Happy Veterans Day.

The Final Inspection

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.
‘Step forward now, Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?
The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
“ No Lord, I guess I ain’t.
Because those of us who carry guns
Can’t always be a saint. “
I’ve had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But I never took a penny,
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.
And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear..
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.
I know I don’t deserve a place,
Among the people here,
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.
If you’ve a place for me here, Lord,
It needn’t be grand.
I never expected too much ,
But if you don’t I understand.
There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the Soldier waited quietly,\
For the judgment of his God.
“ Step forward now, you Soldier,
You’ve borne your burdens well,
Walk peacefully on Heave’s streets,
You’ve done your time in Hell.”
Author Unknown


Happy Veterans Day Dad. Thank you for your service.  Now you lay in peace amongst your fellow service members.   I will always miss you.
Love Your Sasa.

Happy Birthday Lily Bean!!!

At exactly 3:14 pm on this day, Lily was born. I can't believe my baby is 1 already. This year went by quick. I've had to stop myself from crying a few times today. I love and hate my babies getting older. I love that our life gets a little bit easier and hate when they are no longer"babies". But we have had a nice day so far. We had some lunch with friends and later we will have a little cake smash, and then open presents.

Happy birthday Lily. You have brought us nothing but smiles, joy ,laughter and love to the family.

Just call me spider woman.

For my Birthday I told Ben I wanted to go Rock Wall Climbing.  I wanted to do something fun and active. Something out of the ordinary. So this past weekend I finally got to cash in on my birthday present. I had a great time.  I climbed 3 different walls and was thoroughly tired by the end of it all. It was fun, exciting, and scary all at the same time. I think I'm hooked. I hope to take a belay class next month with a friend so we can go climbing once a month. While we were at the gym I saw grade school kids climbing too and I got really excited thinking that this could be family activity for us. I hope we can get Ella excited to climb too. Afterwards we had a great lunch at a near by lobster pound with some Allagash beer. Not bad for a second birthday if you ask me!   

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Lily update.

My little Lily Bean will be 1 year old soon! The time just flies by with the second kid.  Let's see... where to begin?  For starters she is very adventurous. She loves to explore every corner of this house, and I hate it.  I can't get anything done quickly when she is awake because she is always getting into trouble. Ella was not like this.  Although Ella never let me leave her side because she would cry until I would come and sit beside her.  Lily will entertain herself but not with the toys that she has been given. Her favorite activity is throwing laundry, clean or dirty, out of the basket, and chewing on every piece of furniture we own. By the way... She has 6 teeth and getting two more that I can see.   She is still a very happy baby.  She loves playing peek-a-boo, she likes to be chased, and then squeals when her sister squeals and laughs.  There is never a quiet moment in this house anymore.   Lily has found her voice and likes to use it.  And flat out refuses to use sign language.  I have been doing sign language with Lily since she was 5 months and she does not seem interested in communicating with her hands. She shakes her had "no" pushes my hand away or grabs at what she wants or grunts/screams when she is not getting her way. 

In addition to being adventurous she is standing by herself and sometime with out pulling up on any furniture.  She is also walking some with her pusher toy but prefers to crawl.  She crawls like a speed demon. With this increased activity she feel and hit her nose on the TV console last week and got a good bloody nose from it. Scared the crap out of me to say the least but the MD said she was fine.

She is still a Mamas girl.  Which I love.  It's so easy for me to get a smile or a laugh out of her. She still does not like to be held by strangers or even familiar people like friends.  I hope some of this will change once we get the chance to have a date night though. 

Soon I will take her into her one year check up and get all her stats but she is still a small baby.  As I was waiting to pick Ella up from school today I was talking to some other mothers who also had babies. The babies all looked the same size as Lily but you could tell they were not developmentally as far along as Lily. Come to find out they were only 3-4 months old. It will be interesting to see what percentage she is at her next visit.  Lets hope she moved up from the 5th%!  Next update on Lily will be the big 1 YEAR!!!!

First day of School!!!

Tuesday was really Ella's first day of school but parents had the option to stay through out class to get familiar with how the class runs so it didn't feel like the first day since I was in class with her. Ella did great.  She had fun, and was good girl and listened to her teachers.  She hardly noticed me standing in the back of the class. Afterwards I told her that the next day of school (Thursday)I would not be in class with her, and I would drop her off and pick her up when school was done.  She seemed concern about this for a little bit but whatever concern she had about being left at school was gone this morning. She was super excited to carry her own lunch box and we were ready to leave the house EARLY!! Amazing. Once we got to school she walked right in to the class and got down to business.   She started working on some crafts, looked up and said "Bye mommy, bye Lily!" I gave her a kiss and that was it. No tears.  At least not from her.  Thank goodness she didn't put up a fight. I don't think I could have handled it.  I have been sick to my stomach all week at the thought of leaving her at school, and finally the day has arrived.  But Lily and I had fun.  I made myself stay out of the house and do something I knew I would enjoy to take my mind off of Ella being at school.  I did a little shopping at Old Navy, and did some grocery shopping and by the end it was time to pick Ella up.  It was pleasant having only one kid for a few hours.  Very peaceful actually. And then when I picked Ella up we had some nice conversations about everything she did in school today.  So here we are. The parents of a soon to be 4 year old who is now in school!   

Even though I am sad that she is getting to be a big girl, I am excited for her to have these new experiences and make friends. I hope it will bring us closer and make me Cherish the days of the week that I have her to myself still.  Depending on where we move next she may start kindergarten and be in school 5 days a week next school year.  So I have to make sure I soak up every last bit of this at home time with my muffin because it's fading fast. 

Happy mothers day

I had a wonderful Mothers Day. I spent it with my favorite people in the whole world while eating a wonderful brunch on a warm sunny day. What could be better...maybe Ella showing off her new trick! See pic of Ella and the spoon;-) shes so silly!

Mothers day

Lily at 8 months

Yesterday Lily turned 8 months old and I think she just had a major growth spurt. On Tuesday she said her first word ...Mama! I'm really excited about that since Ella's first word was Dada. And earlier last week she started getting on to all fours rocking back and forth. It won't be too long now before she is crawling. Although most days she seems content to continually roll until she reaches her destination or spins on her belly.

In addition to speaking her first word she has found that she can elevate her voice. I think she realizes she has an older sister to contend with and likes to make everyone aware that she too has something to say. Most of the time Lily is very quiet, and content but when she dislikes something she has no problem letting you know. Her attitude can change like a light switch. I think she is going to have a very strong but pleasant personality when she grows up. But please don't let that happen too quick! I'm already amazed at how quickly time has gone by. Before we know it we will be celebrating Ella's 4th birthday and Lilys 1st. Oh how I wish I could freeze time....

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

Coming from the South I find it strange that I feel the need to go to the beach to escape the heat here in Dublin , CA. In FL if it was hot, it was hot everywhere. You can't really escape it.  You just stayed inside and took a nap.  But here I know that the beach will be cooler or more "Comfortable" then it would be in Dublin so last Saturday we toke the opportunity up to explore the tide pools at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve near Half Moon Bay. It was a nice day.  Still foggy and a little chilly at the beach but we planned accordingly and in addition packed a lunch.  We tried to get Ella interested in all the little sea creatures amongst the rocks but she was not entertained in seeing anything that crawled or that was slimy.  We did spot some Sea lions though and she got a kick out of those.  Afterwards we hung out at a popular surf spot and ran along the beach and people watch.  I think the salty air did us all some good. Everyone had a good nap and was in a pleasant mood the rest of the evening.  Just makes me realize how much I miss living close to the beach.  Good thing our Maine trip is coming up soon.  I cant wait to wear the girls out and stuff myself with some good seafood. 

Round Valley hike.

We had the most wonderfully exhausting day last Saturday. First we went for a hike at Round valley wilderness preserve. It was so beautiful there. We got to see some wildlife during our 3 hour hike. We ran across a Gopher snake, a skink, a turtle and plenty of cows, which kept us company during our picnic. Lily and Ella were real troopers. Of course I was wearing Lily in the ergo during the whole hike so she was happy just to be close to me.

After our hike we came home and got washed up and headed out to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Blue Agave. After dinner we got some frozen yogurt and walked around downtown Pleasanton. It was the perfect day,and everyone was truly ready to go to bed by the time we got home. Even mom and dad! ;-)

Tea time

Tea time Cont.

On Wednesday Ben took a day off work so Ella and I could get a little mother daughter time. It's been hard to connect to oldest since Lily has entered the picture and I've been wanting to go to this tea house in Pleasanton ever since we moved here. I couldn't wait till Ella got old enough so I could take her. She was really excited for it. We both got dressed up in our fanciest tea attire.

Now for the menu... Ella had a strawberry kiwi tea with a splash of lemonade , peanut butter and fluff sandwhich served with an orange cookie,strawberry cream puff , dried fruit and nut and a warm scone with preserves ,lemon curd and clotted butter. She was pretty high on sugar!
I had an assortment of tea sandwhiches , egg salad served in a phyllo cup, chicken salad,cream cheese and cucumber and carrot and zucchini cream cheese served on date bread. Soo yummy. Plus the scone and dried fruit and nuts with a pot of lavender lace tea.

Ella really got into the experience. Notice her pinkie up while she is drinking from her tea cup. Afterwards we walked around downtown Pleasanton and did a little shopping. It was the perfect day. Not to mention easy since I only had one child! Hopefully this will be a tradition for us girls no matter where we live.