Finally... The Holidays Are Over

As much as I love the holiday season, I am always glad when it's over. It can be just way too stressful sometimes. In the end, ya look back, and all the stress turns out to be worth it, but dang... lol. To top off the fact that Christmas is a stressful holiday to get prepared for, I was dead set on making sure this one was perfect because it was Josiah's first one. Even though he won't remember any part of it, I had to be sure that I could look back and remember how perfect our first Christmas as a little family was.

For the first time since I've been out on my own, I got a Christmas tree. I was super excited about that cause I have all these ornaments that I have been savin up since I was a kid. As I collected them over the years, I decided I wouldn't put them on a tree until I was able to have my very own tree. This year was the firs time that happened. I went to hang the ornaments on the tree and little did I know that ornaments dont come with hooks LOL. Once that little problem was taken care of, I was proud of our little tree =)



I wanted to have some sort of tradition for Josiah to carry on through his childhood and decided to go with the most basic one.... Pictures with Santa. He's a pretty laid back kid but I was kinda nervous to see how he would act. Of course I shouldn't have worried at all cause I think I have the most friendly kid ever lol. He went right to Santa and didn't cry one bit. We got some really great pictures and plan on continuing with this every year.







So Christmas morning came and I couldn't wait to get JoJo up to do the presents. I figured he might be a little into it since he loves playing with anything that ISN'T a toy. I thought that if i ripped a little corner of a present he would start copying me.. oh no.. I was wrong. He really wasn't into it at all lol. He did a couple little tears but we ended up opening most his stuff for him. He does like the toys that he got so that's good. after a little while we went out to mom's house for lunch, presents and then dinner. It was the same thing there, I ended up opening all of his presents. Thats ok though, there's always next year when he'll be closer to two and probably way more into it. Over all we had a great holiday and spent it with family and friends. As stressfull as it was, I can't wait for next year =)

Now it's off to plan Josiah's birthday (January 6th)...My little baby is gonna be a lil Tyke now.

Quick Update.....

So a blog or two back I told y'all how my baby boy took his first steps.. well it took him awhile after that to even attempt it again but just in the last couple of days he's taking more and more steps at a time. I think in the next 2 weeks or so, he'll be full blown walkin and with my luck he'll start runnin LOL... anyway, I caught some of his steps on the camera today so I wanted to post the video!!! Enjoy!!

Holidays Are Here... Where Did The Year Go????

So I'm sittin at my Grandmas house on Thanksgiving and thought to myself "I can't believe it's Thankgiving Day already" I was thinking about how at this time last year I was anxiously awaiting the arrival for my little man and was on the countdown on 5 weeks to go.. Where here we are and now the countdown is to my little boy's first birthday in about 4 weeks. I can't stinkin believe that my little baby boy is almost a year old. It actually makes me sad because I feel like it went by incredibly too fast.

It seems like yesterday we were just bringing Josiah home and getting used to being parents. Now, he's eatin big people food, has taken his first steps (which I got to witness first hand!!) and has teeth. The little guy has a personality all of his own. He really is a combination of both Aaron and I. We get compliments all the time on what a great little baby he is and how relaxed and calm he is with anything (that's the aaron part). Then there are times where if he wants something, oh man, he wants it and wants it now (that's the mommy in him lol)

So Thanksgiving is now past and now it's on to Christmas. We have gotten some shopping done but are not all the way finished. We still have to get some clothes for him and some stuff for some other people and we'll be finished. Then it's time to start the birthday shoppin and the party plannin =) (Invites will be going out soon, just tryin to get addresses since i dont have an address book and seem to misplace them everytime I get them).

Anyway, so there is an update on us... we are doing well!!! OHH.... check out the video of Josiah, seems that I have a little musical baby on my hands. The other day in the car, I stopped to get gas and looked back and Josiah and he was tapping his hand on his knee to the beat of the song that was on. Everytime music comes on, he now starts dancing lol. if you say something to him while he's dancing, he'll stop and look at you like you interupted his groove LMAO... (you'll hear me laugh in the video and him stop to look).

My Baby Walked!!! And Had His First Halloween!!!

So on October 28th, 2009, My baby boy Josiah decided to take his first steps. He recently began standing for a few seconds at a time which has gradually become longer. I will stand him up then let go and he'll just stand there like it's no big deal. He just looks at us all weird when we're makin a big fuss because he is standing lol. The other night I decided to keep practicing with him by letting him stand up and I was trying to coax him to me.. ya know.. "come here JoJo, walk to Mama" type stuff. The first few times he just fell on his butt or would fall forward knowing I would catch him. After a few tries, he took 5 STEPS!!!!!! He actually WALKED to me!!!!! Aaron was in the kitchen not paying attention and I started screaming lol.. all aaron could hear was "AHH AHH AHH" He looks through the opening at the bar and is like "whats wrong!!!" All I could say was "He walked, He walked.. he really walked" I was super excited. My mom watches him everyday while we're at work and I usually just get to hear "oh JoJo did this today" and it bums me out because I feel like I'm missing out on all the "firsts". Sometimes I wish I could afford to just work part time so that I could witness all this stuff myself but times are tough and I have to be a full time workin mama, so I'm super greatful that I actually got to see his first real steps!!! My little man is growin up so fast. Everything is comin early for him. His teeth came early and now here he is, 10 months old and starting to walk. I figure he'll be fully walking well before his 1st birthday.

Also, another big thing is, he got to do his first Halloween. We. Dressed him up as a little puppy =) I gotta say he was the cutest puppy around. (I could just be a little biased though) We started the holiday off by meeting up with Tammy, Traci, Aunt Dalyce and all Tammy and Traci's kids. We went down the main strip in Arlington to all the businesses and some people were parked doing "trunk-r-treating" with their cars all decorated and handing candy out from the trunk. It was a lot of fun cept Josiah fell asleep halfway through lol. After we left there we stopped by Josiah's Auntie Dana's house so he could show off his costume and get candy from her too. Then it was off to Grandma's house. Of course he and his cousin Brandee cleaned out the candy there lol. From there we went with cousin Tammy and her husband and kids to a church in Arlington that was having a bunch of activities for little ones so they don't have to go door to door to get candy. It was a lot of fun .... and FREE... who can pass that up? They had everything from Pony rides to big huge inflatable things for kids to play on. Of course Josiah is too little for the inflatables but he went on his very first pony ride. All in all it was a fun night and we didn't have to take him to strange houses.

An update on other things...

We are almost completely settled in our new place. We just have a couple things to get.. basic stuff like plungers and stuff like that. and we are almost completely unpacked. The living/dining area was unpacked and lookin like a home in the first couple days but I really kinda slacked off when it came to the upstairs that nobody sees but us. Today I buckled down and got Josiah's room unpacked and got his walls decorated. I'm hoping to get the upstairs bathroom and our room done during the week this week. Most likely it will be the weekend though cause my evenings after work are spent hangin out with my little man (and his daddy too) because I miss him so much during the day.

I guess that's it for now.... more to come later. In the meantime, here are some pictures of our lil man's first Halloween.

JoJo playin in the kids room at the church


He thought for sure he could get the licorice out lol

and here he is tryin to get the Kit Kat while playing with Brandee

JoJo and Brandee playin with the Crocadiles

My baby on a pony

JoJo and Brandee raiding the candy bowl

My sweet little puppy

He gave up on the Trick or Treating in Arlington lol

He was all for it at the beginning though =)

We Moved!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think many people read my blog, but if you read it and you don't know, our little family moved. Last year when I was still pregnant with JoJo, our apartment lease was going to be done in Ocotober and we decided it would be best if we moved north (we were in Everett) because we knew once the baby came and I went back to work, my mom work be watchin him. Well it just so happened that my best friends lease was going to be up the same time as ours and her husband was being deployed to Iraq.. so then the light turned on over my head...DING!!!.... Why don't Dana, Me and Aaron get a place together since we needed to save money and that way Dana wouldnt be alone while Brandon was gone. I brought this idea up to Dana and we all decided it would be a good idea. Then the search began. It really didn't take us long, we went out one Saturday looking for "For Rent" signs and happened to drive by a rental that was having an Open House. We looked at it, liked it and filled out applications then and there. A few days later we found out we got it and we were on our way to moving into a 3 bedroom house. WOOOO HOOO....

Fast forward a year....

So the year flew by.. and here it is October again. It's amazing how things can change in a year. This time last year we were preparing to bring our little guy into the world and this year he's a little monster child crawling around and gettin into everything lol. The year was great. Dana was the best roommate ever. I think she's the only friend I could live with and come out still being friends, and best friends at that =) We knew the time would come but boy did it have to come so fast? So the search began again. Only this time it was just going to be us. For the first time it was going to be just our little family. This search went REALLY well also. I called on a place and set up a time for us to come look at it and turns out we fell in love with it. It's perfect for our little family. Pretty good luck to get the first places you look at, twice in a row.

So now you are probably wondering what this place is like, where it's at, ect.....

We now live right smack in the middle of Marysville. For those of you familiar, we live on the street that runs between the Circle K and Tacos Guyamos (not sure if I spelled that right). It's a nice 2 bedroom 1.5 bath townhouse. It's roughly about 1113 sq feet (bigger than the house we were living in). This is a place that I wouldn't mind calling home for a couple years so that JoJo has stability and a place to feel comfortable in.

I have to say I'm very proud of where Aaron and I have come from to where we are now. We started out with him working at McDonalds, me at a decent company (but not happy there) and living with roommates. We then graduated to our own 1 bedroom apartment and both got different jobs (actually at the same place), then from that job I got an AWESOME job that I absolutely love, found out we were pregnant and moved to Marysville. We had our baby, Aaron got a BETTER job and now we have our OWN little place to call home. I gotta say I feel lucky to be where we are. We may not own our place, but for now it's home and we can say that we are able to do it on our own. =) I never really thought I'd get to this point. Deep down I guess I always thought I would fail at everything I did (damn insecurities), but somehow I am doing something right!!!

I'll pose pictures of the new place as soon as I finish unpacking and getting everything situated.

Oh my gosh!! One more thing..... JOSIAH STOOD UP ALL BY HIMSELF!!!! Yup, that's right, you heard me.. my lil man will be walking in no time =) I better prepare myself cause if he keeps growing up the way he is now, I'm gonna have little girls callin my house, him gettin his license and goin off to college.. shoot, I feel rushed already lol

It's that time of year again.....

......Time to move. I really do wish that we could find a place that we like so that we can stay there a couple years cause this movin once a year business is getting old. I've been moving once a year for a while now and it sucks. I don't want this for JoJo. I want him to have stability.

We have to be out of our place by the end of the month and luckily we found a place that we really like. It's a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath townhouse in Marysville. We put the deposit down on it and will be movin probably the weekend of Oct. 16th. Maybe this will be the place that we end up stayin at a while. Once we get moved and settled I'll post pictures.

I really dont think I like this time a year... there is so much stuff that goes on and it's completely busy. Lets see.... we have my birthday on Oct. 11th, Aaron and my anniversary is Oct 20th, seems like this is always the month we move, then Thanksgiving creeps on in... Christmas and New Years, and now JoJo's birthday is a week nd a half after Christmas LOL.. we won't get a break until after the New year chimes in. I'll keep ya updated on what else is going on with us !!!

Long Overdue Updates.....

I keep saying that I'm going to get better at this updating business but I really haven't gotten any better. Once again, I will try to work on it =)

So a BUNCH has happened since that last blog. We took our trip to California in early September. It was JoJo's first time flying and he did an AWESOME job. I was so proud of him. I love flying and have flown many many times, but for some reason I was super nervous for this trip. The only reason I can think of is that it was because I was nervous about flying with the baby. I'm talkin I was nervous enough that the closer we got to the airport, the less I could talk because I felt like if I said something, I would puke lol. I had been having nightmares about missing our plane, having problems getting through security, being the mom on the plane with the screaming baby.. you name it, I drempt it.

So we got to the airport, got through security and I finally started to relax cause we had an hour and a half to kill and we were already through security so we were in the clear, right?? WRONG... We went to the gate that the reader board said we would be departing from and were sitting there.. it said our plane would start loading at 5:30, depart at 6. So at 5:20, I'm lookin around and there aren't many people sitting at this gate so I'm thinkin "heck yeah, it's gonna be a empty flight, lots of room, blah blah blah" WRONG AGAIN. Right then we here this "Flight 240 will now be boarding at gate C-14" You've got to be kidding me.. not only was it a different gate.. IT WAS ON A WHOLE DIFFERENT CONCOURSE!!!! WTF!!!! So here we are, already put the stroller in the flight bag that we bought (it's not a light stroller), luggage, a baby the whole 9 yards and we are tryin to haul ass to whole different section of the damn airport.
Well we made it to the gate but they had already started boarding so we missed the pre boarding to get all this junk on the plane. You woulda thought some passengers would have been like "oh gosh lets help these guys get on the plane" NOPE.. they just let us fiddle around trying to get our crap together. Well, everyone except the lady who offered to carry JoJo on board. ARE YOU EFFIN CRAZY LADY?!?! You think i'm just gonna hand my son over to some stranger to take on the plane? What kind of whack job are ya?

So we got on the plane and everything went fine. JoJo slept through the take off but woke up shortly after and was awake the rest of the flight. He was pretty content with going back and forth between mommy and daddy's lap and lookin out the window.

Our first day in Cali was pretty flippin adventurous. We got our rental car, we went and surprised Aaron's dad at his work, then we went to Matt's house (Aaron's Brother) and from Matt's house we got to go to the E.R.!! This is literally maybe 3 hours after landing in California and we're sittin in the E.R. We were getting ready to make JoJo a bottle at Matt's house and all of a sudden all this mucus started coming out his nose and mouth. It wasn't just a little bit, I'm talkin it was enough that he couldn't breathe because it was blocking his airways. I had him over the sink pounding on his back, freaking out then remembered there was a hospital at the end of Matt's road so we jumped in the car and rushed there. Turns out it was an Upper Respitory Infection and they think the plane ride with the circulated air dried out his sinuses and they were just clearing themselves. He was fine after that. Talk about scarin mama half to death.

So we left the hospital and went to have lunch with Matt, his girlfriend and his son. From there we went to the park just to hang out for a bit cause it had been about 3 years since Aaron had seen his brother. After the park we made our way to Aaron's friend's house, Julian. We hung there for a while and we all took off to Aaron's cousin's house for a bbq. This was all in the first day remember!! Busy eh??

The rest of the week we didn't slow down either, we spent one whole day at Huntington Beach.. Talk about BEAUTIFUL!! Nothin like sittin on the beach with your feet in the sand instead of pebbles lol. JoJo even got his feet wet in the Pacific Ocean. We took off on a road trip to Arizona to see Grandma and Grandpa. That was a long drive through a bunch of nothing. I gotta tell ya, I would never want to break down out there. They actually have signs that read "turn off air conditioning to avoid overheading" That was enough to scare me into not even using the cold air cause I didn't want the engine working any harder than it needed to. I turned everything off and opened the back windows some to get a breeze going and off we went. It was pretty warm but better than breakin down. the breeze actually made it not so bad. We spent the day/night with grandma and grandpa which was very nice cause I hardly get to see them. It was grandpa's first time meeting JoJo. Even though it was SUPER flippin hot in AZ and we were in a whole city of retiree's over the age of 55, I was sad to leave because I really dont get to see my grandparent's enough and wish they lived closer. The next day we went to breakfast with them and hit the road for the 5 hour drive back to California.

We got back to Cali.. made some more rounds to family. We took JoJo over to Aunt Mae and Uncle Dock's House. Aunt Mae is kinda the "matriarch" of some sort for the family. She is 88 and Uncle Dock is 93 and we feel blessed that we got to take JoJo down there to introduce them. We spent quite a bit of time with Aaron's dad down there too, it was so awesome to see the 3 hang out together.

Thursday we were going to head to L.A for the day and check out places like Hollywood Blvd, Rodeo Drive, ect.. but at about 1:30 in the morning JoJo woke up and he was between Aaron and I and he was roasting hot. This little boy had a major temperature. I ended up getting up and going to the drug store down the street that was open 24 hours to buy some baby tylanol and a thermometer. I took his temp under the arm which read 101.7, gave him some tylanol, called my mom to see what i should do. We decided to wait until morning to see if his temp went down, but at 8 am, he was at 102* rectally so we decided to take him back to the ER. Yup, you heard me... E.R trip #2. They weren't much help. They said that it's all apart of his "upper respitory infection" (which he had no symptoms of from saturday after the mucus until now) and to just keep giving him the tylanol and keep in out of the sun. We ended up spending all of Thursday in the hotel room with the AC on to keep him cool and try to break his fever. Friday his temp finally came down to a manageable 99* but I had to keep up on the tylanol. We went to L.A and did our sight seein since he was feeling a little bit better. We had a great time out there too. I was really hoping to run into someone famous but of course we didn't lol. JoJo almost could have been on TV though!!!!!! Some people for the Jimmy Kimmel Show were outside of a venue and saw JoJo and said "oh my gosh your baby is so cute, does he say daddy at all because if he does we can put him on a skit".. unfortunatly JoJo doesn't talk yet so we had to pass but how flippin cool would that have been???

So our trip came to an end on Saturday and we flew back home and actually we were very happy to be home. It takes a vacation sometimes to really make you appreciate "home". We were tired and had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year. Unfortunatly now that we are home, JoJo got both mom and I sick lol. I think we all 3 have the flu.. well JoJo is pretty much over it, mom is getting there and I'll be back up to par probably in a couple of days. Aaron has some sort of superman immune system because he hasn't gotten sick at all.

Hows that for a blog?? Hope I didn't lose ya since it's kinda long.... Here are some pictures of our trip!! Enjoy!!!

KAT VON DI'S TATTOO SHOP FROM THE SHOW L.A. INK

WOODY.. MAMA.. AND JOJO


JOJO AS A BIG MAN LOL


SO I KINDA RAN INTO SOMEONE FAMOUS.. HE HAPPENED TO BE WAX THOUGH LOL


JOJO AT THE COLLEGE HANG OUT SPOT PLAYIN POOL


TAKE A LOOK AT THOSE FACES.. CAN'T SAY JOJO ISN'T A "YOUNG"


3 GENERATIONS OF "YOUNG"


LONG DAY AT THE BEACH WORE JOJO OUT


BEAUTIFUL IS ALL I CAN SAY.. IF I COULD AFFORD TO LIVE ON THE BEACH AND DO THIS DAILY, I'D BE IN CALI IN A HEARTBEAT.. UNFORTUNATLY I DONT MAKE MILLIONS LOL


JOJO GETTIN HIS TOES WET IN THE PACIFIC


TRYIN REAL HARD TO GET THE PEPSI (IT'S NOT OPENED, DONT WORRY)


ME, AARON, JOJO, GRANDMA AND GRANDPA


JOJO WITH UNCLE DOCK


JOJO WITH AUNT MAE


WHEN WE LANDED AT LAX


AARON, COUSIN NICKI, JOJO AND COUSIN DAVEY


MATT, RICHARD, JOJO AND AARON


FAMILY PHOTO ON THE BEACH


JOJO HAVIN FUN IN THE SAND