that mom

so i am sure many of you, if not all of you moms out there, have the moment when you think "gee, i hope i am never that mom..." well, today i had that moment. and i haven't had very many of these, maybe only 2, since i became a mom. i saw a pin on pinterest the other day that was titled "turn in your parent card: parent fails." today i think i thought that silently to myself at the park...ok, i whispered it to my friend.

so we're enjoying our morning at the park with a friend and all of sudden, through the giggling of our kids and nice calm of our conversation we hear a mom yelling for her kids. now i mean really yelling. like sitting on the lawn with her friend and just yelling her kids names. she obviously did not want to get up or leave the company of her friend to walk over to her kids, who were playing nicely with M and B, to tell them it was time to go. so after about 10 minutes of her yelling a name, walking over to load the car, yelling the other kids name, chatting some more with her friend, her friend yelling her kids name and blah blah blah, i said to the little girl "i think your mommy is calling you" and she said "yeah" and so the yelling continued. just when i thought she was walking over she stopped short by about 20 feet, must've decided that was just too far, and yelled again. this time with some other words besides their names. yikes.

now, i know that not every second of this joyful journey we call motherhood is perfect and pretty but come on....if you are alone at the park and you want to yell from a football field distance to your kids, go right ahead. but when there are other moms and kiddos, keep calm and walk over to your kids :) and if they should choose not to listen, pick them up and walk away. we won't think you are mean for picking them up kicking and screaming and taking them to the car. it happens to all of us :)

Stretched Thin

i've been feeling stretched thin. very thin. like thinner than pancake thin. we've had work being done on the house, projects, appointments, sh!t with our fertility office and just more stuff. the work on the house was installing AC. which is a miracle. an expensive miracle. but thank god a friend of the family is the business and we scored a great deal. projects would be our yard. we did tractor work.

m was obsessed. we sat outside on the patio and watched daddy for hours. and more hours. it was a dirty dusty mess but the yard looks so much better. and once we add sod and pavers it will look amazing. a work in progress! boss was so happy to be back on the tractor and working on his house :) he loves projects.

aunt rachel ran a marathon two weeks ago and we went to cheer her on! she did AWESOME. awesome is an understatement. i would die. i would crawl to the finish line. she kicked 26.2's ass.

we waited at the fence for an hour and when we saw that yellow shirt coming we were so pumped! m made her a sign and we cheered like we had never cheered before!!

 i received all of my ivf medication in the mail yesterday. and i'm scared. needles. lots of needles. and lots of syringes. and meds. ew. i am not looking forward to it. i am so happy of what we pray the end result will be but to get from here to there is not going to be fun. or easy. it is going to test my willpower daily. but i have to do it. and i will do it.

we also found a little place in Paso where we can get into the salinas river. there is a little trail at the end of a col-de-sac and we had so much fun. it was pretty windy and chilly but we discovered that babies don't care how cold they are. if they want to be wet and have fun then they will!

warning label for top-loading machines

are you aware of the dangers of top loading washing machines? i wasn't either. i came across an intsagram account that led me to a wonderful mother's blog. The Hebb family needs our help to bring awareness to this danger.

please write a letter, as a concerned mother, or just someone who would like to help. it will only take a few minutes out of your day :)

BELOW IS THE INFO DIRECTLY FROM TIFFANY'S BLOG POST:
_____________________________________________________________________________

PLEASE HELP support the bill by writing a quick hand written letter to any of the following senators, it doesn't matter what state you live in
*If you cant write a letter, an email or phone call will work too, but a hand written letter is best.  

Oregon State Representative Joe Gallegos
900 Court St. NE H-484
Salem, OR 97301

  or

Ron Wyden-Oregon U.S. Senator   
Washington D.C.
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C., 20510
tel (202) 224-5244
fax (202) 228-2717 

or

Utah U.S. senators- because I am from Utah and Ollie is buried there. My little brother also wrote to the U.S. senators about the bill...so hopefully these senators will hear all about the bill.

Orrin Hatch
 104 Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510  
Tel: (202) 224-5251
Fax: (202) 224-6331 
Email Orrin Here  

 
Senator Mike Lee

316 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510 
Phone: 202-224-5444
Fax: 202-228-1168

 Email Mike here 


Example of a letter

Dear Senator Orrin Hatch,

I support the washing machine warning labels and feel this would help to bring awareness to parents of the danger in their own home. I also support mandatory locks on old and new washing machines.

Sincerely, Tiffany Hebb- concerned mother 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

i have sent my letters and if there is anything more that can be done, i will be sure to help spread the word. i am always thinking of the Hebb family and their sweet Ollie.  :)

easter

we had (have) two easter celebrations this year; one yesterday afternoon and one this afternoon. m hunted easter eggs....why do we say hunt?...weird. she though it was pretty boring. i think. once she discovered how to open the eggs, she would pick it up, hold it to her little ear and give it a shake. a smile would pop up on her face, she'd crack it open and gobble up whatever candy was in it! some eggs didn't have candy and well, those eggs were put directly back where she found them. all complete with a frown and a little grunt. this girl is too much!

she absolutely loves to explore. nonie has the best backyard to explore. little pathways, lemon and tangerine trees. she would crinkle her nose up and sniff sniff sniff the lemons hanging on the tree and if she could find a good one laying on the ground, she'd pick it up and put it in her easter basket.

 she looked like such a big girl in her pretty dress and bow. which i couldn't believe she actually left in her hair!

 this is her frown when the egg had a dollar!

love my sweet family

Santa Barbara Zoo!

i feel like i have been away from the blogging world for too long! my computer had to go to the Apple store over night and be reset back to factory settings. that was annoying. and now all of my photos and software is on an external hard drive. which i have yet to put back on the computer.

ugh

the last few weeks have been busy busy. lots of travel and sunshine. the weather has been absolutely amazing. gorgeous. i love where we live. so lucky.

we went for a visit to Pasadena to see Aunt Deveny last weekend. it was so much fun. we had an evening of pinning, nail painting, dinner making and wine drinking that was perfection. we watched a couple movies, went to lunch, did some shopping, spent time at the park and drank some more wine. m was such a trooper and did great!!

daddy turned 29 last week. we went to dinner with family, the Santa Barbara Zoo and he got two new golf clubs and an iPad. whoa. lucky lucky boss man. we are so lucky to have him a ours too :) i made my first pie, lemon meringue! it turned out delicious.

 lunch at Brophey's

 i tried to get a photo of her in front of the gorilla, as you can see, and she was off like a bolt of lightning!

the water with duckies was probably her favorite part of the zoo. watching her eyes light up at all the animals was amazing. she is so sweet. and happy. and cute. we fed the giraffe and she absolutely had no fear! it's purple tongue wrapped all around her hand and she just giggled. wondering where the photos of that are???? welp, mama left the card for the camera in the side of my computer. at home. and we didn't notice until we took close to 100 pictures. really. 

Day 2

the rest of our trip was just as fun as the first day. M enjoyed the snow, took a great nap, fireball shots all around and i even skied half the day. i didn't ski last year because M was only 6 weeks old. just like riding a bike!

our weekend in the mountains-day 1

we headed up to China Peak to spend a much needed weekend away with my family. we've been taking this trip every year since i can remember; probably for the last 23 years. whoa. that makes me feel old.

mila was only 6 weeks old last year. today we suited her up and went to the mountain to meet daddy for lunch. she thought the snow was awesome. never made a peep all bundled up in big boots and bibs. was she ever cute.

here are a few pictures from day 1.