I love getting to do first’s with my kids. Ella really likes the movie and book, “Beauty and the Beast”. She likes us to read the book to her almost every night (it is a current fave). Well, recently I got an email regarding a 3-D showing of Beauty and the Beast!! I was SUPER excited and called my mom (Oma). They had tickets for when she was supposed to come down here to LA and visit. Well… the day of my oms flight Seattle is PUMMELED with snow! My mom calls me crying saying that there is no way she can get out of Seattle. I answer her, crying as well, telling her I understand. (really it was a HORRIBLE snow storm and flights were being canceled left and right – I am so sad our visit had to be postponed – but SO much happier that she stayed home, safe and can come down in a week). So, while I had gotten 3 tickets for us to have a special Oma, Mommy and Ella night out, it ended up just being me and Ella.

I got the tickets for The El Capitan Theater in Hollywood- on Hollywood Blvd. This is the theater right across the street from where all the big Hollywood awards shows are held – and as I discovered next door to the Jimmy Kimmel show. Ella was SO on board for this adventure!! We hit up the theater first to pick up our tickets from will-call, this is when she saw the big markee for the movie. Oh Ella got excited as only Ella can and started yelling BEAST AND BELL MOVIE!!!!!! All the passers-by laughed and commented on her excitement – at this point Ella was getting more attention than the dressed up characters on the Blvd.

Ella even took a moment to pose on the star walk.

From here we went and got hot dogs. DELISH! Then, it was time to get back to the theater and get out seats. This theater is SO AWESOME!! It is an old play theater converted into a movie theater – and has all the charm of old Hollywood. Ella was beyond happy when she saw Belle herself come out onto the stage and personally thank us for coming – when Belle said “Be our guest” there was a LOUD BOOM and the ceiling erupted in confetti! What an AWESOME first movie experience.

Ella did SO great throughout the movie. She got a little scared with the Beast and informed me that he was not her favorite. She ended up climbing onto my lap and spent the rest of the movie there… which I was personally 100% okay with. After the movie Ella and I walked back to our car and she was just so full of joy from the whole experience. She couldn’t stop talking about it the entire ride home and then once we were home she had to tell her daddy all about it as well. We didn’t get home till ~10pm, but she was too hyped to go to bed.

I am so glad I got to do this with my little lady. She is growing up so much and I love being able to grow our relationship in new ways. I love being friends with her. <3

This was our second year spending the holidays in our home here in LA. Last year Iya and Papa came to visit just before the holiday and we had a couple of Christmas celebrations! This year, we kept it simple and it was again, wonderful!

All December long we have been reading the book “The Elf on The Shelf” and the kid shave LOVED it! Every morning Ella would wake up and run around the house trying to find what that silly little elf had gotten himself into. Luckily for us he usually did nice things (like help me with the dishes or play the guitar). On Christmas eve Bruce sat down with Ella to read her the book one last time – as the elf needed to get back to Santa and help him with all the work he had ahead!

I love to watch these two together! <3 Though, they really can push each others buttons from time to time! haha Ella adores her father, and I know that feeling is mutual.

On Christmas morning the kids woke up to a bunch of fun new toys from us, family and Santa. It was really great to watch their excitement and see how they enjoyed opening and discovering what each gift was. Santa got the kids a new play house this year and I must say, while I thought the kids would like it, I am blown away by how much Bastion LOVES it!!

He spends loads of time ringing the doorbell, shouting his trademark “EL-O” and opening and closing the little door. <3 The elves forgot to send any screws along with the playhouse, so I had an interesting time trying to make it safe for the kids haha. Luckily, the kids are not annoyed with this in the least!

I loved spending the day as a family, it was light and comfortable... we could stay in our jammies all day (and maybe we did!) Another big hit present wise for the kids is a digital art studio. Ella has REALLY started taking to this and wants to use it all the time. She "builds" her name over and over. This has also now lead to her discovering that she can text her name We may need to get an unlimited texting plan!

A very special part of the morning happened when Ella actually caught Santa in the act! Since Santa is magic, we couldn't get a clear picture of him while he was in our house, but she woke up to him finishing off his cookies!

I feel so very lucky to have this family. We got to Skype with Oma and Opa and Iya and Papa as well as our siblings <3 I feel like even though we are hundreds and thousands of miles from each other we are all so lucky to be able to pop into each others livingrooms (or offices) and share these special times.

So sad that it has taken a huge storm to get me back on here writing – but life has really gotten busy! These two little ones keep me on my toes and now with Ella in school we are much busier than I ever expected!!

Well, lets get to this storm… and what a storm it was. I remember hearing on the news that “dangerous weather is headed our way” and I kind of laughed it off. Really, ‘dangerous weather’ here in LA? I figured there would be some strong Santa Ana winds – but nothing like what we experienced. We lost our power on Wednesday night… this also just so happened to be the night that Bruce was working late for month end. He didnt get home till 3:30am! With the power out the kids and I made a game of everything. Bastion went to sleep with no problems – that boy is a great sleeper now! Ella was just too excited. I sat in our big comfortable green chair with a big candle by our front door, leaving Ella’s door cracked so she could see me. Every ten min or so she would ask, ‘mama, are you still there?’ About 11:30pm she finally succumbed to sleep. I sat there in our big chair, watching the wind tare through the neighborhood. I could tell whenever a big rush of wind was coming; I would start to hear this loud rumble, then the house would start to shake – very much like an earthquake, the windows would rattle and then you could see the trees bending. I watched four transformers blow up in the matter of about 2 hours. I was so worried about Bruce driving home. I slept on the couch that night so that I could be close to the kids if they needed anything or got scared. In the morning we all woke and went outside to survey the damage… this was the first thing we saw:

This is across the street from our house, a 100 year Oak came crashing down. This driveway leads to 4 other houses and all the families were blocked in. The wind had come in from the north and blown the tree south, into another of our neighbors yard/house. Luckily the house has some tall thin trees and a palm tree that saved them from having their house broken down by the tree. It was such an intense sight to see.

Here you can see the palm tree that saved their house.

And here is a shot of their house, with just SOME of the debris that was created.

Well into the night they worked trying to clear the driveway so the families could get out.

I climbed into the driveway to get a shot of how it looked for the families who live down the driveway.

We had 4 days with no power. That lost its charm VERY fast! By the 4th day I was done. We were not sleeping well, the house was cold, the kids were restless and all our food had gone bad. The last night we had no power and Ella woke up in the middle of the night puking. Poor girl! That same night Bastion pee’d through his diapers and the double layer of jammies I had him in. I went to go buy the kids more warm weather clothes to make it through another night and as I pulled into our driveway – THE LIGHTS CAME BACK ON!!!!!!! I promptly ran into the house and turned the heat up! I was so happy I broke out in tears!

Ella now plays a game she made up called “wind storm!” She will stack items on top of one another and then knock them all down yelling “WIND STORM!!” haha. She is still excited every time we can turn on a light – as am I. This experience has showed me ways we need to be more prepared for a large disaster. We were lucky to have gas and still be able to use the burners on the stove and have hot water. We lost all our food (including an upright freezer and chest freezer). I now have enough tea-candles to last a huge storm again! The evening after we got our power back I was holding Bastion on that big green chair I wrote about earlier. He was snuggling into my chest and we were both warm and cozy. I felt so relieved, I felt so humbled and so grateful that I could once again keep my children warm and safe.

Another note I want to add is how wonderful all our neighbors were with coming together to help each other out. We shared breakfasts and dinners to ensure everyone had food and there was nothing left over (since there was no way to store it). We all came out to help clean each others yards to to make sure that we all had everything we needed. We shared candles and stories and wine.

It is hard to even imagine that Ella is old enough to go to school… let alone breaking down the front door of our house to get there! haha She is SO ready! We have been talking about how she will go to school “in September” and September finally came!

Here she is all dressed and ready for school!

I had to have this shot of her in front of the front door. The thing is, this is the exact photo that my parents have of us kids growing up. <3

Ella LOVED school! She did SO well! Ella walked up to all the kids and said hello and asked them to play. She was her super confident social self and just won everyone over with how genuinely nice she is!

Here she is with her new teacher Mrs. Nita:

(btw, that is her super happy smile! haha)

I really am feeling great about the school. I have already met some mommies that I can tell I will get along with! I like that it is not too “hippy-dippy” lol. The school is really small and the same 2 teachers teach Ella’s class (The Darling Ducklings) and the older class (The Busy Bears). There are a lot of parents who are on their 2nd or 3rd child through the program as well. Ella kept talking about how much she liked school and all the activities she participated in. It was great how independent she was too.

This is also my introduction to being the “busy” mom. Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are our crazy days here… and I am sure as Ella gets older and Bastion starts to get into more activities it will just get crazier! Ella has her new gymnastics class T/Th as well. So, after getting home, having lunch, trying to nap waking up and having snack, we rush out the door for gymnastics. Luckily, Ella is LOVING it! She is doing SO well in her gymnastics class too, and I am so glad that it is 2 times a week. I can see how much she learns from week to week <3! Well, after we got home from gymnastics and made dinner (and I was realizing how much our family had really grown into this whole new family that talks and shares interests and WOW) we went on a family walk.

Ella, in true Ella fashion:

I am amazed at how much can change in 3 short years. By how much different one can feel. I have loved being a mom since the moment I found out I was pregnant… but there is something different about this stage of motherhood that I am just stepping into. I like it, it is different from anything I have ever felt. It is better than most any experience I have ever had…. I just cant quite put my finger on it, but I am SO happy to be going through these experiences with my family!

OMG! I cannot write that BIG ENOUGH! Ella had the breakdown to beat ALL breakdowns. It came out of NO WHERE too! We were leaving an indoor play area, she had done GREAT the whole time; listened, played well even left with out a fuss. We get to the major intersection between where the play area is and our car. Its a HUGE intersection, 6 lanes PLUS turning lanes. I hit the button, but she wanted to. So, I stepped back just enough for her to be able to hit it – but not enough that she could run out into the street. Well, this didn’t work at all… the chain of events had already started. Finally I picked her up so that I could just carry both kids through the major intersection. About half way through she FULLY lost her mind. She started kicking and screaming. I am now holding Bastion, our fruit in a Tupperware, her backpack and Ella – screaming bloody murder and kicking. She ends up kicking herself out of my arms and onto the ground… literally in teh MIDDLE OF THIS GIANT INTERSECTION. I am now trying to peal her off the pavement while she is still kicking and screaming, thus, here I am with two screaming kids, on my hands and knees trying to get a grip of both of them while not loosing all are stuff across the road. I look up and see that the light is about to change. I have no choice but to get me and my kids OUT of this intersection. So, I do the best I can. I grab my screaming and kicking 3 year old by her arm and drag her out of the intersection. It is at this point she kicks off on of her shoes and starts to loose it even more! I get her to the side walk and have to pin her down from running back out into the street to get her shoe. Every time I loosen my grip she starts to bolt at the street. I nice man stops and asks if he can help, and I ask him if he could go get her shoe out in the street when the light changes. The light lasts forever… it is one of those lights that just dragggggggs. Finally it changes and the nice man goes and gets her shoe saying he totally understands and has 3 kids himself. The screaming and kicking lasts till I am able to round her up and into the car… then more crying. When we get home I talk to her about how dangerous her behavior was and that it is 100% not acceptable. I leave her in her room since she is BEYOND ready for a nap – then I hear it – MOMMY I PUKED!! MOMMY I PUKED!! Its all over her bed and her carpet… the room smells HORRIBLE. I have now given her a bath and changed her bed. She is back in there and much quieter. I checked her temp and she doesn’t seem to have one, she says her tummy hurts, but I honestly think she may have gotten herself into such a huff about everything that it made her puke – vs. actually being sick. Though, now i have no idea. All I know is that she just had the most epic flip out of her life. I know that if I wasn’t a parent I would have judged harshly how I and my child was behaving. I would have thought that I would handle it better. But in the end, I did what I had to do to keep both my kids safe, and as well behaved as my daughter is most of the time, she is hitting a rough patch (transitions in life, growing, independence etc). She is in SO much trouble for that behavior, esp the fact that it happened in the middle of a massive intersection. It works me up how in danger she put all of us. But I also don’t know how to “punish” her for this sort of thing. mainly I will discuss with her the danger she put us in and that she does not get any rewards for good behavior today b/c that behavior was so bad that there are just no more rewards for the entire day.

I have decided to take her to our street in front of the house to discuss with her the danger that she put us all in. That I understand she was upset – we all get upset. But that you cannot put yourself and others in danger. I will take this opportunity to teach her about cars more.

Also, the poor girl kept puking, so I am pretty sure it had little to do with her tantrum. I am now thinking that the tantrum had a lot more to do with how she was feeling/getting sick. Perhaps she ate something her sensitive tummy could not handle and it started to bother her then? Who knows. (perhaps she is the best manipulator in the world?!?! lol – totally kidding… maybe…)

In order to stay home with the kids, I started watching other kids 2 to 3 days a week. I am SO glad that I made this decision as it has allowed me to experience every day with my kids. For the last 8+ months I have had the same 2 kids, but now they are transitioning into full time daycare and I am introducing new babies to start watching. I am BLOWN away by what a little mommy Ella is. She is AMAZING with the babies.

We were interviewing a new family, and I had explained to Ella that a “new baby was coming to visit”. Ella got very excited, if not a little confused. She started to say over and over, “My brother is broken, we need a new baby!” lol Rest assured, Bastion is not broken!

The new baby started with us 2 weeks ago and Ella is in LOVE! She cries when his mom comes to get him saying “MY BABY! BRING BACK MY BABY!!” I have to keep reminding her that it is n fact not our baby, we just watch him. In the mornings Ella will go to her little kitchen and make the baby coffee and breakfast. She also feeds him this yummy meal. lol She will be a great mommy and wife one day! Bastion was surprisingly jealous of this new baby. Now that he has been here a little longer, Bastion seems to be adjusting well. I think it will be really nice for Bastion to have a little boy around to play with since 90% of all of our friends have girls.

The kids are both growing by leaps and bound right now. Ella has become SO expressive and often reminds me of a 14 year old girl…. all sass! She has very specific ways she wants things done and when they are not done that way, oh man, she gets upset! Bastion has decided that he is going to become a professional climber. He stacks up anything he can find at the edge of our kid gates and tries to climb over. It wont be long before he figures it out… which scares me!

Here is a pic of Ella, putting on her sweet face.

For the 4th of July we went over to our friend Jaime’s house. He has 2 daughters around Ella’s age. Here I am with the kids as they are watching the backyard fireworks display. Ella LOVED it!

Another first that just happened was Ella’s first ice cream cone from the ice cream truck!

I think she was pleased!

Bastion, well, he is just the happiest little kid!

Wow! A year has gone by! One whole year with my little man! I am so ecstatic about him and the happiness he has brought to our family.  He is truly a ray of sunshine, so happy and full of energy.  He is very contemplative and rather quiet. He babbles non-stop, walk around and is perhaps the worlds best climber. Before he could even walk he was climbing. He is a very thoughtful boy. He takes his time deciding on people, he watches them, watches the world around him, just takes it all in. He is in all shapes and forms of the word – a boy! He likes to bang on things and nothing is safe from his curious hands.

A year ago this morning our good friend Charisee had spent the night to be there for Ella when she woke up. I wrote a long letter to Ella about how much I loved and adored her and how excited I was for her to become a big sister. She is an AMAZING big sister – we couldn’t have lucked out more on that respect! Bruce and I drove to teh hospital for my scheduled C-section and by 8:30am I was holding my little man. He was born looking like the cutest old man I had ever seen!

Bastion, I am so proud of you! I am in awe of you every day and so grateful for the love you have brought to this family. Thank you son! Happy birthday!

Bastion on day one:

Bastion on day 364:

Bruce and I have been doing a lot of work on the house and yard. Somehow, this year, we just got more inspired then ever before and have been doing project after project! Well, yesterday I was lounging on our new outdoor chaise that our neighbor gave us (which we then sanded down and stained), while the kids played in the sand box. I snapped this magical picture:

Then, just after I snapped this shot, I heard a little screech, then a cry! Ella came running over to me and at first I couldn’t quite tell what had happened. Did she fall? slip? get scared? Then, I took a look at her cute little thigh… oh poor poor thing! There was a pretty little red dot, then it was all white around that, then about 3″ x 3″ it was all blotchy and red… MY BABY WAS STUNG BY A BEE!! I was ready to go Chuck Norris on that bee… but he was long gone.

Ella did really well I must say. She cried for a while, needed snuggles and a glass of milk, but she is now super proud of her “bandage” and wants to show it off. It also appears, at least as of now, that she is not allergic to bees like her mommy. Lucky girl!

At the ripe old age of 2 1/2, Miss Ella had her first slumber party! Ella’s really good friend Sophia came to spend the evening with us, and give her parents some much needed adult time! Sophia’s dad plays in a bunch of bands, and one had a show last night. You can check out the band here: http://thevioletlights.com/

This was a chance for Sophia’s mom to get to go to see her husband play and to know that she could stay for the entire show and that her little one was having a great time too! And oh boy did we have a great time! Ella and Sophia get along magically. They just adore each other. They are only about 3 1/2 months apart in age and really enjoy all the same activities. It was so fun to hear them run around the house laughing.

To start off the evening we stopped by Trader Joes to get the fixings for home made pizza pies!

To say Ella was excited would be an understatement!

SoSo was having a blast as well (okay, who am I kidding, I was digging this too!)

As the pizza’s were cooking the girls continued to play. They kept pushing Bastion out of Ella’s room saying that “we want girl time!” haha… poor kid, there will be much more of this I can see as they all grow older. The girls sat down for their dinner together and then it was time for reading books in bed. The girls didn’t fall asleep all too easily, but I didn’t expect them too. They were both SO happy to be in each others company, and for about 45 min I let them chat it up. (I wonder what 2/3 year olds chat about for 45 min… who knows!) After some more reading and more chatting, I snuggled with them to get them to both fall asleep.

The girls, getting ready for night-night.

Ella was a bit too happy to fall asleep at first, but after a good long snuggle both ladies were out till the ripe ole hour of 5:45 am.

In the morning they both POPPED out of bed and started running around the house. Since I was already up with a crying baby, I figured it was time for a big after slumber party breakfast. <3 The ladies got to sit at Ella's special little table and share the morning delight together.

I am SO happy that Ella got a chance to share such a fun and exciting first with her good friend Sophia. I am really grateful to have good friends, both for my kids, but for me as well. There are going to be SO many firsts in my kids life, and it is especially great to be able to share these firsts with our friends and their kids.

I had a great career before deciding to have children. (best decision ever btw!). I worked in mental health and specialized in the criminally and mentally insane. I loved it! There are many things that I enjoyed about working with the mentally ill. I loved the challenge, I loved learning about how the brain worked and just how fast things can go from “normal” to “crazy”.

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to meet with the women who has had the biggest impact in my work life… and for that matter, a huge impact on my every day life. I know this post isn’t about kids, but it is about me and how I have been shaped, and thus, how I am a better mommy for it.

I met Linda when I was about 23 years old or so. She and I shared an office and inevitably she shares a part of my heart now. She has since retired from working and I have left the work force to raise babies. There is so much that I learned from her and seeing her again brought back some of the greatest lessons she taught me. I remember when I started working mental health I wanted to confront my client delusions. They were delusions, they were not real, and I thought it was my job to show them that. One afternoon Linda and I discussed why this wouldn’t work. She explained to me how real these delusions were to my clients, how so much of their life was based on them. She helped me to understand that there would be no way to create a therapeutic relationship with a client if I continued to tell them what they know as real is wrong. She helped me learn how to understand their delusions, how to work with them and eventually and hopefully how to teach them to see the differences between what their minds are creating and what the world is actually presenting.

She helped me learn how to meet my clients where they were at. Showing me that it wasn’t my job to make them come to me, rather it was my job to search in their minds where they were, go there and discover what they want and need.

I am forever a better therapist because of this women and I am SO grateful that I met her, learned from her, grew with her and got a chance to meet up with her again recently. Thank you Linda for all your guidance!