Padres Game

We love Padre baseball games. They are so fun and it means it is summer time in San Diego! We were so happy when Jenny and Steve (our Hawaii friends and now San Diego friends) asked us to go with them.

Jenny (the birthday girl) and I were there to chat and people watch (and to watch the exciting parts of the game)...


And the guys were there to watch the game.


Jenny looks awesome! Can't wait to meet their baby boy soon.




Go Padres! Thanks for the awesome seats and great time, Kolbs!

a fun little weekend.

Friday: Krew and I enjoyed the zoo skyride and seeing all of beautiful San Diego and its buildings. It was nice and cool there and Krew really enjoyed the petting zoo and the elephants. I forgot my stroller and didn't want to pay for a rental so I got an awesome arm workout. We also stopped by Ikea where Krew enjoyed a little treat. It wasn't a pretty scene when I had to take it away. Later, we went to watch my siblings' Roadshows.

Saturday: We stayed in our p.j.s way too late and then headed over to the lake for a run and to feed the ducks. I was really biased towards the seagulls and would shew them (or threw pebbles at them) when they tried to take the bread from the ducks but then I thought, seagulls are birds too, and I changed my ways.

Sunday: Courtney spent the night over at our place and came to church with us. We set curlers in her hair, watched Hairspray and she entertained the baby the entire time and which was great. I told her she could come over anytime. Baby and husband took a little nap together which I joined for a little bit but couldn't resist this picture.
We also had some very special time with great grandma Corky. We love her so much.

No plans and nothing that we had to do, just a fun little weekend.

Our easter feasters

We celebrated Easter with Great Grandma Cordy's Easter Party with 935 easter eggs hidden. Grandma started off the festivities with a bang of a pot! Possibly a new tradition?


Krew found lots of eggs with dad's help.



Krew and cousin Avery enjoying their findings.



Krew lost his cool when things weren't going his way. (Obviously nap time was long overdue)













For our little family Easter celebration I forgot to get an easter basket so I quickly made an Easter box which for Krew was equally as exciting. Cameron thought it was a little weird.





We also celebrated at Cameron's cousins' house where we had an egg hunt, ate delicious food, had funny dinner conversations and enjoyed great company.

DWTS

On Tuesday, my friend Ashley and I were able to go to the live taping of Dancing with the Stars! It was surreal. Sooo cool.

And we were incredibly lucky! They seat all the people with tickets (us included) in the VIP spots and then when the real VIP's (family friends of performers/stage crew) show up, they remove you and place you somewhere else, mostly up on the balcony. The show was just a few minutes from going live and in arrives the VIP's who have our seats. dang. One of the ushers tells us to follow her so she can seat us somewhere else. She has us waiting on the middle of the empty dance floor when I hear "Four minutes until we're live on the East coast!" I start laughing at the thought of the show airing with Ashley and I in the middle of the stage awkwardly standing there. The usher returns and then says she has two seats... right in front! Not only right in front, but where the celebrities are seated! I was trying to keep my cool and not smile too big or start laughing too hard but it was incredible. I was sitting next to the family of James Brown and Kendra's husband was next to them. Ashley and I agreed that we couldn't have asked for better seats.

Are you ready for my millisecond of screen time? Okay... squint your eyes and don't blink too long. They were talking about James Brown's family and I got my little slice in there.

-The stage/auditorium: much smaller in real life. The room is more of a set and not a real room. Seats 700, way more than I would have guessed.

- TV adds 10+ lbs: SO TRUE! First off, I could help but gawk at Brooke Burke's incredibly tiny body. Okay, she looks super skinny on tv but she is toothpick in real life. teensy teensy tiny.

-Pro dancers: I want to be and look like one when I grow up. Incredible dancing. Incredible bodies.

- Musical Guest performers: they tape some of these before the show so they are not all live. Yesterday we were able to watch James Blunt, Wayne Brady (tribute to James Brown) and the Macy's dancers, Nicki Minaj (who kind of makes some strange facial expressions), and another artist I can't remember her name. We watched Wayne Brady perform 3 or 4 times before they actual liked what they got.

-Audience participation: they have a guy conducting the clapping and cheering of the audience. Ashley and I both agreed that we just wanted to watch the show and we weren't used to clapping for DWTS in front of our tv's.

-Picture: I wish I had a good picture of us sitting in our celeb status seats but they confiscate all cell phones and cameras. poo. They don't want us tweeting the results before it airs in later time zones.

Picture or not, it was an event to remember.

9 months to make it and 9 months to lose it

This little guy cracks me up. He is turning into a little person with a personality more and more everyday. His recent interest is in dogs. I turned on the TV and popped in a DVD screen saver that has continual footage of puppies playing for hours (a gift from a friend for my wedding... I love puppies and jokingly registered for it and got it) and Krew loved it! The other day at Fashion Valley he loved all the dogs that were being walked around. (I never knew so many people walked their dogs around the mall) It is so cute. I do realize I am in full mom mode because I think my kid is the cutest baby ever and everything he does is adorable/cute/precious and should be documented/photographed/recorded.
But shouldn't it?

Krew is 9 months old and what an adventure it has been.

During my pregnancy, my mom told me

"It takes 9 months to make a baby and it will take 9 months to return to normal".

At the time, I thought this was a little long and believed my body would probably snap back in a matter of 2-3 weeks. HA! I bought strange contraptions that would wrap my tummy and hips back to it's usual positions. Constricting myself in mummy-like wrapping and using oils helped in the healing process but now I realize that time was the biggest factor. I finally understand what my mom meant. It takes time for your body to heal. ex. My belly button looked fine a few weeks postpartum but now it looks back to its usual self. One thing that I've noticed since having a baby is that I've turned into a weakling! My muscle mass has depleted and sometimes it's a little depressing especially when I have to ask my husband to open a jar for me (I used to pride myself in being able to open any jar). AND... my mom beat me in arm wrestling! But that can easily be fixed with pumping a little more iron in the gym, right? And hooray for gyms that have daycare! I am grateful for the human body and what an amazing tool it is! It can grow a baby, know how and when to birth one, and then go back (or close) to its old self.
Thank you, body.

we've been around...

Zoo Time: My mom got us passes to the Zoo (and we got some to SeaWorld)
1. Zebra and I obviously got the memo
2 .Krew and Trey just playing with their seal friends at the Zoo


Emman's Birthday: The little guy turned 5
1. lil bro sporting his birthday getup. AWESOME.
2. Ticket blaster... this is hilarious to watch kids do. Emman didn't know what to do so he just stood there as tickets flew around him. Why didn't they have this when I was younger?


Mom of 6: Last week I stayed with Cameron's 5 cousins while their parents were in Hawaii
1. making a tower on the scale with our 10 cups of frozen yogurt
2. cousin Ashtyn playing with Krew. She is one of our blog readers and was such a big help while I was playing mom of 6 for a few days.


little Krewton:
1. Just looking oh-so-cute in his jammies. 2. Hanging out with Nana


Happiest place on earth:
1. Shannon brought Krew and I to Disneyland on Monday and we never wanted to leave! Krew enjoyed eating a Buzz Lightyear gun while riding with Nana.
2. Krew and I enjoying Small world ride. It's a Small World was by far Krew's favorite ride. We rode it twice. I think Krew looks like he could join right in with all the little guys singing and dancing.
3. Krew looking cute in a chipmunk hat







And we returned to Disneyland with the Collins on Friday!
Krew with Grandpa

50 years and 50 years to go!

I don't usually do birthday shout-outs on here but it's the BIG 50 for my dad!
A huge milestone!
My mom threw a fun birthday party for him at my parents house. My brother Jeff played his awesome music including performing a "Jeff style" cover of "Forever Young" followed by a special guest performance by this guy! I didn't know it was him until I said from the other room, "This guy sure sounds exactly like the guy on the radio..." and sure enough it was!
My dad got a new skateboard as a gift from the family and he still needs to prove he can do his handstand on it being 50!

It was an awesome birthday party for an awesome dad.

Still shredding in his 50th year!




a quick phone pic from the 50th birthday bash.
I am so lucky to have such a great dad who is not only fun and cool but is so sweet, caring and selfless and all around awesome.
I love you Dad!

identification please...

Through the years I have found it necessary to collect all of my student id's. They are like little treasures to me and I like to occasionally show them to a friend or two for a good laugh.
Unfortunately, I somehow managed to take some of the most unattractive id pictures so let me share...

7th grade: this one wasn't too bad. As you can tell I was recently allowed to wear mascara and lip gloss to school (notice nice shiny lips below on my pre-braces chicklets)


8th grade: This was my very awkward and mouth-full-of-metal stage. No, it's not just the picture, the reason you could not see my teeth was because I had a few pounds of metal in there. Braces, the expanders, the the Herbst aplliance (huge metal bars that opened and closed that were attached to top and bottom). My parents were pretty secure in the fact that I was never going to kiss a guy with this mouth full.

I needed some serious help in this picture. Add a string of drool coming from my mouth and it would be complete. Sexy.


Freshmen year: This one is awesome. At this time, I had a little less metal in my mouth. I think I looked at this afterward and loved it because I thought it looked similar to Britney Spears. Bahahaha. Before this picture was taken, I had gone to the doctor's to have a physical for Freshman tennis (which is another story in its own self). The doctor realized I needed to catch up on a hep shot and as expected, I passed out on the way out of the office in the hall. And then I had my mom take me to get my id picture and here it is. Was I still a bit light headed?



Sophomore Year: I vividly remember this picture day because I FORGOT it was picture day! Probably the worst thing that could happen to you, right? I was in a rush that morning and somehow I thought it looked good if I only curled the front two pieces of my hair under and leave the rest below it straight.
And was I in mid-sentence? Because it sure looks like it.
And Tiffany's heart necklaces were soooo in so I got myself a fake one.



End of Junior year: This is about the time I met Cameron. This one is a little better but my eyes look like they are going two separate ways. This was a BAD picture. Everything looks just a little distorted, wide and weird.



In Hawaii I finally got a decent license picture so I can hold it without being too embarrassed.

I think the weird ones are more fun.

San Diego is treating us wonderfully.

We love being back in San Diego and around family again. I forgot what a different pace of life it is here compared to Hawaii. Not better- just different and a little faster. Not as fast paced as my friends on the east coast but somewhere in between. The 5-lane freeways were a little hard to get used to (I haven't gone faster than 40mph for the last 3 years + being an overprotective mom driver) and I think my palms still get a little sweaty every now and then. We've had a nice mixture of cold and rainy (I love wearing a sweater! Or layering without melting to death) then changing to sunny beach days with a cool breeze.

San Diego has so much to do and since we haven't been here for a while, we decided to do some fun things around the city before life gets more complicated.

Our first adventure was Old Town San Diego.
The last time we were both here was on our 3rd/4th grade field trips so this was a nice refresher.






I'm not sure why I had them take a picture in front of the cigar shop...




We went to the (new and improved) Mormon Battalion Center and we loved it! I would highly recommend taking some time to go visit it.
Annnd... you get this cool picture. Krew fell asleep which was unusual for the little guy.




Ending with a beautiful sunset and a dirty windshield.

7 months

Krew is 7 months old!! I meant to do a 6-month post but he's aging too fast for me to keep up!
People always told me that after 6 months babies start getting really fun and boy they do!

This is Krew's classic smile, always with an open mouth.

Krew is very smiley and he is known for his loud voice (as he gets more tired, he gets louder). It's not a cry; it's more like a loud yell to let everyone know that he is present!
He loves saying "dadada" all day long (no "mamama" yet).
He LOVES food. Loves drinking out of cups. He whines when he sees food, people eating, or even an empty cup. He has tried lots of big people food from couscous to ice cream.

He has many nicknames from many different people such as:

little woodland creature

sugar bear

pooh bear

little bear

Krew bear

Krewberto

Krew enjoys the bath, taking long drives (=long naps, we love this too!), reading baby books and watching older kids play.
He loves to be held.
No crawling or teeth yet.
He still hates to be on his tummy but loves his walker.

He loves playing with daddy and cuddling with mommy.
He has never slept through the night yet but thankfully is quick to go back to sleep after a midnight snack.
He weighs around 17 lb. and is 26 inches long.
He is one funny guy and brings so much happiness into our lives!