Happy 18 months Deegan

(I actually typed this yesterday but didn't get a chance to post it. Tuesday was his 18 month birthday.)

Dear Deegan,
Today you are 18 months old and you are growing up so fast. I love spending all my time with you and when I don't get enough time with you it makes me sad. I have been back at work for 2 months now and as soon as I get home, I just want to steal you and get lots of kisses. We haven't taken you to your 18 month doctors appointment  yet but I am sure you are just over 30 pounds and probably 35 or 36 inches. You are wearing size 2T shorts, 3T shirts and size 5 diapers. You are tall like your daddy! You have been a great sleeper since for the past 2 months. You have always been a pretty good sleeper, but we were having problems with teeth, a few months ago. We haven't had any new teeth come through, so you have been happy. Right now you have 12 teeth, and 4 others ones that are almost all the way through. You love to try to feed yourself but it gets messy! I only let you try if you are taking a bath right after. You do pretty good with the apple sauce but you still always end up turning the spoon and it ends up all down your shirt. You are a very busy boy. We took you to Orange County for a week and anytime we went somewhere new, we had to chase you around. You do not just sit there and play, you want to explore everything! You keep your mommy busy. You are starting to run and you get excited when you do it. The other day you ran to me 2 times and gave me a big hug. It was an awesome feeling! You still love Elmo. You also love trucks, cars, keys, balls and playing with your tee-ball set. You have been able to spend a lot of time with daddy lately, because work is slow. He has been teaching you new things like how to swing the bat and how to shake hands. You have been starting to get mad when I take something away from you. When you get mad you swing your arms around and put your hand over your mouth. It is really funny and I am not sure why you do it. You have also been talking a lot. In the past few months you have learned - mama, dada, elmo (but you call him elbo), ball, keys, cheese, truck, car, gog gog (dog), auntie cc (but you just say cccc), andrew, outside, nite nite. You also know the difference between your bedroom and the bathroom. When we walk upstairs at night time, I will either tell you to go to your bedroom and go nite nite or go to the bathroom and take a bath, and you know which one to go to. It amazes me how fast you learn.

Vacation

We are taking a little family vacation right now. We came out to Orange County for a whole week the week of 4th of July. I asked my work before they even hired me if I could have this week off. We had 3 birthdays to celebrate while out here. Our niece Reagan turned 2 on the 4th, our other niece Lily will be 1 on the 9th and Kevin turned 30 on the 6th. We have had a lot of fun with taking Deegan to new places. It is fun that he is walking now. It makes it more fun for us all to do things as a family. We were hoping to go to Disneyland while out here but didn't make it. Hopefully next time. We won a family vacation pack to Disneyland for 3 days (Kevin won the grand prize on the radio) so hopefully we can use that in September and take Deegan to Disneyland again.

I have a lot more pictures on my digital camera but didn't bring the cable to upload any of them. So these are just some of the random photos that I had on my iPhone. I have a great picture of Deegan with all 4 of his cousins on my camera!

All the fun things we have done since we got here:

Saturday - Playing in the backyard at Grandma and Grandpa's was so much fun. Deegan got to do all his favorite "boy" things - play in the water, play with dirt, chase the dogs around, etc. Then dinner at Polly's Pies with all the gray hair ladies in the background! haha! Some little old lady came up and gave him a $1 for his piggy bank.

Polly's Pies - where Kevin and I met

Sunday - BBQ at my parents house with my family and Kevin's family. All of Deegan's cousins were here and he had some much fun with all of them! Pictures on digital camera.

Monday - the 4th. Deegan and Dylan had a playdate in the backyard. They played in the pool together and had a great time. Here is a video of the boys playing! They are only 4 days apart! Deegan also got to play with Lily and Andrew some more. Then we went to our sister-in-laws parents house for a BBQ and to celebrate Reagan's 2nd birthday. Then we watched fireworks in the front yard for a little bit. Deegan was scared of them so we took off. He feel asleep on the drive home, so we stopped by Disneyland and got to see the big firework show!

Tuesday - Beach time! We took Deegan to Balboa Beach. It is one of our favorite beaches in Orange County. It is not too busy and close walking distance from parking to water. Deegan had fun at the beach and enjoyed playing in the sand and watching the birds. Kevin took him out into the water and he liked that too but it was a little cold for him. Here are some pictures and videos of Deegan at the beach. Also on Tuesday Kevin got his first tattoo!

Sleepy boy after a fun day at the beach with a boo boo on his lip from falling the day before

Kevin getting his first ink

Wednesday - Kevin's 30th birthday! I surprised Kevin and we went and stayed a night at Casa Laguna Bed and Breakfast. We took Deegan with us down to Laguna Beach for a few hours so he could hang out with his daddy on his birthday. We had a lot of fun playing at the beach again. Then my mom picked him up and took him back to her place for the night. Kevin and I had a nice dinner together and then had a relaxing night with NO baby! That was our first night away from Deegan as a couple. It was nice! 

Happy birthday daddy!

Thursday - Kevin and I spend the rest of our day in Laguna Beach then dinner with his parents.

Tomorrow we are going to an Angels baseball game and Deegan is having another playdate with Dylan. On Saturday we are going to Lily's birthday at the park and then on Sunday we might head back to Vegas in the morning but stop by Banning, CA to visit some of Kevin's family.

So far it has been a very busy vacation but great! That is what vacations are for! We have been making a lot of family memories and Kevin and I have had a chance to rebond and have some great time together!

My first 30 days

Friday marked my 30th day of working. So far everything has been going great, mostly because I love my job and I love Deegan's daycare. In the past 30 days of work I have been able to enjoy 4 really fun photoshoots, a grand opening party, $100 gift card to Albertsons, a 4 day weekend, the chance to design some really fun and cute stuff and lots of free shoes!! My job is perfect! It is exactly what I wanted, if I was going to go back to work. I have also been able to learn some new graphic design skills. That is my favorite thing about my field, is that there is so much to learn. The Adobe programs (Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator) have so much to learn and I don't think I will ever learn how to do everything in them. I'm also really starting to love our product. pediped shoes are just the cutest kids shoes ever! I love seeing them on Deegan's feet and I love telling other people about the product. 

In the past 30 days Deegan has got to spend a lot of time with his daddy and with his babysitter, Christine. Kevin's work has been slow (boooo for construction), so on the days he is home, he has Deegan home with him. Kevin has really learned how to take care of Deegan and take care of a house. He has also became an excellent scrambled egg maker! I am glad they have been able to get some good bonding time together! On the days that Kevin does have work and I'm at work, Deegan goes to Christine's house. I meet Christine through my mommy group and she offered to watch Deegan. This has been the perfect fit for our family. She is a stay-at-home-mom like I was, so she kind of does everything like I did it. Deegan has adjusted to her very well. He napped 2 hours his first day there. Christine has a 14 month old daughter (she is just 3 months younger then Deegan), so Deegan gets lots of playtime with Kassandra. They now get a lot very well and are learning from each other. I couldn't be happier!

The hardest thing about being back to work is my time management. I want to spend all my time with Deegan. The days when I don't get enough "Deegan time", I get really sad. I miss my baby boy and he is growing up so quickly. The days that I don't get enough time with him, it makes me want to think about quitting work and stay home with my son. But I just remind myself that there is always tomorrow and I can get all my loves with him the next day and I am working to make our lives better. I am still struggling with trying to get everything done in the house that I want. I just run out of energy. I haven't cleaned the bathrooms in forever and I have no idea what we are eating for dinner this week. But the good thing about work is that I have had more "me time". A few days a week, during my lunch break I will go out and go shopping, get my nails done or just do something for myself. It has been nice! My boss before never gave me an hour lunch break (my lunch break was during nap time and it was like a race to get everything done)! But then there are some days that I work through my lunch or I spend my lunch break trying to make appointments or pay bills. 

So, so far my first 30 days have been good! I am really enjoying the extra money in our bank account and I am loving our family weekends! 

Camping at Mt Charleston

A few weekends ago we went camping at Mt Charleston. It's about a 45 minute drive from Las Vegas. We were very excited to go because this would be Deegan's first time camping. I have always loved camping. Every summer my family would go. That was our family trip/vacation each year. Whenever we traveled anywhere, we would campout. We had a camper when I was growing up but we also tent camped. My parents still enjoying going camping together. Kevin wasn't a big camper before he met me. We have gone camping maybe 6 times together. We have always had a good time. Now we can enjoy it with our little family! Next up is Valley of Fire or Zion National Park!

The trip was planned with 7 families from my mommy group. Some stayed overnight and some drove home before bedtime. It was cold and windy, so we didn't want to stay the night and also we were all sick the weekend before and didn't want to get sick again. Deegan got to enjoy some of his first junk food. He had a marshmallow, Doritos and frosted animal cookies. He loved them all! What is camping without junk food? He also enjoyed walking around and checking out the campsite. The campsite wasn't very kid friendly. It was really uneven and had lots of rocks. And my kid loves to eat rocks, so it was a lot of work trying to keep them out of his mouth. Deegan got to wear his really cute Levi's jean jacket that his grandpa got him at a yard sale. It has been in his dresser for a really long time. It was still kind of big on him but it was the perfect camping jacket! He also got to test out his pediped shoes and they did great for camping!

"I got my fork and ready to eat some mustard!"

Deegan and his friends Finnigan and Lucy playing in the dirt. Deegan had a chip in his mouth and thought is was really funny!

Deegan and Bennett trying to stay warm!

Me and all the mommies!

1st In-N-Out Burger

Since it was Memorial Day and we didn't have a BBQ, we decided to have our favorite burgers for dinner. We went to In-N-Out! Kevin worked at In-N-Out when he was in high school and he has always loved their burgers. My family use to go there and eat when we were teenagers, so I have always loved In-N-Out too! We decided what better place for Deegan to have his first hamburger. He actually wasn't too crazy about it. He has been realllly picky lately and stares at all his food to see if he knows what it is before he eats it. He hasn't been trying anything new lately. He finally ate some of it at the end, but Kevin was a little disappointed. He wanted his little boy to love In-N-Out as much as he does!

Tivoli Village

We checked out Tivoli Village today. It was really nice. We hope to go back soon. We went early this morning to check out the farmers market. We were there at 8:45am. We bought strawberries, honey, peaches, apricots, green onions, avocado and oranges. We also played at the really cool playground. It was a very interesting playground. Lots of new playground toys that I have never seen before. We had lots of fun on the spinny toy. It was fun but I was scared!

Farmer's Market

Daddy scares the crap out of me when he does this! But his "bear paws" are so big, he would never miss catching Deegan. 

Kevin 6' 4", Deegan like 9 feet in the air!!!!

Really cool marble toy!

Me and my love!

Mom what is this thing? Do I get the whole thing? You normally only give me little pieces.

I guess I will give it a try.

Wow, juicy and yummy! He looooved it and ate the whole thing. He screamed when I took the skin and the seed away from him!

Water fun

It has been a busy few weeks and no time to update the blog. I have also just been lazy and not really feeling like I want to update. But then that all changed today. Today we were playing in the backyard and I thought to myself "I need to blog more because I will want to read about how Deegan is changing and growing up". I thought about that right after I saw a hand print of Deegan's hand on the ground from playing in the water. He was trying to stand up and he put his wet hand on the ground. His hand print was sooo big! I can't believe how much he is growing up.

We had so much fun in the backyard today. I love that Deegan is walking and I love watching him explore (I also love his little baby butt jiggling around when he walks!). It is my favorite thing to do with him now! Just in this past week we have taken him to explore at Best Buy, our favorite park - Red Ridge park, a little league baseball game, the new Tivoli Village. I love to just let him down and let him go. I love to see what he wants to play with and what he doesn't care about. He still loves the rocks. Whenever he sees any, he wants to pick them up and put them in his mouth.