Cousins

Today was a great day hanging out with family! We went and hung out at my sister's all day. Colored eggs, hunted for eggs, played games and took Aidan and Conor shopping for hermit crabs! Aidan, Conor, Davis and Zerah are each a proud new owner of a small hermit crab pet. They are pretty cool! We went to Pet Kingdom, which is a really cool pet store with all kinds of fun fish, reptiles and small animals . Fun place to go and just look at all the animals. Jaycee says, "Thanks for the fun day cousins and Auntie". We love you all!

Our backyard buddy...

This little hummingbird is our latest little backyard friend. We watched her build the nest for days right out our kitchen window. Pretty cool!!! Now she is sitting and waiting and waiting is what we are doing also. Very exciting! Can't wait to see a little baby hummingbird :-)

Happy 7th Birthday Conor!

Today this little man is turning 7 today...wow where did the time go! Happy Birthday Conor! You are such a big boy, great big brother, a handsome little dude and super smart! We love you so much! We have missed you this last week, hopefully Jaycee and auntie get well soon so we can see you! Uncle Tavo and I can't wait to take you fishy shopping and pick out a new birthday fish :-)

Happy Birthday Dadda...

Today Dadda is turning 33! Saturday night we celebrated with friends at the house. I cooked dinner for everyone and we hung out late and had a great time! Tonight we are having a nice quite dinner at home. A nice steak with brown rice and asparagus....YUMMY! Happy 33rd birthday amor. I can't wait to celebrate many more with you, I love you mucho!

PS...last week was Tavo's 2nd week back at work. He had a good week and is enjoying the new job. The foreman said he made the cut and they will be keeping him :-) I had to stay home most of the week with Jaycee because my niece was sick the first part of the week and then Jaycee got sick the later part of the week. Now both Jaycee and I are sick :-( No fun! I have a feeling Jaycee got sick from the Quinceañera we went to last weekend and then she passed it on to momma. Who knows though. I've enjoyed our one on one time together this past week!

We made it...

Finally the work week is over and we made it through. I think I'm having a harder time than anyone adjusting to both of us working and all the running around we have to do. I'm so tired by the end of the day, I can't stand it. I know it will get better and it will just become a normal routine, but I'm not liking it so far. It was so much easier with Tavo home. I got up showered, gave out kisses and I was off to work. Tavo would even get my lunch together for me and make me a morning smoothie. Now I have to get up at 5:15am (Tavo needs to be out the door by 5:30am), make lunches for both Tavo and I, make our morning smoothie, get dinner prepared for the evening (makes it easier when I get home from work), shower, get both Jaycee and I dressed and out to the door. Sorry to be whining...I'm sure I'll adjust :-) Jaycee is adjusting very well and loves being at my sisters!

Last night we decided at the last minute to go have a nice family dinner out. We had a really nice time and Jaycee was such a good girl! We wanted to celebrate the new job!

Tonight we are going to a Quinceañera, which should be a lot of fun! They usually are :-) First time taking Jaycee to one though, so we will see how she does. I think the last one we went to, I was pregnant with Jaycee. Tavo went to the church part of things earlier and Jaycee and I stayed home. It was at noon (Jaycee's nap time) and since tonight will be a lot for her we thought it would be best not to skip nap. Especially since bed time will be late. I hope she does well.

Tomorrow starts the new season of softball. I'm not playing again this season, it's just hard for both of us to play :-( Maybe next season, I'll be able to.

I'll leave you all with some cute pics we have taken of Jaycee lately...
Playing with her kitchen...cookin like momma and dadda do!

Happy little girl!

Big smiles, can you see all her teeth? She has another one coming in right now.

Playing outside.


"Hi"

Casa de Reifer

Yesterday we went to visit Maria, Jake, Estella, Victoria and Wally. We had a great time catching up, it's been awhile since we have been able to get together. Estella is growing like a weed and beautiful as ever and the newest member to the Reifer home is just as beautiful as her sister. Victoria is so beautiful I cried when I first held her, she smiled at me and tears of joy just came down my face. I stopped by their home again today to drop something off, thinking I would get a peak at the little angel again today, but she was sound a sleep :-( We will get together soon! Thanks Maria for the lovely dinner!
Sweet baby Victoria!

Jaycee and Estella playing her Estellas' play kitchen. Estella just loves Jaycee :-)

The beautiful princess!

Happy mommy with her two babies :-)

Sweet Victoria!

The new job

This is going to be a quick post. Today was Tavo's first day at the job site, it was pretty chill. Just had to do some more orientation and take a drug test. Tomorrow the hard labor starts. Jaycee did really well with Tavo's cousin here at the casa. I was really nervous all day and had a hard time focusing at work, but it all turned out really well. I believe Jaycee had a great time and am happy she gets to spend time with family and be in her own home. Monday's, Tuesday's and Friday's she will be with my sister (more family-YEA), Wednesday's she gets to play over at Sani's again like the old days and on Thursday's Tavo's cousin is watching her at our casa. Thanks everyone for helping us out and making it possible for both of us to stay working. We know we could live off of one income, but it's smart for us to both continuing work so we can save money and be ready for the next baby :-)

Progress report #3, news and the weekend...

Lot's of exciting things going on with the Perez family and I'm just going to put it all in one post.

1st off...Jaycee is doing so well sleeping at night. Tonight is night 7 since we have been doing the new routine and it's working out well. She is only waking up once and it's usually not till 4am and the last couple nights it's only been because she needs her diaper changed. Way to go Jaycee! We love you princess.

2nd thing...Tavo goes in tomorrow for orientation for a new job. He got a call on Friday. We really don't know the details yet and will know more tomorrow. It's exciting but sad at the same time. He's been laid off since April 15th, 2009 and it's worked out well having him home with Jaycee.

3rd...we had a GREAT and busy weekend! On Saturday we got together with an old friend we had lost contact with and hadn't seen in years. It was so great to see her again and catch up on old times. Thanks to our friend Chris for getting us back in touch. And today we went to the zoo with our friend Misty and her son Hunter. Had a BLAST! Fun times!

I don't really have pictures from the weekend, we totally forgot about the camera. I do have one from today at the zoo with Hunter.

Progress Report #2

This is going to be a short post just to update you all. Jaycee did so well last night! We are so proud! She didn't wake up til 4:30am and the only reason I think she woke up at that time was because she had a poo poo diaper :-( I changed her diaper and gave her some mommy milk and laid her back down, but she didn't want to go back to sleep in her crib. She didn't cry too much, but played for about an hour before falling back asleep and by that point I had to get in the shower for work. And the shower woke her up :-(

She got thrown off a little at naptime today because we were having our carpets cleaned and Daddy needed to go to the store. So, they went for a little walk and she fall asleep and took a nap in the stroller.

Tonight she did really well again, she was asleep within 15 minutes again. She only fussed for about 30 seconds. Fall asleep standing again, silly little girl. Hopefully she sleeps well again tonight, last night we kept waking up though because

Progress report

We all made it through the 1st night, 1st nap, 2nd night of the new bedtime routine. It was rough, really rough!!! We have never liked the idea of letting her cry herself to sleep, but that is what we pretty much did. Nothing else was working. It truly was tough for all of us, probably more so for mommy and daddy. I cried the whole time with her last night, which was a total of 35 minutes :-( Her bedtime routine is now bath, jammies, mommy's milk, brush teeth, grab baby and then story. Then we kiss her nite nite, have her put baby in the crib and lay her down with her baby. She has a little dog that sings to her and we turned that on for 10 minutes. Last night she was so mad; she cried and cried. I sat outside her room so she could see me, I didn’t want her to think we had abandoned her. It was awful the way she fall asleep face up against her crib sitting up. She only woke up once during the night and I nursed her and again laid her in her crib before she fell asleep while nursing. She cried again for 35 minutes :-( She didn't wake up again till 6am and was happy as can be.

Naptime went well with Daddy today. She only cried for 15 minutes, but only slept for an hour:-( When I got home from work she was pretty tired, but ate a good dinner and we stayed consistent with yesterday and kept the same routine and she did so well. I'm so PROUD of her! She listened to her doggie sing to her, after the 10 minutes she let out one little cry and then laid her head against her crib and fall asleep. Poor baby she fall asleep standing up, you can tell all she wanted to do was cuddle. It was tough not to pick her up and cuddle her. I'm such a wimp, but am proud too of both of us, as we know this is going to work and she will sleep better. Love my little girl so much!!!!! Keeping my fingers crossed she sleeps well tonight. If she wakes up only once again, I'll be happy. Hopefully we won't have to hear her cry anymore though. We don't like that part at all!

This is the way she fall asleep last night :-(
And this is the way she fall asleep tonight :-(

Sleep...we could use some...

Our system of putting Jaycee to sleep has gone wrong. I feel we have done what is easy for us as parents not what is best for Jaycee. We have forgotten to step back and ask ourselves what does Jaycee need to help her sleep well and stay healthy. Now we are finding what we thought was easy for us, is not anymore. Jaycee wakes up so much at night and sometime it takes 45 minutes to put her back to sleep. She has no idea how to soothe herself back to sleep when she does wake up. I’ve always nursed her to sleep before bed then I lay her down in her crib. When she wakes up throughout the night one of us will at least rock her back to sleep. If it’s sometime after 2am I usually will nurse her back to sleep again. If she wakes up again around 5am Daddy usually will get her and bring her into our bed. During the week when she’s home with Daddy, during nap he lets her fall asleep in his arms and then he lays her down in her crib. On the weekends I usually nurse or rock her to sleep. All bad habits I know and it needs to stop or we are never going to get a good night sleep. We give her a baby to sleep with thinking having a cuddly in her crib will help, but she doesn’t even grab for it. It’s time to rethink our bedtime and naptime routine. Both Tavo and I have a lot of talking and thinking of the best plan for Jaycee. The next couple weeks are going to be hard I have a feeling. We both need to be on the same page, for the most part we usually are, but it can be tough to not give in and go into the old habits.

We are also starting to notice our system in getting her to eat is becoming harder and harder. We are not following through with having her sit in her chair at the table during breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner and that is becoming a problem. Anymore when you put her in her chair she doesn’t want to be in it. It’s because we give in and let her run around and eat a lot of the time. Especially when she is having a snack we give in and let her run around while eating. Bad I know, because she has figured out even if she gets down she will still be able to eat.

Not only do we have to work on getting her to sleep through the night we need to work on getting her to sit in her chair for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner :-) I guess every parent screws up their child in some way or another. No one ever said parenting was going to be easy and it’s not. It can be a lot of work, but still the best job I’ve ever had :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Valentines day has been very relaxing. Our whole weekend has been relaxing actually. Jaycee had been under the weather most of the week and is still trying to get better, plus I haven't been feeling the greatest either. Jaycee's 1st runny nose :-(. We decided to make it a family weekend and not infect anyone else with our koodies. We have taken a lot of walks. Yesterday we took 3 and today so far we have taken 2. The weather has been beautiful and Jaycee LOVES to be outside.

Happy V day! Love Jaycee Renee...

Checking out the flowers.

Smelling the flowers.

Has to stop and pick up the leaves too...



Having fun!

Just because...

Just because it's superbowl Sunday and I wanted to share a few pictures of some of my favorite little faces with you...

Happy SuperBowl Sunday!!!

Davis and auntie...

Aidan and auntie...

Conor and Auntie...

Sweet Zerah...

Sweet Ariana...


And ofcourse, our princess miss Jaycee Renee with mommy...

JR's 1st haircut

Jaycee Renee had her 1st haircut today! I came home from work today and looked at my little princess and realized I've had enough of her hair in her face. She will NOT leave her hairbows in her at all anymore and the results of this is her long hair covering her eyes. With her long hair in her face it seemed she was having trouble trying to see and I didn't want that. I was sad to have her haircut, but I felt I didn't have much choice. Hopefully we can still put cute hairbows in her hair. She looks so much older with her cute bangs...check out before, during and after pics below.

La Jolla Shores

Cute pictures from two different trips to La Jolla shores. Daddy and Jaycee went one day while I was at work, he meet my sister, Shane and the kids. Then over the weekend the three of us went again. Jaycee loved running around on the grass chasing the birds (seagulls). It was so cute! She has so much energy.