Orthodontia

We went to the orthodontist on friday morning. Lilah got her braces off. She was pretty excited about it until she got her retainer. She is not of fan of wearing her retainer, but seems to understand the importance of it. I hope that she gets used to it in time as she has with her braces and tongue crib. Kai liked her retainer case so much that they gave him one too. Steve got his braces adjusted. He is getting used to them. If the kids didn't pop him in the mouth so much they would probably be fine, but just the other day Ethan head butted him in the mouth and he got a new cut/sore on the inside of his upper lip. I got my molds and pictures done for my invisiline. I should get my first set of trays in 4-6 weeks. It is a very good thing that the orthodontist and his wife receptionist love kids. The boys made short work of their waiting room. The office is downtown and is a house that has been converted so the waiting room is essentially a living room. There is a short wall that has a bunch of decorative rocks on it and the boys spent quite a bit of time playing with the rocks. Miles enjoyed exploring the waiting room, but he kept getting stuck under the chairs.

Since on Thursday morning I stayed up to see Lilah's hip hop dance performance at the church and Friday was the orthodontist, I was pretty short on sleep. I have been working every night since the 6th, so when I got home today (Saturday morning), after I got cereal for Alex and Kai, and a bottle for Miles, sippy cup for Ethan and changed their diapers, I took an ambian and went strait to bed. I was in bed by 8:30am and slept like a rock until 5pm. It was wonderful. The only downside was that I haven't seen Lilah since we got home from the Orthodontist on Friday morning. There was a Girlscouts sleepover on Friday night, she was dropped off by Steve before I woke up and this afternoon, she was picked up by her friend's mom and they decieded to go shopping afterwards, and she wasn't home yet when I left to work.

I hope everyone is doing well,
Love,
Suzanne

The DMV, yuck.

Well I renewed my license by mail in December. I knew they had received the renewal because my check was cashed, but I never received my new license in the mail. So I finally went to the DMV today. I had an appointment for 9:45, but arrived at 9:15 for good measure. After 2 hours of waiting, I finally was called to the counter. Turns out that the reason that my license wasn't mailed to me was because my Wisconsin driver's license had been suspended due to a speeding ticket I paid late in 2006. I received no notice of that whatsoever. Anyway I had to call WI and pay $60 to lift the suspension on a license I don't even have anymore. The kicker is I still have to go back to the DMV to get my CA license renewed. I was so frustrated. Yuck.

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest I can say that the last few weeks since I last posted here have been pretty good. We had a wonderful fourth of July in Albuquerque. It was everything 4th of July should be with great weather, a barbecue, and great fireworks. I had a lot of fun with fireworks that we bought at one of those great roadside stands. The kids enjoyed the fireworks almost as much as I did. Ethan got a little nervous with the really loud ones, and preferred to watch from a greater distance, but Alex and Kai both really got into them. We spent a lot of quality time with Matthew, Maureen, and Tiffany. I was especially excited to see Tiffany and her cute tiny baby bump. Tiffany taught us a new card game called Dutch Blitz. It is a lot of fun and we played it often. We got home from Albuquerque on Tuesday AM the 6th and I worked that night and every night since. I am thankful that the census at the hospitals has picked up and I am getting my shifts. With Lilah and Alex going to the Rock Academy this fall it will be nice to have all of my shifts. Not too much else going on lately. Miles is crawling all over the place now. Now that he has figured out crawling he moves pretty quickly. He already wants to walk and he will be before we know it.

Have a great day Everyone,
Suzanne

Summer is really here!

Hello all. It was pretty warm today. I love California. It was a beautiful SoCal Sunday. I slept pretty well today and I was up by 3pm. We left a little early to church because we stopped be the Sears Outlet first. Our clothes dryer went kaput last week and we need a new one. The dryer was a gift from a friend and I am not sure how old it is, but it provided us a good year of service. Lord knows we do a lot of laundry in our house. I found a couple of options for a new dryer at the outlet and hopefully I'll be able to buy it by the end of the month. In the meantime we will be hitting the Laundromat. We leave to Albuquerque on Wednesday so I think we'll hit the local Laundromat on Tuesday so that we have clean clothes to pack for our trip.

After the dryer shopping we stopped by Pet Kingdom, our favorite pet store , and got a mouse for Destiny. It is Hilarius how much the kids enjoy the mouse, but then also love to watch the snake eat it. The store usually gives out the mice in brown paper bags stapled shut, but as we have found out the hard way, the mouse can chew right through those. So we bring along a clear plastic little pet carrier box to put the mouse in. Ethan loves to hold the mouse in the van and watch it crawl around and he is totally fascinated. The kids take turns holding the mouse in the van and seem to really like it, but they have no qualms however about watching the same mouse be eaten several hours later. The all stand around and watch Destiny strike and it, strangle it, and swallow it whole. They usually watch until the whole thing is swallowed. If you ask me it is pretty cheap entertainment.

After our weekly pet shop stop we went to church. Pastor Miles is doing a sermon series on prayer and it was the second week. Steve and I are really enjoying and learning. After church I got curbside drop off to work. I am having a good night here. One little preemie recovering from surgery. I am wishing I had brought a new book with me because I have a lot of free time.

Tomorrow we are going to try and go to the pool. I have a co worker who lives in the same apartment complex that we did a few years ago and it has a really nice pool. She is going to let us come over to use her pool. It should be fun. It is supposed to be another beautiful day tomorrow.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.
Love,
Suzanne

Disneyland and Father's Day 2009

We were at Disneyland on Monday and Tuesday. It was crazy crowded. I have never seen so many people in one place. We made the best of it though and still had a good time. We didn't get on many rides because the lines were ridiculously long, but we did get on our favorites. We spent a total of 3 nights in a hotel in Anaheim. On Tuesday it was also Nataly's 8th grade graduation and we stopped by the dinner celebration that they had for her and her cousin. Ethan and Lilah's cousin Becca had fun playing together. We won't be going back to Disneyland until September first. We will be taking just Kai and Ethan because it will be their 2nd and 4th birthdays.

Ethan had his weight and hemoglobin check with Dr. Reynaldo on Friday and I am excited to report that he has gained another 2pounds. He is now 23lbs at 23 months old, which places him in the 9th percentile. He had fallen off the growth chart at about 18 months and then Dr. Reynaldo had us add a bottle of pediasure a day to Ethan's diet as well as additional fiber. Well it has paid off and his weight is moving in the right direction.

On Saturday, which was our actual anniversary date, Melissa babysat and Steve and I ate out at Rei de Gado which is our favorite restaurant. It is an a great place for carnivores like us. It was the best meal. The only downside was that this place is downtown and there was a Padre's game going on and we had to pay $20 for parking. It felt like we were robbed. After dinner we went to a movie. We saw Land of the Lost. It was as funny as we were expecting it to be. We got home at about 10pm, but then we watched my DVR'd episode of the Bachelorette and we also after that watched He's just not that into you on DVD. (So basically I made Steve watch very girly TV) By this time it was about 2 am when we went to bed.

Sunday was Father's day and since I had kept Steve up late I decided to let him sleep in. He didn't get up until close to 1pm. The kids and I each got him a bluray movie. At church the older three kids made cute cardboard ties for him and the younger 2 kids had cute hand prints for him.

Today was pretty uneventful, but tomorrow as soon as I get home, I am going to pick up Lilah and Alex and pretty much turn right around and head to the Rock Academy. We have applied for Lilah and Alex to both attend this fall and they have their assessments tomorrow morning. Hopefully I will still be able to get to bed at a decent hour because I have a co worker's baby shower at 5pm.

Well, hope everyone else also had a great father's day.

Love,
Suzanne

Back to Reality.

Well Steve and I had a wonderful weekend in Palm Springs to Celebrate our Anniversary. Our actual anniversary is the 20th, but this was the weekend most convienent to go. We have been married for six years, but it sure doesn't seem like it's been that long. We ate a couple of great meals at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and P.F. Chang's China Bistro. We went to a waterpark and got some sun and had fun going down waterslides. We got in a lot of relaxation and slept in. We stayed in a lovely resort. Matthew flew in for the weekend and watched Lilah, Alex, Kai, and Ethan at our house. Melissa watched Miles at her house. Miles seems to have grown a bunch while we were gone. He is in a growth spurt and is eating a lot. He has gotten pretty chubby thighs, for Yang boy standards anyway.

Lilah, Alex, and Kai each wrote us a card and they gave them to us when we got home. Lilah wrote the boy's cards out for them. Kai's was pretty funny. It said something like, I love you even though you spank me. Lilah also bought us a picture frame and some candy and gave it to us in a nice gift bag. She always likes to do sweet things like that.

Ethan is talking better and better every day. It is easy to understand a lot of what he says. I am working on getting him to say "potty" so that we can start potty training. I think he is ready.
Well anyway Hope everyone is doing well. We are going to Disneyland Monday and Tuesday and staying in a hotel both nights so we are looking forward to that. We are also planning to go to Albuquerque for the 4th of July. Lots of little trips this summer.

What a great holiday weekend!

Well it has been a bit since I posted to the blog. Mostly it is because I have barely been working this last couple of weeks. It has been a nice break, but I am happy that the census is picking back up in the hospitals. In the last three weeks I have only worked about 6-7 nights. I didn't work for Children's at all last week. What pray tell did I do with all the free time, you ask? We went to the beach a couple times, the playground several, went to see a movie (Star Trek was awesome), Chilled at home, and celebrated Lilah's birthday. The other thing I did was get a little bit hooked onto facebook, especially the facebook game Farm Town. I love the game, so simple, yet so fun. I have spent way too many hours hunched in front of the computer.

Lilah's Birthday was Thursday and we took just her to Disneyland. Matthew came along too. It was the best Disney day ever. Since Lilah is tall enough for just about every ride and not afraid of any of them, we got to get on all the ones we wanted to. The weather was beautiful and the lines were short. We ate Turkey legs and corn on the cob for lunch. So Delicious. We got Lilah a Wii for her birthday and a good portion of the weekend was spent playing Wii games. Lilah said it was her best birthday ever. I played the boxing game on Wii sports and my shoulders and upper arms were sore the next day. I guess I am pretty out of shape when pretend boxing kicks my butt. I have been putting off my training/workout program. I think mostly because of how out of shape I know I am. I am planning to run/walk very briskly a 5K in August, so I guess I had better get my butt in gear.

As much as the Wii kicked my butt, Steve's braces are kicking his. He got his braces put on on Friday and his teeth are still hurting a fair amount. He has not been really chewing as much as swallowing things whole. Hopefully they feel better soon. He has already threatened to pry them off with a screwdriver.

Catch ya all next week.
Love,
Suzanne

Palm Springs here we come!

Steve and I have wanted to get away for our anniversary for awhile now and I have been trying to arrange childcare for what seems like months and I think it is almost all worked out. We plan on going to Palm Springs for the weekend of 6/5-7. We plan to go to a water park near there for one day, hit the spa for a massage, and just lay around to pool, relax and reconnect. It is a couple weeks away from our actual anniversary date of 6/20 (it will be 6 years), but close enough. Shortly after our anniversary trip, we are taking another vacation with all the kids to Disneyland (6/ 15-17). We do Disneyland all the time, but we are this time going to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights and we will have "vacation budget", which just means that we can eat in the park and buy souvenirs, and whatnot. Usually when we do Disneyland for the day, we try to spend $20 or less. I think Sarena is going to come with us to help with the kids, so that will make it more fun for Lilah, because she won't be stuck just doing little kid rides all day.

Steve is sick right know. No cough or fever or any other obvious symptom, but he has felt exhausted and slept almost constantly for the last 3 days. He has only been awake a few hours of each day and still feels very tired. The only other sign of sickness is that he is a little achy and sore. I hope he feels better soon, because the kids have had free reign of the house and it is a disaster. They have been pretty much been able to get away with anything. I caught Kai yesterday eating a Popsicle in the living room and the root beer drippings in a puddle at his feet. I felt bad for Melissa today, she definitely had her work cut out for her today.

Miles had his 6 month Dr. Appointment and he is doing well. Very healthy, except that his weight on the growth chart fell to 3rd percentile. That is about par for the course for our boys. Alex and Ethan were the same way. Ethan didn't have an appointment today, but we threw him on the scale and he weighed 25lbs. which is a 4lb gain in a month for him which is great! He still looks a little bit like a lollipop though.

Love,
Suzanne