Happy Halloween!

Love,

Woody and Buzzlightyear

27....

For my 27th birthday this year, me and the hubby left the kids and jetted of to Cabo San Lucas Mexico for a whole week to celebrate. And celebrate we did! As you can see below, I drank my fair share of tequila while we were there. We stopped in at Cabo Wabo for this refreshing beverage.

We went parasailing, which was awesome. I was totally freaked out at first, but once I was up there it was beautiful. I only went up 200 hundred feet, but that was good enough for my first time. After parasailing we ran into this ugly lizard. I was really freaked out but knew Mikey would love a picture of me with it. You only live once right?

There are only a few swimable beaches there and here is a view of the ocean and lover's beach from mondando beach. It's was so beautiful!!!

Happy hour is 24/7 down there. It starts out with a free shot of tequila with every beer.

Then it's but one get one free. Topped of with 2 dollar drinks. I could have very well died of alcohol poisoning!!!

And finally, here are a few shots of the view from our room. We had a beautiful view of the ocean to the left and the resort to our right.

We went on a dinner cruse and I broke the camera, damn that tequila! We also went snorkeling, and deep sea fishing. It was by far the best birthday and a great get away with the husband. Happy birthday to me!

4

Today he turns 4

Its been the best four years ever...!

Fruits of our labor

Or should I say vegetables?

Here it is, the crown jewel of the garden:

The MARSHMALLOW TREE
(or dead branch)

We have strawberries

We have pumpkins

We have peas

And finally...tomatoes

Oh my god! It's the ice cream truck!

Is shortly followed by the ice cream dance.

While Mikey is bustin his moves from soul train,

Garrett is screamin "Ice Cream, Ice Cream!!!"

And then we run, literally, into the middle of the street with

20 other kids to get the goods. It's always the same popsicles.

They love them, and as you can see, they are delicious. What a way to spend a summer day!

Holy Cow!

It's been a long time since I posted some news. Where to start? Mother's day. What a wonderful day. I did Mom's on the run for the first time. I will be doing it every year from now on. I spent the morning with Em. This was something that her family used to do with her mom before she passed away from breast cancer. It was a privalege to spend this day with her family. Here we are, still and awkard pair.

She is just so damn tall! Anyway, the day was beautiful. All the money goes to help local women struggling with breast cancer. They had a kiddie run at the end which Mikey and Matt both ran in.

My friend Krysta came with us. She is Matt's mom. She also has a daughter named Charlie Rae. All of us have know or lost someone to breast cancer. We decided that we weren't just walking for women who had or survived breast cancer, but we were walking for future ta ta's as well.

Isn't she too cute! Mikey and Matt ran a whole quater mile without stopping. They held hands the whole way that way they couldn't loose each other. I couldn't think of a better way to spend mother's day.
Em, I love you. We will do this together every mothers day from now on. It is such a great way to remember the good things about your mom. I think about her every single day. I think this last picture sums up our feelings about breast cancer:

Gotta love the hot weather...

Last week the weater was wonderful. It was almost 80 degrees the whole week
We went to Lahontan Pond for a nice sunday.

There was jet skiing

And lots of fun with the kids and their friends.

6 boys and 1 girl to be exact.
They dug a huge hole and it filled up the water,
and they kept saying they were in the jacuzzi.

Mikey thought he was a bird for a minute.

And of course, there was delicious snacks.

P.S. Garrett wears his hat like that all by himself. I miss you too Em, we have to see each other soon. Garrett is a direct decendent of the true gangster himself-Tupac! haha

From the mouths of babe's...

My sweet Mikey has been full of things to say:

Mikey: Hey mom, do you need my muscles?

Me: What?

Mikey: I was just wondering if you need me to open or break something, I am strong.

Mikey: Mom, can I have some cookies?

Me: Nope, it's time for bed.

Mikey: WHAT! There is NO cookies!

Me: No, we have cookies, but it's time for bed.

Mikey: FINE, I will just be sad.

And my personal favorite. Last week we were in walmart and there was a lady COVERED with freckels. I mean covered. I have never seen so many freckels on one person in my life.

I had seen her when we got to the store. While we were checking out, she got in line behind us. Mikey get this super concerned look on his face and says to his dad:

That lady is sick. Mike looks at her and says No she's not, she is fine

then mikey says no she's not dad, she has polka dots.

Busy Saturday...

Today we planted a garden.

Last night we went to lowe's to get supplies

The boys picked out some potted flowers

They also picked out 2 packages of seeds each for the garden.

Garrett picked pumpkins, and yellow squash.

Mikey picked peas and carrots.

He said that the peas were his "special favorites."

I am sure he has never eaten a pea in his life.

Anyway, mikey wakes up this morning at 6:30 ready to plant.

Guess what?

We forgot to get shovels.

Seriously!

So off to walmart we go.

2 wheelbarrows, 4 shovels, 2 buckets, and 2 trellis's later
Mikey looks at me and says,
"wow mom, we got yada stuff to do today"

So as soon as we get home, we soak the dirt and start digging.

Mikey is the cleanest dirty kid I know. He loves to dig in the dirt,

but hates to have dirt on him. See the longsleeve shirt, gloves and boots.

Not a inch of skin exposed to dirt.

Garrett on the other hand isn't complete without some mud on him at all times.

He picked this outfit out all by himself.

I am not sure what he is digging for, but he's is cute either way.

He was a big helper when it came to running the shovel.

Very serious, but still very helpful.
At the end of the day, we planted a few different kinds of flowers

carrots, strawberries, peas, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, and according to Mikey

a marshmallow tree.

Hopefully that works out for him.

It was a long busy day, but it was fun.

The boys are exhausted and sound asleep.

Garrett's story, part 2.

I woke up from surgery and was greatful to be alive. Of course the first thing out of my mouth was how's my baby. He was doing good. He weighed in at a healthy 5 pounds, which isn't bad for being born 6 weeks early. The doctor told me that we had gotten in to surgery just in time. Once they were able to visualize my uterus, they say a window that was half the length of my previous incision.( A window is a thin spot in my uterus wall.) They didn't even make an incision. The doctor said once he got in there, Garrett was looking up at hime from inside my uterus. Then it tore open on it's own and he fell onto my lap. Luckily we were already in surgery so they could control the bleeding and work on Garrett. Every kept telling me that I must have a few guardian angels looking out for us, becasue they never catch a rupture before it happens. My beautiful baby was born on March 3rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm. He was 5 pounds and 18 inches long. He had some health problems, but at this point was doing good.

This is the first picture I got to see of him. They wouldn't let me go to the NICU to see him until morning so I could rest. It is a very daunting thing to see your baby for the first time like this. Everyone is telling me that he is ok, and then to see this just freaked me out. The doctors came down to tell me he was having a hard time breathing so they put him on a ventalitor. They would leave him on that and see how he was in the morning.

They started an IV in his umbilical cord, and kept him on the vent for a few days. He had jaundice for about a week, but once that was behind him we started working on his eating. Babies don't have the sucking reflux until they are about 34 weeks. Since he was born at 34 weeks and had other things to deal with at the time, eating became his last priority. Here he is under the bili lights to help with his jaundice. It was pretty cute that the eye covers looked like sunglasses. The bili lights look like a tanning bed so when you would walk in there would be these naked babies with sunglasses tanning all over the NICU, it was pretty cute. Anyway, his days got better and better, and his eating improved. He had a feeding tube in his nose the entire month he was there. They took it out the day before we left.

They only let the siblings of these babies come into the NICU once to see them. We had brought mikey in about 2 weeks before they let us go home. It was so hard for him to understand. That we had a baby that we couldn't bring home. The day I brought Garrett home, Mikey was asleep when we got home. Here is his reaction when he say me home with his new brother.

He was stoked! It has been a long haul. Garrett for the most part is a healthy 2 year old boy. He has asthma, with chronic bronchitis. He was born with no enamel on some of his teeth, and if small for his age. Last week he weighed in a 22 pounds. I guess my reason for posting his story is this: Nothing in life is guarenteed. I wake up every day knowing that anything can happen at a moments notice that could turn my world up side down. Garrett has defienatly given me a new outlook on life. I am greatful that he chose me to be his mom, and given me the oppurtunity to love him unconditionally. You will never know what a blessing you are to me little boy, but I loved you my whole life. Happy Birthday,

Love mommy.