FAMILY PHOTOS 2010

It's been awhile...

Been away for a while, this summer has been crazy. We have had something going every single day since Keenan arrived in late May. I'll try to catch up on the basics, with out too much boring detail :)

First (obviously), is Branson. Just today I noticed another tooth cutting in. Of course now his fussy-hungry-screaming-getmeouttahere attitude now makes sense. He is 8 1/2 months old, and right on track with everything. He isn't quite crawling, but I think it only is frustrating to me. He scoots/pulls/creeps/rolls everywhere he wants to go. And once that kid wants something, he WILL get it. He is such a little ball of personality now. He has discovered feeding himself, and loves the idea. he hasn't quite mastered the technique yet, and I'm sure what I'm feeding him isn't helping (hearts of palm, anyone?). But he is such a trooper with a huge appetite. He eats just about anything you give him. We have him on an all organic/real food "diet". No refined sugars, except for a piece of bread or pasta here an there. Next month we will introduce chicken. He weighs just about 20 lbs, and is in 18 month clothing. If I had to pick his favorite thing right now, it would be the water. This kid is a fish I'm telling you. He loves to float, kick, laugh and play. He doesn't like being put under the water yet, and we have only done that a few times. I'm thinking I will join and mommy and me swim class this fall with him.

Our other "Child" is no longer a child. Keenan is turning 13 next month. We will be celebrating next weekend, with laser tag and burgers. He is 13 going on 30. I can't believe how fast this time has gone. Keenan is a great kid with an awesome sense of humor. No one can make me laugh quite like he can.

Ryan is working up a storm, nothing new there :) It's been nice having him work from home a lot this summer, but makes keeping the house clean nearly impossible. Take the good with the bad, right?

Keenan will be leaving the end of July, and august is pretty full for us already. Katie is having a baby shower, Branson is being baptised, and tons of birthdays share the month. September will bring a trip to Vegas, October is Ryan's birthday, and then November is packed with Branson's bday, and we will spend some time in Hawaii. Hopefully I will be on here to write before that comes up!

What bikini body?

Know what? I used to be funny. And witty. And skinny. And outgoing and social. And skinny. What they heck happened between the ages 21 and 26 1/2? I'll tell you what. Marriage (sorry babe), kids, food, good food, even better food and laziness. Ugh. So now I'm determined to get back to that 21 year old body. Hey, I see women in their 40's who have 19 kids and have a 6 pack, and they sport their bikini all proud. Me? I wouldn't be caught dead in a bikini right now. Sure I lost all the baby weight, but, everything has SHIFTED. DOWN. So next week I have to go buy a 1 piece bathing suit for our summer vacation. Yup. For me, this is a first. I'm pretty sure I came out of the womb wearing bikini's. I even wore one when I was pregnant! Psh, those days are long gone. I'm reading this really great book called "Naturally Thin." It's fabulous. It's about not dieting, but having control over yourself. And the one thing I have learned from this book is, I have no control over myself. But I'm ready to make it work. This week I've followed "the rules" of the book, and so far so good. Sometimes I make good investments, sometimes I don't. But I pick back up next meal and move forward. I must say, I think my pants might feel a little looser today...

Worst mother of the day award goes to....Me.

The last 10 minutes of my life have been the absolute hardest I've ever had to endure. I made my dear, sweet, innocent son cry himself to sleep. Why would I do such a terrible thing, you ask? Because I created a "monster" I swore I never would. Branson has become VERY accustomed to sleeping in our bed. He nurses to sleep (a big no no, I know) and then most often I curl up next to him and can't stand the thought of putting him away. There is nothing more sweet than his little tiny body curled into mine, and his sweet soft breath breathing on me. But you see, when I wake up with 4 inches of bed space on a California king bed, something is wrong. And I can't even tell you the last time Ryan and I got to cuddle. It's like we aren't even in the same bed. So with Ryan gone I decided to clean house. Today I made little man cry himself to sleep for his first nap (in his own crib). The sobs lasted 5 minutes exactly. In fact as I was walking in to comfort him (every 5 minutes, per the books), he magically stopped and was fast asleep. Nice! I thought. No so bad. For his second nap, I simply layed him down, turned on mobile, and he talked himself to sleep. Even nicer!!! But tonight, oh those sobs, my heart broke. I welled up and sat in the hallway crying right along with him. I came in after 5 minutes and he latched on to my hand like the entire world was ending. I comforted him just long enough to let him know he wasn't alone, I tore myself away and went back to my sad little spot on the cold tile floor, and listened to the sobs for 5 more minute. Then they stopped. He had sobbed himself to sleep. And I feel like the worst mother in the world.

There were some positives this week though. Branson is now sitting up on his own. And boy does he love to do it! He loves that he can have toys in his lap and pick them up and put them in his mouth. He also had 2 teeth cut in. I was terrified he had thrush or something god awful, but there is no mistaken the sharpness of those puppies! I'm so proud I can't even tell you. My little man is changing way to fast for me to keep up. I'm a little sad though, because Ryan has missed all of this. He has been in Bolivia this week and won't be home until Sunday. I know Branson misses him, and mommy just doesn't cut it in the fun department. I can't imagine how Ryan must feel being away from him. It would absolutely devastate me to have to be in his position. I'm pretty stoked for their reunion.

Happy dreams, I'm off to kiss my sleeping Angel and beg for his forgiveness.

list.

Things happening right now:

*My kitchen is almost done. It totally looks awesome. Clean up - not so awesome.

* Branson has taken a liking to eating his feet at any chance he gets. The cutest part is in the early morning when he isn't quite flexible enough to get his foot to his mouth. He tries so hard.

*Branson laughing at all the animals. You can just tell he wants to get up and run around with them. Maybe pull on Honey's ear, put Maggies tail in his mouth. Him licking his lips when he looks at Ming has me a little worried though...

* Branson has taken to sucking on his middle finger. Inadvertently, his index finger ends up going up one nostril. I love it. I'll try to catch a picture of it.

* Ryan bought jet skis.

* I'm seriously contemplating getting a personal trainer.

that's all for now.

Bare Essentials

After having our house all crazy last week from the power outage, this week has been even crazier. We are remodeling our kitchen. I mean, COMPLETELY. For those of you that didn't see it before, it was like you stepped into the mid 80's. Pink wood, green tile, beige (I think) appliances. Our house was built in 1994. There is no good excuse for this. Monday they gutted the thing. Right down to the bare framework. Our fridge is in our den, our microwave too. We feed/wash/cook at the bar in the den as well. NOT FUN. The worst part? That's a toss up between the horrid smell of the the wood stain, and the 14 inches of dust that cover everything in my house. The brown dog bed is now white. No kidding. Branson and I have been confined to the master, the office, and sleeping in Keenans room. It will probably take me 2 weeks to get everything back in order. This has been stressing me out like crazy. My masseuse even made a comment about how my knots are more stubborn than usual. But today, the granite guy came and saved the day. I was finally able to see our beautiful granite up against our beautiful wood. I tell ya, it's going to transform the whole house. I'll post some before and after pics as soon as it is done.

But call us crazy... we are doing our bedroom next. We are tearing out this gorgeous 1983 shag carpet and putting in hardwood. Welcome Peel Family, to the new Millennium! Oh and then? Then we are doing the guest bathroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh! My hair is turning grey, I can feel it.

The Power of Power.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to change a poopy diaper by candle light? Nearly impossible. I don't know how they did it in cave man days (did they even have diapers??? maybe they used leaves...). I could have gone postal on NV Energy the last 2 days. To say the least, my luck hasn't been that great since about Friday. I'm not going to bore you with my pitty party, but I will bore you with my strong abhorring for the flippin power company. Tuesday morning I woke up thinking, "Ming, we aren't in Kansas anymore". The wind was so strong it blew over one of our huge pine trees, blew our bbq across the patio, shifted all of our heavy patio furniture, and took tiles off of our roof. And of course, our power was out. I'm kind of used to that. Ever since we moved here last year, our power goes out more than ever in my life. The most has been for maybe 12 hours or so. Not this time. When I first called the power company they told me my power would be restored by noon. GREAT! Not a big deal at all. I was going to pack me and the baby up, go to my moms, shower and hang out. Then my handsome husband wakes up (don't have any clue how he slept through the tornado of the year) and says, "honey don't worry, in a half hour we will have power. I'm going to go get the generator and hook up our water." See, since we are on a well out here, if we don't have power, we don't have water. And since we have radiant floor heating, if we don't have water, we don't have heat. You get the picture, right? Well I'm thinking, "husband to the rescue!" and bless his soul, it was NOT a half hour later, but almost 5 hours later, we had water, And heat. And one light. That's right, by 2 pm we were ready to roll. But wait, the power company had said we would be restored by noon, hmmmm. I call again and this time they tell me 3. 3 pm comes and goes...no power. I call again. 7 pm is the new time estimate. While I'm gone picking up Bransons heart medicine (that is a WHOLE different story, I'll save it for a rainy day), 7 pm quickly popped up. Stillnopower (just say it as one word, it may as well be at this point). Ryan calls, and the lady PROMISES him it will be NO LATER than 9 pm. You can guess what happened next, right? Fast forward to the next day at 1 pm, we finally have power. We called so many times that they finally stopped giving us any information. And the worst part? Everyone on our street and in our entire neighborhood had power but us. It took a favor from a friend that has a brother who works at NV Energy to get this thing fixed. Within 2 hours of calling Mr. High-Up-At-NVEnergy, we were completely back in action. 33 hours later. I went 33 hours with no TV, no computer, no light, no washer/dryer, no dishwasher, no music, no life, with a 6 month old baby. So what is the lesson learned here? I'm going to do my very best to stick it to the power company. I'm researching wind mills and solar panels, and I'm going to forgo the damn power company. Anything has got to be better than dealing with those people. Except you Mr. High-Up that helped us. You're cool.