Wow....what a wonderful Christmas we had this year. Katie loved everything about it....the tree, the lights, the presents, Santa, snowmen. On christmas eve, we went to my cousin Ambers. She has 3 girls and her sister in law has a little girl too, so there were 5 of them running around and having such a great time.

Here is my cousin Amber and myself...

Here is the best group shot. It was perfect until we realized that my mom was in the bathroom...ugh!

Here are all 5 little girls. Poor Sadie. I gave her the job of holding Katie. Sadie was awesome. She made sure Katie did not go anywhere-notice the neck hold?

I guess she decided that she would have better luck with a chest lock...whatever it was-it worked!

The next morning, we waited until Katie woke up (which was around 8am) and then went downstairs and opened her gifts and played with her new kitchen. She loved it and it was funny to see her trying to figure it all.

We then packed her up and headed to my mom and dads. She was spoiled. She got a little quad-ATV thingy that my brother picked out for her, an art easel, a Santa mylar balloon, clothes, books and some more things, I can't think of it all off the top of my head right now. I got the rest of the 3 books from the Twilight saga-woo hoo, Britney Spear's new CD-yes, I WANTED it, a new cell phone, a $90 wreath, picture frames and some clothes!

After my mom and dads, we headed down to Matt's sisters to wrap up Christmas with his family. It is always a little chaotic there, but with 9 kids, it should be, right. No, his sister does not have 9...lol. Here is a picture of Katie with her cousins.

The past few weeks, Katie has not been sleeping very well and has been waking up several times crying and some times screaming. Today, I found out why....her molars are coming in. Poor thing. I know that they say that runny noses/diaper rash have nothing to do with teething, but I absolutely do NOT agree with that. EVERY SINGLE TIME she has gotten a set of teeth (they seem to come in twos) she has had had both a runny nose and a diaper rash. It is the only time that I have really noticed her with a runny nose and (unless I don't change her - usually because I can't smell it or she is sleeping and goes poopoo) a butt rash. Go figure....I am not convinced at all!

It is late and I am pretty much falling asleep, so I need to go night-night!

Katie ~LOVES~ Tan-ta!

Last Thursday, I took Katie to the mall to see Santa. She has been talking about him like crazy and knows where everything 'Santa' is in the house. She calls him 'Tan-ta'.

When we got there, she walked up to him and let me put her on his lap and take pictures. Hmmm...I wanted some where she was screaming because they are just too cute, but my little girl seems to LOVE old men! Here she is on his lap.



She is really digging this Christmas thing.

The BIG 30!

Well, today is my 30th birthday. 3 decades old. Humph! The good thing about getting older is that you don't really feel it until it is too late. I don't feel any different other than having to convince people that I am 30 and not 17. I am married. I get strange looks-like "You are too young to be married". I have a child. That seems to push them over the edge- "Really? Hmmm...you still look 17". I guess it is a good thing and I am glad that it is that way and not the other "You are only ___?" that would really suck.
It was a really good couple of days-other than the fact that Matt had to work a lot of hours because he has a demo on Tuesday.

Dinner last night consisted of Kisho's. It is a teppan style restaurant and Katie loved it. The food was excellent as always and it was Matt, Katie, mom, sis, her boyfriend, bro and dad. We went to my house and ate the cake I made-Pineapple-Coconut Cake AKA: Better than Sex Cake. My grandma used to make this cake for all our birthdays for as long as I can remember. What a treat it is. I opened my gifts.....a sewing machine, boots, face mask/facial scrub/facial lotion, a dragonfly necklace, Twilight (the book), a sweater dress and the razor I have been looking for for years. OMG! My DAD of all people got me this razor. How funny is that? When Matt and I had our house fumigated in July, we stayed with my parents. I used her razor (the same exact one I first shaved my legs with when I was 12!!!!!!) and could not stop talking about how close it shaves. It is actually discontinued and has been for a long time. My dad found it on E-bay and won it for me. Kudos to dad for: 1. Listening to what I like 2. Doing something about it 3. Suprising everyone with it.....especially me. I *LOVE* all my gifts. Good job everyone!

Today, Matt and I went to dinner at Sushimi. The one thing I asked him for-a nice sushi dinner. It was the yummiest dinner I have had in a long time. Spicy Tuna Hand Rolls made to order "With the tuna chunked, not mixed. Add cucumber, gobo, sprouts. No mayo. Medium to Hot spicy." Katie stayed with my mom and dad. My mom taught her how to say "snowman" and "Happy Birthday". Yes, she is 13 months old and can say "Happy Birthday"....lol. She has the most incredible vocabulary I have ever seen!

Where is Katie????

There she is!!!!

Holiday Pictures are a pain in the butt!

Well, what used to be so easy to do is not nearly impossible. Matt and I used to be able to take our family pictures by ourselves and it was super easy and usually took less than 30 seconds and was done in about 5 shots. Not any more. Katie would rather look at everything except for the camera. She pointed out ducks, dogs, places and papa and grandma while we were trying to get a decent shot. There are a few that came out really nice. The only problem is that it was so sunny and bright we are all squinting and somehow my sisters camera was set on a blue tint, so we are a little blue. Not quite smurfarific, but close. Anyways, here are a few shots!

Bro-N-Law's B-Day

Today we went to the Cheesecake Factory in Sherman Oaks for my brother-in-law's birthday. It was nice and it was even nicer because my father-in-law picked up the bill. Katie got a kick out of Nicholas and thought he was so funny! She kept laughing at him and making a squishy face smile at him all night long. We also got a nice picture of us infront of a big tree.

Here Matt, Katie and I are....

Earlier today, I took Katie to my mom's work and we visited Castaic Middle School and Castaic Elementary School. There were a few teachers that I knew when I was a little kidd-o. Katie really liked school and wanted to go run around with all the kids there. One day too soon she will be there.

Did I ever tell you how much this little girl loves Elmo? lol...too cute! nice hair, huh? Bed head!

This is the view from our bedroom window....

Here are some of the pictures that I took when I was going to (and on the way home from) my grandpa's.

In the picture below, you can see the firefighters in yellow and if you blow the picture up, you can even see the cadaver dogs....

So sad.....

Fire! Fire! Everywhere!

It is amazing how much of Southern California can burn. Not only did we have the huge fire in Montecito, but Friday night and Saturday gave us more fires. The Sayre fire in Sylmar and the Freeway Complex fire that was in Corona, Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills, and a lot of other locations. Horrible is all I can describe it as. We were lucky in the sense that all the smoke was blowing the other way and not into the Santa Clarita Valley. Matt and I went to visit my grandpa in Sunland yesterday and drove right by the Oakridge Mobile Home Park. OMG! There was pretty much nothing left. We could even see cadaver dogs and firefighters looking through the mess. As of yet, I have not heard of anyone who had been found-which is quite amazing considering the amount of damage and the time and the number of people who was there.

Last night I stayed up watching the news, basically watching Montecito burn down. I had tears in my eyes...so sad for all those people. It was horrible. The news footage-showing house after house burn, not that it matters, but these houses are-were-so beautiful. I remember wandering through the canyons with Matt looking and dreaming of owning one of these houses. We even told each other if we were ever to win the lotto or come into a ton of money-this is where we would move. We found an empty lot and decided we would build from scratch and I had it all laid out in my head. Kitchen here, Master bedroom here-with this as the view.....just to imagine how many people were able to just that and actually build their dream house. Then to watch it be destroyed with no mercy as firefighters and news crews watched helplessly. There were about a hundred that are now just tiles and chimeys and burn rubbish. I could not imagine what these people must be going through.....so sad.

Katie and I had a fun day. We played, did a few errands and then had lunch at Jack-in-the-box with grandma and then went to the Americana at Brand with Matt. It was nice....we saw "the" tree that will be lit tomorrow-it is HUGE!

Here are a few pictures of this little girl who has stole my heart!

Here is my avacado tree. :0)

Today Katie went in for her 12 month well-check and it went well. She got up at 7 on the dot again-it is like the 5th time in the past 6 days she has gotten up right at 7...I don't mind-it is actually a decent time, considering she could be getting up at 5 or 6am. Yesterday she got up at 8:30-lucky mommy and daddy got to sleep in. I got ready real quick and then got her up and threw her in the bath-which of course she did not want to get out of. She her clean and was in the car by 8:10am for her appointment at 8:30am. I am getting better at being on time...although I did have to grab her milk and a banana for breakfast-lol. She did not mind-actually now that I think about it-she did get up at 5:15am and had a bottle, so I was not too concerned that she would be starving. We got there and checked in and then was off to see Nurse Anna. She told me to strip her down and we were off to the scale to measure and weigh. She weighed in a whopping (not really) 23.8lbs which is the 85% for her age and she was 31.5" long 97% for her age. Still on the top 15% of the charts. I guess she is still growing.

Dr Brian then came in (oh boy-someone was soooo shy and could not even look at him-hee hee-I tell you she has a mad crush on him) and went over all her stats and all-he said that she is doing really, really well. He was amazed at her vocabulary and her physical ability. I think he thought I was joking when I said that she has AT LEAST a 25 word vocabulary. I guess I am just used to her talking and saying all sorts of things. Things that I have no idea how she knows what it is....for example, tonight, we were playing with a toy and it had a "bee" on it. I never even noticed the bee before, but she pointed right at it and said "bee"...hmmmm. Maybe daddy is working with her too. strange, huh?

Here are some of her words: bee, book, bubble, ball, apple, dog, mama, dada, up, all done, El-mo-mo (elmo), more, no, bike, birdie, clock, gram-ma, papa, nose, eye, shoe, toes....there are more, but I can't even think....

She had 3 shots, the first was in her leg-no problem. The second was in her left arm...Ahhh and the third was in her right arm...BBBAAAAAHHHHHH! That was it, she lost it and screamed her head off. I think she would have gotten over it faster if they did not put the pee-pee bag on her to check her kidneys. That was horrible and completely wrong to do to a 1 year old....made taking her band-aids off a piece of cake.

After we were done, I ran back home and met my sister who was going to watch Katie-who of course did not make it home before she was taking her nap...but she woke up right as I opened.closed the garage door so Melanie was able to play with her...ha ha. I had to go to the Podiatrist to get another Cortisone shot in my ankle...ouch-but it is so much better now! That stuff is magic I tell ya.

After I got home, Matt and I went to get some groceries and then it was back home to pack up all her baby stuff. This included clothes, all my pumping stuff, her old bottles, boppy, swing, mini-gyms and a ton of other stuff that she may have used when she was a baby-made me want to cry...I miss my little baby.

I will admit, it was SOOOO nice to get rid of all the clutter that was just taking up space and needed to be put away.

I am really tired so I am going to call it a night and go night-night (that is another word she LOVES to say- until she realized what it means....lol).

Here is a picture Nicholas took of Katie and I-hee hee.

I guess we are going to have to start really watching Katie now....this means no more potty for mommy unless Katie is right there or she is asleep. This is what we found her doing...

This is why she is my little monkey. She was very proud of herself too.

***Halloween***

On Halloween, we met up with our friends Claudia and Andrew and their little ones-Sean and Taryn. Katie and Taryn were Tinkerbell and Sean was Peter Pan. We went to the mall to trick-or-treat and had a great time. It was packed, but fun and we knew that the candy was from a safe source. Most of the stores were out of candy by the time we got there, but we did manage to get a few things. Katie knew to give Elmo (her candy holder) the candy when she got it and did a really good job. We also ran into a few friends and their little ones there. After that we went to my mom and dads for crab meat enchiladas AKA dinner....We took Katie next door and to a 'scary' house down the street. She loved my parents next door neighbors-they had two Boston Terriers and Katie made her self at home, pushing the door open and walking in and even trying to go upstairs. She did not like the 'scary' house very much and started to cry and hold on to daddy with all her strength-did I mention how unbelievably strong this little girl is? Holy Moley...here are a few pictures from Halloween. It was kind of strange...two different strangers came up to us and asked to take a picture of Katie. One was with a

A lot has happened since I have last updated this blog. My laptop took a crap the night before Katie's birthday and this is the first time I have been able to access the internet from this (my laptop) computer. The other one is in the office and is kind of a pain to get to and use. As my luck would have it, I was working on a slideshow for Katie's birthday party and had spend about 10 hours on it-looking for pictures, organizing and creating it. Just as we were getting it ready to put on a DVD, the computer blue screened us. Not good. I wanted to just cry.....Matt spent most of the night trying to figure out how to fix the computer and trying to access the slide show, but it was just not going to happen. I guess I will save it for her next birthday or something.

Her party was wonderful. The weather was perfect-a little hot, but we had a wonderful water slide bouncer thingy and a pool, so it really was perfect. Here are a few shots

As you can tell from the above picture, it was a long day for lil Katie. She was so tired and ready for 'ni-nite'. She was a trooper though and did not fall asleep until we were in the car and headed home.

Below is us with her cake. Boy oh Boy was it a crazy idea to have a red cake for a 1 year old. We of course gave her her own cupcake and we let her choose it....well them-she chose two.

Things started off simple enough....

Then she started to have fun.....

and pretty soon she was a little scary looking and it got worse....

Someone took her out and it looked like something from a horror movie. Guess who had to catch her and get her clean.....

I will have to update another time with some more birthday pictures and some halloween ones too!

So today, Katie woke up at about 7:45am and I got her up out of her crib and changed her diaper. Changed her out of her jammies into some clothes and we went down stairs to watch Sesame Street. I usually wash out her bottle (that she had at 2:30am) and make her breakfast while she plays and watched TV for a little while-before I take her on her walk. I was washing out her bottle when she peeked around the corner at me and then took off running with something in her hand. I knew by the taunt that she had something that she should not have. I chased her down and found this:

Excellent! She found daddy's beer bottle from last night. lol. No, there was nothing in it. He just forgot it on the floor. Nice....I did manage to get a quick picture of her before I had to wrestle it away from her......of couse it was the one thing in the entire world that she wanted more than anything-even more than that plastic bags and forks and other small items or breakable things that she wants. Yikes!!!!!

On a different note, here she is in her Halloween Costume.

Lombardi's Ranch

Sunday Matt and I took Katie to Lombardi's Ranch to meet up with our friends Fenella and her husband Jerry and their two little angels Owen and Brando. We had a great time. It was very crowded and pretty warm. Katie had a 15 minute nap on the way there, so she was a little cranky, but was very good considering. Here are a few pictures of our trip:





This is the only picture I could get with the three of them...lol.





This was Katie on the way home....zzzz....zzzzz.......zzzz





We are getting ready to celebrate her 1st birthday party and it should be a blast. I am a little stressed at getting everything done, but I am so excited too.

Today my sister Melanie and I took some fun pictures of Katie. We had a blast...Katie did too once Jack was let inside. She only lasted for about 100 pictures, but we got some pretty good ones. Here are a few....








I guess I can say the "D" word again, since I was right and I knew better that to mention them when they were doin g so well. SO, they swept Chicago and then lost 2 in a row to Philadelphia...they NEED to win the next 4 game.

This past weekend we took Katie to Lombardi's Ranch. It is a huge pumpkin patch here in Santa Clarita. They also have train rides, a petting zoo, face painting and a corn maze. I can't wait to take her in a couple years when she is able to participate in a few more activities. We just picked out a pumpkin and walked around a little. She LOVED helping daddy push the wagon around and she even picked a pumpkin for Juliana and Mia (her cousins).

If you noticed....I have made no mention of a certain baseball team. I don't want to jinx them, so I am keeping quiet. :)