Lots to catch up on!

Oh blogging...how I missed thee! But it seems having 2 children really leaves little time for much else these days but a shower and some boring household chore. Since I last blogged, our little Tanner has made it to the 8 month mark! He has been crawling for about 8 weeks, has since decided he is too big to eat baby food and prefers whatever you have on your plate, began crawling up a full flight of stairs last week, and is starting to stand by himself! Yes, he has been in a hurry to grow up since he arrived and is showing no signs of slowing down! Talan will turn the Big 5 next week....how does this happen? Yeah I know they are supposed to grow up and all, but why so soon? He of course can't wait to be 10, or 16 or whichever older big kid age he aspires for on any given day. He will be starting junior Kindergarten in January which we talk about everyday...he is soooooo ready.

We have recently moved out of our condo and moved in with my parents. This has brought about many changes in our life but all of them for the better. Due to circumstances that are beyond our control, selling the condo is not an option in this real estate market. Jason and I made the decision that our boys need a place to run, to be outside, have a backyard, to just be little boys and our little place wasn't cutting it! The plan is to SAVE SAVE SAVE for the next year to year and a half for a sizeable down payment, and buy our dream house! I love and adore my parents for allowing us this opportunity, although leading up to it involved a great deal of apprehension...after all moving in with our parents just as we have entered our 30's was not high up on our life goals. But we all know that the end result of this process is going to have a big reward!

Now the daunting process has begun to become Landlords....

More to follow, and hopefully some recent pictures!

Tanner's Red Egg & Ginger Party

On Sunday June 27th, we officially introduced Tanner to our family and friends! We were more than overwhelmed by the amazing turn out and felt so loved and supported by everyone. Tanner was very social, smiling and interacting with our guests! He quietly fell asleep when he was tired and woke up cheerful, couldn't ask for more from a 3 month old at a 3 hour party!


The kids had such good behavior...it's hard for little ones to be stuck in a restaurant for so long.


The very popular roasted pig!

What was left of the unbelievable cupcakes my mom and sister baked-fresh lemon and red velvet, both homemade and with the best cream cheese frosting!

One of his 3 naps!

Good friends!

Father's Day

We spent Father's Day morning having breakfast at John's XLNT Food in Willow Glen with Jason's parents and brother. Then we took T to see Toy Story 3 - great movie, loved it! That afternoon, Jason's sister came to SJ with her boys and they played in the backyard blow-up pool. And finally we ended the day at my parents house, where my Mom made Thanksgiving dinner, mostly for my Uncle Gary who misses my Mom's cooking on Thanksgiving now that he lives in TN.
Mitch and T

Here is Thomas racing, in his own way, into the pool! It was more like a leisurely stroll to the pool but he likes to take his time in measured steps!

Mitch preparing for his blast-off!

Here are T's feet!

Spencer in his favorite position

We didn't know they would be swimming, which is why my son is in his O.K. undies!
This one will embarrass him someday!

Luisa's

We visited Katie over the weekend in S.F. so my Uncle Gary, visiting from TN, could see her apartment. Of course the biggest decision we had to make was where to eat-and in the city there are too many options, not a good thing for the indecisive ones (me, mom, and Kate)! More about where we went in a minute...
Jason gets so frustrated with me when we go out to eat and he asks me where I want to go, and my standard response is typically "You decide" or "Whatever you want to eat." I just have a hard time making a decision, unless I have a super strong craving for something, which is usually Japanese, which Jason doesn't like! Have you ever heard of someone not liking Japanese food, if not sushi, fine, but there are just so many other amazing options! Do any of you have this problem? This is a pretty standard issue in my family, my poor Dad is really patient when it comes to waiting for the 3 of us to discuss options - 30 minutes later, someone is annoyed, someone doesn't care, and someone isn't hungry any more and we typically end up with Outback takeout!! I think we watch Diners, Drive-In's & Dives too much! I love me some CPK but sometimes the large chain restaurants that over populate this city just don't provide the same culinary satisfaction as finding a little gem of a dive such as the one we found on our recent visit to S.F.!
After 20 minutes of my mom, sister and I googling on our phones the local restaurants near the apartment in Marina, we came up with 2 options to walk to. My Uncle was open to anything. The usual Chicago-style pizza joint that we have frequented on our visits to S.F. called Piaxi's was shot down early on, much to my Dad's disappointment, so we found 2 Italian restaurant's to choose from within walking distance in the Marina off of Union St.
6 blocks later, we arrived at Luisa's.....and this place did not disappoint! A quaint little place, it probably could only hold 35 people at capacity. At 5pm on Saturday night, they were empty, as we were informed that the area doesn't get busy until around 8pm, so we had the place to ourselves for the better part of our meal. While nursing the baby outside, I had the pleasure of meeting Luisa herself, a vibrant, jolly woman only 84 years young (she didn't look a year over 70!) and she took a liking to Tanner immediately! She spoke to us about how she cooks all of her sauces fresh every morning, how she remembers nursing her babies back in the kitchen while she cooked and missing it, how she was 1 of 16 children!! She was so lovely to us and was kind enough to treat Talan to a lollipop (he doesn't eat them but for once was polite enough this time not to say anything!) Apparently my Uncle's spaghetti was the best he ever had, as was my dad's lasagna. I had the eggplant parmesan which was amazing....and of course I had to have dessert. Luisa informed us that the desserts were all also from fresh imported Italian ingredients - dad had lemon sorbet and I had the mousse....delicious is an understatement! It was a great evening, not just because of the food, but just sitting around after our meal enjoying our family and the good conversation...those are the best meal's.

T calls my mom's wine "Pasha's milk!"

Hello Kitty Floaties

He fell asleep waiting for the Brady's to come over!!

T has been going to swimming lessons since he was over 21/2 and has been swimming fairly independently for the last 10 months (ie. can kick with his "superman arms" across the width of the pool un-assisted and can float on his back for several minutes!) But when Kim and the kids came over to our pool last week with lots of fun floating devices, of course he temporarily forgot how to swim and insisted on wearing these Hello Kitty floaties! Eventually he swam without them, but he sure loved how much confidence they gave him swimming in the deep end!

Tanner relaxing poolside in his personal Cabana!

:)

Last T-ball game

T had his last T-ball game this past week. I think Jason and I are more sad about it! When the season first began, neither of us were sure how we would like it, this being our first experience with joining a league and doing the whole team parent thing. And with our little Tanner arriving the first week of baseball we felt a little overwhelmed with the schedule of practices and games every weekend. But we were so pleasantly surprised by our experience. The team was very lucky to have a wonderful coach, just an all around good guy who was very relaxed and positive with the children. T enjoyed going to practice every Thursday with his Daddy and Papa Warren, where he worked on his batting skills and fielding. He stopped having to use a tee and can now hit a pitched ball! He also looked forward to putting on his Yankees uniform (actually he just loved wearing his little junior cup!) every Saturday. And all of his games were cheered on by some very important people in his life, both of his sets of grandparents, his Auntie Kate, Uncle Matt, Great Aunt Sue, the Brady's, Andrew, and very recently his Uncle Gary and John...he always had the biggest cheering section!! Most of all it was a wonderful bonding experience for our family!

My dad with his brothers!

Receiving his first trophy!

Playing water balloon baseball at the team party!