Fun Mommy Weekend!

Last weekend was so much fun. I had lots of girl time…some with Owen some without!

A few weeks back I had posted on facebook that I was gonna do a Mommy/Baby Play Date at Huntington Beach. So on Friday June 25th, a few of us women decided to meet at the state beach, off Magnolia at tower 4 and let the kids have some fun. This was our Mommmy “camp”…blankets with sand everywhere…while kids played until they dropped. Of course, the sun didn’t come out until we were heading home BUT that's ok sun and radiation aren’t really friends! haha

Owen LOVES playing in the sand but hates when he accidently eats it!! haha Ryland would try and build a sand castle while Owen just liked dumping the water on himself!

Heather, Jess and Ryry	Holly and Landon
Kristen, Abby and Addison	Cailin, Mo and Cambria

The kids and Mommies had lots of fun!! I think we’ll have to do another Beach Play Date…but for the future…we WON’T be going to Huntington since it costs $15 to park!!! Crazy huh!?!?

 

 

Then on the Saturday we had a little “spa day baby shower” for Deanna. We were planning on going to Glen Ivy until we figured out how much that place costs. So I had the idea of using Heathers spa and getting a “mobile  masseuse”  lady named Becky come to Heather’s house and give massages! It worked out great and we had such a good time.  We ate, Deanna took some prego pics with One Moment Forever (Jess), we laid in the sun a bit, sat in the spa, opened baby presents and just had a great KID-FREE time!! There were PLENTY of jokes, laughs and relaxation which was much needed by all of us!!! This picture was taken with a tripod…and only needed like 20 tries before we got one we liked by “everyone” (inside joke)! haha Kyla was also there with us, but headed home before we got the group shot.

Good Luck Deanna…can’t wait to meet Baby Manley!

Now I’m sitting here at the computer…playing on the internet (blogging) while Owen naps…we are leaving for Ireland in the morning and I’m not finished packing…what is my PROBLEM…I need to go now! bye

Father’s Day Weekend in Laughlin

We turned Fathers Day into another chance to go on a little vacation with friends.

Last year we all went to San Diego and enjoyed the zoo (in the rain) and dinner at C-Level. It was us, the Harp’s and the Cilderman’s and we had a great time but oh so different with the kids being so small.

This year…we added lots of good friends to the bunch. We went to Laughlin and stayed at Harrah’s hotel. It was us, The Harp’s, The Cilderman’s, The Rowe’s, The Manley’s and the Crane’s. And we met up with great friends The Salmon’s and the Brokaw’s. We found an awesome cove that boats could park on both sides. I’m  a  little bummed b/c I forgot to get a group pic…there were so many of us it would have been a good one!!!

This was our “camp”…felt pretty cool to have so many friends with us this trip!!

 

We had so much fun…here are some pics of Daddy enjoying his Father’s Day weekend! :)

Daddy and Joel lost a game of “corn-hole” and had to “corn-dog” in the sand

 

Yosh had MANY attempts on trying to get down this trampoline slide…but he did it…and it was funny to watch!

Owen really enjoyed his weekend as well…he played with his friends in the sand, hung out w/ Mama in the water, played on Cambria’s slide and trampoline and more.

Owen LOVES the river!!

 

If you know my husband…you know that Owen is definitely his son by his choice of nap spot! hahaha

 

(I have a million pictures of Yosh asleep in the back of the boat…and I think I’ll be starting a collection of Owen in that spot as well!)

4 Years Down!

Today is John and I’s 4th wedding anniversary. So weird…I look back at some of the pictures and wow it was such an awesome day!!!! We were at Etiwanda Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga…it was  Friday…and pretty darn hot!

I was feeling so nervous while saying my vows…my legs were shaking under my dress and I was “thumb-wrestling” John while the officiate spoke (I actually don’t remember much of what was said at the ceremony…good thing I have it written down somewhere! haha) I was overwhelmed with emotion and I thought I just might FAINT!

 

 

The day went by so fast, with our best friends and family all there to celebrate with us! My bridesmaids, who are all still my best friends, Catherine, Brenda, Gabby, Erika and Cindy, John’s Groomsmen, Travis, John, Roshaun, Joel and Sean.  All these people meant so much to us then and still mean so much to us now!!!

Now…four years later….nothing extravagant!! My day started out awesome by getting to be present to welcome Baby Raymond Machuca into the world at 11:43am! Cindy was absolutely amazing and I am so appreciative for her allowing me in the delivery room! What an incredible experience!

 

John brought home dinner from Burger Basket, we ate, played with the love of our lives (Owen) and both went to the gym like any other normal weekday!! haha Oh lives have changed so much! But here’s to another wonderful year and like my friend Holly said…4 years closer to Happily Ever After (or something like that haha)!

Yum Yum Burger Basket…I’m a high class kinda girl! haha

Fun Chilly Day at the Beach

 

So we have had a VERY busy past few weekends and today we had some down time. I wanted to do something that got us out of the house that was inexpensive….so I thought the beach would be perfect. Woke up to cloudy skies but hey…kids don’t care whether its sunny or cloudy out so we headed to Newport Beach after lunch regardless of weather! (Mommy can’t lay out b/c of radiation anyway, so it works)

Back in September 2009 Mommy and Daddy took a trip to the beach b/c Daddy couldn’t work due to his TB test being expired (oh darn) and since it wasn’t a treatment week we went to the beach. Owen HATED the water…Don’t know if you can really notice in the picture  on the left but maybe you can notice JUST how unhappy Owen was about beach water in the pic on the right.

But this trip was a different story…Daddy started off by walking him down to the shore and from that point on ALL day, John and I traded off who’s turn it was to go down and get him from the water. This was the view of Owen we had most of the day (his backside!)

It turned into a total game for that lil Goose…he’s such a lil ham and thinks he's just so funny (well Mommy and Daddy think he’s too funny as well, maybe we have a comedian on our hands).

Other than trying to play in the freezing water, Owen had a great time chasing the “dogs”…as you can see in the pictures below there were NO dogs…BUT he thought the birds were dogs. haha It was funny…he’d say “DOG!” while pointing at the birds and start after them. Walking on the sand was tricky so he resorted to crawling after them while laughing!! It kept him busy for a while.

 

We had a very fun day…sunshine or not…Owen loved it and I plan on taking him as much as I can this summer!! …Already brainstorming a mommy play-date down at the beach this summer!!!! hmmmm lots of babies, lots of mommies, sand, sun, water…sounds fun to me!!!

 

Wonderful family fun beach day in May!

Mother’s Day!

Its my second Mothers Day, and boy have things changed in the past year!

       My first Mother’s day 2009                                     One year later…2010

This year we kept it VERY low key. I just wanted a day to relax…since we have had SUCH a busy past month or so. Yosh let me sleep in and then we brought my wonderful mother-in-law Marilyn out to lunch to Black Angus. Then enjoyed the evening just hanging out! ::sigh:: feels so good to do NOTHING! Going to go visit my own Mother in a bit while hopefully getting some Thrifty’s ice cream Ü

But, this day last year we were saying good-bye to my wonderful sister-in-law, Missy and my niece, Peyton…they had come from NY to visit and meet little baby Owen, who was barely a month old. It was wonderful to have a week with them and to have another experienced Mommy to help me out (mentally and physically)

 

Also, this day last year our lil precious Owen was the exorcist baby…he was projectile vomiting at least once a day.  I brought him to the doctor the Monday after Mother’s Day and was told that I was basically a paranoid first-time mother and to go home and make sure he sat up for 30 minutes after feeding.  All week I lived in hell, being puked on, scared to eat anything incase that was what was upsetting his stomach…we couldn’t leave the house! So after 2 more visits to the doctor Owen was diagnosed with Pyloric Stenosis.  A condition that I found out is somewhat common. 1 in 400 first born males get it. Its a thickening of the pylorus (muscle in the stomach) that causes food to “forcefully” come back out instead of passing through to the digestive system. 

So on May 18th, 2009 we went from Kaiser Ontario with our pediatrician, to Kaiser Fontana for an ultrasound to confirm the condition, and was then rushed over to Pediatrics where Owen was admitted into the hospital for a pyloromyotomy.  Which is surgery, 3 small incisions in the belly to go in and cut the extra muscle. I couldn’t mentally get my head around my poor little baby having to go in and have real surgery!!! I was a complete wreck (and so was Yosh and Bernie!) Was kinda funny because one of the incisions had to be done inside the belly button…but Owen’s belly button had not fallen off yet. He was actually going to have to have it surgically removed the following week, so the surgeon said he’d take care of it for us! (Two birds with one stone).

(Pics above) Owen patiently waiting in his little crib before being wheeled into surgery. And me holding him during admittance. He was starving but I wasn’t allowed to feed him. Broke my heart…the whole thing. I couldn’t stop crying! I look back on it now and kinda laugh because I was sooooo emotional!

We stayed one night in the hospital…I was awake all night holding him and crying (he wasn’t even crying anymore) while Yosh tried to sleep on the floor. He did great and about 8 hours after surgery he was allowed to start eating like normal again.

This was Owen’s hospital room/crib and him in recovery after I finally got back there to calm him down.  Was horrible…after his surgery I walked back into recovery to find a nurse trying to feed my SCREAMING child a bottle of pedialyte. Poor Owen, #1 he had NEVER had a bottle before #2 his throat was very sore for the surgery #3 it was traumatic for me…my baby didn’t cry so I almost didn’t know what to do! But he calmed once I got him in my arms and I didn’t leave him with those nurses again!              

           And these are his little war-wounds…to this day he still has the 2 scares :(

                       

But thankfully technology is amazing and after the surgery we lived a much better, less spit-up kinda life! Don’t get me wrong…he was a puker until he was able to sit-up BUT we got to say good-bye to the exorcist baby forever!!

I can only imagine what kind of stories I’ll have for next years Mother’s Day blog entry!!!