"Miss Gwen", as she's known at Judy's house, is just a few weeks away from turning three. I am headed to Vegas this weekend with the girls, and was getting ready to print pictures to show off. Wow, how three years has flown by! My little baby girl is now passing toddler-hood into the unknown "terrible" stage. She's so smart and funny, and she's a great big sister to Jonah. At the moment, she loves "Tinkerbell", "Ratatouille" and watching clips of "Aladdin" on youtube, which she calls 'bad guys.' She's busy and throws tantrums that make me smile, and she is the apple of my eye :)

Jonah's Blessing

We blessed Jonah on January 6th, the first Sunday in 2009. Both the Presley and Hartmann families came together, and it was especially nice to have Colby home from college during his Christmas break, and he was able to participate. Jonah was a trooper and slept the whole time. Bob and Pam were starting their "Drive-Ins, Diners and Dives" vacation tour, so we were their first stop. It's great to have these kinds of family events to share and enjoy each other's company.

Christms Fun

This Christmas was so much fun! It was the first time that Gwen really enjoyed the festivities and became excited about the decorations. Since we now have tile throughout the house, and nice ornaments stayed in the boxes, and we had a great time letting Gwen help us decorate the tree with ornaments from the Dollar Tree. She was all over it! We started reading some Christmas bedtime stories before the holiday, so Baby Jesus became a big topic, along with Jesus' mommy and daddy. Of course Santa Claus could not be missed either.

I probably had the most emotional moment on the night that I took Gwen over to see Santa Claus at a friend's house. Because of my work schedule and other committments, I forgot to get a present to my friend for Gwen. All the kids began sitting on Santa's lap, and receiving their presents, and Gwen was so excited; "Santa, it's my turn?" My stomache turned and went from feeling foolish and embarrassed about not having a present for her, to heartache that this Santa might not put her on his lap and she'd have her feelings hurt. I was so upset, but Gwen just went up to him after everyone else was done, and asked him to hold her on his lap. She didn't even want a present, but just the action of being included. It was humbling, and reminded me that while the presents are nice, it really is the spirit of the season; love, humility, compassion and kindness.

Christmas Day was hectic but worth it. Gwen enjoyed a small Christmas here at home, and she helped open all of Jonah's things. We then went to Grandma and Pakah's house, where Gwen and Cole tore it up. We've never had such a quick Christmas gift exchange! Paper and bows were flying. We then drove to Orange County to see Grandma and Grandpa Hartmann, and have dinner with the extended Hartmann family, which we missed last year. Finally, we ended the night by opening gifts with Joe's immediate family at his mom and dad's house. Again, it was cool to see the toddlers personalities emerge during the gift opening. Gwen was more interested in Chase's presents than her own. We should probably get some Tonka trucks for her.

And Now We Are Four!

Jonah William joined us on November 3rd, just a few days after Halloween. I was determined to have him on Halloween (or the day after) since I was being inducted, but as babies do, he came in his own time. We spend two days walking around the hospital floor trying to get things started. I got to walk to the halls reading "Breaking Dawn", which made the time go by. Jonah finallly started making his appearance, but seemed to have been hung up. We opted to do a C-section before he went into stress, and everything went well. He arrived weighting 8.4 lbs and was 21-1/4 inches long. Yes, the second one is so much easier! He's been a mellow baby, and happy as long as he's swaddled and kept warm.

Mommy's Night Out

My three 'girls' came to town this weekend from across the country. Loren flew into Phoenix from SLC, Chantel (and Jorge) flew in from Washington DC, and Laura drove over from San Diego. Yes, they were generally coming to see family, but MORE importantly, they planned on throwing me a BEST-FRIENDS-ONLY baby shower.

We had dinner at La Casita Dos, caught up on each other's news, they had three (or four or five) rounds of margaritas, and they showered me with baby boys clothes. Jonah is going to be the best-outfitted, rock-a-billy waring tot come November. It was so good to hang out and relax and see my girlfriends, who we only seem to have physical contact with once or twice a year these days. My girls rock!

Drip-Drop, Drip-Drop

"Drip, drip, drop...little April showers..." or at least that's what happens when it rains in Bambi. The rain that came last night to Blythe showed up around 3 a.m. The lightening and thunder started, then the light sprinkling, which quickly became pellets of water. Laying in bed, I thought "The A/C vent is open and that water is going to start leaking right onto our bed." Because of the way our rental house has been built and modified over the years, we have a unique feature in that our room and the guest room roof's seem to tilt at just the right angle that water can run into them. Each time it has rained since we've lived in this place, if we aren't home to catch it, our bed and the guest bed get soaked and we have to air everything out and do all the laundry. This was the situation when we came home on Memorial Day weekend, with the flu. We found our beds all soaked and nasty, and we had to sleep in the living room on the couches.
Well, the drops started falling about 3:30 a.m. We layed out towels, hoping it would just be a little sprinkle and we could sleep through. Then the drops caught the ceiling fan and were whirled across the bed as it became wetter and wetter. We grabbed all the big bowls and went to work catching as much of the mess as we could, to no avail. Joe took care of the guest room with one ice chest, and had to do the same in our bedroom. So we retired once again to couches, for a night of Maggie crying in her kennel (she knew we were there and ignoring her) and kinks in our backs and necks. Yes, we know we need to move and we want to move.....and moments like these make us want to find something new and perfect and WAY over budget, just to not have the hassle.

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July weekend at home with nothing special planned. On the evening of the 3rd, we decided to do some "baby" fireworks at our house. We sat outside in the alley next to our house and started the show. This was Gwen's first time doing fireworks. She was really exicited. She and Joe lit sparklers and were having a good time, until Gwen turned toward Joe with it and burned his hand. He reacted, and said "No Gwen! Daddy has owie." The she realized that they could hurt. Following that we lit a really big firework on accident, and it banged and popped a few inches from our lawn chairs, causing everyone to react with surprise. At that point, Gwen was scared and didn't want to see anymore "fire." When we tried to get her to do some more, she started crying and getting upset. The following night, Joe and I took her out on the rhino to a canal bank by my mom's house to see the big firework show, and she was scared of the same thing. She actually turned her head away, said "No fire, Mommy," and cuddled up to me and went to sleep in my arms. She never does that! So fireworks weren't a big hit this time, but we have more left, so we might be able to coax a better reaction from her if we don't burn ourselves or threaten our own safety.