weekend

Yesterday I drove out to attend Jen's daughter's (Ella) 1st birthday. Dumb me forgot a camera, but I had a great time and Jen did such an amazing job. The theme was "Tutu's and Tulips" and she had tutu's all made for each little girl there. So adorable!

While we were gone, Chris took Cam to his gym class and then to an air show he had seen advertisements for. Cam always points out airplanes, whether he sees one or hears one, so Chris thought he would enjoy it. They got there toward the end of the show, but they had a fun time.





Today after church we took a walk to the park. This was the longest walk I've taken since Kendall was born and I can definitely feel it! Tonight will be much the same, trying to keep Kendall happy during her oh-so fussy time and catching up on a little Tivo. :)

Misc.

*On Memorial Day, Chris's aunt Noonie and her friend Deb stopped by to meet Kendall. They came with some pretty adorable clothes for both Cameron and Kendall. Thanks!



*When Chris's parents were here over the weekend, Debbie bought a cute sprinkler play toy. We brought it out again yesterday and Cam was quite the fan.



*I've never had a cocktail, but I've decided between the hours of 6:30pm-8:30pm might be a good time to try one (kidding...obviously I'm breastfeeding). These, as most moms know, can be the FUSSIEST hours of the day. Yee Gads Kendall!

*Speaking of Kendall, we are attempting to do her naps in her bed, rather than on mommy. I'm trying the "cry for 15 minute" rule, which is why I'm blogging right now in Chris's office so I don't have to hear her. :(

*Last night a friend from my Bible Study brought us Shish-kabobs. There were so scrumptious. I always tend to bring a casserole mainly because it's so easy. I know these took her quite a bit of time/labor, but boy were they great!

*We are selling our Nissan Altima. If you know anyone that might be interested, here is the Criag's List link:
http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/cto/1182688207.html

*This was an attempt at a family picture for our birth announcement we will send. Unfortunately it came out blurry, which I was bummed about b/c I think it is such a great picture.



*Oops...it's been 15 minutes...ta-ta for now!

tips

My mom always passes along her magazines and I thought these tips were so interesting/helpful from her current Woman's Day:

*Combining bleach with detergent does not work because the detergent counteracts the bleach. Instead, add bleach during the last 5 minutes of the wash, so it can work alone.

*To remove a stain, you should treat it from the back of the fabric, to push the stain away.

*Baking your own bread can be done for about 40 cents per loaf, compared to $3-4 at the store! (the problem here is obviously finding the time...but maybe by using a bread machine and keeping dough in the freezer that you make ahead of time would work...but I don't know if you can freeze dough with yeast???)

breadsticks

When Chris and I were first married and money was tight, a common dinner for us would be a dozen breadsticks from Pat & Oscar's. Not only were we stuffed by the end, but we were able to "go out" for very little money. Let's be honest, though, do you really need to be tight on money to crave big, fat, buttery breadsticks for dinner?? However I can't say this is a tradition we will carry on with the kids as you can't get much more unhealthy. :)

Last night a friend brought us dinner from Pat & Oscar's. We had never had the San Diego pizza before (feta cheese and avocado), but I LOVED it and would highly recommend it. :)

memorial day

Yesterday we celebrated Memorial Day early with Chris's family. After bbq'ing hamburgers, we spent most of the afternoon outside in the backyard, watching the kids play in our inflatable pool, playing corn hole, and relaxing. Later we enjoyed the BEST BROWNIES EVER, made my my sister-in-law, Rebekah. Here are some pictures.

My munchkins...


We made the mistake of thinking Cam would like to hold Kendall...rather than try and roll her off his lap (here he is mid-roll)!


The brothers and their kids...




After church today, Chris and his dad headed out for a round of golf while Debbie and I stayed back with the kids. Debbie also prepared lots of yummy food for us to store in the freezer. We've been really spoiled by meals brought to us and it has been awesome to not have cooking on my to-do list each day!

photo shoot

My mom left a couple of days ago so I'm learning more about life with two. :)




Yesterday I went over to my mom's so she could watch the kiddos while I went to my doc's appointment. When I returned, we attempted a photo shoot. Unfortunately the timing wasn't quite right to attempt a pic of both of them...however I was skeptical this would work anyway. :) Here are a couple favorites.

(In case you are wondering, the dark stuff in his mouth is chocolate chips...used to get him to sit for the pic. Dumb me didn't realize it might look a little funny. Oh well.)



The ride home from my mom's was the first time Cam found himself trapped in the car with a screaming baby. Poor little guy got to the sobbing point, which in turn made me cry. All I could do was reach back and rub his little legs to try and comfort him. Quite the picture, I'm sure, of two crying kids and one crying mom on the freeway. Luckily he would snap right out of it as soon as there was a lull and he was back to his chipper self as soon as we arrived home. :)

cam and kendall

So far, Cam has been much better with Kendall than we had previously thought. He still has a hard time when she makes noises (any noise), but I'm hoping that will get better with time. His interactions with her are quite unique. He giggles when she sneezes and always asks where she is ("baby?"). However the funniest interactions are when he pokes her head and touches her head with his head. For some reason this is as far as he will go in showing affection for his little sister. :) We caught a video of both because it is just too funny. Take a look...

ethiopia

I mentioned in my previous post that my dad was in Ethiopia when Kendall was born. They were able to share the gospel all while helping the people by giving them new wheelchairs and eyeglasses. What an amazing example my dad is in spending his retirement years (well, he isn't technically retired but has a flexible schedule) by taking himself out of his comfortable life here and traveling to the most needy places, helping advance the kingdom of God!

Here is my dad praying with an Ethiopian:


Here are the wheelchairs that they make out of regular patio chairs:


This young girl, previously unable to walk, was healed while they were there and can now walk!

some bullets

*Cam napped for 3 hours today. What the heck? Is this what typical moms get to have every single day? I simply can't imagine!

*Sometimes I nap and I admit that it does feel nice to just relax when you are exhausted. However here is my theory on naps: Even on the days I take a nap, I'm just as tired come bedtime. So what is the point when there are so many things I could get done during that time?

*My mom brought home tons of salad stuff and chopped it all up for us to have on hand. Yummy. Chris always teases her as the "queen of the salads" because she serves them with almost all her meals. :)

*The Office was great this week. This season hasn't lived up to the previous ones, so it is nice that they are getting back on track and super funny.

*If I could have one chore done for me all the time, it would be swiffering my kitchen floor.

*My dad won't be able to meet Kendall for another few weeks. He was in Ethiopia during her birth (on a missions trip where they passed out eye glasses/wheel chairs...something I'm so glad he went on and am much more thankful that he was able to minister to so many people rather than sit in a hospital waiting room). Now we learned that he really needs to stay away for a few weeks since he was in Africa and the incubation period for diseases he could have picked up won't be over until then.

*When I was a kid, I would tell people my two favorite foods were donuts and baked potatoes.

*Kendall has slept literally all day. Wonder what the night has in store for us...yikes.

*I'm in the odd transition phase where none of my real clothes fit, but so many of my maternity clothes are far too big. Hmmm....

*The Cherry Festival is coming to town. We went last year and while we had fun, there was something not quite right about spending $12 for the three of us to ride a dingy ferris wheel. Maybe we should re-evaluate this year...

keep workin Applebees

Had an Applebees "Real Burger" last night. We had seen commercials and thought they looked scrumptious. It wasn't too "real" for me. They forgot my bacon, the patty was very small, and it was dry. I'd give it a 5.

p.s. When you get food to go from a restaurant, do you tip???

costco

Today was our first outing as a family (plus my mom). Where else would be more appropriate than our weekly trip to Costco? Heaven forbid we should miss more than a week! It was nice to have my mom there to help out for our first experiment with things like needing to stop to nurse, keeping track of Cam, etc.



Here is a cute close up of our little week old.

thankful for

*A great first check up for Kendall.  Here is our "first trip out" picture.  Yes, cheesy I know

*My mom and her great help last night with Kendall.  We are still struggling with sleeping ALLLL day and not so much at night...so it was nice to have her help.  She is also in the middle of making us a yummy dinner

*An awesome day at Disneyland for Chris and Cam.  New favorite ride for Cam, Autopia

*Tivo:  Very relaxing to wind down the day with a nice show. Last night: Southland

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*Good nap:  I generally don't nap at all, but today I was able to fall asleep for about an hour and it was heavenly

*Grandma's (Chris's mom) amazing chocolate chips cookies she left us.  Here is Cam helping her bake them when they were here:

strike a pose

some highlights and lowlights

Thanks for all of your comments!  We are happy to be be home and are attempting the two kid transition.  Here are some of my thoughts after a couple days:

Highlights:

*Chris's parents left today but were amazingly helpful in not only caring for Cam while we were gone, but helping out once we got home.  My mom is coming tonight to stay for a while so we feel very lucky to have so much help.

*Cam did much better than expected with Kendall.  He'll peek over her crib and definitely knows she is "sister" as he'll say this when we ask.  He doesn't get upset when we are holding her or I am feeding her, which is HUGE!  He has yet to experience her hard cries, but hopefully the more used to her he gets, the easier that will be for him.

*Breastfeeding as gone amazingly smooth which I'm SO thankful for.  I had a rough first month with Cam, so it is nice to not have that as an added worry and I realized how much I missed the bonding part of it.  :)

*Cam has been great at playing independently, which obviously is helpful since I can't do much.

*Chris has been awesome at the new endless amounts of laundry, unpacking, and playing with Cam.  I haven't felt as much guilt as I thought I would for not being able to play with him, due much in part to how much fun I see him having with Chris.

*Lastly, what could be better than just staring at Kendall??  :)

The lowlights:

*Last night was rough (I obviously didn't expect it to be easy!) with sleep.  It is very frustrating for me to not be able to participate in the walking, bouncing, etc. in trying to get her to sleep.  I feel quite useless.  Luckily she slept pretty well once we took turns sleeping her on both of us, but that meant not as great for us.  Once I'm healed, we'll nip that in the bud, but for now, whatever gets us the most sleep is what we'll do. :)

*I thought maybe I was remembering the recovery pain as worse than it was.  Umm...not so much.  It bites.  Last night was miserably painful.  I've been better today about taking my pain meds right on time and that has helped.  But again I HATE not being able to do much of anything...something I'm very not used to.

*Cam has been pretty sick now for several days, coughing harder than we have ever seen.  We are washing our hands a ton for fear of Kendall catching it.

Well, that is about it.  I know this post probably isn't too interesting if don't have kids, so thanks for sticking it out.  I'll have more pictures soon I'm sure.  :)

Welcome Kendall Susan!

This is Chris. I’m typing this while my wife is laying in bed and baby Kendall is off with a nurse for her first bath.

The surgery went well and we’re excited to announce the arrival of Kendall Susan Petinak, born at 9:31am on May 7, 2009. She’s 8lbs., 9oz., and 19” long.

In case you’re wondering, we really liked the name Kendall as it rings well with Chris, Kelly, and Cameron. The middle name comes from Kelly’s sister, Susan.

Here are some pics.

Will write more when we get home after a couple nights here.

concerts

I've never been THAT into concerts. They are fun, but I've decided that unless I pretty much have front row seats and am VERY familiar with the artist, it just wouldn't be worth it to me. I've been to a few in my life:

Shania Twain: Pretty good however we were REALLY far back
N 'Sync: Yes, laugh if you want, but this was actually quite a fun concert
Phil Collins: By far my favorite as he is my favorite
Third Day: This was before they were famous and was very good except we had to stand the whole time :(

I guess if I had to choose a concert right now, it would have to be some sort of country concert, as that is what I am mostly listening to. I really like Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, and Rascall Flatts. Not sure why I'm even thinking about concerts as we are about to enter the next phase of our lives that isn't exactly conducive to concert hopping!

heart attack between bread

Chris listens to Kevin and Bean a lot. Last week they were talking about a grilled cheese cook off. Chris was inspired.

What could be better than sourdough, lots of butter, lots of cheese, and bacon? Not a whole lot! Thank you Chris. :)



p.s. The only thing missing was strawberry jam on top. Don't judge until you try it!

preferences

I prefer:

*Drinking soda from a can rather than pouring it in a glass. I feel it keeps the fizz more.

*Ranch with my fries over Ketchup

*Target over Walmart

*Hot weather over cold

*Chocolate candy over sour candy

*Dogs over Cats (kittens are cute, but it ends there)

*Stick shift over automatic. I have never owned a stick shift, but I think they are so fun to drive and one day, when the kids are older, I will own one!

*One story over two story houses

*Showers over baths

*Fruity sprays over perfume smells