchen sink.

4. I wear glasses now and I think they look great when I am going for the preppy, smart school girl look but, the rest of the time they drive me crazy and I look at them as an accessory that doesn’t match. I am turning 30 this year and I am starting to get wrinkles. My skin doesn’t seem to be elastic any more and I am starting to look ‘older’. Therefore, I am close to a nervous breakdown any day. I have almost stopped caring how I look now and get dressed in the first available outfit that matches and feels ‘comfy’. My hair is driving me crazy because it is winter time and static electricity is my enemy. So, I end up wearing it in a ponytail half the time which makes me look like a dork. Add in the glasses and the dork costume is complete!

5. When I drive in the car, I like to listen to country music. My favorites are Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Toby Keith, etc. I love to sing along and sometimes I think that I should join the choir at church because I sing pretty well. When Zoey is in the car, she goes nuts and rocks from side to side, making the entire car jiggle if we are stopped at a red light, snapping her fingers and clicking her tongue with wild eyes to the beat of the music.

6. My favorite snack that I am stuck on right now are peanut and almond bars that are stuck together with some kind of delicious crunchy honey ‘goop’substance with plenty of additives and probably, yellow #1 to boot. Since I have started working and going to school full time, I have started understanding the value of microwave/ instant foods, family size pre-made oven dinners and I have even finally invested in a deluxe bag of chicken nuggets for Zoey. I even use the dish washer now that I am not home all day to wash each fork by hand and I snicker about the idea that I once had that kind of time.

OUR NEW HOUSE

Our New Home!

Here is a great shot of how the kitchen is connected to the living room by the bar counter top. That way, I can still talk and spend time with Brian and Zoey while they are playing in the living room or watching TV if I am in the kitchen cooking or washing dishes. Nice feature.

Looking out from the kitchen you can see our dining room and the door to the back patio.

A side veiw of the kitchen

Here is our Kichen. We picked out black appliances, dark wood cabinets and grey and black speckled laminate for the counter tops. The laminate resembles Granite but, is actually affordable. We think the color combination turned out really nice.

The veiw down the entry hall from the living room couch. Zoey uses this area as her runway for singing and dancing when we put on CMT country music videos. We have since packed away the playpen because she started crawling in and out of it, using at as a jungle gym.

The other half of the living room-the couch is kitty corner to TV in this veiw. The Kitchen and dining room are off to the right.

Our dining room-the table is from the Bowmans' back in Seaside and the table decor is what Brian and I picked out with some of our wedding money. Fancy and beautiful. We light the candles every night at dinner time.

The special fan in our living room that I got to pick out-it is like a faux tourtise shell.

My favorite two photos of Zoey

Our downstairs living room-we got the couch from his parents and the coffe table as a wedding gift from his grandmother.

Our entry hallway-I have always thought that a house rich in family photos makes a home rich in love.

Our office-'Brian's side'

Our office-'Jenn's side'

Zoey's bedroom in shades of lavender and Cream.

Our bathroom with double sinks-finally!

Our bed and beautiful bedspread wedding set from the Bowmans'. Notice little Zoey in the corner trying to sneak into my pictures?

Walking into our bedroom with the new furniture set that the Hotchners' bought for us.

The entertainment center in the loft that houses Zoey's TV set and the doorway to the master bedroom.

The couch in the loft that Zoey has laid claim to for cartoon time.

We have see through glass panes along the stairs that look great with five hundred little Zoey hand prints, as she uses them to feel her way down the stairs.

Walking in through the front door you see the living room and the loft is right up the stairs

The Backyard