Desi is One, Recital, Etc.

So to catch you up on the Pyle family, which is presumably why your reading this, we'll begin with Desi. Our youngster has finally hit single digits, and is also officially a toddler, as he is constantly toddling farther and faster every day. He is also fast becoming proficient at a pidgin ASL, mostly related to food; he can sign for Food, More, Water, Milk, Please and Thank you. He still tries screaming and pointing first most of the time, but is getting better.

Ella is keeping busy with 3 dance classes, gymnastics, an

occasional art class, and Kindergarten. She loves all of it, and is doing very well in all her classes. She has also d

ecided to follow Pyle family tradition and get glasses. They are purple, and really cute, and she only has to wear them when she's reading/working on homework. She was incredibly excited about getting them, and

took forever to pick them out. She must have tried on about 30 pairs before she picked the ones she did, because she had to get glasses as close to her 'cousin' Camille as possible. She just had her winter recital, in which she did three dances; Ballet, Pop,

and Ballet again. She liked the first Ballet the most, because they got to wear tutu's and be in all white.

Shelley was deeply inspired by Katie and Betty's cost saving hair-cuttery, and came up with this:

She has also been working a ton lately, getting the winter recital ready to go, and then actually putting it on. (Come to think about it, that may have had something to do with the bangs...)

I too have been working a bunch, not really doing much of

anything else exciting, unless you count growing out my hair. We did get to go see Barrelhouse Chuck play in Pasadena at a giant, fancy hotel, which was a lot of fun.

Tonight we put up and decorated our tree, which may possibly have beaten last year, I'm not quite sure. But Ella and Desi were both very excited about it, although Desi had to go to bed before he could really get in to helping. I'm not sure putting up the decorations would be his strong suit, but when it's time to take them down, I'm betting he'll really shine.

Desi 's first steps!! well, 9th or 10th, but still...!

Hopefully we can keep it up

Ella with Mamoo & Desi have fun

I guess I don't really know where to start, so I will start with saying Ella is 5 now, Desi is 11 months today and we are all doing well. Ella goes to kindergarten and loves it, Desi cruises around the house and today he started pushing Ella's doll strollers around the house. Who needs a walker when you have a stroller? I am not good at getting pictures up, but I will have Nate do that, hopefully soon, or maybe I will try. I will give a few updates though....

For Halloween Ella dressed up as Princess Aurora and Desmond dressed up as a dragon, Ella was so happy because he was the dragon from Sleeping Beauty.

We have all had our bouts with sickness, I was super sick on Ella's birthday with bronchitis and then Nate was sick, not too bad just a nagging cough. He went to the doctor and had a bronchial thing also. Ella went to the doctor a week ago and had a bronchial thing also, Desmond is coughing a little too but he is also getting 4 more teeth and his nose is running like crazy. So we are thinking that is his problem. I think before he turns 1 he will have 12 teeth, one for each month he has been alive.

Right now I am getting sleepy, so I will try to update with more exciting stuff soon.

Kindergarten

OK THIS IS AN OLD POST I NEVER PUT UP BUT WANTED TO NOW-ENJOY

THIS IS HER FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL PICTURE

So Ella is offically a kindergarten student, and has been for a week a three days, and we start our third week tomorrow. School started with an ice cream social on Tuesday August th and then they had there first day of school on Wednesday. Ella was very excited and when we had to fill out paper work about how she felt about going to kindergarten we let her answer and she said "hope it is fun and excited." The first day of school Nate went into work late so we could both take her and she was great about it all. We took her to the kindergarten yard, and found her line and put her folder and snack bag down and she played a bit then lined up. The teacher came out and posed with each student so the parents could get pictures and theN we were told goodbye and I cried all the way to work. I was so worried about her, she acted excited but a some point it seemed too forced, and her smile almost seemed like she was trying to act excited so she wouldn't cry. When I picked her up, she said she had so much fun but only got to "sit at her desk for like 2 seconds" so she was bummed about that. School for her starts at 11:40 and ends at 3:10, so we are still trying to figure out the whole lunch situation, seeing that we eat breakfast at like 9am so I have a hard time getting lunch served before she goes to school. We have been eating four meals for the past 8 days but will try something new this week.

Glorious Return

Well, not really glorious.  I've put a whole bunch of pictures on our new picasa page, the old one had used up all the available storage.  The link is here.  

We are settling into our new apartment well. (there are a couple pictures of the Kitchen on the page)  as we get things decently put together we'll put up more pictures.  

Ella officially graduated this past saturday, and heads off to kindergarten this fall.  She is very excited about it.  She is also doing gymnastics this summer, and continuing her two dance classes.

Desi is sick right now, we've got a doctors appointment today to figure out what's up, but he was crying most of the night, no matter what we did to try and help him.  He's happy right now, which is good, so it can't be anything too terrible.  

Shelley and I are both working a lot, but Shelley is getting a little bit of a break now that the recital and graduation are over, but she does have to get all sorts of stuff ready for their summer program.

This'll have to do for now, we've got the children ready for gymnastics/doctor.  

Our Happy Boy

Hanging around

Shelley hair, as done by Ella

So we have not had too much going on around here lately.  Ella got her TB test so she can go to kindergarten, even though I am still not all that sold on it.  Here in California, Ella makes the cut off which it December 2, but she would start Kindergarten being only 4 and then would be young the rest of her schooling years.  It is kind of crazy to me that in most other states Ella wouldn't even have an option to go to school or not, she just wouldn't be able too.  I know she is absolutely ready academically, but the emotional side is where I am concerned.  She hates to be wrong, and do things that are wrong and cries if she gets into trouble, and I don't think that will fly in kindergarten. But then I am worried if we hold her back and have her do another year of preschool, I would hate if school was not challenging for her.  But that is enough of that, she thinks she is going, so we will she how she matures the rest of this year.   

As for Desi, he is getting really big, we have to get out the box of 6-12 month clothes, because most of the 3-6 month stuff doesn't even fit, it is really crazy.  He was only in the 75th and 80th percentile at his 2month visit.  He is really smily and talks to us a lot, sometimes it even seems like he is yelling at us, it is really funny.  We are trying to get him on some kind of schedule now that he is 3 months, but he doesn't seem to think that is a good idea.  We are also hoping to get him moved to some kind of bed for sleeping.  I hope we haven't wrecked him for life, and are going to have to find vibrating bouncy chairs for him to sleep in for the rest of his life.  Can you imagine a 45 year old man in a vibrating bouncy chair?

Scottsdale

We had a great time this weekend hanging out with Katie and Tebben in Scottsdale, despite the fact that our hotel tried to rip us off.  But we got the better of them, and a regional manager ended up getting us two free nights, so that worked out pretty well.  But more importantly, Dez got to meet his Aunt and Uncle!  He was a very happy 

baby this weekend, and smiled and gabbed a lot.  

There was a ton to do in Scottsdale, and didn't even end up going anywhere else, we just stayed pretty much within 20 minutes of our hotel at all times.  On friday night we had the best pizza that I've had since we were last in Illinois.  It was chicago style stuffed crust, with spinach, broccoli and garlic, and it was incredible.  It completely put all california pizza to shame.  And our waitress was super friendly and helpful as well.  If your ever in Scottsdale, or the Phoenix area, you have to go to Oregano's.  We liked it so much we went there for lunch on Monday as well.

There was a really cool wine and art festival just a block from our hotel, so we walked around and looked at all the stuff, some of which was really nice, but didn't buy anything, although we all saw something we wanted.  Tebben and I did end up buying Bamboo shirts, because we both love bamboo, and they had a whole store of just bamboo clothes.  

Both of our families packed a ton of stuff for the hotel, so we were able to have dinner in our rooms both nights, and we brought our Wii, and we all played that, which Ella really liked.  The thing that Katie and Shelley were most looking forward to was going to the diaper store in Scottsdale.   They had all sorts of cloth diapers and other baby stuff, so we each ended up getting tons of stuff.  Our big buys were a fabric wrap for Desi, which is 6 yards of fabric that you tie around yourself and it makes a super comfy holder for the baby, way better than a snuggli or baby bjorn.  We also got reusable snack bags for Ella, and bought enough cloth diaper for Dez to get us set for the rest of his diapering life, hopefully.

It's kind of funny, and a little sad too, that we're having to spend so much money to live like it was maybe 60 years ago.  Some people are shocked that we're doing cloth diapers, because they think it's really hard and messy, but they are so easy, and so cheap in the long run.  A woman I work with spends $45 every two weeks on diapers, which over two years is $2,340 and a ton of waste in a landfill, whereas we spent maybe $400 on our cloth diapers and wipes, and we're set, except for water, electricity and soap for washing, but that's not going to cost $1,900.  We're also stocked up on rubbermaid so we use less ziploc bags, we all have reusable bottles and coffee cups, we're going to get cloth napkins, and I'm totally into handkerchiefs now, for me and Ella.  And we're doing a lot better about cooking at home.  For a little while after Des was born we ate out a lot, but we're in a good schedule now, and have been good about shopping and cooking.  So if only we had lived in the 40's we've fit right in.  Stupid technology.  I do realize that I'm writing this on a super advanced computer on the internet.  I'm not quite ready to carbon copy a newsletter and mail it to everybody.

Great Broccoli Cheddar Recipe

So we have two exciting developments; Desi is smiling a lot, and kind of interacting with us, and Ella's hair is starting to get long enough to do stuff with, finally, after 4 years of growth.  Shelley is quite jealous of cousin Maddie's beautiful, long hair.  At this rate, Ella will catch up by the time she's in her twenties.  Hopefully the 2-3 bowls of cereal she eats every morning will help.  Oh, and Gabriella has decided that at home and at stores she wants to be called Gabriella, and at school, and somewhere else that escapes me at the moment, she wants to be called Ella.  We don't know what brought about this change, but we will try to respect her wishes.

  Last Saturday we went to see a local production of High School Musical here in town.  Gabriella was incredibly excited and sang along with the entire show.  Shelley and I made it through on the strength of Gabriella's enjoyment.  I had to watch the movie when we went to bed to clear out the bad taste.  But again, it was cheap and totally made her day, so it was worth it.

I know that we have been absent from the recent Bittman talk, and I wanted to let everyone know that we have been Bittmaning with the best of them in the past couple weeks.  We made his Enchilada recipe, which was very good, and following his direction I made the best fried rice I've ever made.  Normally we just wing it and it turns out passable, but with his recipe it was really good.  Also, my new favorite recipe is his Walnut with Tomato sauce for pasta.  Super delicious, and we made a bunch and I had pasta for lunch for a few days after.  It sounds weird, but it was really great, and it's stuff that we normally have around anyway, so it was good pantry clearer.  He did fall short on the soup front, though, and we had to go elsewhere for a really good Broccoli Cheddar recipe that Ella said was even better than Panera, which is huge (I think I made the title a link to the recipe).  but my food recomendation for the week is Frittata.  Really easy to make, and easy to load up with lots of veggies.  We had it last night for dinner with half Broccoli, cheese and fake sausage for Gabriella, and peppers, green onions, fake sausage and cheese for Shelley and I.  I would also recommend Lily Allen, for great british pop music.  Her album Alright, Still is only $7 on iTunes and is really fun and peppy and funny.

movies

So we've been watching a bunch of movies lately, and I think that we have gotten Ella up into the double digits of movies she'll actually watch.  We've added Back to the Beach and the Music Man.  We watched Mama Mia with her, but for some reason she thought it was way sad, and cried a lot.  But she liked the first part of it, so maybe she'll like it a second time around later.   We're not forcing her to watch movies all the time or anything, it's just hilarious how something will set her off and then she'll be crying and won't want to watch the movie anymore.  There are remarkably few movies without conflict or something sad, so we mostly go with musicals because the songs will make up for the sadness, and the sadness doesn't last very long.

Everytime I watch the Music Man, the part at the end where all the proud parents are standing up and saying stuff like "That's my Davey," I'm reminded of a time in college when I was doing catering.  We'd go around and deliver coffee and sandwiches and cookies and stuff to various meetings and conferences, and my mother was in town at one such meeting.  I forget if we both knew we would see each other or if it was a surprise, but either way, when I wheeled in a cart with the coffee, my mom said "That's my boy!"  loud enough for me to hear it across the room.  My mother may dispute this, but that's how I remember it.  I also remember leaving the room as fast a possible.  

Dez has been pretty congested lately, so we're taking him to the doctor today.  It shouldn't be anything big, but we're gonna go just to be safe.  

We got our camera back, so there are a bunch of new pictures on the Picasa page.

Goings On

I've always liked phrases where the first word is pluralized but the second is not, like passers by, goings on, etc.  just a thought. 

Two weeks gone by and we've had a fair amount of stuff going on; Disney and California Adventure for Shelley's birthday, which was a lot of fun, and even though we did borrow a camera, and I thought I had downloaded the pictures, I can't find them at the moment.  We got some more cloth diapers, Fuzzy-Bunz one size, which are working out quite nicely.  We ordered three and some cloth wipes, and Katie sent us one diaper and cloth wipes, but I thought the company had messed up our order and sent extra, and I took a while for me to figure it out.  So thanks again Katie and Tebben!!  

Yesterday was a lot of fun.  We started off going to the Zoo, and we brought Ella's friend Olivia, whom you might remember from such earlier outings as Vasquez Rocks last year.  They had a great time together, and the animals were almost secondary to the two of them running around like maniacs.  After the zoo it was time for Ella and I to head off for the Kings vs. the Blackhawks  at the Staples Center.  Ella got really jealous when Shelley and I went, and when I went with my Dad, and Uncle Tom, So we decided that just the two of us would go.  She loved it, and wore her Kings shirt that Shelley and I got her when we went.  She was really excited that the Kings won 5-2, but she didn't like when they scored a goal, because everybody would scream, and she would get real quite and hold my arm.  But the rest of the time she was a chatter box, asking questions about everything.  After one long stretch of questions she made me feel great by asking "Papa, how come you know everything about hockey?"  Of course she had to go and ruin this by taunting me at the end of the game because her team won and mine didn't (I had my Blackhawks shirt on).  She told everyone today that her team won and that she "taunted to papa that his team lost"  So except for that it was   an excellent game, and a lot of fun to go to with her.

Desi continues to grow at an alarming rate, and most of his 0=3 month clothes don't fit.  He's also starting to smile a lot, but we've been unable to get it on camera.  We will be getting our camera back this Sunday though, so we'll definitely try.  

I'm just about done with a really great book that Katie got us called the Mysterious Benedict Society, which I would recommend to everybody.  It's kind of Lemony Snicket-y and kind of Harry Potter-y, a very good, entertaining read.

bummer

In all the fun of the last week, we ended up leaving our camera at Tom and Cici's house, so we have no pictures from my Parents visit at this time.  In their place are a picture and a movie taken right now.

We had a great time while they were here, we went to the Griffith Park observatory with Nick and Paul, which was really cool, and another thing off my to do list in California.  After that we went to have dinner at the Original Pantry with Tom, and then he, my dad and I went to see the Kings play the Ducks at the Staples Center.  On Saturday Matt came up from El Centro, where he was starting his new job with the Border Patrol, and we went and hung out at Tom and Cici's.  We brought along our Wii, which Nick and Paul ended up loving, but Tom was a pretty staunch partisan of analog games, and played pool with Matt.  And we as mentioned above, left our camera there.

  Desi and Ella are doing great right now, although Desi has taken to being a bit whinier than normal, which will hopefully pass soon.  Ella has become a big fan of mixing foods, which I can understand, and I like some weird things myself, but her new favorites are steamed broccoli dipped in applesauce, and last night it was french cut green beans smeared on garlic bread.  And she'll still dip just about anything in ketchup, most recently carrots.    

  Once we get our camera back we'll put up more pictures, and hopefully we can borrow a camera to take with us to Disney when we go for Shelley's birthday this saturday.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!   I hereby resolve to post more often, if only too keep my mom happy.  I fully expect this to last about a month, but we'll see.  As Grover once said "Where there is life, there is hope"

I'm incredibly awful at keeping resolutions, or diets or exercise plans, or anything of that sort.  But saying that, the most successful exercise in self discipline I've  ever had has been being a vegetarian, which is going on a year and a half now.  I've never even really been tempted to have meat, and I used to love meat.  But if I try and stop drinking soda, I'm having a Mountain Dew within a week.  Go figure.

As for Christmas, we all had a wonderful time, doubly wonderful (and yet a little sad) because we did no traveling at all, no flights or long car rides or anything, so that was nice.  We did get lots of excellent presents, though, and 'Santa' even brought us a Wii, which is the most fun ever.  Ella was thrilled with her Nesting dolls, and she got a new bike too.  I'll put up a hilariously tragic video of one of her bike rides.   She's really good at riding, but we got a big bike so she could grow into it, but that means right now her feet don't touch the ground.  Dragging her feet is how she normally stops, so without that options stops sometimes results in falls.  But she wears her HSM helmet and has yet to be seriously injured.  

  We also got another big package a bit after christmas which was  our cloth diapers.  Katie had asked us a while back if she could do anything to help, even though she was far away, so we gave her our credit card info and a spending limit, and she bought us a variety of cloth diapers for us to try out and figure which ones we like.  She did a great job, and now I want to have a personal shopper for everything!   

Loads more pictures on the picasa website.