Saturday, December 19, 2009

Merry Christmas

Seasons Greetings from the Kaizen Klan. Well, another year has come and gone. Much like all of the previous years, 2009 has been pretty eventful for the Kaizens. Some of our biggest news is that we will be starting a new stage of our life as a home owners. If you haven't already heard we bought a home and will be moving back to the central coast in June 2010. We can't wait to be closer to all of our loved ones.

Don has continued to work extremely hard this year. Managing a full-time career, a full-time college load and a more than full-time family has got to be exhausting, but he continues to make us very proud and to prove to himself just how much he is capable of. He is still working at Trader Joe's full-time and is almost on his 8th year of working for the company. He will also be graduating in June from California State University Monterey Bay with his bachelors degree in Teledramatic Arts and Technology. We are all very excited for him.

Christmas will also always hold a very special place in my heart because it is the day that I received the most precious gift in the world. On December 25th 2005 Caden Bradley came home from the NICU after 96 days in the hospital weighing 6lbs 6oz. Every year in addition to celebrating Christmas our family also celebrates the battle Caden won to be here. Today, our precious gift is an extremely active and happy 4 year old. He is currently going to preschool 5 days a week. He absolutely loves the kids and adores his favorite teachers Ms. Karla and Ms. Eli. He is talking up a storm and academically is doing fantastic. We have been working on spelling and even some addition and subtraction with him. He's such a little sponge and such an amazing little boy. He is still going to physical therapy 2x per week and occupational therapy once a week. He has the most amazing therapists Michelle and Britt whom he looks forward to going to work with everyday. His walking is getting better but we are going to seek out some help from some specialists in Oakland who deal specifically with spasticity. Hopefully they'll be able to give us some more pointers of how to keep helping him along. He is also still on a gluten and casein free diet. The transformation we witnessed with a simple diet change was absolutely amazing.

Téa, Téa, Téa. Where do I even start? She is a very busy and DEFIANT 19 month old. She runs all over the place and will try to climb ANYTHING in sight. She is also talking up a storm. She knows all of her body parts and can name many members of the family including "Aleah", "Valarie" and "Papa". However, her favorite word at the moment is "No". She is definitely keeping mommy and daddy on their toes and has been spending more and more time in timeout. Unfortunately, my parents just tell me it's payback. She has also become mommy's little helper. She always helps me load and unload the dishwasher and she pretends to help dust and sweep . I think her favorite thing in life is keeping up with her big brother. She looks up to him a lot but with her high strung bossy nature I think she'll be telling Caden what to do very soon.

As far as I am concerned I' m mainly staying busy with the kids and getting ready for our big move. Even though our move is 6 months away I've already started packing. That's because the months of May and June are going to be extremely busy for us. First of all, Don's graduation is May 22nd. On the same day ( May 22nd) my best friend Lindsey McGregor is getting married and I'm the maid of honor. We're supposed to be moved out of this house by June 1st and probably the biggest event is going to be the birth of our third baby (Due June4th). Procrastination is not an option when you have that many big things taking place in such a short span of time. It's going to be a very chaotic few weeks but we are looking forward to every single event.

We hope everyone is well and that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May 2010 bless you and your family.

Love always,
The Kaizens



Bourdet's Christmas Tree Farm

This is our 3rd year returning to this great Christmas tree farm located in Hollister. It's about 40 minutes away, but it is well worth the drive. They have a petting zoo, a sleigh ride, a snack area, a playground and Santa there for the kids. If you live in the Monterey area I highly recommend it. We picked out a perfect little Christmas tree for our house and Caden and Daddy even helped push the tree back to the car.

He's getting so big!
Last year she wasn't even crawling yet.
Caden helping Daddy push the tree wagon
Téa's turn. She wants to do everything big brother does.
Mommy with my sleepy little boy.
The munchkins and I
Caden checking out the trees
Daddy cutting down our prefect tree.

Daddy with all of his little helpers.
Daddy peeking over the sleigh with the kids

Mommy and Téa enjoying the sleigh ride.
Caden really enjoyed it because the they played christmas music and told a story along the way.
Just some of the attractions we saw on our sleigh ride.
An elf coaxing rudolf down from the tree


Téa riding Rudolf

Caden's turn
What a crazy little elf

The kids got a kick out of seeing Daddy as an elf.
Téa checking out her brother.

Téa watching Santa from a distance. I'm pretty sure she got bumped to the naughty list (if she wasn't already on it) because as soon as we saw Santa she said "No, No Santa" and hit him and ran away. I hope she likes playing with coal.


Caden telling Santa that he wants "construction trucks" for Christmas



Téa enjoying the playground
And, as usual, Caden having a blast

Weeee!
Climbing up the ladder all by herself

Our little nugget

Our little nugget is getting bigger and stronger everyday. I am currently 16 weeks pregnant which means our baby is about 4.5-5 inches long and 3.5 ounces. What a whopper. I finally felt the baby move for the first time the other day. The little thumps I felt meant 2 things: Either it is practicing for soccer or practicing on defending itself from it's big brother and sister. Now that I'm in my second trimester I've been feeling great. I haven't been feeling sick and my energy level has finally picked back up. We got to hear the heart beat recently and it was absolutely perfect. In a few weeks I'm having my 20 week ultrasound done. I can't wait to get some recent pictures of our little nugget. Can you believe that by this time next year I will have a 5 yr old, a 2 1/2 year old and a 6 month old. That's a thought I'm not sure I'm ready for yet.
My 8 week belly
14 week belly

Moving the house

The first week of December was quite eventful for us. Our house made the long, windy, and bumpy journey from Avila Bay Estates to the mountainous country life in Suey Creek. The mover told us he would be able to get the house out there but that didn't keep me from holding my breath. With all of the twists and turns in the road and large oak branches I was not certain our house was going to be livable by the end. It took them quite a bit longer than they had anticipated but after 3 long days, all three sections made it out there in really good shape. Now we are waiting on the man who puts the homes back together. He is hoping to start work on it Monday the 21st. Hopefully the house will be ready to start moving stuff in asap. We are getting so excited. Seeing the house on the property definitely makes it feel more real. Above you can see the top of our home from the hill top up above.

Here's the home site before any work has been done on it.


Starting to put in our septic system



They had a long hard day digging through the shale, but eventually they got the job done.



On the first day of the move, they pulled out the smallest section. It measured 12' wide by 45' long. It included part of the living room, and master bedroom. Look how tight a squeeze it was to get it through the trees.


And after many hours it finally made its way to the home site.

Looking down from the mountain top you can see the top of section one.


Papa and Zephyr keeping a close eye on all of the action.

Day 2 they pulled the two larger sections out. Both of these sections measure 10' by 60'. Here it goes on our narrow pot-hole filled Suey Creek roads.

Starting it's climb up a very steep grade.
Another tight turn.

Almost to the top of the grade.





Almost to their parking points for the day.
Here is where they parked section 3 for the night.

Section 2 is still on it's way.

Section 2 was being parked closer to the home site, so it's continuing on it's journey.


Tomorrow they will be using this remote controlled tractor to pull the 2 remaining sections.

Here is where section 2 ended up at the end of day 2


Day 3 was probably the longest and most challenging of the 3 days. Although the remaining sections only had to travel less than a mile it was very slow moving. My dad ended up having to cut down several of his beloved trees to fit the section through.

They had to lay down wooden planks to support the road in certain parts


Making a very wide turn.
Section 2 on it's last leg down the hill.
The section wouldn't fit past this tree so.......
Down the poor thing went. I promised my dad we'll replant some trees once we get out there.
Almost there
Section 2 finally made it.
Here's another shot of the little tractor
Section 3 is on it's way
Almost there


All three sections made it safe and sound.


We can't wait to wake up to that view every morning.