Fun in the tub!

she's almost crawling

We have another banana lover!

Leia has grown to love bananas (as most kids do), as you can see...but she's mastered feeding them to herself. she is so funny, she grabs everything we put near her so i thought i'd see what would happen if i just let her do it & she did a pretty good job!
here's leia and papa paulo
she looks pretty pleased with herself...

Party packed Saturday

Two friends of ours kids turned 2 this weekend...Happy Birthday Gracie and Max (i know, we forgot to bring our camera into gracie's party...sorry). we had a lot of fun!

They're here

this weekend/week was kinda tough...leia's been teething bad! i tried to get a pic of the 2 teeth she's worked really hard for, but she wasn't cooperating, so i went with this one. anyways, saturday and sunday night she had 102* fever and couldn't get comfortable (even after i gave her baby tylenol), and i think i saw every hour on the clock during the night the entire weekend! yea, not fun. also, she's always kinda a "mama's girl", but i literally don't think she let me put her down without screaming until yesterday...we were literally attached for like 6 days straight, except for when i took a shower or went to the bathroom...wait, there were a couple of times where she was in there with me too, i know that's talent! yea, i was her human pacifier (she won't take a real pacifier, they make her gag...so, it's me). but anyways, teeth #1 & 2 are officially here and the worst of it is over, until her next tooth decides to make its appearance.

God is good

Thank you Jesus that we got some good news today. derek's PET scan came back clean.
you have no idea how thankful i am and what a weight was lifted off of us again today. now we can finally look past today, we can enjoy life again. derek can look at our little girls without wanting to cry and we can focus on what's next. thank you Jesus for listening to us even when we feel abandoned. thank you for my little family.

Derek

Just to let you know...whoever used to read derek's blog or would like to check it out...he made it public again. the link to his blog is on the right (since i don't know how to make a link here, i'm not that computer saavy)...you'll have to click on it, it's the one that says "dpaulo".

Sittin' pretty

check out her two front bottom teeth (it's kinda hard to see 'em, they're still really small)

Don't try this at home...

So, i've been feelin' a little frumpy lately & what helps when you feel like that...go blonder! so, i thought i'd save some money by doing my own highlights at home. good old Target to the rescue (as always!), they have that whole "highlights in a box" kit for like $12.95...SOLD! it came out alright, a few funny little spots here and there, but not too bad (unless i'm just oblivious).
1.) before
2.) during
3.) afterTa-da!!!

Snow in the "IE"!!!

That's right, this morning as derek was walking out the door for work he says, "come look!" sure enough it was actually snowing! so we bundled up the girls quickly and barely got out there before it stopped. wow, about 2 minutes of snow...it was both of their first times actually seeing snow as it was falling. kaia's been up to big bear in the snow, but it was about 80* that day so that doesn't really count. they loved it!



this was our first attempt to see the snow, but it was barely snowing yet...about 10 minutes later, was the "real" stuff (well, as real as it gets here)
nothing like some outmeal after a day (or minute) in the snow) :)

Sisters snugglin'

Here are kaia and leia snuggling in our bed with our new comforter and pillows...our Christmas gift to eachother...finally a grown up bed set!!!

Ewwwwww!!!

We made hamburgers the other night with some supposedly extra lean beef from Trader Joe's...all i have to say is thank goodness for the George Foreman grill!!!

We're too much alike!

Okay, so we get up this morning & i think..."hmmm, what are we gonna do today?" then i remember that my good firend, malena is off work today (by the way, she is an AWESOME hairdresser, if anyone needs a referral, just ask me for contact info.). anyways, her daughter, annie and kaia are really good friends too, so i thought, "let's call them and see if they want to meet for lunch and then do something afterwards." so, after calling we decide to meet up for lunch, go shopping and then take the kids to the park.

so, after eating lunch we decide to go to marshalls to do some good bargain shopping. sounds like a good idea...so, we get there & the girls start out calm perfect little angels and malena and i are in the "zone". all is well, then it all went downhill from there. both girls wanted to walk, so we tell them that they can get out of the cart if they STAY by us. that worked for about 2 minutes & malena and i realized that we are more alike than we thought. at first we were doing a great job of shopping while keeping an eye on what the girls were doing, we kinda took turns keeping track of them. as we got more and more into looking at "great clearance deals", we kinda lost track of what the girls were doing. here are just a couple of incidents that happened to give you an example...malena and i were checking out some stuff in the juniors section & we look up and the girls were RUNNING toward the complete other side of the store. so, off we went...me & leia with the shopping cart and malena, noah & her stroller. we were very calmly, yet sternly warning them,"kaia, annie, come here right now,1-2......", and at the same time, it happened...both of us got distracted. in perfect sync, we both stopped to look at something that caught our eye. it was hilarious...here we were trying to be good moms & something as silly as a cute shirt (for me) and a cute sweater (for malena) put all of that "strict mom" stuff to a halt. A few minutes later in the kids clothing section, we looked away for a second (literally) & they were nowhere to be found. After about 30 seconds of saying, "kaia, annie where are you?", a little girl that we didn't even know said, "they're under there", pointing to a table that had toys on it. Mabye you just had to be there, but, trust me, it was funny.

speaking of being good moms, here's another non-very-good-mom-moment that happened today. we both found a pair of ADORABLE platform-type sandals that we both loved, but they didn't have that wonderful little red clearance tag that takes all of the guilt away from buying it on them. so, as we're sadly taking them off to put them back, i couldn't help but notice that the shoes next to them had the clearance tag on them. just for a mili-second, i have to admit that the thought did cross my mind that "that little red sticker looks pretty easy to peel off" (NO, i would never do that, put come on...you know that thought has a least crossed your mind too). then i look down at malena as she says, "hey shannon", and shows me that there was a clearance sticker on the floor that she acted like she was trying to scrape it off.

anyways, to summarize, i am NOT usually like this, i usually know exactly where my kids are, but i think going shopping with a friend changes everything. if you plan on going shopping with a friend that gets zoned out just as easily as you do...don't bring your kids with you...i found that out today!

Starting out the New Year with a Laguna Beach sunset!

We couldn't start out the New Year without watching football (well, i could)...so anyways, we went to BJ's for lunch so derek could watch some of the Rose Bowl (yum!)...if there's food involved, i'm willing to compromise. afterwards, we went to Laguna Beach just in time for the beautiful sunset...

happy new year 2007!

well, derek and i met almost exactly 7 years ago now (a little history...i moved to california from texas in january 2000) & something "BIG" has happened every year since:
~2000: we met (in january)
~2001: we got engaged (in november)
~2002: we got married (in may)
~2003: we bought our first house (in february), got
pregnant with kaia (in february too :)) & we had
kaia (in november)...whew, that year was busy!
~2004: we "chilled" (kaia had her first Hawaii trip in march)
~2005: we got pregnant with leia (in september)
~2006: derek beat a serious illness & we had leia (in june)
~2007: ??????????????? (hopefully, we'll be able to fill
this line in with "we bought our second house")...
that would be great!
What are your hopes and plans for 2007?