whoa...

I have not written on here in MONTHS!! I don't know if anyone even reads this anymore.

We have all been doing really well. Kyle is such a tall, mischievous, smily, silly, talkative, and rebellious little ball of fun. Robert and I enjoy him so much and love spending all our time together, us three. Whenever Kyle sees Robert and I hug, he yells, "HUG!" and runs to us with his little arms spread out wide, ready to hug both of us at once.

When I was a little girl, I used to do this with my parents and while we would all hug, I would sing, "We are family! My daddy and my mommy and me!" And now, I sing it again, except with a change of wording, of course :-) I love my life right now and I wouldn't change a thing.

Our Summer was pretty quiet and now as we start Fall, I am super excited. There are SO many things I am loving about the Fall: knee high, Cognac-colored boots, scarves, pumpkin-patching, the cold, cider, Halloween, and our upcoming trip to TX.

Hopefully will post some pics soon!

Kyle turned 2 last week! We had a small, family party for him at our house, Spiderman themed! He has a Spiderman hoodie that we got him at Old Navy quite a few months ago, and he LOVES it! He will bring it to us and let us know that he wants us to put it on him. And then he points at his chest and says, "Spy-ah-man!" He also had a Spiderman b-day cake and pinata! He had a great time with Elena and Coral, just running around and playing with balloons and toys.

This is Kyle's hard hat which he thinks makes him a "fie-man" LOL

We made carne asada tacos with rice, beans, and fresh fruit on the side. It was so good! We went to my mom's friend's Mexican market in HMB and bought everything for the party and it was delicious and affordable. (It's Mercado Mi Familia, by New Leaf and Rite Aid). Robert grilled the already marinated meat, and it was SO GOOD!!! My Abuelita made the beans and also, her delish rice pudding for the party.

Abuelita turns 82 this year and she has 5 great-grand-children now. We took the best picture with her and I know it's one that I will treasure forever.

From left: Me, Kyle, Abuelita, Colton, Sonia, Coral (floor) Nicole, Elena, Erika, and Lillian.

My cousin Nicole just had her son, Colton, 8 weeks ago! He is one gorgeous little boy! Erika just had her 2nd daughter, Lillian, 12 weeks ago. So many babies and I love it!

Kyle is really so much fun. He is talking up a storm! Yesterday, at Trader Joe's, he was sitting in the cart and helping the checker with putting things on the counter and he kept saying, "I got it! I got it!" He really talks and understands now and it's astonishing how quickly he got here! Last year, when he just had turned one, he started talking with saying, "momma" and "kitty" and "hi, kitty!" Now, he just knows so many things! He knows all his moving vehicles and LOVES TRUCKS! I mean, he gets super excited when he sees trucks, tractors, semis, ambulances, firetrucks, buses... he loves all of them and knows them by name. He knows all his animal names and sounds. He loves all his books and loves going through them with us and pointing at the pictures and telling us what they are. It's amazing to me how much he has grown.

We took him to see Shrek on Friday. It was his first movie theater movie and he loved it. He did get a little restless in the middle of the movie but over all, we were so impressed by how well he behaved :-) Such a good boy!

We are all doing well. I am just working and Robert started working at the Ritz again a couple of weeks ago. It's just an 0n-call position for now which works out well with his Police job-search. We try to spend as much quality time together as possible, as a couple as well as a family, even though we don't see each other as much as we're used to. But you just make it work :-)

And, we're happy.

from married to now!

Just Married :-)

Love this pic!

With my Uncle Tootie

28 weeks pregnant with our papa

One week before having Kyle

Little Kyle in my favorite outfit for him. My Abuelita made him those booties!

A little over 2 months old

look at those eyes and that cute little mouth :-)

30th birthday!

In mommy and daddy's bed

handsome boys

so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am alive!

Hola! I have not written in over a month! I have been just consumed with work and my new hours. I am used to it now (getting up at 4am isn't that hard anymore) but at first, I was absolutely exhausted every single day. Not only with the hours, but with learning all the details of my new job and re-learning the way I did certain things. Even though I am working in another Police Records dept., every office has their own way of doing things so I had to forget about my HMBPD ways and learn the MPPD ways.

It was stressful at first, and there were definitely mornings that I would leave for work in tears because I felt like I barely would see Kyle during the week and because there were moments at work where I would feel like a total idiot (it's hard to be the new kid!), but I am happy to say that I have grown to be good friends with my coworkers and have learned all my new tasks pretty quickly. I still pass out at around 8:30-9:30pm every night but the new schedule is actually working for me. I just try to spend my entire evening with my little family and get plenty of cuddles in before I go to sleep. :-)

Robert is at the end of his Academy and is graduating in less than two weeks! I am SO proud of him and respect all the hard work he put into his classes. He hasn't had very much time to himself at all these past 5 1/2 months. All his time has gone into studying, school, and prep for the next day. Even though it could be hard sometimes, I have wanted to make sure he had all the time he needed to succeed. I heard him tell people often that I was sort of like a single parent while he's been in school, and sometimes it was that way. I was so used to him helping with cooking, washing dishes and clothes, taking care of Kyle so that I could have a day off, and spending all day on the weekends hanging out together and having fun as a family that it was a hard transition at first. But no matter how hard it got sometimes, I knew that it was what was best for our family. I am so excited for him to start working as a police officer and also, to just have down time for himself. On the weekends, he would have to meet up with study groups, make sure his gun was clean, his shoes were shined, that his hair didn't touch his ears, that his uniform was clean and pressed.... the list goes on! And, the added stress of being possibly kicked out if you failed three tests or for not passing some of the other requirements was so difficult for him. So, yes, I am so excited for him with his new career and for the new surfboard he's getting as a graduation gift!

Kyle is doing great and talking up a storm! We took him to the SF Zoo a couple of weeks ago and he had the best time ever! Whenever he'd see a gorilla or monkey or chimpanzee, he would literally point and yell, "MONKEY!!!" and at the bears, "A BEAR!!!!" He was SO excited and in awe of all the animals. We, or I, lost the digital camera again so we had to buy an old school disposable camera when we got there. Once we get them.... what's the word... I can't believe I can't remember the word for getting your film made into pictures... processed? Whatever, when we do that, I will post them! Anyway, Kyle and his cousin Elena play so well with eachother, too. We were over at Dan and Erika's house last week visiting them and their new baby, Lillian, and Elena came into the living room to get her new baby doll. Kyle ran down the hall and yelled, "Lena! Where are you?!" It's just crazy to me how much he talks now! He's also learning how to get out of uncomfortable situations LOL Whenever we ask him to give someone a besito, and maybe he doesn't want to, he quickly turns his head, gasps, and points at nothing in particular and says," OH! What's that?!" It's so funny! He'll even do it to me and to Robert!

So this was probably a boring post as I have no new pictures to share, so I will put up some cute one taken with the computer camera a few weeks ago as well as some random older ones that I just rediscovered and love, on my next post!

new job!

Well, tomorrow is a big day for me! I start my new job at Menlo Park Police Department. I am that normal mixture of excited and a little nervous. I will miss Kyle a lot because he was my companion all day, every day for the past 10 months. At the same time, it will be nice to do something new and I just really like having a job! I realized that, more than ever, by being unemployed. I will have a great schedule! I work 10 hour days (whoa!) but have three day weekends every weekend, which is fabulous! I will start work at 6:30am and get off at 5:30pm with one hour for lunch. I think, especially at first, I will be exhausted at the end of the day. Luckily, I am off early enough to still enjoy my evenings. I want to come home very day and cook dinner, play with Kyle, walk on my treadmill, shower, and crochet/knit/read/watch movies before bed. I will be waking up at 4am (I don't like to rush in the mornings) and leaving for work before 6am. It takes about 25 min-to 30 min to get to Menlo Park and I'm sure it will be even less in the early morning since there won't be too many people on the road, but I want to get to work without stress.

Robert and I have gone through these different steps in our relationship: dating, seriously in a relationship, engaged, married, baby-and now we want to go into the next phase, which will be buying a house. Since my dad is a realtor we are able to look at any house we want. There was one for sale in Montara for $689,000, which is pretty cheap for around here. It was a three bedroom, two bath house with a totally cute and cottage-y kitchen that was still totally modern, if that makes sense. It had another room off the living room that was for an office, but you could totally make it an office/guest bedroom. It had a huge master suite with it's own fireplace, huge jacuzzi tub, walk-in closet... it had beautiful hard wood floors throughout and the other two bedrooms were a really good size. And, it had a big two car garage and a super big back yard. Plus, it was on a side street between two bigger streets so it was the only house on that small block. And it's right next to the old Montara Grammar School which is totally art deco and now is a ballet school. It also had ocean views from the living room windows... i mean, there were trees so it was a little obstructed, but you could see ocean! We fell in love with that house and wished that we had the money now to be able to buy it. We also just love Montara! It's a small town just 7 or so miles north of Half Moon Bay and it's a really beautiful place.

Now that I am starting this new job and when Robert graduates from the academy and hopefully gets a police job, buying a house will become a reality. We are going to be penny pinching for the next year and writing up a budget and sticking to it. We can't wait to have a place to call our own where we can raise our family. I am getting excited just thinking of it!

Today Kyle and I are relaxing since it's my last day before work and I'm getting some house chores out of the way-laundry mostly.

It's a nice windy and rainy day so it's super cozy!

VIDEO!

I tried to upload this video onto the previous post but for some reason it didn't work... it could have to do with our faulty internet connection! Anyway, here it is now! And if for some reason it does end up showing up on the previous post, then cool! We can enjoy it twice! :-)

Parkay

Today Dan called and asked if Kyle wanted to come to Ocean View park and play with Elena! We went and had a really fun day. Robert had to go to the range and practicing shooting so it was just me and Dan and the kids!

Christmas!

This Christmas was very fun! Kyle loved opening his presents and visiting with his cousins. We spent Christmas Eve and my Uncle Tim and Aunt Lupe's house and it was a very special holiday with all the babies being so big and making Christmas magical again :-) Erika is due in one month from today and is having another baby girl, Lillian! We can't wait to meet her.

On Christas Day we really had nothing to do. I read a book using my new Sony Reader that Robert got me for Christmas. I L-O-V-E books and thought I would miss feeling the paper between my hands and the wonderful smell of a new book, but I'm actually okay. I mean, don't get me wrong, there is nothing like a new book but at least now, with my Reader, I can just download any book I want and start reading right then and there! It was especially helpful when I had a book club meeting a few days after Christmas and I still hadn't bought the book. (It is a super good book by the way-The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I highly recommend!) Anyway, on Christmas Day evening we decided to go on a little family drive into San Francisco. There were a LOT of people out and about that day! We just thought we'd drive around until we thought of something to do. We went past Pier 39 and saw the gigantic Christmas Tree with tons of people swarmed around it. We drove down Fisherman's Wharf where there were also lots of people lined up outside of restaurants to have their Christmas dinners. We turned and started into North Beach where we went down Lombard Street with all the other tourists that day and then headed up to Coit Tower to take a look at the view on that cold night. Many other people had the same idea because every single parking spot was taken! It was a really different but nice way to spend the day together. :-) We can't wait until next Christmas when Kyle starts talking about, looking forward to, and believing in Santa!