HO hO Ho!

Hey, guys! Have a safe, happy, Merry Christmas!

Love,
Brad, Reiko, & baby Caylee=)

Crazy Month!

2008

A lot of things has happened since Thanksgiving. Some of you have already heard, but for those who haven't heard, we are moving to back to Bakersfield! I don't want to be real specific on the blog (maybe I will make this blog private...) because of Brad's profession, but he got his transfer in and will be working near Bakersfield. We are excited to finally own a home. We have been waiting for the right time to buy one for forever! Brad and I would love to move back up north, but that may take up awhile. So we are planning on being in Bakersfield for a little while, until he can hopefully get into air operations with his job. With that said, we have been busy going back and forth looking for "the house" to buy. We found some that we'd liked, but we are still not sure when or where to buy it. This is going to be a process. We are trying not to overwhelm ourselves and not stress out too much while looking. I must say...We are getting a little tired of looking around. We have decided to wait until after Christmas to talk to this one company to see whether they will lower their prices even more, since they will be holding a meeting before Christmas. If all works out, we are leaving this crazy city of L.A. county in March of next year- 2009(wohoo!) Wish us luck;)

fascinated by her own shoes

In the last a week or so, Caylee had figured out how to sit up on her own and is crawling everywhere around the house. She is so cute and she is very entertaining. She amazes me with what she can do. I have to watch her All the stinkin' time, since she is now getting into EVERYTHING!!! Of course, she is ALWAYS getting into things that she is not suppose to. It is going to be challenging for me from now on, since I have to watch her actions at all time. It is also making me kind of sad to see her grow. It's kind of neat, but like I have said before... I don't want her to grow!

7 1/2 month hold, Caylee

Remember the car accident that I was in on Thanksgiving weekend? Well, when I had gotten home, my back and neck was still bothering me so I found an upper cervical specialist and I have been going to him for the past 2 weeks or so. He studied my neck and back and told me that I have SCLEOSIS. Can you believe that? I try not to think about it much so I can cope with my back. My back still hurts 24 hours, but I've been getting treatments so I am in less pain, which I am very grateful for.

Talking about being grateful, I spoke in church last Sunday on Gratitude. Part of my talk I discussed about how being physically imperfect does not affect one's ability to do daily task and that one is limited only by their own fears. It suprisingly went well, and even made some people cry. The spirit was surely strong that day and I am soooooooooooooooooooo glad it is done and over with! I should've taken an anxiety pill before I got to church because I was sooooooooooooooo nervous=) We were trying to omit speaking in church this remaining year, but that didn't work out;)

So have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done yet? Every year, I always shop at the last minute! I really hate doing that but I always find myself in that same situation. Maybe getting Chrismas shopping done ahead of time will be my new year's resolution;) What are your new years resolution? I think I would like to loose 5-10lbs. before I get pregnant with another one. They say that for every child you have, you gain in average of 10lbs.

Speaking of Christmas presents, my in-laws generously had bought cruise tickets for the whole entire family. We are all going on a Mexican Riviera cruise with Princess for 7 days after Brad's sister, Beverlee gets married in January. If you look at it, we are sort of... well, we are going with her and her husband-to-be on their honeymoon. Who wants that? Sorry, Beverlee=( It is going to be a blast though, since there are a lot of people going. I remember us going 3 years ago to the West Caribbean cruise and it was sooooooooooooooo much fun. If you haven't gone on a cruise, I HIGHLY recommend it. This time, we are taking Caylee along with us, so we'll see how it goes. I hope she doesn't give us any trouble...

So what is new with your family? I would love to hear about it!
I hope you all have a happy, safe holiday season.

Whiplashed!

We left to go to my aunt's house on Monday(24th) in Sparks, N.V., for Thanksgiving and on Tuesday( on our way back home from shopping), we got in a car accident! Ugh!!! We were on our way home going straight( no stop sign) and this girl pulled out in front of us trying to turn left. My aunt was so upset because she had bought her car only a month ago. I was the passenger and the other party hit us on my side. When we got hit, the air bag did not deploy. I guess it was because it was not head on. My side of the door wouldn't open so I had to get out from the driver side. My neck is sore, I have a really bad lower back ache, and I have a bruise on my upper right chest from the seat belt. It bothered me so bad that I had to make a trip to the Chiropractor today. The X-rays showed that I had some work to be done on left side of my neck and my lower spinal cord. This week started rough, but hopefully the rest will be good. Even though this car accident wasn't major, it reminded me of the one I was in 13 years ago and I am so thankful that I wasn't seriously injured. Here are couple pictures from the accident:

My aunt's SUV

The car behind the SUV was the girl that was trying to turn left, but obviously couldn't make it on time...

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I am so grateful for many things. I have been blessed and I am so thankful for them all. There are many, but here are 10 things I am grateful for...

1. Heavenly Father
2. The Gospel to know that Families are Forever!
3. My Husband
4. My Daughter
5. My Friends
6. My Siblings
7. Our Home( Apt.=) )- We will buy a house someday
8 My trials
9. Our extended families
10. Our Safety- Our place is really getting ghetto! We would like to move ASAP=)

Pookie's Best Friend/ Caylee's New Buddy

Daddy & Caylee

We have had Pookie (our cat) for about 4 years now and I've been looking for a good home for him. For the past month, Caylee have been enjoying laughing and touching him and Pookie also loves the attention that she gives to him. He is actually really good with Caylee, but his hair gets all over and it really bothers me. Here are some pictures of them together. Seems like Caylee is torturing Pookie, but he loves it!

Best Friends

Caylee has a new friend! My friend came to my house the other day with her two kids and one of her kids, Blake (1 1/2yr old) was playing next to Caylee. I found him wanting to interact with Caylee but she just wanted to be left alone.

Blake attempted to give Caylee a kiss a few times, but she wouldn't let him...

Oh, baby!

come on, just one kiss!
Caylee: "No, no... not until I'm 16!
Can I have a peck than?

8 is great!

I have once again been tagged. This time, my friend, Tiffani tagged me!

8 TV shows I love to watch:
1. Dancing with the Stars
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. So You Think You Can Dance
4. American Idol
5. The View
6. America's Got Talent
7. Prison Break
8. The News* -I know it's not a show, but I watch the news every single day=)

8 Things that Happened to me Yesterday:
1.Caylee woke up twice last night (She is teething=( )
2. Changed, fed, and bathed Caylee (does this count for3?)
3. Went for some grocery shopping and got some killer deals***
4. Had lunch with my sister
5. Went to go see a friend of mine
6. Made Caylee's food (veggies) for the rest of the week
7. Blogged after I found my USB cord to upload my pictures
8. Went to bed a little after midnight (when Brad came back home from work)

8 Favorite Places to Eat:
1. Gogi House (in Valencia)
2. Red Lobster
3. Olive Garden (though I'm tired of breadsticks after eating them almost every time I worked for 2 years...)
4. The Cheesecake Factory
5. McDonalds (love their fries)
6. Burger King (love their Whopper)- No, I do not eat at fast food places very often, but when I do, I love it!
7. Tajoe Joe's
8. Japanese Restaurant

8 Things I am looking forward to:
1. Thanksgiving trip to Sparks, NV.
2. Spring (my favorite season!)
3. Enrichment Night- Flower Arrangement
4. Brad's days off
5. Another day with Caylee
6. Christmas
7. Getting out of this crazy apartment- It's getting really ghetto!!!
8. Seeing Caylee continue to grow

8 Things on my wish list:
1. Own a house
2. A makeover. Any volunteers? I need some suggestions=)
3. To go on another cruise (maybe after I'm done nursing Caylee-when she turns 1)
4. A mini Van. I need more room in the back and more trunk room.
6. A new kitchen table.
7. Be in better shape- too lazy to work out=) Maybe this will be my new year's resolution...
8. A new back- hurts 24 hrs.!

8 People I Tag:
1. Susan B.
2. Raquel B.
3. Alyssa P.
4. Lorna T.
5. Kristi L.
6. Saundra L.
7. Stacy H.
8. Amber L.

My USB cord came home!

For about couple weeks now, I haven't been able to upload any pictures on my computer because I had lost my USB cord for my camera. Atlas, I found it at my friend, Sarah's house. I was sad that I wasn't going to be able to blog anymore...;)

So, a few things has happened the last time I blogged. This may not be in order, but I will try my best.
Caylee had her 6 months check up yesterday. She got 4 more shots and was once again VERY upset. I felt so bad for her! The nurse left a bruise on each leg! Anyways, she weighed 15lbs 8oz. and is 25 1/2 inches long. She seems to be heavier than I thought. She is growing way too fast!

Remember when I said she sleeps through the whole night since she was 3 months old (11-13 hours)? Well, she is currently teething so she has been waking up 1-3 times a night! Ugh! I miss sleeping through the whole night. Lately, I have been sooooooo tired! Boy, I sure miss those days. I guess she isn't doing too bad because she doesn't seem to be cranky or too fussy. She just want to chew on anything and everythig she sees in sight.
She is able to sit without falling over for a while, and is lifting herself up with her arms. She is so strong, she amaze me sometimes. Here she is doing push ups;)

She is try to figure out how to crawl, but hasn't mastered going forward. I've seen her take few steps going backwards. Here is a picture of her trying to figure out her way around
I finally started introducing Caylee to solids. I was scared to feed her( don't know why), but found it funny to watch her make different expressions. I started 11 days ago and so far, I have fed her broccoli, green beans and zuccinni. She loves green beans, but dislike zuccini. She just spits out zuccini but can't get enough of them green beans. I need to upload a video of her eating her first solid food. Can anyone tell me how to do that? I am so behind on technology...=)

Caylee's first solid food, Broccolli. Next will be spinich. We'll see if she likes it

Last week, Brad went to San Jose for Airplane Seminar (AOPA) for almost 4 days( Wed. thru Sat.), so I went up to Bakersfield on Friday because I didn't want to be home alone and stayed till Saturday to see Brad. We ended up staying until Sunday morning and we came back home. We missed him so much. We were so glad he came back home safely. For 2 days, I didn't have Caylee's bath sling so I put her in the sink.

I was fooled. She was still at first (as shown in this picture), but she was kicking and splashing with her legs and by the time I was done, I was so wet, I had to change my t-shirt. She had the greatest time though...

For Halloween night, we went to a party at our friends in our ward. I was going to dress Caylee in a lady bug suit but they were all sold out=( Maybe next year. I had this pumkin onesie outfit that my friend, Leslie gave me awhile back so I put her in it. Thanks, Leslie! I dressed up as a waitress (still had my uniform from Olive Garden) and Brad dressed up as my customer. In another words, he wanted to be boring. We had so much fun having the donut eating contest, eating yummy chili and enjoying each other's company.

sorry, this one is pretty blurry...

This month so far has been a busy month for us. It seems like we have been gone out of town a lot. In 1 1/2 weeks from now, we will be out of state to Nevada. We are going there to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving. I will take pictures and post it here, now that I have my USB cord;)

Half a year old

Caylee turned 6 months today! Time definately flies- I can't believe it! She has mastered rolling around and she is trying to learn how to crawl. She kind of crawls back words, but I'm pretty sure it won't take long before she figures how to crawl forward. She is happy and sleeps very well. Though, she is starting to wake up 1-2 hours earlier than normal. She might be teething because she is drooling and messing with her lower lip a lot. I can't really tell because she hasn't been really fussy. What are the signs? Am I suppose to give her something when she is teething? She will be visiting the Pediatrician in 2 weeks. I can't wait to find out how much she weigh. She seems to have gained a few pounds from the last doctor's visit. I haven't started her on solids yet, but I think I might do so pretty soon. I don't know if this sounds silly but I'm kind of nervous. Nervous about what? I am not really sure, but I just feel that way.

Botanical Garden

I'm always blogging about things that had happened couple of days ago or last week, and I'm so bad about posting it right away. I will try to blog more often so that I can talk about things that happened just recently. I always say to myself that I would do it later and later ends up being 1 week+! I guess I'm not a true blogger like some of you are...;)

Well, I wanted to post this last Thursday about when I went to the Huntington Library with my friend, Melanie. Melanie and I became good friends when I used to work for Olive Garden. She and I had our babies 3 weeks apart! She is one of the manager at OG. She and I visited the Botanical Garden in Huntington Library. It was so pretty!

All smiles

The Japanese Garden

Learning how to sit
Being silly...
Me and Caylee w/ Melanie and her daughter, Jasmine

BoO!

On Friday this week, Brad, Caylee and I took a trip with really good friends of ours from church (Carson's) to Bakersfield to go to the Banducci's Pumpkin Patch. We went through a maze and enjoyed each other's company as we got lost=) We also had fun picking out different shapes of pumkins. Brad went to the same high school with the twins that own the pumkin patch, so we were able to get as many pumkins as we wanted. It has been our little family's tradition. It was Caylee's first Halloween and I think she enjoyed it.

Caylee's 1st Pumkin

Our friends... Sara(Mom), Justin(Dad), Kiley& Blake(their kids)

These glasses looked so cool, I had to put one of them on on...baby
Caylee=)

Wedding!/Zoo

Back when I was in school, I took floristry classes and I learned how to make bouquets, bootneers( I don't know how to spell it...), and different sorts of arrangements. Well, my classes paid off because my cousin is getting married tomorrow and she needed a bouquet made, along with his fiance's bootneer. I was a little nervous because it has been about 8 years since I last made one, but I think I worked it out;) What do you think?

Need a bouquet anyone?

Last Friday, Brad, Caylee and I went to the L.A. Zoo. We had so much fun looking at different animals. Brad tried getting Caylee to recognize the Lambs, but I don't think she really knew what they were...

It was quite a sunny day


This elephant was playing with a tire. After playing, he took #2 and started eating it( yuck!)

Toward the end of our zoo trip, we saw...
and I told Brad that I wanted one=) I think the baby gorillas are so dang cute!

Daddy & Caylee

I think the next trip is going to have to be the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. They have a really good bird show.

Happy Caylee

Caylee turned 5 months old yesterday! She is trying and learning different tricks everyday and becoming more aware of her surroundings. Here are "5" things she is good at doing:

1. Sits on her own with support

2. Smile and recognize mom and dad

3. Sleeps through the night (11-13 hours)

4. Turns and roll all over

5. Her legs are strong! She is able to stand with help

Caylee with her friends from church, Kiley and Blake

Our Ward has a lot of elderly people so we only have Kiley, Blake and another girl, Bella. So there is only 4 kids in our ward total! Can you believe it? Caylee is the youngest one.

Time passes by fast!

In 3 days, Caylee will be turning 5 months old! It doesn't seem like it has been 5 months already. Caylee is growing up too fast. Sometimes I wish she can stay small forever=)

Couple of days ago, my former boss from Olive Garden called me up and invited me for a lunch at Olive Garden. It was nice seeing everyone and enjoyed my meal for *FREE*

Melanie is a sales manager at Olive Garden and she had her baby 3 weeks before me. Her baby is alredy starting to crawl (What!?!?!)

Caylee and Jasmine getting to know each other

Do you think Caylee is double jointed...?

After lunch, Melanie and I took our daughters to Griffith Park and Caylee rode on a swing for the first time. She was so small in the swing, she looked like a little pea, it was funny. She loved it; I need to take her to the park more often.

Cute bow, Saundra- Thanks!

I'm Thankful

Ever since Caylee was born, I have not been back to work because I chose to be a stay home mom. I have to say that I have been struggling with this and it has been a difficult adjustment. Some moms wish that they could stay home, but for me, I missed the social life. There are several pros and cons. Good things about staying home is that I can be with Caylee and see the changes she is making, breastfeed, and not miss out on her growing up. The bad thing about staying home mom is that I'm with her 24 hours and she is starting to recogonize faces and cries when she realizes she is not with me.

I know I am complaining, but I don't want to sound selfish either. How can I make this adjustment? Anyone have a suggestion?

I really have mixed feelings. I truly want to stay home and be there for Caylee, but part of me still want to go back to work. Does anyone have this feeling, or is it just me? Maybe I just feel this way because Caylee is still young and I can't have real conversations with her... or maybe I need to have another one to keep me ocupied. Wait a minute... Never mind. I'm so used to doing mulitiple things at once I always feel like I need to be doing something.

You know, I might sound like I'm complaining (ok, I am complaining), but I am very grateful that I get to spend quality time with Caylee and be able to bond with her. I'm also grateful for Brad for working so hard so that I have the option to stay home. I can't ask for anthing more. He is a wonderful, hard working man and I love him so much.

Thanks for letting me get this out of my system. I feel a little better=)

Some Fun!

This past weekend, Brad and I went to Santa Clarita to go miniature golfing. There was nice waterfall built into the course and pretty trees and flowers too. Despite the hot weather that day, we had so much fun. We played two games, both times Brad claimed that he won, but I personally think he cheated a few times. It was a pretty close game! ( I'm the better golfer...=) ) Here are some pictures:

Here, Brad is starting over. He thought I wouldn't notice

Beautiful!

To end the day, we went to a Korean Restaurant called, Gogi House in Santa Clarita. They have the best Korean BBQ ever! This is our new favorite restaurant, and we are planning on going back there again. Come and visit us, we would love to take you there;) Sorry, I failed to take some pictures...

Caylee was so tired, she fell asleep on our way to dinner

Next day, Caylee and I went to Valencia to see one of my friend who I've known for almost 11 years. We hung out for the day and had some great time.

While we were there, we saw this beautiful yellow butterfly.