New Year

It is a New Year and well almost a month into it I have finally made some resolutions. Lets keep with tradition and talk a bit about last year. Last year was a good year, crazy at times, but good. We had some major changes (homes, jobs, school) but so far they are all good. We love are new home and couldn't be happier. At times stressful, but a happy stressful. Of course my other half may say something different about it being a happy stressful. :) He's the one juggling classes he's taking, classes he's a TA for, thesis work and home life.  I have found the silver lining in his school schedule, if we don't like the current one it changes in 12 weeks (quarter system), instead of 16 (semester system).

Before I get carried away rambling on here are some highlights from last year:

• James turned two.
• Tracy got accepted to a graduate program at University of California-Riverside.
• We took a family trip to Riverside, California.
• Tracy received a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Geo-science.
• We both turned a year older and wiser (maybe?) and celebrated another anniversary.
• We moved to Riverside, California.
• Tracy began Grad-school.
• I became a stay at home mom.
• James seeing the ocean for the first time, and his first ride on a an airplane. He has also accomplished a lot of things physically. See my previous post about all his accomplishments. 

This year should be a good one. We have a lot to look forward to.

• A family trip to San Francisco.
• James turning 3 and all the fun that goes with being 3.
• Tracy completing his first year of Grad-school and half way to earning a Master's.
• More birthdays. Tracy turning 32 and me 29. (We're getting old.)
• Our 7th anniversary.
• Tracy's our exploring the Moenkopi and Red Peak Formations during the summer months for his thesis project. (If you feel so inclined to find out what I'm talking about, let me google those for you, here and here.)
• and many more adventures, California adventures. 

I did ok, on my resolutions last year. I was going to review them, but I'm getting a bit long winded here. I'm just going to skip to my new resolutions.

• Reading more (scriptures and books).
• Exercising more. The weather is great for walks and I have a gym in my complex how can I not take advantage of those great things.

That is about all I have for now.  I hope you all have been having a good year so far and that you all have made at least on goal/resolution to work on. If you haven't that's ok, you have 11 more months to work on one. :)

Christmas!

We had quite a crazy, fun Christmas. We kicked off the holiday season by attending the Festival of Lights "Switch-on Ceremony". Where downtown Riverside get lit up with lights. The Mission Inn is the center of the Festival and it gets covered with lights. It was so fun to see this Riverside tradition. Can't wait to for next year, maybe we'll take time to enjoy it a little more.

Out door ice-rink.

Riverside Community College Marching Band playing some tunes.

The switching on of lights even includes fireworks.

Christmas Eve we got up bright and early, 5:30 A.M. and headed to the airport. There James opened a special Christmas Eve gift and we got on our plane to Salt Lake City. We arrived in Salt Lake to a snow storm. Tracy's mom brought us a car to use for the day and we had a nice lunch at The Pie together. Our plans were to hang around downtown for the day maybe even catch the Temple Square lights and visit with some friends. However the snow storm ruined it for us and we headed straight to my mom's house. We visited for a few hours till the storm cleared up and then started making our way to Tracy's parents house before the roads got icy. Along the way we braved the roads a bit longer enough to visit a couple of my sisters. We managed to get stuck a moment or two outside my sister Melissa's house. 

Watching the planes on the runway.

Showing of his special new toy.
A plane that looks like the one we are in.

Christmas morning, we had the traditional waffles. Tracy's mom even made a breakfast casserole similar to the one my mom makes for Christmas morning. Such thoughtfulness on her part to include my families tradition with hers. It being Christmas we received the much anticipated phone call from Tracy's brother who is on a mission in Florida. We even got the nice news that he was able to Skype  Once we got that set up, we were talking face to face with him. After talking with Sam, we packed up the car and headed to Las Vegas. We stayed at our favorite place, Sam's Town.

Sam's Town had their atrium decorated for Christmas.

There's a deer that you can't see, but James just fell in love with it.
All he wanted to do was watch the deer.

Looking down into the atrium from our room.

The next day we headed home. That evening we opened gifts and just hung around. James received books (How do Dinosaurs say Goodnight?, Frog and Toad Collection, The Sneetches, and Go Dog Go), clothes, puzzles, a small keyboard, legos and a small electric train set (from Aunt Kandace). Tracy received clothes, a new camera, The Dark Knight Trilogy (we bought it for both of us), the book Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, and the DVD set National Parks: The Best Idea (I think that is it). I received clothes, the book What Makes a Mom, the DVD Inception and a laptop. I think I listed everything.

Tracy's parents stayed with us till New Year's Day. We took them to several beaches. Shopped the weekly Farmer's Market and the near by town center. They went on a tour of the Mission Inn. Tracy took them to the Citrus State Park. Sunday evening we visited Tracy's mom's best friend from high school. We had a fun time and I'm sure they had a great time. Visitors are always great. Though James has a rough time if his schedule is messed up and I was having a PMS rough week as well. The only down side was they shared a nasty cold with us and we are all finally on the mend.

Hanging out at Laguna Beach

A cute little crab at Laguna Beach

Lots of cool sea creatures in the tidal pools at Laguna Beach

We're so cute!

He's so cute!

Ruby's diner on Balboa Pier

This house went all out for Christmas, at Balboa Beach.

Enjoying the view.

Enjoying the view.

Collecting Seashells at San Clemente.
Though it turned out James was collecting rocks (like father, like son).

Looking at the Ocean from the Fisherman's restaurant  in San Clemente.

Walking on the beach with Grandma and Grandpa at Oceanside.

A cute video of James walking on the beach:

The Beach

Well, as most of you know we have been to the beach quite a lot. Since it is about 40 minutes away, how can we resist. Our most frequent place to go is the beach by the Balboa Pier. There's a delicious burger place at the end of the pier called Ruby's diner. 

The Sunsets are pretty.

James loves to make holes in the sand.

Back in October we got a phone call from Tracy's best friend that he was in California for a conference. It turned out that he was in Newport Beach which is where we go to get to our favorite beach. So we picked him up from his hotel and had a nice evening at the beach.

Tracy and his friend Stephen catching up.
I never did get a picture of their faces. His friend did though.

One Saturday in November we took a day trip to San Clemente, another beach city. We took the Metro Link (commuter train). They have a weekend deal where you can ride anywhere both Saturday and Sunday for only $10. It was a fun, fun day. James loved the train ride and thought it was really fun the train dropped him off right at the beach.

These two pictures of Tracy and James are so very cute.

It got foggy while we were there but soon cleared out.

Above the beach is a nice grassy area with benches and tables.

The train station. You really get dropped off right at the beach.

We have also driven to San Clemente and on down south to Oceanside by way of a scenic route. It is fun exploring our new home and see all the cute beach cities.

Over looking Lake Elsinore during one of our scenic drives.

Have I made you jealous, yet? Have I convinced you to come visit? If not just wait till I get to my Christmas post.

James reading corner coming along

We had kept these old couch cushions from a couch we tossed. James absolutely loved sitting on them, laying on them, jumping on them, just about anything you could do with a cushion. We decided to hang on to them and use them for a reading corner. Thanks to my friend Analee for the idea. We purchased some material and I made covers for the cushions. I think they turned out way cute. The corner is coming along nicely. I also have come up with an idea for the wall above. I just need to execute it one of these days.

So here are what the cushions look like: 

The reading corner.

One ugly cushion

Looking good.
Tracy came up with the idea of having the top and bottom different
 so we could turn them over and change up the look.

All complete and James loves it.

Sleep Troubles

After a bit of a hiatus, now I'll get to some posts I've been meaning to get to.

When we arrived to our new place, James was sleeping in a pack and play. We had tossed his crib prior to our move. It was really old (a hand me down from my sister) and had started falling about. It probably wasn't that safe for him to be sleeping in, but we jimmy rigged so it was still usable.

Once Tracy's fellowship money came through, we purchased a toddler bed. A very cute toddler bed. :) A picture was posted of it in a previous post. The first week or was it two James did great. He would stay in his bed waiting for us to get him in the morning and after nap. Then he realized he had a new freedom, he could get out of bed on his own. Which meant he could get out of his room too.

The battle of the bedtime/nap time began. Nap time seemed to be a thing of the past and bedtime was a nightmare. James sometimes wouldn't go to sleep till 11, which meant our time together didn't happen. There was also one night he woke up at 2 and wouldn't go back to sleep till 5. Lets just say we weren't the best of parents during this bedtime struggle. I broke down several times and James became a very sleep deprived 2 year old. The terrible twos and lack of sleep don't mix. In between all the craziness there were a few cute moments.

Sleeping on the floor

Sleeping in his reading corner.

James is obsessed with lights. They have to be on or he gets mad. He goes around our apartment and turns on all the lights. We came to the conclusion with his light obsession he probably is afraid of the dark, so we purchased a couple of night lights and a lamp that he can control. His room doesn't have an over head light. A lamp is the only way to light his room, so we purchased one that he can reach to turn on and off. 

It seemed to help but we still needed to come up with a way to keep James in his room. In comes the discovery that if you pull his door closed he can't open it (well, he can open it if he tries real hard but he doesn't very often). However he would throw a huge fit when he couldn't open it and would scream and bang on the door. That wasn't going to work for us.

We decided we needed to make his room a place where he wanted to be and that it was a fun place to be. After all it was a new place, new bed, new lots of things. We started reading time before bed. A time when mommy and/or daddy would hang out with him and play with him. The reading corner idea was actually becoming useful. At first we'd read whatever books James wanted, but as his library is growing we now limit him to 4 books of his choice. 

However with all we had done and changed it still wasn't fixing the problem completely. So, we soon started sitting with him till he fell asleep. At first it would take an hour to get him to fall asleep, but slowly the time lessened. 

At nap time I did a different approach. I would bring up his favorite toys and make it a quiet time. He had the option of me staying with him and going to sleep or playing quietly in his room. Surprisingly he often chose to have "mommy stay", as he would say. 

After a couple of weeks, we had our nights back. James no longer fought to go to sleep. He no longer required us to sit with him. Some times he'll play quietly in his room and will fall asleep on the floor, but it is nice to not have to fight him any more. I'm am glad to have my sleeping champ back! Of course this all happened back in October and haven't had any troubles since. Who would have known moving and a new bed would make things so difficult.

These pictures were taken recently. A couple of cute ways he falls asleep.

Holding a train car he received for Christmas.

You can often find him sleeping with his hands behind his head.
Oh and car basket always has to accompany him to bed.