february already...

geez, the days just seem to fly by and most of the time we never even leave the house. I really need to get off my lazy butt and get Tyler outside. Storie's not old enough for sunscreen and technically isn't suppose to be in direct sunlight until 6 months, and Jake's had the car going on 3 weeks now...but I need to stop making excuses and get outside. Poor Ty.

Anyways, we went bowling and Tyler had a blast. He beat both Jake & I....pretty awesome!

and than some too cute ones of Tyler and Storie. He just loves her so much! I just love watching them together. I can not wait until she is older and they can actually play together.

Storie is 9 weeks old already...
eating chocolate pudding. \ She's got such pretty eyes. They're much different than Tylers. His was that new baby blue, but Storie's are this steel blue/gray. I keep thinking they may go green :) but Jake keeps killing my dream of a green-eyed child by saying they'll be brown.

This is seriously how he watches tv most of the time. It's his Mr. Potato Head glasses. He wears them upside down. We're in for such a hard time when he gets older, but I know without a doubt its going to be one funny ride!

We went to the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla a few weeks ago. It was fun, not as many fish/sealife as I'd hoped, but Tyler seemed to enjoy everything. Heres a few snapshots. There were a lot of fish and some really cool octupi. They also had baby makin' seahorses. They had a few different display tanks where it showed the different stages of seahorses from babies to growing up adults. It was really neat, I wish I would have taken some pictures of those. The baby seahorses were so freaking tiny. I mean like the size of a pea but you could totally see everything! It was really cool.

New year... New me??

So along with my exercising/weight loss I am also trying to take "erica time" My neighbor Mykael asked me the other day what I did for fun....know what I said.

umm...fun what's that?!! no not really. I have tons of fun, but its all with my children. Don't get me wrong there is no problem in that, i LOVE being a mother! But I think I've forgotten what it's like to be a 23 year old girl. With Tyler I was the new mom who was scared of everything. Scared he'd choke, scared he'd fall off the bed, scared to let anyone watch him i didn't trust 110%. With Storie it has been much easier. I don't worry too much about the 'what ifs' and I'm not up every hour at night checking her breathing. (yes i was a tad ridiculous with Ty) I have gotten so much better at trusting others with Tyler and I feel completely comfortable now leaving the kids with daddy. As horrible as that sounds, I just couldn't leave them with anyone that wasn't me. I mean I'm their mother, I know best. But I need to take a back seat and let Daddy parent equally with me. So far it is going good. Tyler has stayed at the neighbors house with Emilia several times and I will trust Mykael with Storie too once she's alittle older!

So for this new year of 2010 I am going to calm down and get out there & experience life. I will always love my family and put them before anything, but I need to remember what it's like to have a life of my own outside the kids. I need to have fun with Jake and be young and married without having to pack a diaper bag and be mommy all the time. So I have several things planned for this year that I would like to do just me and friends, and me and Jake.

take pole dancing lessons

take a dancing class:swing, salsa

go kayaking in La Jolla Coves

practice my photography

Rock Climb

Night out down town

Here is a picture from my girls night out to Chilis about 2 weeks ago! Stacy & I talked about the kids all night....next step-find something else to talk about than what Tyler said or Storie pooped out!! :)

30 day shred

So....I gained a total of 150lbs with Storie. Thats the most i've ever weighed IN MY LIFE.

I know I know...it's not that much weight, but for me it's pretty heavy. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat for my precious baby girl. So I am now at 130lbs post pregnancy and most of my jeans are still not fitting and the ones that do i get the muffin top effect. blah! So my goal....drum roll please....................................starting tomorrow, January 21, 2010 I am working out every day with the "30 Day Shred" by Jillian Michaels (i think) and I will not be drinking any soda. And to hold my self accountable I am taking before pictures (gag) and measurements & post pictures with measurements. I am looking to get back down to 115lbs!!! woop woop woop.

Okay now that i've made it public i'm going to stick to this, but for now I'm going to go run a hot bath and read my new vampire book ALL BY MYSELF. This doesn't happen often so I'm really going to enjoy it. Then afterwards I'm going to watch a movie & drink my last soda of the month!! :)

Encouragement is welcome as I am really lazy in my old age.

random thoughts

Just wanted to share some pictures from tonight:

bath time!

Storie got so lucky to have gotten her daddy's toes...

caught missie smiling in her sleep. She is too precious!

and of course one of daddy being daddy.

Feeding the Ducks....california style

We love feeding the ducks. Tyler gets such a kick out of it. He'll call to them. "ducks, ducks" and then the smile he gets when they eat the bread and come back for more. We've fed the ducks plenty of times, however this trip was a new experience for all of us. We never made it down to the water's edge... This is feeding the ducks California style.