A couple of cute pics

Derek sent these to my phone yesterday when I was at work, I thought they were really cute so I thought I would share with you. Lexi was rolling around the living room...watch out people...mobility is not far away!

She looks like she is going to take off crawling at any time....you can tell by the look in her eye!!

Warm and Fuzzy

When I was pregnant with Lexi and learning about having a baby, there was a lot of information about cord blood storage. Stem cells from the cord blood is used to treat Leukemia, Lymphoma and other life threatening illnesses. Either you could pay thousands of dollars to have your cord blood stored in case later in life you or your child come down with a life threatening illness or you can donate at no cost your cord blood so that others can benefit from the stem cells in the blood. Derek and I chose to donate the cord blood. When I gave birth, there were probably 10 ish (I really don't remember...mom or derek?) people in the room, one of those people (probably as I was wolfing down my subway sandwich) whisked away the cord blood and it went to the Puget Sound Cord Blood Bank. The following day two people came and took several (again, it's blurry) tubes of blood for testing. Well, a few days after I got home from the hospital I got a call from PSBB and they were missing a couple of the questionairre forms that I was supposed to fill out in the hospital....had I not been a registered Blood Donor, the cord blood would have been thrown away. I answered their questions and the blood was then "eligible" for donation.

Where am I going with this? I got a call today from the Blood Center, they called to let me know that mine and Lexi's blood was matched with a 62 year old man who is suffering from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He told me that there was a high amount of stem cells in it, enough for him to have the treatment. He said that they are not sure the patient is going to have the treatment, but our blood is on hold in case he does. If he doesn't it will go back into inventory for the next patient.

I was very touched by the phone call, my Auntie Celaine has been battling this disease for quite some time now, so it is nice to be able to help someone that is going through what she was/is going through. I always wondered where the blood you donate goes, I know they don't call everyone that donates, but I thought it was a great call to get. Any pregnant ladies out there...donate that cord blood!!

Baby Food

At 5 months, we started giving Lexi some rice cereal in anticipation of her starting to eat solid foods. She has done really well with the rice cereal and seems to like it. We have been feeding it to her both by the spoon and putting some of it in her bottle....depending on how much time we have at night. The rice cereal has really helped her sleeping and she is getting back to sleeping through the night...though not reliably. This week is her 6 month birthday...can you believe it?? I sure can't! When she got sick this week, we combined her emergency trip to the pediatrician with her 6 month check up. Here are her stats:

Heighth: 25 1/2 inches - 50th Percentile

Weight: 15 pounds 13 ounces - 50th percentile

So...she is basically right where she was at her 4 month check up. Good stuff.

So on to baby food...we will start giving her some "real" food next week....we are not sure what to start with, so any suggestions are appreciated. Lexi has been on breastmilk this whole time until the rice cereal, she has only had formula twice! Before starting nursing if you told me that 6 months into it she would have had maybe 6 ounces TOTAL of formula, I would have thought you were crazy. But, we seem to have gotten in the grove, and pumping at work has worked out well, though as I get busier at work, taking time to pump 3 times during the day is getting more and more difficult! A couple of weekends ago, I got a wild hair to make my own baby food. My main motivation for this is cost savings...those little bottles of pureed baby food can really add up. I also had a coworker that gave me some good suggestions on how to cook it in large batches and put it in ice cube trays and freeze. So check it out! My carrots and green beans seemed to turn out well, I operated the food processor all by myself and everything...Mom aren't you proud?? Actually, you are probably proud that I own a food processor...yes, it was a gift. :)

The final product....

Here are some pictures from feeding Lexi the rice cereal, again with the confused camera face, but cute nonetheless!
Messy face!

Ryan loves feeding Lexi, he has been a great help.

Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween

It was soooo nice this year to be out in Monroe! The past 3 years Derek and I have had to haul ass to get out to Monroe in time to trick or treat with Ryan. This year, as many of you know, we have been stricken with the Swine Flu. Ryan was out of school all week and even had to miss the Halloween party at school on Friday (trauma for a 4th grader). We were happy to sit at home and hand out candy to all 143 trick or treaters that came to our door!

Here are Derek and Ryan's jack o lanterns, we put them up on our car, they welcomed everyone to our house.

Ryan was a knight and Lexi was a lady bug...this picture turned out sooo cute!

Ryan the knight....he was with his mom that night, so sorry that there aren't more pics of him....he just stopped by quickly for a photo op and then went to get his candy.

I uploaded this picture out of order...and couldn't get it to the end of the blog, but this is the result of a full swine flu halloween.

Playing with Grandma Cass

Lexi sits up all on her own these days.

Everytime we take Lexi's picture, she gets mesmerized by the red light before the flash...so we get the same, confused look every time we take pictures. Right before this, she was happy and smiling...can ya tell??

More confusion...

This was a sneak attack picture before the confused look....she was playing patty cake with Grandma.

Overall, we had a great halloween, we would have liked to feel better, but we are on the mend now and will hopefully be back to full strength next week.

Pumpkin Carving

Derek and Ryan carved pumpkins last Sunday, I had to work, so they soldiered on without my guidance....much to my delight, the entire mess was cleaned up before I got home! Good Hubby.

The Before Picture:

Ryan carving all on his own this year!

Digging out the guts...

The final products....Ryan's is on the left and Derek's is on the right! Happy Halloween!

San Francisco

I have been procrastinating this blog because I have SO many pictures from our trip to SF, well, I am really good at procrastinating in general, but this is a good reason. I have way more pictures than are shown here, but this is a good start. We stayed for 3 nights at my old hotel, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, then one night at the Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf. It was really fun to show Derek and Lexi the city that I lived in for 2 years. We did quite a bit of sight seeing and went to Brenda & Chris' wedding. The trip was awesome! Here are some highlights

Of course....a trolley ride

Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world...you can see Coit tower in the back ground. The weather was awesome the entire weekend.
Derek and Lexi getting ready for the trolley ride....Grandma Cass had got her this cute flower sweat shirt, the first time Lexi wore it, we laughed because the hood was huge. Well, the huge hood came in handy, in one day we did a ton of sight seeing and it was breezy, so we would just put her huge hood on when it got cold.

The stinky sea lions at Pier 39. They are so fun to sit and watch, but dang to they smell bad!!

Derek steering the ship with Alcatraz in the background.

Lexi in the Bjorn, we got an umbrella stroller for the trip, and it proved worthless....it was too short for both of us to push. The bjorn on the other hand worked well, we just took turns. :)

Fisherman's Wharf

Lexi and I at the Wharf

Below is the "Death Star", my old stomping grounds at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

Derek and Lexi on the balcony of our suite

Congratulations Brenda & Chris!!

Saturday October 3rd was the day my good friend Brenda got married to Chris, in Walnut Creek California. Derek, Lexi and I trekked (well...flew) down for a long weekend. We survived the plane ride, Lexi was good and didn't really cry at all! Phew! I was worried, but as always, she did awesome. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, the hotel I started my career at. My friend Allison works there now and took great care of us and put us in a beautiful suite. More about the trip in the next blog...this is all about the wedding!

Me and the beautiful bride, she looked fantastic!

Below is Lexi all dolled up and ready for the ceremony. Brenda picked out the outfit for Lexi, it was the shower gift she gave me before she was born. Doesn't she look cute?? :)

Lexi was really "chatty" during the ceremony, so Derek took her off to the side, I thought this was a great picture of them talking to each other.

Lexi and I waiting for the bride! I think she is talking...hence the crazy smile.

Daddy and Lexi waiting for the ceremony to start.

Here comes the bride.....

With the outdoor ceremony, it was really hard to hear...I actually don't think I heard any of it, but you don't have to hear to know that they are in love and Brennie is going in for a kiss here!

You can see in the picture above, the red head is Brenda's good friend Pamela, she married them! I thought that was really cool.

The ceremony was in a park about a block or so away from Brenda's parents house. After the ceremony, a bagpiper popped out from behind a tree and started playing! He then led the the guests down the street to Paula and Hardy's house....I thought it was a genius way to get everyone from point A to point B.

Here is the bagpipper at the bottom of Paula & Hardy's driveway.

The reception was at Brenda's parents house, they had over 100 people in their backyard for a catered dinner...it was beautiful! They had lights and lanters around the backyard, as well as heaters as it was a bit more chilly than normal. Everyone had a blast and warmed up with wine!

Hardy gave a great toast...I think my Dad had the intentions of a similar toast at our wedding....but fell short with the execution. :)

Brenda & Chris

This is "Cousin Mike"....he insisted on holding Lexi so Derek and I could dance and she promptly fell asleep on him. We were reassured that Cousin Mike was a great guy and from what we saw he was...but we still have no idea whose Cousin he is.

Mom - you would be proud, we packed her pajmas for the BART ride home, she had just started to fall asleep when we stopped near Berkley and a bunch of rowdy Cal/USC fans got on the train...she just hung out and sucked her thumb. :)

Overall, we had a great trip! I will post more about the trip later, but wanted to fill everyone in on the wedding. Congratulations Brenda, I am so excited for you and your new family! Welcome to being a stepmom as well!