We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Well, Mark and I plus the babe are off on a fun-filled vacation to Utah to spend Christmas with my fam. We are excited for the good food, great company, and a stress-free week away. We hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous time wherever you are for the holidays. I leave all of you with photos of Reese and her cousins decked out in their Christmas Eve best…

5 years and counting…

Yesterday Mark and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. Yes, that’s right, I said 5 YEARS!!!! I was just thinking the other day how much we have changed in the last 5 years. The people we were when we got married to each other are not the same people we are today. We have changed and grown and matured (I like to think) and we have become more comfortable and settled with each other. I married Mark when I was only 20. I was still very young and very immature. Looking back I don’t know how we every made it to the altar, I was so dramatic and emotional and now I realize that I didn’t really know Mark as well as I thought I did. These last 5 years have taught me a lot about compromise, sacrifice, joy and commitment. I also was very lucky to have married a man who turned out to be even more of a dream come true than I could have ever imagined. He makes me laugh, and he holds me when I cry. He deals with my neurosis, and he is an amazing father. He is brilliant, honest, hard-working, funny, and my best friend.

We had decided that instead of taking off for an overnight excursion, we wanted to spend the day with our little munchkin as well. We decided to take her to the San Jose Discovery Museum since we had been meaning to take her there for awhile. She was in HEAVEN!!! She spent two hours running from one thing to the next trying to take it all in. We had so much fun watching her eyes light up and hearing her shrieks of joy. We decided that it was such a good time we should buy a year membership, so we did. We plan to go back often. Here are some photos to show how awesome it was:

(Please note the recent abundance of hair growth on the crown of Reese’s head. The girl has a crazy cowlick!)

After the Discovery museum we took a very exhausted but happy Reese home and gave her dinner and put her to bed. Grandma Mac came over to babysit while Mark and I went out to our new favorite fondue restaurant; Rok. We were starving and the food was delicious. We especially love their citrus salad and the dessert fondue. We came home stuffed and tired. All in all- it was a great day.

A letter to my loved ones

Mark and Reese:

To my two favorite people in the world; I am terribly sorry for the crazy person I have been the last couple of weeks. I apologize for the late nights I have been glued to the computer, for lack of meals or grocery shopping for that matter, for the lack of moments of attention and hugs I haven’t been able to spare, for my cranky comments, tired eyes, and general crazy-woman behavior. Throughout the last few weeks I have felt like I am at the wrong one of a very long tunnel, just trying to dig my way out. I haven’t been able to joke and play without worrying about all the things I have to accomplish.

To my dear sweet hubby; You are my hero. I have woken up several mornings recently to the sound of you loading the dishwasher and it has warmed my heart. I have not thanked you properly for the amazing things you have done for me recently and I am sorry that I haven’t been more myself. I love that you are so supportive of my dreams and that you do everything in your power to make them a reality. You make my whole world full of hope and possibility and I never worry that you don’t think I will make it. In fact, you believe in me more than I believe in myself. Thank you for having such faith in me and for putting aside your frugal ways for a moment to make me happy.

To my darling and demanding daughter; Life would not be the same without you. I admit it might be easier, but it definitely would not be worth it. I love our days together. I love that it it weren’t for you I would not have been able to get into the Christmas spirit at all this year. Yet a single walk around the block with you and I saw the way your eyes lit up at the sight of Christmas lights and the way you were in awe of a simple Christmas tree. It’s moments like that when I step outside myself and my own silly worries and see the world through your eyes. What a wonderful blessing you have turned out to be. I am sorry that we didn’t do more fun Christmas activities this year. I’m sorry that I didn’t start shopping for your presents until this week. Next year I promise to do all the fun Christmasy things with you and make a big deal about Christmas.

For everyone else in my life who has supported and lifted my spirits these last few weeks you are such a blessing in my life and I don’t know what I would do without you.

Here’s to getting life back to normal after the holidays!!!

-Meg

Simply incredible video

Those of you who know me know I love technology and gadgets.  A lot.  For whatever reason though, it’s Meghan who is crazy about digital cameras while I just enjoy the photos she takes.

However, I am drooling over Canon’s new super expensive 5d Mark II:

Why?  Because aside from being an incredible 21 MP camera, it also shoots 1080p HD video.  Absolutely gorgeous video.  My father, of course, picked one up immediately to play with.  He shot a test video in San Francisco one night and SmugMug can display it in 1080p.  When you click the link, it will automatically choose the highest resolution that will fit on your monitor.  Unless you have a gigantic monitor (like the pair of 30″ Dell’s I use at work), you would have to click “FullHD”.  Unless you also have a very fast computer, it’s going to be screaming at you for trying to play it in 1080p.

Worth a watch though.  It’s one of the highest-quality videos I have ever seen online.  It was filmed by my father.  It is hosted by the company I work for.  It feels so good!

Also, although Meghan does most of the posting on this blog, I obviously post occasionally as well.  For anyone who wants just her posts or just my posts, change your bookmarks.

Just Meghan’s posts.

Just my posts.

As long as Meghan and I are careful to categorize posts correctly, those should work.

Our First Fight

I know what you are thinking. But no, this post is not about marital spats. This post is about the first of what I’m sure will be many, MANY arguments with my daughter.

Reese is turning out to be quite the little spitfire. My mother wasn’t kidding when she cursed me with having a daughter that was exactly like me. Reese definitely has my temper, my passion, my flare for the dramatic, and my stubbornness (Mark’s too, poor kid. Double whammy!). Reese is already throwing temper tantrums when we:

a) Try to hold her hand. EVER!
b) Try to feed her something that she doesn’t want to eat.
c) When she wants a bite or a drink of something we have.
d) When we hold her and she wants to get down.
c) When we put her on our lap, she wants to sit next to us but not on our lap or on the floor.
e) Basically any time she does not get her way.

This is not something I feed into. When Reese throws a temper tantrum I often ignore her crying and walk away. This usually makes her more irate. I don’t give her what she wants all the time. She cries more. I say “no”. She screams until I am nearly deaf. Any words of wisdom for how to overcome the tantrums at this point would be much appreciated.

Anyways, in addition to the tantrums, Reese has learned the word “no”. Not just what it means when we say it to her, but not she has learned how to say it back to us. Imagine, if you will, a snobby teenage girl who turns up her nose and says “no” with a condescending air as if to say “How could you even think of offering me that?”

Reese has been saying “no” for a few weeks, but never really in the context where I thought she understood what it meant. Then today, I was driving home from a fun playgroup with Reese at the park. We were running late for her afternoon nap and I was talking to her about how we were going to get home and put her right to bed. Then I made the fatal error of saying “You want to go home and have a sleep?”

From the back seat I hear a tiny “no”(imagine the inflection turning up at the end).

I was surprised and wanted to make sure she really said it, so I said “Baby, don’t you want to go home and have a nap?”, *Reese gives a huge grin* “No!”. So I ask the question repeatedly as Reese fields each question with “no” in varying volumes.

So then, silly me, I begin to answer back “YES!”

Reese grins “No!” “Yes” “No!” “Yes”….And so it goes….all the way home.

There was a moment when I had a glimpse of all the many years and arguments that I will have with this fiery little girl, and suddenly I was very tired.