Just One More Week

Mr. D's five weeks of vacation from work (yes, five weeks, I've been a lucky and spoiled new mama) is coming to a close. He has to go back next Monday. It has been great having him home to help with the kids and to just hang out. I've been able to stop and relax and let the house get dirty lived in and just enjoy this time. It's been worth it too.

So today we enjoyed a fun day at the park feeding the ducks at the park, the "ucks" as Grace calls them. Our neighbor came along with her four kids (which include 3-month-old twins). The "ucks" enjoyed some PB&J, the kids had fun at the playground, and the moms enjoyed some sun on the park benches with the babies while Mr. D helped herd the three older kids.

We then enjoyed lunch at Chipotle. Yum!

Tonight, after dinner, the kids had bathtime. Long overdue bathtime.

It's embarrassing to admit, but Grace didn't get a bath all weekend! We were out late both Saturday and Sunday evening, so when we got home, Grace went straight to bed each night. Eh - she's a kid. They don't need a bath EVERY night, right!? I know we used that rationale growing up - especially if we happened to go swimming during the summer. That easily replaced bathtime.

After baths, both kids went to sleep at decent hours, and Mr. D and I enjoyed frozen yogurt. It's been a nice day. I'm going to wrap this up and pray that Paul lets me have a nice night's sleep too!

Goodness, Gracious

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!!!

Wow - what a weekend - Southern California was on fire. Literally.

With the Santa Ana winds and hot, dry weather, we are used being on "fire watch" around here and seeing the latest blazes on the evening news, however, it is a whole different thing when it's at your back door.

I was enjoying a lazy Saturday morning - baby on my lap, talking on the phone with my mom, when Mr. D comes in from the backyard. "Get off the phone and go get dressed. You've gotta get out of here. There's a fire."

I dash upstairs and while pulling on my jeans, peek out the window. OH.MY.WORD. The hill behind our house is on fire. I could feel the heat on the window pane. I dash downstairs grabbing things here and there as I go... the pile of clean laundry on the bed, a pair of tennis shoes, diapers, my hairbrush. It was a pretty interesting pile of things that accumulated by our front door.

I look outside again and the flames are licking the top of our concrete block wall (Thank God it's a concrete wall!). Mr. D is pulling the dogs inside. I'm getting ready to leave, then, almost as quickly as it came on us, the fire ate up everything in its path and moved eastward along the row of houses. There wasn't even time for the firefighters to show up and put out the flames. So the fire moved along the perimeter of our neighborhood community. Some of the houses on the other side weren't as fortunate as us and our neighbors. There are about 16 burned and/or damaged homes.

This clip shows some of the damage to the homes. It's devastating - especially when they are our neighbors. I may not know them personally, but there's a connection. It could have been me.


Anyone local knows that this fire, which started in a tree less than a 1/2 mile from our home, then traveled to numerous cities and destroyed hundreds of homes, evacuated thousands. It was a crazy couple days watching the news and following the fires. I am so thankful for all the friends and family who called to check up on us and offer any help we needed. Again, I have to thank God that we didn't need any help.

This is our backyard, showing the smoldering hill behind the fence. In retrospect it would have been cool to get a picture of the flames, but you know, priorities - had to prepare to flee for safety!

This is our backyard from yesterday. The smoldering is gone, but the layer of ash is still back there.

Bring on the Vermonster

Mr. D and I have officially started our post-partum diets. Unfortunately my body doesn't follow the "you can eat whatever you want and lose your baby weight as long as you're breastfeeding" motto that I hear some mamas claim, so its back to Points we go.

So what better way to have fun while dieting, but watch this. (World's Best Places to Pig Out). Thanks to the Travel Channel for sharing this valuable information to two hungry folks.

We learned about where to go to eat a 3-pound hamburger paired with 5 pounds of french fries; gagged while watching patrons inhale hundreds of oysters in one sitting; and found out when we travel up to Northern California, we can stop in and indulge in a stack of 5 pound pancakes.

Mr. D's personal favorite on the list was Beth's Cafe, which serves 12 egg omelets.

Meanwhile, my sweet tooth was wooed by Ben & Jerry's Vermonster. This is what we are talking about:

For those who take their passion for ice cream to staggering extremes, participating Ben and Jerry's scoop shops have an ice cream container more their size. Served in a plastic bucket, the Vermonster sundae is big enough to give even Godzilla an ice cream headache. It takes 20 scoops of ice cream, four bananas, one fudge brownie, three chocolate chip cookies, four ladles of hot fudge, 18 scoops of toppings and loads of whipped cream to create this sinful concoction.

Yes! I seriously would give this a try. Of course, I don't think I could eat it all, but boy, does it sound good right now.

Wow - three days of dieting and I'm already drooling over a monster size bucket of ice cream.

From the Homefront

Week two and everything's still a-okay on the homefront.

Mr. D is still fulfilling his role as wonder-husband/father and taking care of things while I enjoy some downtime to recover and relax.

As I just mentioned, I am actually taking it easy and trying not to fulfill the role of super-mom. Instead, I've been enjoying lazy mornings in bed that I have missed for the past two years.

Grace loves her new little brother in her sweet, slightly rough two-year old way. She loves to kiss on him and hold him, and keeps us on our toes watching out for baby Paul.

Paul is still a doll-baby. He's been such a good baby so far - doing what babies do best: eating, sleeping and dirtying diapers. He hardly cries or fusses. Now, while this all sounds like mama bragging - what it really is is mama relief. I kept telling Mr D that not all babies are a challenge, but he didn't believe me.

So that's been our house lately - pretty lazy. For example, today, Grace hung out in pjs all day; I didn't put on make-up (gasp!); and my big accomplishment was cleaning the downstairs bath and doing some laundry.

Oh, and wait: speaking of laundry - one little baby causes a whole lot more! We've yet to master diapering a baby boy without having the occasional (frequent) accident on clothes, blankets, bedsheets, etc.

Oh, and I must share some cutie-patootie pictures from Halloween. As a rule, I am not a fan of October 31st, except for the fun on dressing up. So, dress-up we did and we took Paul on his first big outing to our church Hallelujah party. He wasn't too impressed as he slept through the whole event snuggled up in my wrap.