A Busy Week

Hello!

(Warning: Picture loaded, long story post!)

I hope that everyone is keeping somewhat cool during this crazy, 112 degree heat wave that we've been having!  I'm sorry for the week off, but let me show you what we were up to...

Yes, my little guy started Preschool.  It was a morning with a little bit of tears.... not from Adam though!

Grammy took him "School Shopping" the week before and he picked out this shirt for his first day.

And this backpack.  It's only as big as him, but he did have it full... of his stuffed animals!

A little pep talk from Daddy while we're walking up to the school.

A name tag!  Yay!

Good Morning, Teacher!

Along with starting preschool, we got our lost pet back!  Let me fill you all in.  A few weeks ago my BIL's fiance gave us a tortoise her family had found in the street.  We were estatic!  I had a tortoise growing up, and with my allergies, well, any animal without fur, hair or feathers are our only options... so, let me introduce you to the Jessup families first pet, Rango!

We were so excited that Alan and Adam starting fixing his enclosure immediately!  They took out an Oleander tree, tons of bushes, rocks, and built him a wooden "safe" home.  We also took Rango to the local reptile store to find out what kinda of tortoise he was and we have ourselves an African Spur Thigh!  He doesn't hibernate, he's under a year old, he'll grow to be around 100-150 lbs!  By the time he's 10 years old, he'll be full sized and by full sized, I mean huge!  Like, throw a saddle on him and ride him to town, HUGE!

We let him out of his enclosure every day to play with us, graze in the yard and we normally let him go for a little dip...

You can see it in his eyes, he really enjoys this.

Well, the Saturday before Preschool, Rango escaped!  We still don't understand how, but he "ran away".  We were able to follow his poop trail to the drive way next door, but then our trail went cold.  We made a "Lost Tortoise" sign, talked to our neighbors, put a trail of lettuce leading  back to our house and hung our heads.  We were seriously upset.  I was honestly surprised at how upset Adam was, I wasn't sure that a 3.5 year old would understand, but he did.

Well, on Monday after dropping off Adam at school and getting breakfast, running a few errands we came home to make a lunch for Adam and get his emergency kit ready to take back to school and pick him up.  A knock sounded on our door and Alan answered it.  There was our neighbor, with a large bucket and Rango inside!  I guess the gardeners found him in the rose bushes.  Silly Rango.

We were all so happy, we had a pool party after Preschool.

I'll be better about posts this week, I have a few projects to share and I've been working every preschool morning on more!

Here's to hoping your Monday brings your a nice surprise!
Andrea

Off the beaten path...

I often try to keep my posts more inspiration centered rather than personal, but we've had a busy week so I wanted to share a little more than normal, in the way of a celebration.

I know that in the past I've talked about some of the challenges that Adam faced as a newborn/baby with his health.  We were super lucky to have a beautiful boy 2 months early; he was born with an array of health concerns... so many that we had to focus on the BIG challenges one at a time.  Once Adam started breathing normally (he would stop breathing up to 24 times a night and during naps), he was 18 months and wee celebrated taking him off the apnea monitor and bradicardiogram machine.  We didn't forget about his other health issues, but over time, they seemed further and further away from our daily life.




Adam Brody, 6 days old


About 10 days ago we saw Adam's primary physician who is fantastic.  He is thorough, caring, compassionate and I NEVER feel like he's watching the clock and cutting corners while he's taking care of Adam.  And now I have to backtrack a little... when Adam was born, one of his health concerns was a tumor on his brain.  His wonderful doctors at Kaiser monitored it closely, we had numerous ultrasounds and, when appropriate, a sedated MRI.  The last MRI that we had didn't show any changes with the tumor, so Kaiser helped us to breathe a sigh of relief and, while we knew that we'd have to monitor it, it didn't seem so scary any longer.

At the afore mentioned appointment, Adam's doctor was concerned with Adam's tumor.  We were immediately referred to a Neuro Surgeon at Loma Linda and for another sedated MRI.  Now, it's not that I'd forgotten about the tumor, but I'd become complacent with Adam's health.  He's an amazing, energetic, high octane and overall healthy (especially from where we started off) little 3 year old boy.  He's fantastic, if not a little challenging.  I was completely floored when the doctor said neuro surgeon - I held it together (barely) while he was talking to me about the referrals and then I was scared.  Very scared.
We got into see the Neuro Doctor on Monday of this week.  He explained some of the abnormalities of Adam's brain but was not impressed by anything he saw - which is a great thing!  And basically he reassured us that Adam's okay, his brain formation, while not normal, is not a problem until it's a problem.  Which means, that until we see specific symptoms, we go about our business, like celebrating what a special, healthy and tough little guy we have.

Business as usual is on the menu for the Jessup house.

I love this picture.  He popped up in front of the picture and then popped back down.

I'll be back tomorrow with my traditional post that is all about inspiration.
Andrea

"New cup, new cup! Move down!"

Our Mad Hatter's very merry un-birthday was a huge success!  I think the queen was very happy...


Queen Loida and Injun Robert

Of course, the queen's motto is "Let them eat cake!"  So we did!

Our Cheshire Cat lost his eyebrows, but he's still pretty darn cute!  We couldn't eat off normal plates, that would be ridiculous, so we used a little bit of Modge Podge and printed clocks onto vellum and adhered them to the bottom of clear plates.

We blew up 400 balloons for the occasion.  Yes.  4 . 0 . 0 .

We hung lanterns, all different sizes, colors and shapes.  We also hung a bunch of umbrella's, all different sizes and shapes.  We made tissue balls and hung those as well.  My mom had the great idea of hanging empty frames - we wanted the "sky" to look like the hole that Alice fell down into.  I love how this turned out, I'm not going to lie!  My Dad and brother helped with this part of the decor, they were troopers while listening to me tell them "Umm, can you move that umbrella over 3 inches?  It'll look perfect!" and "Think clusters, I want clusters!" 

And we cannot forgot that you must have your head covered when you are in the Queens presence, so here's some of our hats!

Mad Hatter Maya

Sis-in-law, Christine, and her pretty Pansy Hat

Me with my Mad Hatter Cheshire Cat hat



Uncle Stan as the White Rabbit, Meghann and Courtney as the Tweedles and cutie Emmerson


and we must not forget the characters! 




Aunt Dianna and Cousin Susan - aka - Tweedles



The King, Alice, the Queen and the White Rabbit - aka - my parents and pseudo parents



My parents - this is the way they typically look when they're talking to me



Mateo as the cutest White Rabbit ever



And I think that smile is the best possible way to end this post!  I'll be back later this week with even more pictures from the party! 

Hope you have a merry start to your week!
Andrea

Too many tidbits about me?

Hello!

I havn't blogged in a while (I kept meaning to, but then I'd have to get my camera, then upload my pictures of projects and, in some instances, take pictures and it just wasn't happening for some reason...) but then I saw this on Trish's blog and thought, "This could be fun..." so here I go.  A lot of randomness

Me and Adam - I was exhausted after this field trip - he was not...

 Food: I love Mexican food, love love love carne asada, pollo asada, tortilla soup, machaca but I also love my Dad's smoked ribs or tri-tip and I LOVE corned beef!  And any kind of chocolate!

Color:  I love pink... I don't really wear that much of it and I seldom get to put it in our house, but I love it... yellow makes me happy, our blue/grey walls make me feel calm, orange makes me pop... I love all colors...  My best friends made fun of me once for wrapping something very "colorfully" - which meant tacky, but now look who deals with color everyday!  Oh, I cannot stand purple!

Animals: We have a ton of fish.  At one point Adam named them Ringo, Paul, Beatles, Echo, Elmo, Mickey, Yumm, and I think (per his Daddy's suggestion) Food.  I don't know which is which, and I bet if we asked Adam today what the fishies names were he'd have a totally different list.  I'm in the process of adopting a desert tortoise... awaiting yard inspection.  Due to allergies, we can't have pets with fur, which is a bummer.

Dessert: As I mentioned before, I LOVE chocolate in any form!  I also love Litehouse Sugar cookies - they're so soft and they always have the best icing:cookie ratio.  Oh, and costco cake!  Yum!  And my grandma's lemon meringue pie - it's amazing and Smore's!

Artists:  I honestly like a wide variety... I like artists from Kanye to Lady Antebellum, Journey (who doesn't?) The Black Eyed Peas, CeeLo - America's Top 40... my nephew asked me why I listen to "his" music... Uhhh, hello?  I'm not that old!

Pair of Shoes:  my new BOB's from sketches - I love them!  They're super comfy and adorable!  Typically I'm a flip flop girl - since it seldom gets super cold here my flip-flops stay out year long!

Outfit:  I like layering... I love dresses, they're just so easy and comfy.  I also wear my gray boyfriend cardi EVERYWHERE!  I should've bought 10 of them because I'm dreading the day it tears...

Skinny Jeans:  Okay, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I have 1 pair of skinny jeans and 1 pair of jean leggin's - both of which I SWORE I'd never own!  I'm not a tiny girl (far from) and anything with the word "skinny" to describe it isn't something that I'd normally try but I HAD to so I could wear my boots this past winter...

Brand:  Gap, Anthropologie, Banana Republic, Target... Gap fits my body well, Anthro is a dream to have enough $$ to shop there, Banana is for really really really special occasions, Target is a dependable - I know that I can always find something there that'll be cute and not expensive.

Perfume:  I'm allergic, like ubber sensitive, so everything that I wear is sans scent...

Accessory:  my owl earrings or Adam's birthstone necklace that I got from Alan and Adam on my first Christmas as a mommy.  I'm hoping for a Lisa Leonard necklace for Mother's Day...

City:  Redlands, which is about 1 hour from Disneyland, the OC, Big Bear, Palm Springs and about 1.5 hours from Los Angeles - it's perfect to raise a family, small but close to everything big!

Hobbies:  Crafting, sewing, reading, blog hopping and, lately, antique shopping

Beauty Products:  Clinique face soap, make-up and Bumble & Bumble hair products - it's a splurge but soo worth it!

Holiday:  Christmas, then Halloween, then Valentines...

Snack:  lately, yogurt covered raisins, but typically a "trail mix" called Indulgence (real healthy) or cheese-itz or candy/cookies - whatever is least healthy is what I gravitate towards

Movie: Elf, Love Actually, El Mariachi, Motorcycle Diaries, Funny Girl, Sense and Sensability... again, it's a wide range.  I love chick-flicks, but I love certain action movies and Motorcycle Diaries is a feast for your eyes, it's beautiful and you forget that it's in subtitles.

Song:  My Life - The Beatles and John Coltrane's C Minor

Guilty Pleasure:  Watching horrible reality television (Bravo, anyone?) and eating lunch while Adam's napping... I know that I should be working but smut is always calling me!

Seven things you may or may not know about me:

1.  I am still best friends with most of my BFF's from Elementary and Junior High School.

2.  I married my high school sweetheart, just not for 8 years after high school :)

3.  I have a degree in English: Creative Writing, emphasis: Non-fiction.  Yah - it's super useful.

4.  I wanted to go into editing or publishing and spend my whole days reading books.

5.  I used to HATE peanut butter - now I don't know what I was thinking - Reese's PB Cups are probably my 2nd favorite candy - Cadburry Bars are my first.

6.  I cannot stand clowns.  I think they're creepy and don't understand the need for them to exist.

7.  I will never move, I am very close to my family and cannot imagine a life where they were not a daily/weekly part of it - I live within 20 minutes of the most important people in my life (except my sister and Jenny)

8.  I think that I could've been the first female pro baseball player.  My father and pretty much everyone who knows me, disagrees, BUT, I'm convinced.  

9.  My son was the best, most honest miracle that has ever happened in my life.   

10.  I want to someday be like Martha Stewart (only without the jail time) OR Tim Holtz or Heidi Swapp - I would love to turn my passion into a full-fledged business.  People would say "Oh, who's paper is that?"  and someone would respond, "It's Andrea". 

Okay, that's all for me!  If you feel like this was a fun little something, do the same thing on your blog and send me the link - it'd be fun to get to know all the little things that make each other up!  So much more interesting than the normal stats!

Andrea

Happy Easter!

This is how Easter progresses in our house...  We woke up at 6:15 am and had to immediately see what the EB brought... and we were so excited to find a new baseball helmet, glove and ball! 

So, we immediately wanted to play catch in. the. house.  Momma don't think so.

Off we went to the school down the street.  Momma approves.

Does anyone else think Adam looks like a real bobble head?

Swing follow through - look at that determination!

Yummy.  Cream filled, homemade cupcakes with homemade filling and buttercream icing.

EB cake

Kids waiting for the hunt!

We're not kidding.  We want ALL the green eggs.

Sigh.  Trying to get a group pic... why is it impossible?

Sweet, no-nap Emme.  Even without a nap, she's the cutest!

Oh, no, they're not models... they just look like ones.

Adam and Aidan, playing catch after Easter Dinner

Action shot.  Nice. 

After catch, we played inside, then came home from Bubbles and Papas and I don't think I'll move off the couch, I'll just sleep here!  Who knew that Easter could be as exhausting as Christmas!

I hope that you had an Easter filled with as much yummy, colorful, running, and loving moments as we did!

-A