the happiest place on earth

so, we're back from our exciting trip to disneyland! we arrived home last night and i haven't even started on laundry or unpacking yet, but the most important thing is that tristan is currently catching up on sleep due to lack of naps for 2 days straight!!! yes, and i, the nap nazi am still a (mostly) sane mom, thank you very much. i was completely determined to go with the flow and i think, for the most part i did alright. tristan was a trooper, his worst crimes being hitting johnny in the face when he wasn't looking and waking up at 4:45am.



sis came armed with buzz and woody tattoos for the boys, which tristan grew more fond of as the days went by. we had to dress him in a short sleeved shirt so that he could gaze upon woody anytime he felt like it. when buzz was added to his other arm yesterday, he held that arm out so stiffly that it looked like he had broken it or something! by the late afternoon, when overtired became an understatement, he began running around with his arm straight out in front of him, reciting a bit of gibberish that was his version of "buzz lightyear to the rescue!" its a wonder that my camera contains any pictures without him at all. but i managed to find a few to add a bit of color to this post.



the weather was perfect, even reaching 80 degrees yesterday. i love how, even though southern california doesn't really get much in the way of fully experiencing all of the seasons, its version of springtime sends the trees blooming right around my birthday. i adore spring. all of the major rides that everyone wanted to go on were open, but sadly the lineup for the toy story ride in california adventure was way too long for tristan to wait through, so we didn't get to go on that one. we did go on the buzz lightyear ride at disneyland, which he took in with glazed over wide eyes. his favorite rides were dumbo, the carousel, the bumper cars and the ladybugs (sort of like the teacup ride). being pregnant, i wasn't able to go on any of the exciting rides either, but i did enjoy pirates of the caribbean as well as soaring over california.



rob and sis treated us all to a very enjoyable lunch at the blue bayou, which is the restaurant where the pirates of the caribbean ride begins. the next day, josh's folks treated us all to lunch at a yummy burger joint, and between those meals and the gazillions of snacks we all packed, we were good to go for food and hardly spent any money at all! we brought brownies with us and josh remembered candles and matches, so they all sang happy birthday to me while tristan blew out my candle.



by the end of the day, i was completely exhausted, what with walking all day plus growing a baby at the same time. we left anaheim at 4:30 and got stuck in awful traffic, i believe it took us 30 minutes to drive 2 miles at one point, but the drive home was still under 3 hours long, which really wasn't that bad. now we're home and i have an ultrasound this wednesday to look forward to! my next post will hopefully be something in pink or blue...

its a.....

lemon-yellow flavor! or perhaps minty green. we got a call this morning to say that our appointment was cancelled due to the technician being sick. we can't get another appointment for at least 2 weeks. very disappointed...

tomorrow afternoon

we will be finding out the flavor!! stay tuned....

sneaky thief

we seem to have a butter thief on our hands. i analyzed the fingerprints in true csi fashion and came to the conclusion that, as tiny as they are, only one person in our household could have committed this crime. what is up with kids and butter? he must have got it from me, since i can remember being young and dipping my finger into the butter dish for a taste every now and then. yuck!

tristan's vocabulary is finally starting to take off. i feel like i've written that before, but now he is learning new words every day and actually using them. he's been repeating what we say a lot, which is really helping him as well. he still talks in his own language for the most part, but will throw in a real word at the end so that we know what he is referring to. its quite cute.

baby bump is growing rapidly. i will be 20 weeks pregnant on monday, so i'll do my best to get another picture taken to post. a week from today we get our ultrasound and will hopefully find out the baby's gender. i feel like its taking FOREVER for some reason! i think that everyone (with the exception of my father in law) has been telling me that they think it will be a girl. though, in many of my dreams it is a girl, i'm choosing to stay completely unbiased either way this time. as thrilling as it would be to get to do the "girl" thing, i really think that tristan would have such a blast with a little brother. plus we'd save a ton of money by having everything we already need for a little boy!

i've been blessed with lots of cute hand-me-down maternity clothes. so many, in fact, that i am able to bless a few other pregnant mommies with what i cannot use. (my newly pregnant sister in law included...yipee!!) i can feel the baby move a lot more now, and its changed from flutters to actual bumps every now and then that i can feel even if i'm not concentrating on it. i love this stage in my pregnancy so much! i'm not a bloated whale yet, and i'm past feeling ill all the time. my energy level is definitely a lot lower than it was pre-pregnancy and i'm finding that i have a harder time waking up in the morning than i used to. but other than that, i truly feel great.

the week following my ultrasound i will be celebrating my 29th birthday. what better way to celebrate than by going to disneyland the next day??!! yes, we are taking tristan to disneyland for his first time ever, along with josh's parents, plus sis and rob and their kids. i am getting REALLY excited. i never thought we'd go when tristan was this young, but since we don't have any vacations planned for this year, and with the baby coming in 5 months time, we thought now would be a great time to go. we found a great deal on tickets and are paying next to nothing for a motel for one night, so we'll get to enjoy disneyland on one day and california adventure the next day. tristan is STILL obsessed with toy story, which he watches every single morning (usually around 5:30am while i'm trying to catch a few more zzz's on the couch in between tristan's exclamations of "WOOO-EEE!" and "BUZZZZZ!") so when i went online to see which rides tristan could actually go on, i was thrilled to see that disneyland has a buzz lightyear ride and california adventure has a toy story ride. he will be in awe, and i can't wait just to see his reaction to everything!

josh and i have begun the very long process of clearing out our "guest room" which will be home to only 2 more sets of guests before it becomes the baby's room. my friend christy is coming to visit next month and then my parents are taking their annual spring break drive down in march. we are finding all sorts of things to get rid of in the closet and, since josh's work has been slow lately (well, slow is sort of an understatement) i've taken it upon myself to try to gain a bit of fast cash by selling a few things on craigslist. its really easy and sort of addicting. i have some free zoo and wild animal park tickets that expire the end of this month that i'm trying to get $10 each for. i've had a TON of responses to those, but when people find out that they have to drive "all the way" to our podunk little town to get them, they change their mind. sort of frustrating. but i'm still holding out hope. we are also planning on doing our first ever garage sale here the first week of february. should be interesting.

we have so much to be thankful for, its mind boggling, yet when financial stresses arise it is so easy to lose sight of all that we do have. going through tough times like this remind me to hold onto the temporary things loosely and to hold tightly to the eternal. with the handful things in my life that are eternal, it shouldn't be hard to hang on tight during this ride of faith. thankfully, the same One who created the universe and calmed the seas is the driver of this ride and i have willingly placed my life into His hands. there is such a peace and a comfort in knowing that.

Tristan's Taxi Service

a couple of days ago tristan and i were getting ready to go out to the grocery store to buy some milk before josh got home from work. as we were getting into the car, a friend called me on my cell phone. in case you didn't know, it is now illegal in the state of california to drive while talking on a cell phone (unless you have a bluetooth, which i don't have) so i allowed tristan to play around in the car while i chatted with my friend to set up a playdate with our kids. tristan climbed into his favourite place, the driver's seat, and played with the radio dial and turned the wheel and made car noises. he reached for the keys i was holding and i gave them to him because he loves to pretend to put them into the ignition.

as i was saying goodbye to my friend, tristan looked out the back window of the car and yelled "tyyyyyleeeeeerrr!" sure enough, his buddy tyler (only a couple of months younger than he) was coming out of his house across the street along with his parents, keith and kendra. tyler spotted tristan in the car and came running over yelling "triiiissstaaaannn!" it was very cute, and as i chatted with keith and kendra, tyler made a beeline for the passenger seat, climbed in and closed the door behind him. we joked about how they were going to take off for a spin and then i felt slightly lightheaded when i realized that tristan was inside the car holding my keys. a quick peek inside confirmed my fear: tristan had pushed down on the lock button (he likes to help us lock the car sometimes) and there was no way in. at first, we were all quite calm and i was thinking that waiting 30 minutes until josh came home wouldn't be the end of the world. but then kendra started panicking when she realized that tyler was crying hard with his hand near the door. his little thumb got pinched in the door as he closed it and he couldn't get it out!

i don't do well in situations like this. that is one of the reasons why God picked josh to be my husband...he does a great job of calming me down when i start stressing. so of course the first thing i did was call josh up to see when he'd be home. he was still half an hour away and as i was trying to explain to him what was going on (i'm sure my words were all jumbled and made no sense) i was also searching every closet in the house looking for a wire coat hanger. all we had were plastic and wooden ones, but i brought one down anyhow just in case it would come in handy (it didn't). i ran back outside to find kendra doing her best to talk to tristan through the window, asking him to push the lock button up. he was staring blankly at her in between giving tyler (who was full on wailing at this point) looks as if to ask "what the heck is your problem, dude?" i tried to get tristan to push the button up and he smiled at me and happily pushed it down over and over again. it seems we never taught him how to unlock the door and he didn't have a clue that the button went up as well as down. keith, meanwhile had found a wire coathanger and was desperately trying to get it into the sealed windows to free his son. it was no use. the doors were firmly locked, tyler's finger was firmly stuck in the door and tristan kept firmly pressing down on the lock button instead of up.

about 5 minutes had passed at this point and i was near tears. if it had been tristan with his finger stuck in the door, i think i would have lost it by this point, but kendra was holding up pretty well. we discussed our options. calling AAA would work, but it would take time for them to arrive and keith was pretty worried about tyler's thumb losing circulation. calling 911 would also take time and chances were they would just smash one of the windows. we had no options left, so i gave keith the go-ahead. one powerful blow with his elbow smashed the backseat window completely. the door was unlocked, tyler's thumb was let loose and the tears stopped flowing.

the next hour or so was spent vacuuming up tiny bits of glass from every nook and cranny of my car while kendra was in touch with a window repair place. she had held up pretty well while the drama took place, but as soon as she got on the phone with the window place, she lost it and started crying and told the lady the story, so we got a great deal on a new window, which we each paid half for. tyler's thumb is just fine and now my car is all clean inside. on my immediate to do list are 2 things:

1.get 2 more copies of my car key made and

2.teach tristan how to push the lock button up.

Christmas Part II -The Rest of the Story

well, there isn't much more to tell about our christmas trip except that it was fantastic! we got 2 feet of snow within 3 days and were pretty much snowed in on christmas day (not that we had anywhere to go).


every single member of the family slept under the same roof on christmas eve, which meant there wasn't a room in the house that wasn't occupied. my mom made a fabulous spread for christmas eve, as well as a turkey dinner with all the trimmings on christmas day. we played games, watched movies, went tobogganing, celebrated tristan's birthday on boxing day (we went to white spot for dinner where he got his first ever pirate ship meal!) and just enjoyed being together.


having had such a close call with not being able to make it there made me realize just how much the small stuff doesn't matter. so what if tristan didn't really get used to sleeping in a new place till the end of our trip, waking up around 5 times nearly every night...so what if josh and tristan both came down with colds...so what if tristan's 5:30am mornings threatened to wake up the rest of the household, leaving us prisoners to the basement for hours...none of this seemed really significant to me because we had made it!! all that really mattered to me was that my family was all together for the first christmas in 5 years. and the memories i have treasured away in my mind are all happy ones.

my "little" brother james on christmas morning

my "big" brother andy with his wife cara and their precious daughter sarah

my happy parents

andy, cara and sarah tobogganing!

my dad went out on christmas day to measure the snow. it was just under 2 feet at this point and it snowed all day the next day as well.

my dear husband was eager to try his hand at shovelling snow. he did a great job, despite being a first timer :)

my beautiful sister and her boyfriend ben

the two cousins, taking in the magic of snow falling at christmas time

Christmas Part I

so, the start of our journey up north was a little bit.....hectic, stressful, frazzled, anxious, tearful and a word i used while in the airplane: devastating. (josh corrected me at that very moment, telling me that it wasn't devastating; we were only having an adventure, though i was in no mood to experience an adventure at that moment) i had been checking weather online for the week prior to our departure and, though i was ecstatic that it looked like we'd have a white christmas, i was slightly alarmed at the amount of snow that was forecast for the day we were to arrive in bellingham, washington. despite the slight bit of worry in the back of my mind, and despite the fact that our pilot announced prior to departure that if we were unable to land in bellingham, we would land in eugene, oregon, i really truly believed that we would land in bellingham at 9:30pm and that my brother would be there to pick us up as planned and that all would be well.



the first minor disruption occurred about an hour into the flight when tristan, who was normally snuggling into bed at that time, had finished his lolly pop and began whining. out came our brand-new-to-us Knight in Shining Armour, otherwise known as The Portable DVD Player. before we had even turned it on, we made the mistake of telling tristan that he was going to watch elmo and so half of the plane heard little chants of "mo! mo! mo!" as josh was trying to figure out why the thing would not turn on. after a quick peek in the owner's manual we discovered, much to our (and tristan's) dismay that it did not come with a battery pack, so it was only able to operate while plugged into an outlet. oh dear. it was right around this time that the beverage cart came around and i asked for a cup of water. "that'll be $2" i was told rather apologetically. apparently, in order to keep the prices of flights low, this particular airline does not serve complimentary beverages. i decided i could handle another 2 hours of dry mouth, cheapskate that i am.



just then the voice of the pilot was heard crackling throughout the cabin. i went numb as he announced that due to worsening weather conditions at the bellingham airport, he was turning the plane around. we would land back in san diego in about an hour and a half and we would be informed when we could expect the next departure to take place. tristan chose this time to begin to whine and cry a little and i felt like doing exactly the same thing. instead i allowed one tear to escape and tried really hard not to let my mind go in the many directions it was already headed. we landed back in san diego at 9:30pm, the same time we were scheduled to land in bellingham. i called my mom right away, but she had already heard the news from my brother who had been at the airport early waiting for us. we found out that the next flight would depart at 8am the next morning and we'd be required to check-in at 6am.



by the time we had gotten off the plane, called josh's dad to come pick us up, and gathered up our luggage, we still had a bit of time on our hands before he got there. we had briefly discussed spending the night at the airport, since its an hour long drive from our home to the airport, but we both agreed that tristan probably wouldn't get much sleep that way. he was so wired at that point, it was around 10:30pm and he was entertaining many waiting passengers by twirling around in circles and giggling. he passed out in the car at around 11:00, josh and i fell into bed by midnight and were awakened at 1:30am to screams coming from tristan's room. he was having a full blown night terror (due to being overtired, i'm sure) which lasted until we turned toy story on for him. somehow, that calmed him right down, and we were able to return him to bed sound asleep, only to be rudely awakened by our alarm clock at 4am. i don't like to remember of the way i was feeling right about then. all i can say is i was praying pretty constantly, not only that we'd make it there, but also that tristan would do okay and that i wouldn't get a hernia with all of the churning my stomach was doing.



it was awful to have to wake tristan up at 4:30am, knowing he had only slept for 5 hours. thankfully, he fell back asleep in the car, but once we got to the airport, he was wide awake. our scheduled departure of 8am got pushed back to 9am and we were told that, since the bellingham runway was not clear of snow and ice, they were looking into landing at moses lake (about 8 hours drive for my parents as opposed to the 1 hour drive to bellingham). once again i called my mom. i had come to the conclusion that there was a strong possibility that we wouldn't make it at all. i was already thinking of what christmas day would be like in our little house without a christmas tree (i had taken it down the day before we left) and the thought just made me cry. my mom was trying to stay positive, but i could tell that she was losing hope as well. then, miracle of miracles, the announcement was made: "we will now begin boarding flight so and so departing for bellingham, washington." shouts of joy were heard all over the waiting area and i choked back tears as i told my mom "we're coming! we're getting on the plane right now!" never before have i ever seen a plane board so quickly. tristan lay his head down on my lap and his legs on josh's and slept for 2 hours straight. there was excitement as the plane dipped lower and we could see the winter wonderland that had transformed the land below us. as soon as the wheels touched the newly plowed runway, the entire plane erupted in applause and cheers.

stepping off of the plane onto the snowy tarmac, i barely felt the icy wind whipping at my face. we had made it! we were going to have a white christmas and i was going to be with the people who love me the most in the world. my mom was waiting right at the gate with smiles and hugs and after we had wrestled all of our luggage through the snow and into her car, josh had to push the car out of the snowbank she had parked in and we were off! with warm toasted panini sandwiches and juice and lots and lots to tell. josh said then that his prayers had always been, "Lord, get us there safely." obviously, we wouldn't have arrived safely if we had landed the night before, so God really answered all of our prayers.

and because i think that this post is long enough and because i'm sure that you're tired of reading and because i'm tired of typing, i'll end here and just say, more to tell in the next post....

wanted to post another quick picture...

just to make sure you're still checking up on me.....i have nearly all the pictures sorted and now just need a spare moment (or hour) while tristan is sleeping to do a lovely christmas post. josh took this picture, which i find hilarious. at least they're all smiling, eh? i'll be back SOON!