Kaizen Klan: May 2010

Moving Day

After a VERY long day, on Saturday May 1st, we finally made it to our new house at about 11pm. We couldn't have done it without tons of help from our wonderful family. First of all, my dad has been working very hard to get electricity and water to our house (not a small feat when your up in the mountains). Valarie came up the day before Téa's party and helped with last minute birthday stuff and also helped load the Uhaul after the birthday party. She was such a trooper. My Cousin Jennifer and her daughter Avery came down for the birthday party and went way above and beyond by staying and helping load the Uhaul as well. Lastly, a special thanks to my mom who also helped load the Uhaul, helped unload it the next day, helped me unpack things in the new house and arrange furniture. We truly are blessed and I don't know what we would have done without all of their help. The house is by no means finished but we got about 80% of the unpacking done and all of the furniture placed and the beds set up. Now the house will just have to wait for us. As long as baby cooperates, our goal is to make our last trip from Monterey to Suey Creek on Saturday June 5th. For now we are pretty much camping out of our home in Marina. The house is empty and we're living out of boxes and sleeping on blow up mattresses (not the easiest when you're 9 months pregnant). Here's a sneak peek of the house with our stuff in it:

Master bedroom

Master bathroom

The living room

Dining area

2nd Bathroom

Téa's 2nd Birthday

Happy 2nd Birthday to our little princess. I can't believe how quickly the last 2 years have flown by. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital but here we are 2 years later celebrating her 2nd birthday and about to have our third child. It really is flying by and some days I wish I could just push pause so I could really get to savor it. For her birthday we had a garden party. We had ladybugs, butterflies, bees and lots of flowers everywhere. We had a craft table setup where kids could make their own bug jar and get their face painted. Later we had a bug hunt and played pin the spots on the ladybug. Téa had a wonderful time at her party and hasn't stopped talking about "Téa's birthday". Immediately after the party we loaded the Uhaul and headed south for the remainder of the weekend to get the new house set up.

Here's the garden cake and cupcakes I made

Bee cupcakes

Ladybug cupcakes

Butterfly cupcakes

I also made several types of flower cupcakes

The spread

The craft table

Sophia rocking out with a guitar

Bugs everywhere

Getting ready for our bug hunt

Téa ready with her bug net

Téa showing Cousin Jennifer and Avery her bugs she found

Pin the spots on the Ladybug

A very 35-weeks-pregnant-Mommy getting the game ready

Téa putting her spot on (Caden supervising)

The kids making their bug jars

Pretty Miss Maura

Téa enjoying her birthday cupcake

Téa and her new Abby Caddabby puppet that she is obsessed with

And her new movie obsession Sesame Streets "3 bears and a new baby"

Avery showing off her caterpillar

Ryan and his beetle

Maura and her butterfly

Caden and his spider

Avery took matters into her own hands

Aleah and her flower petal tutu

Cheese

Caden giving me his goofy face

We are so blessed with such a wonderful family

After a very long day including a birthday party and moving we are finally on our way to the new house at 8pm

Playroom Mural

The play room has been painted for a long time now and I realized I never took pictures of it. Before we move, and have to paint over it I decided I should probably take some pictures so here they are. I'll be a little sad to see it go but I've already sketched out the murals I plan to paint in the kids room at our new house.

April 2010

The month of April has been a VERY busy month for us. We've had family and friends visit, 5 birthdays in the family, work on the house, Dr.'s appointments, a bridal shower not to mention the day-to-day life. Fortunately, we've still managed to find moments here and there to spend some time as a family. We've been lucky enough to have had some beautiful sunny days (a rare occasion in Marina) so we've been trying to spend lots of time outside.

Téa giving Daddy a big hug