Elana is 6 Months Today!!

So today is a big day, half a year. So to celebrate Elana got her shots. It was the least traumatic of all the shots so far and now we are done until the 12 month shots....yippee!

So things are going along fast. Elana cannot crawl but she is really working on it. She has a new jumper thinger that we had to buy after visiting a friend. Today she looked like Michael Flattley (sp?) doing the river dance. This was after the shots that were supposed to make her sleep.

As far as new tricks, Elana is a talker like no one else...she is my daughter. She is constantly chatting it up and not so quietly either. I am trying to get it across to her that you cannot talk and eat but it is hard to reason with someone who just says dadadada all the time... Like we do with the dog we interpret what she is saying so she does a great Barry Gibb impression and says I love you.

Our big adventure for today was making baby food....not because I am a nut but because I tried the baby food chicken and gross just the begins to describe it. So I whipped up some boiled chicken, rice, green beans and peas. Passed them through the food processor and we had a gourmet meal. Elana loved it so much she smiled and squealed. She was pounding on her high chair. She got that from Leaf, easy to please. So now I am thinking about how to but Gerber out of business....I have a plan for organic, minimally processed, no preservative baby food....in your grocers freezer!

I will just add that to my to do list.

This picture sums up my typical day with Camryn

My trip as the photographer/junk carrier/watch who does not want to go on the ride personElana and her Friend playing

Gas Station Tacos

Anyone who really knows me knows I will eat anything in a tortilla. I will drive 30 minutes for a good taco or burrito. I am not talking about your American crap. Real Mexican style taco's...burritos go ask someone south of TJ for a burrito and they will point to a donkey's you know what. Still there are good burritos you can only get at a good Mexican shop.

I have found over the years that the appearance of the place does not matter as long as there are lots of soccer posters. In Turlock I went to Mi Casa which was my favorite by far. It did not have soccer posters but it was awesome. Leaf and I actually drove to Turlock once just to have dinner there. In Stockton I liked Tepa Taqueria. I never went past the taco's and burritos there but they were good. Deanne needed a Mexican food fix when she came back to the States for a visit and that is where we stopped.

So to the Gas Station Taco's. I have lived in Livermore most of my life. I know where to go for Mexican food. Nothing really was good. Leaf and I both (the fat kids we are) counted this as a negative to moving here. Seriously. However last Friday night this changed. We found a little slice of heaven in the gas station down the street. There are actually two Mexican restaurants, in gas stations, near my house. One is a wannabee Mexican place they sell a tomato tortilla with pomegranate chicken burrito ...I am not making that up. The good one is at the Chevron on Vasco. The car wash is good too, not just a drive through. So this taco shop is open 24 hours and for me to be impressed it says a lot.

Breast Milk Donation

So anyone who knows me knows I would work for free. Don't get me wrong but my parents made one mistake in raising my sisters and me, we are generous to a fault. I have given away clothes off my back, things I have had to go out and buy again, countless hours doing all sorts of things. Why, because it is the right thing to do. For Pete's sake, my parents let people stay at our house for six months. They literally came for dinner, asked to stay the night, and then moved in their mattresses and kids.

Not a huge surprise that when I found out you could donate breast milk I signed up. I was not going to say anything because I am not doing it to get a prize...although I do have great milk. Elana loves it.... I decided to blog about it because my hope is that someone else will do the same thing.

The process is simple, you sign up, get medically cleared from you doctor, they have someone come out and do blood work, and then you test your freezer to see if it is cold enough. I went through The International Breast Milk Project Bank (http://www.breastmilkproject.org/). Once you are qualified they send you all the supplies you need plus a Medela pump....to keep. The milk is used to make fortifier for NICU babies and a percentage is sent to Africa to feed AIDs orphans.

Leaf and I feel that making the donations is a way of giving back and thanking God for blessing us with a beautiful baby girl.

Tagging

Okay so when I read my friends blog and the she said she had been tagged I assumed someone spray painted her house or keyed her car. At least in Stockton that is what tagging is; putting your "cool" name all over everything. Seriously that is a kid who was arrested and charged with a bunch of stuff for writing "meat" on everything in town. He was notorious and when they caught him they threw the book at him...I digress. So, I have been tagged by Liz which really normally I do not do these things but I am narcissistic.

So here is the deal there are rules to "tagging" and I will undoubtly break some (rule 3 specifically).

1. Post the rules on your blog

2. Write 6 random things about yourself

3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post (ok, 6 people is a lot by the way!)

4. If you are tagged, DO IT and pass it along

So here is my go at this.

1. I like to wear womans underwear. Theoretically this is not a problem since I am a woman. Unlike Dustin Hoffman I buy my underwear at Walmart. Well really only since moving to Livermore.

2. I met President Reagan...I remembered he was President but he only remember being Govenor. Hey the jellybeans were a nice parting gift.

3. I was once suspend from school for beating up the school bully. This kid was horrible. I had a bloody lip and he had a nasty black eye. Considering I did not get in trouble at home and my mom even bought me candy to eat while I was in inschool suspension.

4. I hate sandwhiches. I know I worked at Togo's and that is how I starte dating Leaf but still I hate them. I have just in the last year started to eat them and only with a certain Milton's bread. The best part is I did not even know I did not like sandwhiches until I started teaching and had to bring lunch. I asked my mom what she used to make me when I was a kid...she laughed and said she would but bread in one bag and meat in another. Which is the same solution I came up with.

5. My second toe is bigger than the first and on that topic I have a crocrid nose. I think I was born that way but once in high school I broke my nose with a tennis racket in PE....long story but I hit myself trying to protect my face from a ball. I also nocked it pretty good with a the G in Granda when I was on the dance team. I also got it knocked pretty hard in the nose and got a black eye when I was headbutted during a soccer game.

6. I was an all state Tuba player in junior high. I sat first chair as a Freshman. In marching band I was blown in the air by a wind gust with my Suzaphone. I think I weighed 85 pounds. Needless to say I was on the dance team the next year instead of marching band. The gogo boots an sequenced outfit were hot!

Now I guess I will tag some people. Dee, Alex that is all I know who blog...do I will break that rule.

Life in the new house

So far everything has been great. Elana is sleeping through the night in her own room. The dogs have adjusted to being locked in the tiled area Kitty is Kitty. We did end up sleeping at my parents for a few days after we moved. The first night was because we did not have our bed set up. The next night we did know where anything was we needed. The third night we stayed at the our house...but I did tell Leaf I just wanted him to move out and I would visit him. It is kinda scary how easy it was to move home. I realized that meeting Leaf probably saved me from a life of living at home, collecting webkins, and wearing polyester.

On top of moving I have my nieces on my own during the week. I have Camryn Tuesdays and Thursdays and Kasey and Lindsey after school everyday. It is fun but I had no clue what I was missing out on with the whole picking kids up from school. First, some people have to much time on their hands showing up 20 minutes before the bell rings to get a spot...I tried it once and I was still out in the boonies. I basically spend and hour picking up kids that go to school at quarter mile from my front door!

Today was probably the best day of getting the girls. I busted a little punk at school. The kid was a first or second grader. When he ran by me he turned around and made a disgusting (contextually speaking) gesture to the kid behind him. The little kid actually put two fingers around his mouth in a V and wiggled his tongue. I am assuming he did not know exactly what it meant but he did know it was bad. I turned to a mom near me and her jaw was dropped. I followed the kid in the classroom and told his teacher what the kid did. The funniest part of the story is that I showed the teacher what he did. I imagine the kid will have a hard time sitting for a while....

So that is about it for a bit. We will be unpacking for months.