A getaway to Temecula

For Christmas/Valentine's Day, Sam got me a getaway to Temecula's wine country. We left Kaitlyn with her Aunt Heidi (who is such a champ for helping us spend some time together) and headed up north on Sunday afternoon. We stayed in a beautiful villa at a local winery. It was decorated quaintly and even had a huge jacuzzi bathtub. The highlight of the trip was the hot air balloon ride we took on Monday morning. Despite having to leave at 6am it was an amazing experience that I never before even thought of doing. We had a great time and it was nice to get away from our little one so we could invest in one another and our relationship.


It only took about 15 minutes to get the balloon out and ready to fly, however it took over an hour to find just the right spot to launch from.



Another passenger's birthday.



The view from the sky

Changes with the New Year

Once the new year began, Kaitlyn started making some advances. She now has 2 teeth (as mentioned below), started sitting up on her own, started rolling over from tummy to back, and started eating solid foods. Now that's a lot of change for 3 weeks!

Teething Troubles

Kaitlyn has been showing signs of teething since a bit before Thanksgiving. One little guy FINALLY surfaced on New Years Day (just under 5 months old). I say FINALLY, because the sprouting of this first tooth was accompanied by just about every symptom you can find in the books. I hear some kids blow through this "teething" process without any problems....no so for our little daughter. She started acting fussy, had a slight fever, diarrhea, was sleeping badly for naps, was congested, had a cough, and wouldn't breastfeed well. I even rushed to Longs to buy saline drops, a humidifier and Vapo-steam to try to get her to sleep and breathe better. Once the tooth surfaced, it was accompanied by waking in the middle of the night (but possibly due to her not getting enough to eat during the day since my milk supply decreased while she was not eating well). Thankfully, everything has since gone back to normal and Kaitlyn is laughing, smiling, and "talking" more than ever before.
On a more recent note.... tooth #2 just sprouted yesterday without a hitch.


Here's Kaitlyn showing us how many teeth she has.

Blame it on the breastfeeding

I'm a person with lots of ailments....mainly small ones, but ailments none the less. When I was pregnant, they all got blamed on the pregnancy. Now that I'm breastfeeding, I blame them on breastfeeding. It's not that I'm sure breastfeeding is causing them, but more hopeful that it's from breastfeeding because that way the ailment would only be temporary. Here are some of my current ailments:

1. arthritic hands
2. inability to wear my wedding ring due to a weird rash that appeared under the ring. It is now turning into cracked skin.
3. Eczema patches on different placed of my body.
4. Thirsty and hungry all the time
5. An intense craving for chocolate (oh wait...I've always had that)

A late Christmas in San Diego

My parents came down to San Diego after Christmas to spend some time with us as well as to celebrate Christmas as a family since Steve and Larissa were in Hawaii for Christmas. We spent one day at the Zoo, one day at the Animal Park, and the rest of the time around the house.



Heidi, Kaitlyn, and me at the Wild Animal Park











I can't believe it's December, look at what we're wearing!










Riding skyfari at the zoo









Kaitlyn managed to stay happy all day even though she was cooped up in her stroller




Playing the board game Quelf..... why is dad on the ground?







All of us (minus me) opening presents










What could a person possibly do with 4 Mr. Beer Kits?