Calvin, Older Pics

Here are a few pics to catch up on the last here. these are the oldest pics. he looks so small here. these are some of my favorites

On grandpa's tractor

getting into the powder. found him like this. i wasn't too happy

his new big boy race car bed

mom, i can do it myself!!!

Penelope Alynn, Older Pics

Since I haven't been blogging, I thought I'd go back in time a little and show off my baby girl. Here are a few pics from the many I have to show you how cute she is.

Here she is with her Great Great Grandma Myrtle

MAJOR Catching UP

Well, I've been away from blogland for quite some time, almost a year. I have to admit, I wasn't sure if I wanted to start blogging again, but life is good and I want to share. I stepped out for quite some time. I have to say, I'm pretty sure that this was the most difficult, soul searching, inner peace finding, heart wrenching, crazy year of my life. And I am happy to say I am a better person for it. But without all the icky details, I have a lot of catching up to do. The biggest and best news of all is the birth of our daughter, Penelope. She is beautiful and so sweet. I adore her. She was born last August and the time is flying by so fast. Mister Calvin just turned two. He's absolutely hilarious. He's of course in the terrible two stage and I want to pull out my hair about every 5 seconds. But when he's not busy driving me crazy, he loves to play with leggos, cars and anything (i mean anything) with buttons or cords. He's a couch hurdler, and loves to play outside,especially with the hose (did i mention the cord thing?) both my kids are what I live for. Joe is still at Luke AFB. We are planning on moving back to California to live with my folks next month while Joe goes and serves a year long tour in Korea. And if all goes according to plan, Italy will be our next destination. Okay, so much has happened. And now for the fun. Pictures in my next post to high light the past year.

COUPONS

So, a lot of people have been telling me how they have been saving with coupons. I thought it was a great idea. So, I ordered the Sunday paper to get all the coupons, plus I've collected some from my favorite websites and at the grocery store. Today was my first attempt. I thought I did pretty good for shopping at the commissary on base. I would have originally spent $72.29 without the coupons (sad because it doesn't even look like that much). But I only spent $44.06!. That is a 39% savings. Now, there is a large bag of dogfood and a gallon of whole milk missing from this photo. And, I normally don't buy all this stuff at once, like all of the air fresheners. But what I am learning is that you stock up! I plan to go to Fry's Market and get their VIP card. I think I will be able to save even more there because they have more sales than the commissary. Hopefully next time I can save even more! It is kinda fun going through the isles with your coupons and seeing how much you are going to save! If anyone has any tips for me, I'd love to hear about them!

SPLASHING AROUND

my friend alyssa and i took our kids to this little splash fountain area in this shopping/movie/arena area. i saw it last summer when we went down there but calvin was too small. so i was so excited to take him. he LOVES the water and even though the fountains splashed up in his face, he loved that too. i'm so glad he enjoyed it. i enjoyed just watching him and the excitement on his face. here are a few pics of our afternoon.

CALIFORNIA

So we had a wonderful time in california last month. it was quite a busy week. we got into town on friday morning. saturday we took a trip to san francisco to visit joe's sister, rachel. it was a fun day. we started down at the pier, walked around. looked at sea lions, took a ride on the carrousel and then went to ghiradelli's square where i ate the most delicious of cupcakes.

we then went back to rachel's place for presents and a brownie cake. one of the presents was this awesome bubble blower. i think checkers enjoyed it more than calvin. it was a lot of fun. thank rachel.

then we went to the beach with calvin and that was a lot of fun. it was his first time there. he ate a lot of sand. dad let him get wet in the waves. he loved every minute of it.

i also got to visit with some friends this week. thursday was wendy's baby shower. that was a great turn out. friday we headed to the park with joe's folks. calvin loved the tunnel and the swings. but mostly he loved to pick up leaves off of the ground and any garbage he could find.

i got a surprise that becky was coming up with litty maddy. it was fun to see her with calvin. they did pretty good together but they both liked this giant toothbrush. so we had to let them take turns.

here's a cute picture with calvin and my dad. we went to d'boni's for pizza with my family and my grandpa. don't they look so cute in their hawaiian shirts. my dad took calvin out to see all of the old cars in the parking lot. they were having autumn cruise night at the plaza.

joe's mom gave joe a bag of clothes from when he was little. here is one of his outfits. it's so dang cute on calvin. what a little 80's man in his little shorts and tank top!

saturday we had calvin's first birthday party. it was a lot of fun and quite a few friends and family came to celebrate it with him. he enjoyed all of the people. when it came time to opening up his gifts he could care less and just walked around with the balloons in his hands. it was cute.

here he is eating his yummy cake. it was a mickey mouse cake (his favorite cartoon). he got most of it on the floor and all over himself. boy did he like it!



well, that's a quick recap of the great week we had. i am hoping to get lots of pictures from everyone else that was there this past week. i was so busy having fun that i didn't take as many pictures as i wanted. so hopefully there will be more to come in the future. but i did have a great time and was so nice to see everyone again. hopefully we'll get to come back soon.

BIRTHDAY BOY

Calvin turned the big 1 yesterday. I can't believe how fast he is growing. We had a great time watching him eat his first birthday cake. I might add he definitely takes after me. He sure does have a sweet tooth. Here are some fun facts about Calvin.
1. He loves to feed the dog his food. He thinks it's the funniest thing in the world.
2. His favorite game is playing peek-a-boo with his dad
3. His favorite toy is the remote control for the tv. We tried buying him a toy one, but it just isn't the same i guess
4. He can say "mama" "dada" "baba" and now he says "cha cha". that is what he calls our dog, checkers
5. he thinks he's superman and just flies off the couch (getting hurt of course)
6. he loves bath time.
7. he loves our dog and loves to jump on him
8. he has learned how to pinch (which i do not like one bit)
9. when he laughs it's like he can't breathe and tries to suck in a lot of air. it's so cute
10. his favorite cartoon is mickey mouse. he loves the songs and loves to dance to them in the mornings.

his one year pictures

getting ready to eat some yummy cake

it was soooo good. he would have eaten the whole cake if we had let him. love you buddy. Happy birthday!!!