January!

I can't believe January is almost over. Where did the month go? This month hasn't been the best. The month/ year for us started out with a funeral for Tracy's brother. More about that later on a different post.

The week following the funeral we spent with family in St. George. It was nice to spend the extra time with family to grieve and close to Tracy's parents in case they needed us. While in St. George James played a lot with his 2nd cousin. They are way cute together. On the last day there we went to the Children's museum. James loved it and was very sad when it was time to go.

They are just two cute together.

He liked the grocery store area.
Kept filling up his cart with food and making me ring him up.

However this was his favorite thing to play with.

Put the foam cylinders in a bucket.
Turn the wheel the buckets go around to the other side of the room
where the cylinders get dumped down a ramp into a bin.

During the week we also took Tracy's parents out for their anniversary which happened to be the week before on the 30th. We ate at a restaurant called Cliffside that overlooks St. George. The food was delicious. The chef even made me a special dish because of my weird pregnancy intolerance to garlic. Definitely will be going back again someday.

We traveled home from Utah by Train, like we did after Christmas. Only this time we got a sleeper car room. So much nicer to sleep on a bed instead of a reclining seat. Our meals were also included, so we got a nice breakfast and lunch in the dinning car. We've kind of have fallen in love with train travel. 

Back home we've taken advantage of the nice weather and have played at the park.

And lots of train playing.

*A side note:
Mostly I just need to get it off my chest. I learned recently about a rumor being spread among some that are close to us. Just to clarify, James does not have any type of disability and if he did that wouldn't change anything about who he is. All he's ever had/has was/is a gross motor skill delay and no I'm not afraid to have him tested for things. So please quite talking bad about my son. If you have a question about him just ask me. We've been dealing with a lot lately and I don't need this drama added. End of side note*

My belly keeps growing. Only about a month an a half left till my due date. We've been slowly getting things ready. We got a crib from craigslist over the weekend. Next on my nesting urge list is getting James' closet organized better and getting the other baby items ready that are in his closet.

30 weeks along.

It's a mini crib. A perfect size for our small apartment.

We visited the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento on the 17th. Tracy couldn't get very many pictures of us because James just kept running from one train to the next. He never stopped till we got to the play area where there was wooden train sets to play with.

Then last Wednesday James got sick with the flu. After not showing signs of improvement, we took him to the hospital on Saturday. They found that he had Pneumonia. Luckily we took him in early enough that it wasn't too sever. He's doing tons better now. Thanks goodness. Also, glad today will be the last day of taking antibiotics. He refuses to take his medicine, so we have to force it in which is not very fun.

Sunday, day one on antibiotics.
He actually started sitting up and eating a bit.

I came down with a cold yesterday, so now James and I are both sickies quarantined at home. Hopefully Tracy stays healthy and we start February out free of illness.

Christmas

It's not too late to post about our Christmas, right? Our Christmas was pretty good. It started off with a train ride to Utah to spend time with family. Actually it started out with Tracy's dad coming to visit us for a few days, December 11th - 15th, before we headed to Utah. I don't remember everything thing we did and we didn't get many pictures. The day Tracy 1 arrived there was a huge rain storm. It took us a little longer than it normally would have to get to Oakland to pick him up because of flooding on the freeway. We took him to San Francisco for lunch at Boudin. The city was pretty much shut down. Lots of businesses weren't even open and several sections of the city were without electricity. It was weird seeing SF so lifeless. It took us I want to say 3 hours to get home because of flooded roads.
We also spent one of the days with Tracy's step grandma, Rosalee, who lives about an hour away from us. We took her to Bodega Bay for some beach time. She's in her 90's and doesn't get out much so she really loved her time at the beach with us. It was also fun for James to get to know one of his few great-grandparents still alive. As well as spend time with his grandpa.

James sleeping after a fun day at the beach.

On December 17th we started our journey to Utah.

At the station waiting for the train to arrive.

James did most of this during the trip.

Looking out the window some more.

We packed a lunch and ate it in the lounge car.
Then had dinner in the dinning car.

The train ride was nice and James did great. He even fell asleep and slept till we arrived in Salt Lake. The only downside of the train is your at the mercy of their schedule which means it arrives in Salt Lake at 3 a.m. James was pretty much the only one who got a full nights sleep that night.

The next day after some sleep. Tracy had a meeting with the State Paleontologist to discuss the project he wants to do for his dissertation and to see the bones, though we didn't actually see them since they are still wrapped in plaster waiting to get prepped out.

We spent a lot of time with Tracy's family. We watched a couple of college football bowl games. James discovered Micro-machines and he and I spent a lot of time playing with them. He also enjoyed the many other toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Playing with the Micro-machines.

A couple of nights we spent up in Salt Lake. We didn't actually spend a ton of time in Salt Lake though. The first night we had dinner at Blue Lemon.

Blurry picture of Tracy at Blue Lemon

 The 23rd I met up with some childhood friends for lunch and a play date. It was fun to get together again and that the 3 of us happened to be in the same state at the same time. Then we picked up some last minute gifts.
Tracy's mom had decided to start a tradition of taking Christmas cards with some cash and giving them to someone who looks like they may need a little extra help while we're out shopping. We each had a card to deliver and James had a present to give to a kid. Then on Christmas eve we share our experience of giving the card. So we had a mission to accomplish as well as our last minute gifts. It will be a great tradition to continue on.
After shopping we visited with Tracy's cousin and family for a bit before we went to my family party. Tracy's cousin had made smoked salmon. It was soooo good. At my family party we enjoyed some more good food and company. Just about everyone was there, so it was pretty chaotic.

Christmas Eve, we said good bye to Salt Lake and went back to Tracy's parents' house. James was very happy to be back to play with Grandpa, but he still wanted me to do a lot of the playing with cars.

Christmas Day! We opened gifts. James got some fun new toys.

He was also very, very excited that it had snowed. He had been talking about seeing snow at Christmas time for months, so it was nice that he actually got to see some and play in it. We didn't last long since we're wimps now and use to warm sunny days with a few rainy days year round.

James loved throwing snow balls at everyone.

The 26th we packed up to head back home. Had dinner at The Pie with Tracy's brother Sam before getting on the train. I had come down with the flu, so I didn't get to enjoy any Pizza or really any of our last day in Utah.

James' face after he told me he didn't want to go home
but that he wanted to stay at Grandma's and Grandpa's.
With that face I didn't take him too seriously.

The ride home went about the same as our first ride.
James watching out the window most of the time.

Over all we had a good Christmas. I love all the new connections James made with his extended family. I loved especially the one his made with his uncle Sam. It was cute seeing them sitting on the couch together as Sam worked on his animation and James watching. Wish I had snapped a picture and now I wish even more that I had taken a picture. Glad we have memories of a fun Christmas week with mostly Tracy's family.

Friday Five x2

Here's another Friday Five, but with two weeks worth of fives.

Last weeks 5's.
November 24-28

1. We keep making some great finds at the local record store. We added some Christmas music the previous Saturday.

2. James has come up with some new things to say. One is to tell me I'm a bad mom and he's putting me in time out when he doesn't get his way. The other one was to tell us that he can make a picture on the carpet, if he has a potty accident. Neither one is very enjoyable, but I would prefer being put in time out over urine on my carpet.

3. James has rediscovered his crayons. Lately he's only wanted to paint. This is the picture he made me. He says it is a picture of his brother in my tummy.

4. Thanksgiving day was pretty low key. All I had to do was make stuffing for a potluck dinner we were attending with other graduate students Tracy goes to school with. Dinner was good, but it was hard to keep James entertained as the only kid there and he kept following a dog that was there.

5. We spent no time jumping right into putting up our Christmas decorations. We put the tree up Thursday evening. James put on most of the ornaments so naturally they ended up on the lower branches. I did fix it, so it looked much better. However the ones he still could reach have now moved several times. :) Oh, well, I wasn't going for a perfect tree.

This weeks Friday 5.

1. Monday I woke up in lots of pain caused by a condition called Symphysis Pubis Dysfuctions and or Pelvic Girdle Pain. They are often used interchageably. It mostly only affects pregnant women. Thanks to the hormone Relaxin. (Feel free to look them up, if your curious to learn more.) I just happen to be one of those unlucky ones that develop the condition. I had it with my first pregnancy, but it wasn't ever bad enough that I couldn't do daily tasks or work. This time around it is looking like it is bad enough that I have to be careful of what I do. 

Thankfully, Monday's pain was just a flare up and by Wednesday, after two days of doing nothing, I was feeling much better. Not completely pain free and the pelvic bones popping have continued so the pain will still linger on. Lets hope I don't have any more flare ups, but at least now I know to try not to do too much. Wednesday I have my next visit with my mid wife, so we'll see what treatments she'll give me.

2. Since we spent most of the week hanging out at home, we did some arts and crafts.

James decorated a Christmas Tree.

He painted ornaments. He also painted a picture in his paint book.
I just don't have a picture of it.

3.  It was also raining almost all week too, so it worked out to be a nice week at home. And we did lots of puddle splashing.

4. Yesterday I tried to do a lunch date with James, but he did just wanted to eat at home so we got food to go. I very much enjoyed the big juicy burger from Carl's Jr. and I managed to get James to eat some of his chicken tenders. After lunch I attempted nap time. James played in his room for a short while, then came and woke me up by throwing a bean bad at my head. (This is only a small sample of how our week together has gone. Just was a major struggle for him that I wasn't able to play like I usually do.) With the less than ideal wake up call, I thought I'd give him a fun car track for him to play on while I tried to get a little more rest.

When I finished making it and went to return back to the couch, James very sadly said, "But mom, I like playing with you." Broke my heart and decided sleep wasn't all that important.

5. Today, I did the fun glucose test. Over 8 hours of no food, 2 hours at the lab, 3 blood draws and a bruised spot on my arm later I was done. Tracy and James had fun at the park though. Then we went and got lunch at a yummy fish place called Dot Island Grill.