No longer a softball fan

Other than Max learning something cute from Dad, I'm no longer a softball fan. WARNING- photos of softball injuries.

(at first he is saying "cheese" cuz' he thinks I'm taking a picture)

Basically it's because Mike is getting all the attention & this is why...

Beaned in the kidney with a line drive- took about a month to heal. This picture is taken about 2 weeks into it.

Sliding into base- IN SHORTS! Who does that? This picture was taken about 2 weeks into the healing process...and it's still healing.

Not to mention the broken big toe in between these 2 injuries that lasted about 3 weeks. Seriously, what does a pregnant girl have to do for some sympathy & attention?

Ok, Ok. I feel bad for Mike. He does love to play & it makes him happy and gets him some exercise. I guess like pregnancy, he's decided the pain and suffering is worth it in the end. I'm still glad the season is almost over :)

The price you pay

Yesterday was a good day, & now I'm paying for it.

Max had a great morning- up at 7:45 ate a good breakfast etc. He played happily with his new train set from GG & Pop-pop until lunch. He even took a great 2.5 hr nap. Dad came home early @ 3 to take us to my Dr. Appointment. We waited 20 min or so, but were done in less than 10 min once we got in. Max didn't freak out while he was measuring my tummy this time, probably becuase Dad was holding him.

We headed down to LA to meet Mike's folks for an early dinner at Jerry's dinner where I proceeded to eat 2 pickles, an entire pastrami melt sandwhich, an order of onion rings & 2 lemonades (oh, its gonna get worse than this!). The newest Brownstein boy was born on Sunday so we went to meet little Owen Parker at Cedars-Sinai. Adorable! I forgot how tiny they are! Max hapily strolled the halls with GG chatting it up with everyone they ran into. He definitely takes after his GG.

GG & Pop-pop were nice enough to babysit Max so Mike and I could go see Harry Potter at the Grove. I've never been to the Grove, it's gorgeous and it was as great night. Naturally we stopped at 7-11 for treats where I got my movie favs: sour patch kids, kit-kat & sweedish fish. We also got the worst lemonade ever from concessions so when we drank that I sent Mike back for a Sprite & he returned with a pretzel & sweet tarts as well.

Sooo, point of this blog? Don't eat so much crap when you are 33 weeks pregnant. You feel it the next day!

On a side note: leaving the parking garage we saw this crazy car. Mike had no idea what it was & I thought it was the batmobile. He looked it up online when we got home. Apparently it's a $585k Salene S7. Honestly...who drives a car like that?

Huh?

Max has started to talk more and understand more. We still spend a lot of time looking at each other going "Did you understand that?". He cracks us up quite a bit. The other day in the car Mike turned to me & said "Babe, can you grab that for me?" From the back seat we hear, "babe". I decided right then to start calling Mike "Monster" to see if Max would repeat it & told Mike he must call me "Love" ;) I guess we need to be a lot more careful now with what we say, eh? He also says "Hey!" when he wants your attention & "no" a lot. Neither is on my top 10 list. I do like that when I ask him to go to his room or when you ask him to put his toys and books away he knows what he is being asked to do. He also generally does it.

These are some of my favorite words. Let's see if you can guess what any of them mean :)

bapple
fape
mah-knee
bob billfer fith it
aaaa-cus
peez
carz-in
yez
sue
hoe
outseye

A video of Max in his new truck that my sister generously turned over to us.

My P-town

I grew up in Pleasanton, CA which is up north, East Bay area. So for me, P-town always meant Pleasanton, not Provo. Craig Ferguson did a bit once on his late show about Pleasanton, you can check it our here. A couple weeks ago my sister & her 2 kids ditched her working husband & I ditched mine for the 5.5 hr drive to P-town. We made it there in just under 5 hrs. Not bad for a mini van w/3 kids and a pregnant lady! My sister Krista did the driving and I imagine she was pretty anxious to get out of the car of whiners.

Our older sister. Kim lives there still and her oldest was graduating high school and her other daughter was graduating 8th grade. My parents flew in & my other sis Gina & her family made the 14 hr drive from WA in around 12 hrs. I'm pretty sure the radar gun he picked up from Costco had something to do with that speed. The only family missing was my brother's from TX. For some reason the military doesn't just let their Dr's take a week off whenever they want- ridiculous!

For some reason Pleasanton always feels like home to me. We lived there until I was 16 when we moved to WA. I still tease my parents that I'm bitter about having to move & make new friends halfway through my Jr. year. Driving down streets that have changed, home developments that were not there 15 years ago was...different, but didn't make it feel less like "home". Attending a graduation at the high school 3 of the 5 Holmes kids graduated from & that all 5 attended just made my feel old. Imagine how my sister feels...she had a daughter graduate from the same high school she graduated from (sorry Kim, had to throw that in!). Some of the same teachers are even still there.

My patient father checking off each speech during the graduation. Cracked me up.

My dad & the little boys cleaning up the fruit platter after the grad party.

Ok, enough of my nostalgia. I blame the pregnancy like I do with everything else these days. After I have Boy #2 I'll blame it on baby blues for a while, then I'll blame it on fatigue from 2 kids, yada yada yada. You get the picture. So long as something is taking the blame right?

Anyway, even though the June gloom was in full force, we had a fabulous time. 3 days of catching up, watching the kids re-connect, eating, playing in the pool (no matter the weather), & watching Max discover trains and learn new words. Trains are his new obsession. I wish those stinkin Thomas the Train toys weren't so expensive. I'll have to hit ebay for them I guess cuz my selfish sister wasn't giving up the collection she amassed over the last 10 years. Oh, & while there Max started saying his cousin Carson's name (pronounced Carz-in). You can't say it around him now w/o him looking everywhere for his cousin. Vocab is growing every day.

Playing w/trains and cars in Marcus's room. I'm sure he'll eventually find everything his younger cousins got into and moved.

In the hot tub. A little too chilly for the pool this day.

Thanks Kim for hosting everyone and letting us tear your house apart for a few days!

The Cousins

I love the Fathers in my life

An early Father's Day blog. We plan on being busy this weekend with lots of fun stuff :)

(forgive the photo montage, I got really sappy going through photos to pick and couldn't narrow them down. Some have probably been on the blog already).

This Father's day has me especially grateful for a few reasons...

Being pregnant with #2 makes me appreciate Mike so much more. He is wonderful with Max and totally takes over when he gets home from work so I can get other things done or just relax. Even with a broken big toe this week he hasn't slowed down (much). He's hobbled around while I waddle around. I love him for the wonderful husband he is & the fabulous father he has become. And to think, this guy wouldn't even hold a baby before Max! Now he's a bath giving, bottle making, diaper changing fool and I love him for it.

I'm grateful for my father. I'm handier than most girls I know because of my dad, & I don't remember him ever missing a dance or piano recital. With 5 kids, church and a full time job, he sure would have had an excuse. Mike, Max and I love having him stay with us. I admit, partly for selfish reasons. He's an awesome babysitter & handy around the house. But I also love just having my dad around and that Max gets to build a relationship with him. Last week my sister and I drove up to Pleasanton (where we grew up) for 2 graduations. 1 niece graduating junior high & another graduating high school. It was great visiting with family, even though the June gloom was in full force there as well. We drove home Sunday & Monday morning I got a call from my sis that my father had a heart attack and was in the hospital there. I was terrified & scrambled to get in touch with my other siblings. I'm so grateful he was there with my sister still and not on the plane home. I'm even more grateful that he got excellent treatment & is doing better.

I don't remember a ton about my grandfather's. Both had passed away when I was young. So it's important to me that my son get time with his grandfathers. Thank goodness these days for video phones, digital photos, blogs, email, etc. It let's us keep Mike's dad, Pop-Pop up to date on all Max's shenanigans. The end of May we spent some time with Mike's family in Philly. Although he wasn't feeling great, Pop-Pop flipped Max on the couch and kept a close eye on him as Max went up and down the stairs. I love that my son gets to spend time with his Pop-Pop. We're looking forward to a visit in July when Mike's older brother becomes a father for the first time :)

My brother and brothers-in-law are great fathers as well. Watching them be involved in their kids' activities even between busy work and church schedules has been a great example for Mike and I. Apparently it can be done with more than 1 child!

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dad's in my life. I love you.

East Coast Part 2

Diary of last half of our Philly/NY trip. (sorry for weird spacing, couldn't figure out how to fix it!)

We drove back from NY after the Central Park Zoo on Friday to meet our friends the Weisbergs drove up from Virginia with their 3 girls. While Mike and Brad golfed on Saturday, Audra and I took the kids to the pool. Max loved splashing and playing w/his Uncle Marshall and the girls. Naturally there was eating out and ice cream that night for dessert.

We met them Sunday morning at a park to play for a bit and say goodbye. Max loved the double slide. I thought the jumbo kids swing was neat, but Max didn't think too much of it. We attempted to get pictures of Mike, Brad and the kids, it gets harder every year as they get squirmier.

It was still a bit early for his nap, so we took Mike and went back to the pool. Max has definitely become our little water bug. He could not get enough of jumping into the pool to Mike or I. I had to hold the button down on my camera to take tons of pictures in fast concession on order to catch the few cute ones we got. Max has also become a thrill seeker. After naps he wrestled and flipped over the couch to PopPop over & over.

Our flight left Monday evening and we were exhausted after a fun week. GG had one last thing she wanted to do...take Max to see some horses at a local farm. The horses were not that interested in us, but Max enjoyed his nectarine from the farm fruit stand!

3 Hrs is quite the time change to adjust from, but Max did pretty good on the flight and slept well when he got home to his own bed around 11pm. Why does it always take so long to recuperate from vacations? Must be the fun and lack of sleep!

East Coast Part 1

We are back from our Philly & NYC trip and glad to be in our own beds. We had a wonderful time visiting Mike's family & friends plus our friends from NYC & VA. Here's the run down of our first few days...

We thought we'd try the red-eye flight the way there which left at 10pm the Sunday before Memorial Day. Max slept about 1.5 hrs and was awake the rest of the 4.5 hr flight. So much for thinking he would sleep. At least he was so lethargic he wasn't running up and down the aisle. Needless to say Mike and I were exhausted and glad that his Mom watched Max so we could nap for a couple hrs when we got there.

We had a wonderful Memorial Day party at the Braun's (good family friends) & GG & Pop's friends and family came to visit. Max had a blast pushing the Braun's grandaughters shopping cart around & going down the "slide board". It must be an East Coast thing cuz I even heard Jon from Jon & Kate plus 8 say it on their show yesterday. On the West Coast we just call it a slide. I think Max may have even developed his first crush. He's never willingly hugged anyone before but hugged Sarah Braun repeatedly.

(how many people does it take to help Max down a slide?)

On a rainy Thursday we drove into NYC to meet our friends Paul & Sarah Melotto for lunch. We were glad we got to see them since they are moving to London for 2 yrs & Paul was heading off for a business trip to Saudi Arabia for a couple weeks. It cracks me up cuz this guy hates to fly. He even changed his flights after our wedding to stay an extra 2 days because he heard it was raining in NY. Max loved being out of the car after the hour drive and playing with their son Thomas & his toys. Thomas is 5 months older but Max is a little taller and a good 6 lbs. heavier. Maybe it's time to cut back on the whole milk?

Because they live so close, we walked up to the World Trade Center. Mike & I worked at MortgageIT together which is 2 blocks from the WTC. We were both there on 9/11 & were interested to see how construction is going. Still a ton going on, but it actually doesn't look much different than when we were there 2 yrs ago. Although like 8 floors of it is underground with a subway train running through it so I imagine that's where they put a ton of effort.

(in front of Ladder 10)...................... (WTC view from the WFC)

After checking into our hotel on 52nd st & Max being totally entranced with staring out the window we met some other friends for dinner. We used to work with Mike & Casey Deutsche at MortgageIT. In fact, I'm the one who told Mike to take Casey out. The married a couple months before Mike and I did, and had their son Jude 1 month before Max was born. Casey is now pregnant with their 2nd child due 1 month after our 2nd child is due. Crazy. We met them for dinner right around the corner from Dylan's Candy bar (which is also dangerously close to Bloomingdale's from my former shopping days). Dylan's is a ridiculously over priced but delicious candy store that has just about anything you can think of. My favorites are all the sour gummy treats and Mike loves the white chocolate covered pretzels. The tummy aches later that night from all the candy was worth it!

Friday we tried to clean out the H&M maternity section in the 34th street store but apparently they won't be carrying maternity anymore and had zip-zero-nada as far as selection. At least my trip to Saks was not as disappointing and the shoes I got in the pre-sale should be here any day :) I had to take a quick stop at my happy place (Bergdorf's shoe department) just to wander around before taking Max to the Central Park Zoo. In typical Max style he had more fun running around and climbing stairs than paying much attention to the animals. He did however enjoy the sea lion exhibit. We were tired and had sore feet so it was time to drive back to Philly. I'm glad we visited NYC even if it was quick and I didn't get to eat lunch at the Saks cafe.

A couple video clips for the grandparents :)