Keggels

So, I finally figured out how to "teach" Avalon her keggels. We play "Red Light, Green Light" when she is going potty. lol. She actually over the last week is getting a little better. Hopefully when we go back in February we will see some major improvement. :o)

Dr. Visit

Today I had another Dr.'s appointment. Still no heartbeat. :o( But, she said that is normal. But definitely next time. I am anxious to hear the heartbeat to see if I can guess if it will be a boy or a girl. lol.

So, since she could not hear a heartbeat we did another ultrasound. Good luck figuring it out. lol. There is a head and two stumpy feet. But it took her a few times to point them out to me. Other then that there really is no update. :o)

Welcome Baby Kate!!

Yey! So exciting, I love when babies are born. About 3 hours ago my friend Jenn had her little baby girl. Her name is Kate. She was 8lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long. Jenn had an amazingly fast labor. 3 hours!!! I can't wait to see some pictures of Kate!! Congrats Jenn!!! We are so happy and excited for you!!

glitter-graphics.com

Salt Water Pool

Of everyone I know who pays HOA we pay the most ridiculous amount. Now that half our community has left and the condos sit empty with foreclosure signs tapped up in all the windows, I am sure our HOA will go up even more. Anyways, yesterday my mom took the kids swimming in our community pool after they got out of school. And it turns out that they converted the pool and spa over to saltwater. Which is pretty cool. The kids were not complaining that their eyes were burning and there was not the over powering chlorine smell. I can't wait to go check it out today after school.

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Visitng Friends

Today the kids and I went down to Huntington Beach to visit our friend Rochelle and her kids Carlie, Camryn, and Connor. Connor is only 3 weeks old. OMG! he is sooo cute. We stayed out there all day and went to the park and played and colored and everything. Everyone had so much fun. And i had fun getting to hold Connor all day. :)

Here is some pictures from our visit. How cute is Nolan holding Connor? lol. I love it.

New Countertops

Dan and I are getting ready to close escrow on our new house this week. The house is a little bit of a fixer upper. Well, mostly just in the kitchen. The rest of the house is totally fine. We got an awesome deal on it and it is on the same street as my cousin and my sister Nikol. It also is a super nice super quiet little cul-de-sac which I love.

Dan decided he wanted to update the kitchen before we move in. So we have been slowly buying everything we need for the remodel. Last weekend after thousands of trips we finally picked out and bought some tile. I don't have a picture of it because my cousin is storing it at her house for us until we are ready to use it.

This weekend we went out to look for more tile for the counter tops. We rent to "Tile Row" in Anaheim. Oh my gosh!! I have never seen so many tile stores all next door to each other. It was crazy. Dan and I must have went into about 10 stores on Saturday. As we were pricing our different tiles and options we realized for not a lot more, and still totally within our budget, that we might be able to afford granite. But, I was not getting my hopes up. We then went to about another 10 stores pricing out the granite and looking at the different options. And we totally found the perfect one that we wanted that was also still in our price range. So yey!! We put down our deposit and in a few weeks the guys are coming out to do the template and by the time Dan gets back from Utah we are going to have brand new beautiful granite counter tops. And of course, a brand new beautiful kitchen. It is super exciting. These next few weeks are going to be soooo busy for us. I am so looking forward to it.

Anyways, here is a picture of the chunk the guy broke off for us. :)

Here are some pictures of the kitchen now. I cant wait to see it all done. It won't even look the same. lol.

This is the only counter top in the whole kitchen right now. Sooooo, not going to work. lol

This is the other side of the sink\counter top area.

This is the door to the garage and also the pantry and utility colset.

And this is the dinning room.

More Birthday Pictures

Finally, here are Nolan's birthday pictures. I love them!! They totally came out great. Click here to view. Customer name is Tiffani Wagner. Nolan did really good this time. The photographers still kept pushing him to pose a certain way. And near the end Nolan started getting really frustrated again. But he did so great. He did not cry at all and let her take as many pictures as she wanted. Hope you guys like them too. :)

Happy Birthday to us!!!!

Happy Birthday Vicki!!!! Hope you have a wonderful day.

Today Vicki and I turn 28. OMG!! lol. It just feels like 28 was sooo far away and here it is already. I just don't feel 28. hehhee. But at the same time I feel like wow! I am only 28 and pregnant with my 3rd kid and about to buy my 2nd house. That seems like a lot. :)

30 is just around the corner and will be here before we know it. Then we wont be young 20 year old's anymore. We will be adults! Ahhh! lol.

Since Dan left for Yuma this morning, him and the kids surprised me last night. When we got home from work\school Dan asked the kids if they wanted to go to the park and let me rest for a little bit. I was all No! I want to go with you guys to the park too. lol. Then Dan said he just wants a little alone time just him and the kids since he is leaving in a few weeks for Utah. So I was a little bummed but stayed home. :( A few hours later they came home. And the kids both had cards for me and so did Dan. They also brought me home a beautiful birthday cake and a bouquet of flowers.

Skywalk

Wow! National Geographic is here at my work today shooting a documentary on how they built the skywalk at the Grand Canyon. I don't know what that has to do with my work. lol. But there is a ton of people here. Now I cant wait to see the documentary when it comes out. :)

Congrats to Barbra and Tim

on 08/08/08 Dan's Unlce Tim and his fiance Barbra got married in Kentucky. This Saturday they had a huge reception at their house to celebrate with friends and family. So we drove all the way out to their house and they had a huge fiesta. They had the best taco guy ever cater the whole thing. And there was a swimming pool for the kids. It was so much fun. Dans Aunt Carole who we only get to see once a year even flew out from Tennessee for the wedding reception. It was so great getting to see her again. And it has been so long since the whole Wagner Family has been together.

Congratulations to Tim and Barbra. We love you guys!! :)

counting

I forget the name of the language, but Vicki will correct me here. Avalon learned in school this month to count from 1 to 100 in Filipino
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VUR Update

Avalon had her follow up appointment with her urologist today. The recent ultrasound showed that her right kidney is swollen. Which is odd because she only has the VUR in her left kidney. I asked the doctor if we should be concerned or worried or freaking the freak out. But he said no, not yet. Her left kidney however looks fine. The VUR is still there obviously. But it has not gotten any worse.

So I kept pushing the whole swollen right kidney thing. He said its not swollen enough to cause any concern. Just enough that we need to monitor it closley. What is monitoring closely you ask? We go back in 6 months for another ultrasound. But, I think I am gonna push for like 3 months. lol. Unfortunately Avalon also has to get her VUR test done again in March next year. Its very painful for her and I feel bad for her that she has to go through this test every year until the VUR goes away. :(

So, he went over the VUR with me again. She is still a stage one which means no surgery. Basically it means that her bladder is very weak. He said it is not strong enough to shut off the valve between the kidneys and the bladder. Also it is hard for her to "hold" her urine when she needs to go to the bathroom. Which means she has lots of accidents because the urine just comes out. She cant control it. Not like full on pee's all over herself. But a little bit always dribbles out that she cant control. So we need to get her pantyliners or something like that so she does not keep walking around in wet panties.

He said over the next three to four years her bladder should grow bigger and stronger and heal on its own.

Of course any UTI's at all and we have to take her in right away. And since her right kidney is swollen if she has any lower back pain at all we have to take her to the ER. He gave me a whole bunch of urine cups because once to twice a week I have to make her pee in the little cup so i can look and see if her urine is cloudy. If it is then we have to take her in to see him right away. I don't know about you. But it all sounds pretty serious and scary to me. And yet there he is telling me not to worry about anything.
And that is all the update that I have. :)

Birthday Pictures

Here is Avalon's birthday pictures. Some of them I don't know what the photographer was thinking. They are kinda weird poses. lol. But some of them came out pretty darn cute. Avalon picked out her favorite dress that she wanted to wear. When you click on the link it will ask you for customer name. Just type in Tiffani Wagner.

Nolan was supposed to get his birthday pictures taken the same day. But the photographer kept telling him over and over that he was posing wrong and kept trying to correct him. So then Nolan got all embarrassed and started crying and would not take any more pictures. :( I kept telling the lady too that i did not care what he was doing in the picture. Nolan is the kind of kid where you just have to let him do the pose he wants or he gets upset. And I don't think her telling him 6 times "your standing all wrong" helped the matters.

This Saturday we are going back to a different JC Penney's to get Nolan's pictures taken. So, I will post them up here when we do. :)

p.s. Becka - I don't have my myspace anymore. And I don't have your email address. Can you text it to me so I know how to get a hold of you? Thanks. :)

Awe!! So cute!

Lately I have been so tired. No matter what it's like i am just not getting enough sleep. Plus the whole being pregnant thing. And getting up at 5am every morning to get the kids and myself ready for school and work. So by the time i get home from work I am totally exhausted. Some days it is all my energy I have just to make the kids dinner and get them to bed. And with Dan gone most of the nights it has not been very fun for me at all.

Then, last night i had really bad, horrible pain in my hip. And not even my bad hip. lol. And I have no Tylenol in the house. So i did not know what i could take. So i sucked it up and did not take anything. However, I also never went to sleep because it was hurting so bad. Thankfully, I should hit my second trimester the first week in September. Which means I won't be so tired anymore hopefully. Otherwise I am screwed since Dan leaves for Utah on the 8th. There is no way I am going 3 to 4 weeks by myself with both kids if I am still this tired all the time. lol

Anyways, to give me a break a little nap my mom came over and picked up the kids and took them to Chic-Fil-A for dinner. Tuesdays is kids night. So they have all kinds of arts and crafts for the kids to do. When they all back home Nolan walked in the door crying. I asked him why he was crying. I guess they got balloons at Chick-Fil-A and when Nolan got out of the car his balloon flew away. Awe. So sad. He was crying so hard. lol. Then Avalon told Nolan "oh no! grandma gave me your balloon on accident. That was my balloon that flew away." And with that she gave her balloon to her little brother. Awe!!! It was the cutest thing I ever saw. lol. She is soooo nice. :)

funny!!

You Are An Exclamation Point

You are a bundle of... well, something. You're often a bundle of joy, passion, or drama. You're loud, brash, and outgoing. If you think it, you say it. Definitely not the quiet type, you really don't keep a lot to yourself. You're lively and inspiring. People love to be around your energy. (But they do secretly worry that you'll spill their secrets without even realizing it.) You excel in: Public speaking You get along best with: the Dash

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Names, Names, Names

Dan and I are lucky i guess in the sense that we have never argued over our kids names before. We both picked names that the other one liked. Dan picked out Avalon probably a year before we even got pregnant. And as soon as he said it I loved it. We had picked out our names. Avalon Tyler for a girl. Corbin Robert for a boy. So, a year later when we did actually get pregnant it was simple. We already had the names. Now we just had to figure out what we were having.

A few years later we were pregnant again. And we knew we had a boy name. Corbin Robert. But we just could not think of a girls name we both wanted. There was never even an argument. It was like hummm. . . what about.....hummm..... There was never any name mentioned really. I actually wanted to name the next girl Indianna. And we could call her Anna. I loved it. It was soooo cool. Dan said no. But really other then that no name was ever brought up. Then we found out we were having a boy. And all of a sudden Corbin Robert did not look so good to me anymore.

Dan was really good friends at work with this guy Brian. And Brian had a brother named Nolan. And Dan was always coming home with all these funny stories about Brian and Nolan. Then one day in the middle of the story I was all what about Nolan? I like that name. Its not tooo common. But still nice. Not weird or anything. And that was it. Dan loved the name Nolan too. So Nolan Robert it was.

Now we find ourselves in the same situation again. We have a boy name and a girl name picked out. It will be either Caitlyn or Colton. But, no middle names. ahhhh!!! It bugs me. lol. Dan wants Colton Alan. I just am not 100 % sure about Alan. I was something else. But what? And what goes with Caitlyn? Dan and I already decided that we were not going to name our kids after anyone because there are too many people? How do you pick? And people get their feelings hurt. And it is too much stress for me. I feel bad for every single person whose name we did not pick. lol.

So, people. I am asking you. What two middle names go good with Colton and Caitlyn? I don't want to be like my few friends who went into labor still with no name picked out. lol. It makes me nervous. I know we still have like 8 months to figure something out. But still. I have never been much of a procrastinator. :)

Vote for Nolan

yey!! Nolan's picture is finally up and ready to be voted on. So click on this link here to vote. You can vote 5 times a minute. SO vote as often as you would like. The contest ends August 24th. So keep up the clicks and keep voting. ;o) Thanks to everyone so far who got Avalon up to 600 votes so far. Now we need to get Nolan caught up.

Click here to Vote for Nolan.

Vote for Avalon

Gma and Papa entered Avalon into the cutest kid in the OC contest. So click this link here to vote and vote as often as you can. :) Later today they are submitting Nolan's picture also and then I will add his link also.

So, Vote here!!! You can vote 5000 times a day if you want. So vote as often as you want. ;o)

Happy Birthday Avalon

Happy birthday to my little princess. I can't believe you are 5 years old already. Where has all the time gone. I hope you had a wonderful party at school today. And I know you will have a great time going swimming tonight with your little cousins and aunts and of course what would a birthday be without grandma! lol. Happy birthday bologna!!! I love you!!

Avalon's Birthday

Avalon's birthday is tomorrow. Since we were down visiting the parents this weekend they gave Avalon a birthday gift. They already got her the portable DVD player for the car for her birthday earlier this year. And of course the circus was also for her birthday. But the Gma and Papa surprised Avalon with this gift. I love it!! And so does Avalon. It was so creative. It was really hard to get a good picture of it because it is a mirror and kept reflecting the flash. But hopefully you can still see it. It is a licence plate frame that Papa made into a picture frame. Genius!!

Of course, blogger will not let me upload any pictures right now. Errrr! lol. So here is a link to look at the picture frame. Also I uploaded the circus pictures too.

Sleep, where have you gone?

I am already tired as it is and not getting enough sleep. But the last three nights I have had insomnia on top of it. Ugh!!

Ever since I was in High School I get these episodes of insomnia. Two or Three days in a row where I will only sleep 1 or 2 hours. And i am tired. And there is nothing keeping me awake. I just cant go to sleep.

So the last week I have only been sleeping 3 to 4 hours a night because everyone in the house was sick. And everyone was coughing and i kept waking up. So, Dan took this weekend off to let me catch up on sleep. Only, I COULD NOT SLEEP! lol. Friday night I just laid there in bed with my eyes closed. But never went to sleep. Even though i was exhausted! Saturday morning Dan got up with the kids and let me sleep in. Only, I COULD NOT SLEEP. Same thing. I was sooo tired from only sleeping a few hours. But i just laid there with my eyes closed and could never go back to sleep.

Saturday night we all went to bed late. And i had been having a tummy ache all day long. But did not think anything about it. We had went to Islands for lunch and i figured i must have ate to much. lol. But it never went away. And by midnight on Saturday it had turned into that really horrible pain i get that feels like someone is stabbing me an i can't breathe. Usually I take a ton of NyQuil and that makes it go away. The doctors still have no idea what is causing the pain. But it has been like 4 or 5 months since i last had it. But now I can't take anything for it. So, I was up all night with that pain and never did go to sleep.

Then last night I was so tired i could barley stay awake. I was more exhausted then I have ever remembered being before. We got home form Orange County around 9pm. The kids were crashed out and we just put them right to bed. Then I just went straight to bed and fell asleep. Hallelujah!!! But then at midnight i woke up. And then i never did go back to sleep. No matter how tired i was I just could not go to sleep.

Circus

Sunday evening, Dan's parents took Dan, the kids, and I took the circus for Avalon's birthday. This was Avalon's 4th year going, Nolan's 2nd year going. But my very first time ever getting to go to the circus. It was so much fun. The kids had a blast.

I don't know what was more AWESOME! lol. The tigers, the elephants, or the 7 motorcycles inside that tiny ball riding around and AMAZINGLY not running into each other. The kids favorite part was the Elephants and the tigers. Dan's favorite part was the Elephants too. But that is because this one Elephant pooped the entire time!! Seriously. Like while he was doing all his tricks. He just kept pooping and pooping and pooping. It was everywhere!! And all these little guys were running out from nowhere trying to get it all picked up. And as soon as they would pick up one pile they were off to pick up the next. It was crazy. Dan was laughing so hard at one point I could not tell if he was breathing. lmao.

Man, that place was expensive though. They have all these toys out and everything right in front of the kids. And all the toys were 20 dollars or more. CRAZY! I told the kids they could not have anything. But Dan was all excited and took them each to buy a toy anyways. Dads! lol.

I took pictures but i will have to come back later and re post them because I forgot to download them last night.

Thanks Bill and Patti for taking all of us. It was a wonderful gift and we all had a blast!!

Here is the link to view all the pictures.

Here are a few of my favorite ones. They are the only ones really that came out. It was so dark in there that i had to take pictures with the flash off so that you could see the pictures. So then of course they are all blurry. I don't how to take pictures from far away in dark light. lol

Connor G.

Sunday I was so excited. I got to go out to Hunnington Beach and visit my friend Rochelle and her brand new week old baby Connor. Connor was so tiny!! He is absolutely adorable. And such a good baby. Rochelle said he never cries. Unless he is hungry. I got to hold him and rock him for an hour. And he just slept the whole time. I wanted to keep him he was so cute. lol

It's been a long time since I have been around a little brand new baby. Well, 2 years. But that felt like forever. I was a little nervous at first holding him. But, now i can't wait to hold our own little baby.

I wish i had some pictures to show you. :) But i was so busy holding and cooing over Connor that i never did get around to taking any pictures. :)

So Tired

Ahhh! Poor me. lol. I only slept 3 hours last night. Even worse, poor Nolan. He only slept three hours last night.

I was so tired yesterday after I got home from work that I started feeling light headed and dizzy. So I made something easy for dinner. Spaghetti. Then gave the kids baths and got everyone down to bed by 7:30pm. Wooo!! I rock!! Then at 10:30pm Nolan started coughing and coughing. So I went in the room with him and rubbed his back. I had already given him cough medicine. But he would not stop coughing. So I picked him up and held him in the recliner and rocked him. Then he stopped coughing. Around midnight I tried to lay him back in bed. But as soon as I would lay him down he would wake up and start coughing again. So I picked him up and back to the recliner we went. Every time I tried to put him down he would wake up and start coughing again. So, I stayed holding him until around 3:30am. Then took him with me back to my bed and propped the pillows all up so that I would lay down holding him, but would be propped up like we were sitting. He never really fell all the way back to sleep. But he did finally stop coughing. I however, never went back to sleep.

I have been giving him cough medicine for a few days now. And it just is not working. His teacher at school said he is not even getting any naps over the last few days because he can't stop coughing long enough to fall asleep. Poor guy. :( So, I am going to go to CVS today after work and see what other cough medicine the can recommend. Because children's Robitussin is not working at all.