Our Anniversary with the girls

We made a long weekend out of our Anniversary! It landed on a Thursday so Brett took Thursday & Friday off and we got a hotel from Thursday - Sunday. We had the girls until Friday night so they got to enjoy the hotel with us.

First thing we did was reserve a table at the Blue Bayou in Disneyland. I have never eaten there before and thought it would be something fun and different to do for our actual Anniversary since we would have the girls. It was sooooo hot that day at Disneyland so that is why both Brett and look so red.

I am so glad I remembered to bring Penelope's hat since her poor bald head would have fried. The dumbo line was one that was really hot since most of the line is in the sun.



Luckily the next line was Peter Pan and some of it is covered and you get some air conditioning.





Our hotel was close to Disneyland and cheap but it had a huge jacuzzi pool which Gwen (and of course Brett & I) loved!!! Penelope just loved to sit on the big bed and play games on Brett's iphone.



She is already addicted!



Sorry for the overload of pictures but sometime the girls are just to cute not to take tons.



We took the girls to this really cool park by Disneyland, but it ended up being mainly for older kids. Gwen still had a good time.



I did get this hilarious outtake of Penelope. It is way better then the real picture.

Stir Crazy

So we were going alittle stir crazy since we all had colds and had been in the house. I was still feeling so so but the girls were better and HAD TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE for all of our sanity. It was 98 degrees outside on Friday and that seems like the day when you want to stay in the house but we needed a new scene. I decided to take the girls after naps to the Spectrum to run around in the fountains.

There was a fair amount of people but since we got there around 2:30 alot left once we got there. There is some umbrellas so we had some shade and a breeze.



Penelope was content to stay in the stroller so I didn't take her out and get her in her suit to go in the water.



I gave her her first fry, she seemed to like it.



Just give this girl a straw and she is content for a long time.



We had a great time and a much needed break.



After we met Brett at our favorite Thai food restaurant and then went and had ice cream at Thrifty's ice cream which is the best!

Lots of Firsts

We have had alot of firsts lately and I need to keep up with them. (all pictures taken with my iphone)

We went to the Spectrum and rode the train for the first time.



Gwen drew her first picture! Isn't her banana so cute?



Penelope went to her first movie, Toy Story 3. We went with Brett's parents and Kami on a Friday night. Both the girls were great, we all loved the movie it was so funny and clever.



Penelope also had her first tooth break through during the movie, which surprised me since Gwenie didn't get her first tooth until she was 1 year old.



ok. That was all of our firsts so far. Here are just some other stuff that we have been doing. Just hanging out in the backyard watching Gwenie swim.



Gwen has been going through a Sesame Street phase and the other day she was eating soup and said, "Cookie Monster eats like this!" Then proceeded to show me. I then went to get the video since I thought it was hilarious.



Now I am all caught up and ready to leave tomorrow for my parents! I am so excited to hang out with them. Then we are off to go and stay with Erin! Between my Mom and Erin expect alot of sewing to be going on!!!!!

Poor little 6 month old + older sister

This sweet adorable happy girl is 6 months old today. It continues to amaze us that she is so happy all the time since she has had TERRIBLE eczema since she was 3 weeks old. It got to be so bad that we took her to the allergist and after doing a skin test and blood work we finally found out all the she is allergic to. Needless to say yesterday at the doctors was a REALLY BAD DAY.

Penelope is terribly allergic to Nuts (she is a #4 out of 6) so the doctor told us it is worse than that since she has never been exposed to nuts (it is a huge blessing that I did not breast feed her it would have been disastrous) so for her to be that high of a number if she ever ate nuts she would be higher. It really affects her skin like no other, we had to get rid of all the nut products in the house and we all can not eat them. If it is in the air or on our skin and then touch or kiss her she reacts immediately. Poor thing.

If anyone knows me at all you know that I have major issues with needles, surgery, blood, etc. Well now I am the proud owner of an EpiPen. I cannot believe that I have to carry one around with me and will have to use it if needs be on Penelope. Me of all people!!!!!

Here are some pictures to show how bad and I am only sharing them so that we can remember and look back, so sorry for the one of the butt. I took all of these on my iphone so trust me when I say it is much worse in person. For some reason the worst of it always is on her back, butt and hips.

All over her face and neck seriously soooooo sad.



Here she is getting the skin test done.



She has had tons of prescriptions with steroids to help and nothing really seems to get rid of it so hopefully now that we know what to be aware of then hopefully her skin will get to look like a normal person.

Also with the blood test they test a persons overall allergy levels and a normal persons is a 3 or 4 but Penelope's is a 35. Crazy high. So the Dr. said that it means that Penelope is allergic to alot of other things and her body knows she is allergic to them and reacts to them but it is not in her blood yet so we are going to be doing more blood work every 2-3 months to find out all of the things that she is allergic to. He said since her allergen level is so high that she will be allergic to seafood since that is high on a allergy level and to get all of the seafood out of the house and not to eat it. He will not be surprised if she is allergic to milk, wheat, eggs, soy since she was unable to have a formula with any of those products in them and he has prescribed a formula that is totally allergen free, Procate.

On top of that both Gweniveve and Penelope are allergic to Dust Mites and so we had to buy allergen free bedding, mattress covers and pillows. We also did get a air purifier to help. He highly recommends that we have ALL hardwood floors and we will do that.

This is Gwen when she has a bad allergy attack. All those red spots are her eczema and she gets a runny stuffed up nose like crazy.



Her skin test where she came up positive for Dust Mites, just like her father.



Gwen had testing since they were concerned with all of her allergy attacks and how she sounds stuffed up all the time. I shared with the Dr. that she snores like a big grown man also, so the Dr. had her get an X-Ray of her Adenoids and Tonsils. Yesterday he shared with us that Gwen's Adenoids where HUGE and that accompanied with her tonsils being large she has air flow the size of a tip of a pencil. He was terribly surprised that she has not had asthma or breathing problems her whole life. He said that she needed to get them removed ASAP. So we now have an appointment to see the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to get her into surgery.

It was a long day in the Dr.'s office. Hours of him telling me everything. Gwen took some pictures on my iphone and this one I liked since it is of Dr. Chao Lin. We love him, he talks to you and answers all of your questions and explains everything in detail.

Catch Up

I have been sooooo exhausted and nauseous ( which ended up being a disaster last week passing the pet food isle in Target.......)that I have been totally out of it but decided to finally have a post to show that I have still been having fun with Gwenie.

I know I have mentioned before that Gwenie loves to pretend to sleep, well this is her new pretend bed complete with pretend snoring. Notice she found 3 of her blankets and all of her Sesame Street friends all with her. Wouldn't you think that the tile would be so uncomfortable???

These pics are from my iphone since I have not felt good enough most of the time to get up and work with the nice camera. Eventually I will, hopefully.

Leaving Target....this was not the "alleged" Target incident.



One day I we played outside for almost 2 hours since I needed to wear Gwenie out to take a good nap. She has not been napping well since I have been sick because we have not done anything, therefor she is not worn out or tired by nap time.

It was hot so we got the hose out.



Then we pretended to sleep on the grass. It was so fun.



We went to the pool, we had planned to with the whole playgroup, but it only was Gwenie and I. It was still fun even though we were all alone.



Sidewalk chalk is her new favorite, but not mine since it gets her clothes soooooo messy.



Brett has been working alot this past week and we didn't see him a whole lot since he was in court almost everyday and driving back in traffic at crappy hours so we ate out alot since nothing ever sounded good and I had to find what smells don't bother me, this night we ended up at In-N-Out. Gwenie ate her first grilled cheese and loved her fries. Really fries are her favorite food.



Hopefully I won't take as big of a break from blogging but who knows.....

Laziness with Elmo

We went to Dland with Kailey and her parents on Saturday since they FINALLY went. They had fun holding hands and following each other in lines. I was proud when Kailey had not even been on Materhorn and Gwenie had.

Then Gwenie decided to go and get a bad cold, so we have been super lazy around here. Her cough is really bad and it made me bite the bullet and finally give her cold medicine. I have been scared of it since there has been such controversy over it. I decided on Muccinex cough since it says on the package 2 years old or older, it has worked great!



We did venture out of the house to get medicine and Gweniveve had all of her Elmo's (all 4 of them) in the shopping cart with her sitting next to her and everyone was laughing as we passed them by. Then to the library, Gweniveve, of course, had to take ALL of her Elmo's again. So I decided to document it with a pic from my iphone.



I have been getting in alot of sewing since she has been sick. I can't wait until Gwenieve's B-Day to show you the cute Princess/Elmo hat I made her! Because of course we have to have a Elmo birthday. I am also going to attempt to make her a Elmo cake, here is praying for success!!!!!

What We Do At Night.

Erin posted this back in November when we were doing the NaBloPoMo. I thought it was a great idea so I am finally doing it.

This is just a typical night here:

Brett and Gweniveve wrestle and play around

Then they "pretend" to sleep, they even "pretend" to snore.



Then Gwenie helps me make chocolate chip cookies so that we can eat dough and hot right out of the oven cookies. Oh and her little friend Elmo goes everywhere she goes. She has 4 stuffed Elmo's ( thanks to grandma) and they usually all go where she goes, she can't get enough of Elmo.



Then we brush our teeth (one of her favorite things to do) and have family hugs and kisses. Then it is bedtime. Elmo is even sleeping with her now, she is that obsessed!

What do you do when you need a break????

Go to Disneyland!!!!!

Saturday after Gwenie woke up from her nap we went to Disneyland. We have been DYING to take Gwenie on the Materhorn, so I put her in shoes that have a big sole and prayed that she would be tall enough.

I didn't even need the high shoes she was plenty tall enough. (whoo hoo for my iphone, it is great not to have to lug around a big camera at Disneyland)



This is how she prepared herself for the ride. This is her favorite thing to do now, she is always pretending to be asleep everywhere she goes.



This is how she looked for the whole ride. I can't decide if she is liking it or not?



She was smiling when the ride was over! YAY. It was so fun to take her on her first actual roller coaster ride.



Then we took her on her favorite ride, the carousel. She just loves this one.



Then we decided to go again today since a bunch of my friends went. Here are the kids right outside of Monster's Inc.





The last ride we went on was Toy Story. Thanks Abby for going again with us. Gwenie kept her glasses on the whole time, she kept saying Whee and loved being on this ride. She loves Toy Story.

30 years.

I knew turning 30 was a really big milestone and wanted to commemorate it to it's full potential. With a husband that hates surprises and party's I decided to find something great for us to do. It did require lots of praying as it was supposed to rain on his Birthday and my surprise would not work if it did.

Luckily we were granted a 2 hour window of no rain! The sky was gorgeous and we were able to go. I surprised Brett and it worked! He really enjoyed the Gondola, we both love being on the water. Whoo Hoo, Yay me! I was nervous to surprise him, but I decided that I had never surprised him in the 8.5 years we have known each other and it was time that I tried it out.

Success! Here is the photo that the Gondola place took of us. They take a polaroid picture of you and so I scanned it in and this is what I got. It really is a good picture of us, but not so much after it got scanned in. Look at how identical we look. We are both tilted the same way and are holding our cups the same way. LOL. We are Soooooooo married.

They provide you with Sparkling Cider (one of my favorites) and bread, cheese and some salami. It was a little snack but really nice.

Then for an hour we sailed around Newport Harbor. It was so peaceful and quiet since no one else was on the water with us, probably to afraid of the rain, but it stayed nice for us the whole time. We even had 2 seals come up to the Gondola!

Here are some pictures that I took with my iphone.





So sexy! I love this photo of him. He never lets me take pics of him all alone so I was excited to get one. I do love this man!



Not the best pic of me but I am ok with that, Brett looks really good, and it is HIS birthday.



If you want a romantic time here is the site for the Gondola's.

Gondola Company of Newport

We both highly recommend it.

I thought we had candles, but it turns out that Brett used them up for my birthday cake. So......I only had 3 candles left. 3 candles for being 30 years old.