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

Can you belive it is going to be May this weekend?

Wow, Lilah is going to be 9 in less than a month (May 21). Am I getting old, or what! She is getting to be so grown up. She has been such a great big sister and helper. She is enjoying baby Miles. The other day she asked if she could get him dressed. She changed his diaper and dressed him up in a cute outfit. She did a good job. She is getting better about doing her homeschooling and is on lesson 122 of 170. She should be able to finish by July. She'll have about 6 weeks off before she starts 4th grade mid August. Alex and Kai will join her in the homeschooling this fall. Even though Kai won't be old enough to officially do Kindergarten, I think he will enjoy it, so I am going to teach both of them. We are planning to do homeschooling for only this upcoming school year, and then after that We plan of sending them to the Rock Academy.

For Lilah's Birthday we are going to take her and a friend or two to Disneyland while Melissa watches the Boys. It should be a lot of fun. We are going to pick up her friends from school on Wednesday and have the cake and let her open her present and then go to bed at a reasonable hour (with giggling school girls that is anything earlier than midnight). We hope to get to Disneyland by the time they open at 9am, so we'll have to leave our house by 7am.

This won't be the first time Melissa has watched the kids. I was canceled a day last week and at the last minute I called Melissa and she came over and Steve and I got to go out without the kids for the first time in almost a year. We went and saw the movie 17 again. It was really cute and funny. After the movie we went and took a nice long walk on the beach. We walked for about an hour and just talked and made each other laugh. It was wonderful. Even after we got home around 1230 am we weren't ready to go to bed and let the evening end, so after bidding Melissa goodnight and sending her home, we watched another movie on TV.

Well I hope everyone is having a great week,
God Bless You,
Suzanne

Did I work this week? Hmmmm.......

Well as I sat down to fill out my time card I realized that I only worked 2 of the last 5 days. At first I was thinking that, wow, I have hardly worked and have had so many days off, then I realized that since I am working tonight, that makes three shifts this week and that is a normal work week for most of my fellow RN's. Wow, won't it be grand when I have all my bills paid off and I only work 2-3 days a week. I have done so many fun things with the kids this week. Today we went to the YMCA and swam in the pool there. The water was nice and warm and even Miles enjoyed the water. I think this might have been Miles' first time in a pool. He was a little nervous at first, but he didn't cry and slowly he relaxed. Within a few minutes he was kicking and splashing around. Ethan had so much fun in the water that he screamed like the almost 2 year old that he is when we took him out of the pool. Alex and Kai were scolded several times by the lifeguard for running, but the really, overall, were well behaved. Lilah , the fish, also had a great time in the pool, as she always does. After all the splish splashing in the pool, we moved out to the playground and the kids played pirates and firemen(woman) and used their imaginations to the fullest. After the kids tired themselves out, we went to Chili's for a late lunch/early dinner. The southwest egg rolls they have there are the best. I think that they must put something in them, because I crave them all the time. A coworker brought them into work a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get rid of the craving since then, so now that I have had them, hopefully it will pass.

God Bless,
Suzanne

Happy Easter 2009!

Happy Easter everyone, I hope you all had an excellent day in remembrance of Jesus' Resurrection. We had a lot of fun today with the kids. I had originally planned on coloring eggs with the kids, but when I got home from work this morning I was so exhausted that I asked Steve to do it with them while I slept. It seemed weird to the kids, Lilah especially not to have Matthew here for Easter. He has been able to celebrate the last few Easters with us, and his absence was definitely noted today. Though we are happy things are working out great for him in New Mexico we miss him a lot.
So I woke up around 3pm and while the boys were still napping, put together their baskets. Aunt Tiffany had sent some plastic eggs filled with candy for the kids so we hid those as well as the baskets. If you want to check out the hunt in our living room for Easter goodies, you can check out the YouTube video. Steve is posting it as I type this. (search for yangfamilysd) This is the first year that Ethan was able to participate, I got him a really cute polar bear basket and within minutes of finding it, he dug into the candy and drooled chocolate all over the beautiful white basket. He sure enjoyed it though. After the goodies were enjoyed we went to church. Another wonderful sermon and worship music. At church Alex said "Happy Easter Day" to nearly everyone he saw. I am so happy that my kids enjoy going to church.
So the only other new thing going on is that we decided on a housekeeper. Her name is Melissa and she is a young Navy wife. She brings her 14month old daughter Lilyanne with her and she does a great job keeping our house clean and the laundry done, that it has allowed me so much more free time with the kids and Steve I think is a lot less stressed.

Well I have gone on and on, I again say Happy Easter.

My house will be kept soon.....

Well I spend a good portion of my night at work sending e-mail responses to the queries I had about my Craigslist posting for a housekeeper. When I posted the ad for a housekeeper I didn't think many, if any, people would reply. I ended up being flooded with e-mails. By 11am I had to delete the posting because about 20 people had already responded. Tonight I narrowed it down to 4 people who I am going to have interviews with next week. A couple of the people sounded very promising. I am looking forward to coming home to a clean house in the mornings, and the mountain of laundry being reduced to a small hill. I am hoping to have someone start within a couple of weeks.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. We went grocery shopping in the morning, then I went to bed as soon as we got home. I left Steve to put away the 2 full grocery cart's worth of food away on his own. My husband is so wonderful. I slept quite well and got up around 5pm. I hung out with Ethan and Miles on the couch while Steve made quesadillas for dinner and I grabbed a couple on my way out the door.

Have a beautiful day.

Where did March go?

Good Morning on this 2nd to last day of March. I can't believe how 2009 is flying by. It seems that I was just toasting the new year.

I am at work right now and it's been a nice night. I have had time to read and surf the internet and chat with friendly coworkers. I also wrote out our grocery list. Steve and the kids will be picking me up from work at 7:30 and then we'll get some breakfast and hit the grocery stores. I posted an ad on Craigslist this morning for a housekeeper. I am looking for someone to come in and clean and do laundry 3-4 days/week. I would rather use the money to pay off debt, but I can't take the mess or giant piles of dirty laundry. Steve is so busy with the kids and/or so discouraged when he does clean and the kids have made it dirty again within hours. I have hopes that with this economy and people looking for work, my ad will be jumped on and I'll have a few choices.

Also a funny story to lighten your day:

As most of you know we have a pet snake named Destiny. Destiny the Snake's diet consists of one mouse a week. The pet store we buy the feeder mice from is only open until 6pm on Sundays, so we usually buy the mouse before church and then Steve and the kids feed the snake when they get home from church. The store usually packages the mouse in doubled up paper lunch style bags stapled shut. Well two weeks ago, when steve got the kids into the house and went back out to the van to get the mouse, the mouse had chewed through the bag and was MIA. Steve wasn't sure where the mouse went to, but the van door had been left open, so it could have been anywhere. Steve and Lilah looked for the mouse for about 20-30 minutes with no luck before giving up. The next day we bought another one to feed Destiny and forgot all about the other mouse.

Tonight we were about to leave to church in the van, when I needed a napkin out of the glovebox. Upon opening the glovebox, I immediately noticed that a bunch of the napkins in there had been shredded up, mouse style. At once, I knew it must be the MIA mouse from 2 weeks ago. How it survived for so long, I don't know. I had Steve feel around in there and sure enough there it was. He put it in the garage to later become Destiny's Dinner.

I am thinking it may be time to clean out the van since a mouse was able to survive for two weeks in there.

LOL. Hope you enjoyed another Yang family adventure.

Beautiful Spring!

Hi Everyone.
I hope everyone had a great time on what was a BEAUTIFUL spring day. It was so gorgeous outside today. The kids played outside almost all day. I want to talk to our Landlord about putting in a playset, like one of those nice Rainbow ones. I think that would be great for the kids and they would be able to spend even more time outside. We have a nice sized all fenced in backyard, but currently it is full of gravel. I was so exhausted the last few days, but I caught up on sleep today. Our new bed is so great. I have been sleeping much better and waking up with fewer backaches. I was out cold today from 8am to 5pm, with only waking up twice to feed Miles.

Miles is getting so big. He is 5 months old now. He can roll over both ways and is almost sitting up. I bought some rice cereal last time we were at the grocery store and I plan to start him on it soon. He is such a happy little guy for the most part. He is quick to smile and his laugh is infectious. The older kids love to try and make him laugh. I can't believe how big he is already.

Love,
Suzanne

Looking forward to better sleep.

Well My CA state tax return is fully spent. We had to get a new refrigerator because our died earlier this week (so sad, because I had to throw away a lot of Miles' breast milk), and while I was shopping for a fridge, I also found a really cheap dishwasher. The new fridge is a big black side by side fridge/freezer with ice and water in the door. The kids are totally fascinated by the water in the door. The new dishwasher works like 10 times better than the old one and Steve appreciates the time it saves him. The rest of the refund went to buying a new Mattress set. It was much needed. I frequently wake up with a worse backache than I went to bed with and there was a definite pit in the middle you would find yourself waking up in. Our new bed is supposed to be delivered between 1 and 4pm tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it. I kind of want to be canceled tomorrow night so I can sleep a whole night on my new bed.

Hello All,
Well I am at work and I am having a pretty good shift. I am taking care of a set of twin boys. They aren't giving me too much trouble. I managed to wash and dry about half of the mountian of laundry today, but I didn't get it put away before it was time to leave to church. Hopefully I will be able to get it done in the morning. I enjoyed Pastor Miles' sermon today, he is in the middle of a series on the Holy Spirit, which has always been a difficult subject for me in the past, and I am finding myself understanding a lot better now. That is why I love our church. Pastor Miles' always makes things understandable and relevent. Well, more tommorow, Suzanne.

Well I didn't work last night and I had been hoping to spend my night home on my New bed, but they called and said that they wouldn't be able to deliver it now until Tuesday. So much for their delivery guarantee. We did have Sarena and her fiance over for dinner last night and we had a good visit. The kids enjoyed seeing her again too. They stayed over until about 8:30, then Steve and I watched a couple of movies together after the kids went to bed. My project today is the mountain of laundry in my garage. I bet I have about 20-25 loads of laundry to do, so I guess I better get cracking. Have a good day everyone.

Well here we go.........

Hello Friends and Family,

I have decided to enter the world of blogging (internet journaling). Mostly because we recently got a new videocamera that will make it easy for me to post video on the internet and this blog will allow me to do so without posting on youtube, not that there is anything wrong with youtube, but I find this to be more personal.

It is glorious spring in San Diego and we are enjoying the beautiful weather (who am I kidding, it's almost always beautitful here), and today was especially lovely. Steve and I dragged all of the kids with us as we did our errands today, Lilah and Ethan had doctors appointments. Lilah is 53lbs and 49 inches tall and Ethan is only21lbs. I don't remember how tall, but his weight remains at the 3% mark and our Pediatrician has now recommended a bottle of pediasure a day, fortunatly Ethan likes it. Dr. Reynaldo also recomended increasing his diet in iron and fiber, so if anyone know how to add fiber and iron to fruit snacks and cheerios, let me know. LOL. We also went and put a down payment on a new mattress set for Steve and I, I have been having more trouble than usual with my back and neck pain, and I figured the perpetual dip in the middle of our current mattress wasn't helping. I wasn't planning on getting one today, just scoping out prices, but I found a great clearance deal and they had a layaway plan. Well I've rambled on enough about our errands I guess. I hope to keep this blog up and also post videos often. Peace out for now,
Suzanne