Shop.The. Cause.

October is breast cancer awareness month and I want to support the cause by helping Stella and dot sell 30 bracelets in 30 days. You know I'm not a runner so I can't do the marathons, but I can support the cause this way. These awesome bracelets run $39 each and 100% of the proceeds go to the Noreen Fraser Foundation.
The third bracelets proceeds go to Every Mother Counts. And supports OB health in mothers around the world, including those right here in our own backyard. Having had my own post maternal health scare, this organization is near and dear to my heart and something I support whole heartedly. I thank God everyday for the miracle of modern medicine and that I love in a country that has amazing health care. Let's help spread that to all countries, that children would be so fortunate to grow up with a mother to care for them.
To purchase any and all of these bracelets, please go to www.stelladot.com/ts/6jl16

Noreen Fraser Foundation Breast Cancer "Strength" Bracelet

Noreen Fraser Foundation Breast Cancer "Inspire" Bracelet

Every Mother Counts "Enlighten" Bracelet

For more information on the Noreen Fraser Foundation please visit: http://www.noreenfraserfoundation.org/about/mission/

For more information on Every Mother Counts please visit: http://everymothercounts.org/learn/

X-Factor

Nicole & Me

This past week I had the opportunity to go see a taping of the reality t.v. show, The X-Factor. If you didn't see it in it's American debut season last year, it's another singing show, along the lines of American idol and The Voice. I am not going to go in to the differences between them all, but the long and the short of it is, you can be any age and you can also be a group.
We watched the auditions on the last day at the last taping.  Let's just say, the contestants were lack luster (bottom of the barrel literally) and I think the judges were really tired. But they did put on a good show.
Simon Cowell (of American Idol fame) is the lead judge, and was of course, himself.  Although, when he spoke to the audience he was kind and fun. Also, when people wanted  to get a picture with him etc, he was all but willing.  So really a softy I bet! :)

Simon, Britney, Demi, L.A.

We were really impressed with Demi Lovato's judging capabilities. She is a Disney Channel star, who dropped off the deep end a couple years back, and is now back on top, looking good and doing a great job on the show, it seems.  She has great chemistry with Simon and can banter with him, making good t.v.
Britney Spears (need I say more?) was droll and boring.  That girl needs to get a personality! Literally all she said 95% of the time, when asked for her vote (yes or no), was "no".  No extra comments, constructive criticism, just a hunched over little "no".
L.A. Reid, a bigwig music producer was the last judge, and was good as well.  With less fame than the rest, I think the audience didn't react as much to him, but clearly he knows what he is doing.

Nicole & Kaitlin

Kaitlin, Nicole and I had a good time.  For me, it may be one of those things that you do once.  I was exhausted by the end, and it was a work night. But hey, I can say I saw Simon, Demi, Britney and L.A. all in person.  Did I mention we were only four rows from the stage?! That's right! Now why can't I get those seats for a Backstreet Boys or New Kids on the Block concert?!

The stage from our view

The Judges once again

Yep, I am back!

Sara, Me, Heather, Megan, Shauna

I know it's hard to believe, but these days I rarely feel like I have something to post on my blog.  Our world encompasses so much of Elijah, that pretty much anything that happens is around him, and warrants only posts on his blog, not mine.  But alas, I finally have something to put on MY blog!  Aren't you excited?!
Last weekend was my friend from college, Heather's, wedding!  The APU you girls were all back together and of course, in high-fashion! It was so neat getting to be back together in the same place with ALL of us.  These days, with husbands, kids and now distance, it has been hard to get us all in the same place at the same time.  Nothing like a wedding to bring us all together!
Meg flew in from Boise, ID, Sara came the longest way from Vernon, B.C., I flew down from S.F (duh) and Shauna drove over from Menifee.  We all met in heather's home town of Santa Paula!
The wedding was beautiful!  We couldn't have asked for better weather, especially since a day and two days earlier the weather was, well lets just call it "cool and breezy".  This night was still and warm - utterly perfect!
I have only a few pictures, but at least you get to see us ;) !

Heather's nephew proceeded her with this sign "Here Comes The Bride"

The thumb print guest tree.

And They Lived Happily Ever After

Matt, Sara's husband took the pictures

A Career Change

In November, I left CK Ent., the clothing manufacturer that I had worked at for almost 7 years and took a job, and career change at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland.  Yes, I doubled my commute (some days triple), but it has been well worth it.
I was able to get in a carpool with Aaron's brother and his coworker who work about Ten minutes from me, which has really paid off, and makes the commute a lot easier to swallow.
The job is, what I like to call, a Glorified Secretary. However, the exact title is Administrative Assistant III.  The "III" is important, as there are three levels of Administrative Assistants, and Three is the highest (woo hoo). Anyway, I work at the National level in the Service Quality sector, which oversees all Kaiser hospitals and medical centers.  It's a pretty neat thing, to see all of this in action, and the pride that Kaiser takes in the health care industry.  I am a "kaiser lifer" as I like to call myself, being as that I have never had another medical plan other than one with Kaiser. To be able to be a part of making a difference within the Kaiser system, is so awesome, as I get to be a part of implementing change, as well as be a receiver of that change.
So enough with the business stuff, here's the important thing- look the view from my desk!

View of San Francisco

Funny!

So I know this is about two months late, however, it is worth posting.
Each year we go to the Kipp's DIY White Elephant Exchange.  Every year we all seem to get more and more creative.  Sometimes we end up with awesome things, sometimes we end up with duds and sometimes we end up with slightly inappropriate things...like we did this year!  Aaron won the "boob" scarf set.  A his and her's original.  Slightly in bad taste, but honestly, I could not resist posting them!

Made by Erin T.!

More fun pictures

Just some cute pictures I took of Elijah on my new iPad!!!

I fixed it!

Well- Do you actually remember me, let a lone the fact that I have my own blog?  HAHA  After numerous emails about A. a website takeover of my blog and B. threats on my livihood for not posting in, oh two months....I am finally back and the blog is up in pristine condition.

I cannot, however, promise daily, weekly or even every other week updates on here.  What I can promise though is, a new posting for today, and, if you are lucky, I will come up with something for next week as well. 

Here is the content for today's blog posting:

ERIN KIP. RINGS THE NASDQ BELL ON WALL STREET!!!!
Last weekend, my best friend, Erin Kip. was selected from thousands of contestants at her company, Life Technologies, to ring the NASDQ bell.  We all turned on the TV bright and early at 6:30 am west coast time to watch it all go down and........were sorely dissappointed when NONE of the local or even CNN or MSNBC carried the NASDQ opening!!!!  We found out later that it was on CNBC- the one station that all but one of our friends watched!  Erin came over last night however and shared a youtube link with me that shows the whole entire ringing of the bell ceremony.  Check her out in the video below.  Please more the time thing to about 6 minutes in, otherwise you will be sufficiently bored in all the heady science talk stuff (at least I think that is what the COO was talking about, I didn't watch it, I just fast forwarded to see Erin.).  Erin is the short girl in front with the WHITE legs.  Don't tell her I said that, she told me she chose the WRONG color of stockings that morning.  This is the girl who is always proud of her Italian Tan (no not snookie).

To Vicki's We Go!

The Open Road

 Last weekend we took a trip up to see Vicki!  We had such a great trip!!!  I had never been to McCloud so we started out Saturday with lunch in a historical restaurant in the California logging town of McCloud.  Then drove about an hour over to Burney Falls which Aaron had never seen.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day!  Aaron thought the falls were magnificent and proclaimed that upon our next visit he would jump in to the freezing cold water! haha!
On our way back to Vicki's we all decided that our next visit will take us to the McCloud River Falls, of which there are three, so we will have to pick one to go to.  We are already looking forward to that trip!
Here are some pictures of our outing!

Vicki, Me, E, & Aaron

Pretty Song

The same wedding I was talking about earlier in the week, the one in North Lake Tahoe this past weekend had some of Aaron's brothers, namely David and James as part of the wedding party.  The bride's sister was her maid of honor, and unbeknownest to us, also a song writer.  She had written a song her Sarah and Kenny and asked James to play the guitar (he is a VERY good guitarist).  I was able to catch the whole thing on video.  I didn't test the sound on it, so hopefully you can hear it.

P.S. This was Elijah's first wedding and he did AMAZING!  No crying...and no sleeping (dang it!).  He was definitely a side-line focal point!

Super Cute Wedding

This past weekend we went up to North Lake Tahoe for a wedding.  I have to say this is one of the cutest wedding's I have been to in quite some time.  The thought that was put in to all the details was extrodinary!  Sarah and Kenny (yes, Kenny had a part in this) such a great job invisioning this wedding, keeping it on a budget and making everything come together in the most amazing way.  Here are the details that we got to live, for one wonderful evening!

The Roaring Thunderhead coming over the Mountains...it poured all of two drops of rain. No kidding!

The Groomsmen's getup

The Bouteniers



The cake table made out of old picture frames



The Center Pieces...each one was different, this was my favorite one

Directions!  Love this!

Grab a glass...

...And Name It!



The Card Cage (great idea!) and Guest Book Table



And Finally the hanging picture Frames in the wood.! People took pictures in them, it was so neat!



Sleep!

Being a new mom means "no sleep". This is ok until you have to go back to work, like I did last week.  Let me just say though, that is wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.- Thank God. I checked in with Aaron once or twice a day, and the rest of the time I was busy getting my feet wet and back in the saddle.  I think, in all reality, the transition was a little harder for Aaron than for me.  I think he was pretty pooped, and overwhelmed.  I think it was Wednesday when I came home and he said "There was so many things I wanted to do today, but I just didn't know when [Elijah] was going to cry, so I did nothing". HAHAHA I just had to laugh.  I think he has the hang of it now.  Thursday he had a nice full day: They went to coffee in the morning and then the Hardware store (where any respectable father and son would go on an outing together) and then I think we went out to dinner!
Ok back to the sleep thing, because I just have to share with you how proud I am of myself and my son!  Of the last 12 nights we have had 7 nights with Elijah "sleeping through the night"  Granted this does NOT mean that he slept 10 hours or even eight for that fact, but 5-6 hours!  That is an accomplishment!  If I can wake up at 4 or 5 am not not 2 or 3 am AND 5 am, I am a happy camper!  The real accomplishment though was this weekend when E slept 11-5 two nights in a row without me having to get up to even re-swaddle him!
And just when I thought we had a routine down and this kid would sleep through the night EVERY night....he woke up at 3:15 am this morning- bright eyed and bushy tailed and decided that he was going to stay up and coo to himself until 4:30- UGH!

Back to Work!

Well ladies and Gentlemen, it's that time.  10 weeks (8 with Elijah and 2 prior to his arrival) have flown by.  I knew it would come fast, but I couldn't fathom just how fast they really would be.  The most scary thing is that Elijah is 2 months old (well Thursday he will be, but in weeks he is 2 months today- Friday)!  They say when you have kids time seems to fly even faster, well they are right!  Now it's only 8 months until he is one year!  UGH! Let's not think about that, I am really enjoying him as a baby!

So.  Back to Work.  This comes with a ton of emotions.  Some excitement, for stepping back in to life prior to Elijah, but mostly discontentment.  I knew it would be difficult to go back to work and each day leading up to now I have felt that even more.  I realize that millions of women do this, but I truly wonder how it is that they do do it?

I am tired, especially in the mornings (and you all know I am not a morning person) and have been dozing off for an hour or two while E sleeps. So how on earth am I going to function at work?!  Three shots of Espresso before I go in and at lunch?!  It will be as bad or worse than the first trimester of pregnancy when I would go sleep in my car during lunch break and drag my butt back in to work each afternoon wishing for my nice, warm, comfy bed!

Not only am I tired, but I don't want to miss any of Elijah's "firsts".  I got to see him smile for the first time back in May and I don't want to miss his first laugh, or crawl, or step or anything!

The best thing though is that Aaron is here to watch him.  So I know he is in good hands and that he is bonding with "daddy" which is super special.

So that is that.  I am going back to work on Monday.  Wish me luck people, I will need it!

  

I officially feel old...

I am back on the courts again, playing tennis competitively!  I can't tell you how eager I was to get the all clear from the Doctor and was ecstatic when she told me at four weeks post-baby that I could get back out there!  So I have played a total of three matches so far; won two and lost one, I'd say that is pretty darn good! 
So here is why I feel old...Last night I played against a 22 year old.  Once I beat her (HA-HA!), we chatted and she said it was nice to play someone younger (awe :)  Then she told me her age and I told her mine.  She was like "Oh you don't look that old" (That old?!) She continued "People think I am 16 and I guess that will be a compliment when I am like 30" (WHAT?! I am almost 30, broad!) "but it's not now".  Anyway... I guess the thing that really got me was the "30" comment.  When you are 22 it seems "SOOOOO OLD" but when you are 28 it seems "SOOOO YOUNG" at least, that is how I feel! haha!
Oh well, just the first of many "old" comments that I am bound to hear....I guess it is just payback for all those times I gave my parents a bad time about "how old" they were. ;)

I needed to add a picture, and this was a cool one our friend took the other night.

The Long Lost Maternity Photos

I had to wait a while to put these up, as A. I needed the disc and B. I needed to wait for the photographer to get them published on some Maternity/Baby blog.  So here are some of our fave's from the Maternity Photoshoot March 3rd 2011.  I hope you enjoy them!

P.S. Elijah's First Photo Shoot Coming Soon To http://www.demersclan.blogspot.com/.