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!