mother's day

so it's no surprise to any of my readers (all 3 of you) that i'm a little late when it comes to the blog posts. so this one's about mother's day which was 2 months ago! the day before mother's day, i got to have my own special day with just Dylan and Chad, which included me getting a manicure/pedicure (first one in a looooooong time). it was a great day. we then spent the actual holiday with our mothers. the day started at my parents' house where the men, Chad, Josh and Pops shopped, purchased and prepared lunch for all of us. it was a great lunch! they made chicken, shrimp and veggie kabobs, succotash, and mudd pie, well they didn't make the mudd pie, they bought it, but that didn't matter, it was delish! oh and we even had some wonderful appetizers!

Josh and Chad in the kitchen!

Joshie getting his kabob on

we then followed the day up at the mother-in-law's place. Tico, Kelly, Trey, Em and Grandma were there. we had a great time hanging, playing games, looking at old pictures and telling great stories.

aww, sibling love

the cutest cousins

about sums it up!

there we go, that's better

Grandma with her kiddos

me and my girl

we finished the day by taking Chad's mom to dinner at the Yard House and Ray got to serve us. it was a wonderful ending to a great day.

adios casa de los campos

every year for easter, we join Chad's family in fallbrook for an all-out easter celebration! Uncle Phil and Aunt Debbie live in a beautiful home on a hill with an avocado orchard. the easter celebration includes family, friends and an extravagant egg hunt for all ages. the egg hunt is famous for it's "golden egg". the finder of the golden egg gets the pot of money everyone contributes to. however, because the stakes are so high, Uncle Phil gets way too crafty and it's sooo hard to find!! either way, we always have a wonderful time there. unfortunately this was the last easter at casa de los campos. the house has officially sold so we must find a new place to celebrate and egg hunt :( so long casa de los campos, you hold great memories for all of us, especially the manuell family.

the grounds

Pops doing a little bird-watching

Chad enjoying the view

uppy daddy?

the newest egg-hunter, precious Ella Lee English

disneyland

Dylan recently experienced disneyland for the first time! it's a bit early for her to really grasp the concept, especially considering she doesn't watch tv or movies and

therefore doesn't recognize any characters. nonetheless, it was a fun time. our cousins Andy and Whitney came out to california to visit from texas. whitney had never been and so we decided to make a day of it. thank you Andy and Whitney for a great and memorable time!

the ever-so-necessary family photo at the entrance

(complete with asian tourists in the background)

Dylan on main st, usa

this was on the wall at mr. toad's wild ride, i'm not sure what the guy was whispering to the horse's ass. i guess we'll never know!

this was the expression on Dylan's face the entire time we were on any ride. this was the first shot on her first ride ever, mr. toad's wild ride.

can't remember what they call this now, but it used to me the swiss family robinson's treehouse

Dylan LOVED Whitney! it was the first time i've seen her take to someone new so quickly. and, of course, Whitney was so great with her. she practically took care of her the whole time they were here. it was like a mini break for me!

after our long day we met up with Nanny and Pops for a late dinner at ruby's

fail blog

okay, so...i failed. miserably. i couldn't even complete two weeks of my photo-a-day blog experiment. oh well. we have been crazy busy with all kinds of things good, bad and ugly! i'm working on a super-duper, ultra-amazing, gonna blow your mind blog post. it'll take me some time so in the meantime, enjoy this video. Dylan LOVES to dance. the extra fun part of this video is that we were using "back-up" diapers (random store-brand i bought in a pinch while out one time) cause i didn't make it to the target that sells the big box of my fave 7th gen diapers, however, Chad confused Franki's diapers with Dylan's back-ups, which are different sizes. sooo, she's wearing a tiny diaper. she obviously could care less! watch and enjoy!

day 14 - i can skip days right?

we've been enjoying the little tease of summer weather we've been getting...it's been HOT!!

day 12

somebody's glad daddy's home

day 10

so today is more than a photo, it's many photos. Chad returned home from hawaii last night. Dylan was already in bed when he got home, so she didn't know he was here until this morning. she spent the morning following him around. it was adorable!! unfortunately though, we didn't spend much time with him. he has already left for a weekend trip. while he was home he had time to shower, sleep, eat oatmeal, unpack some clothes to wash, go to irvine for a meeting, come home, pack for the weekend, and eat lunch. he then left for a weekend trip. poor guy. no time off. watching Dylan with him this morning was the sweetest thing ever, but it made it harder for him to leave. our day ended better though, since my mom is out of town too, Dylan and i met Pops for dinner at, my favorite, Caffe la Strada on 2nd. we ate, took a little stroll down 2nd and had yogurtland. it was a fun time! thanks for the date Pops!

here's Dylan watching Chad unpack a few things to wash so he could repack them

she even watched out the window while he went out to the garage to put his clothes in the wash

she watched him wash his face

and dry his face

but then it was time to say goodbye...see you sunday!

dinner date with Pops

strolling 2nd st

and finally yogurtland...yum!

day 9

my best friend Josie has a daughter who is 9 months younger than Dylan. Francesca (Franki) Louise is Dylan's bestest girlfriend. it has been so fun to watch them together and we look forward to watching them grow in to the best of friends! here's Dylan and Franki:

(you can click on the photo to see it a little larger)

day 8

to start off, Dylan is a year and a half old today! i can't even believe it. she's such a sweet girl and such a blessing. Dylan has been waking up "dryer" each day, so we are patiently awaiting the dry mornings so we can get started on potty training!! yay!!! we went ahead and bought Dylan a potty so she can familiarize herself and hopefully start to associate it so that when the time comes she is ready to go! my goal has been to have her potty trained by 2, so i'm not concerned with time. it'll happen when she's ready. i am glad though that she has shown interest and curiosity in the whole thing. she has definitely been watching what we've been doing in the bathroom. she even sort of says potty. it's kind of like potty without the t's. anyway, i'm pretty confident that i can be diligent enough to be one of those parents that can make the transition in a day. that way she's fully done with diapers in a week (except at nights), but to you parents out there, i'm totally open for some advice here. what has worked for you? what can you recommend to do/not to do? let's hear it!

day 7

today my friend Holly called and invited us to join her and Ojaio in seal beach for play and a picnic. it was freezing because of the ridiculous wind (i'm such a wuss about wind, i hate it!). nevertheless, we had a very good time playing on the playground, having lunch in the grass and climbing a tree. i think Dylan was trying to say Ojaio too. it was really cute. it is so hard to believe that Ojaio will be 4 in a couple of weeks! wow, time flies!

day 6

lately, Dylan's vocabulary has been growing daily, literally. she is such a sponge and a lot of what she learns is just by example. she's also very quick to pick up on something. my new favorite thing she does is when she puts clothes on or if she puts on something being silly, like sunglasses or a hat, she goes into our bedroom, closes the door and looks in the mirror that hangs on the back of the door. she then turns around in a circle, mimicking what Chad or i would do if we were to put something on and look in the mirror. when we first realized that was what she was doing, i was dying. she's so adorable. in the last few days she has added blow, glasses, miss you, chair, purse, up, down and done to her vocab.

day 5

Chad's been gone since wednesday on a trip to his motherland with the element team. that's right, he's in hawaii! lucky guy. he got to go early and hang out with his brother Dane, whom I also miss. he said it was like they were kids again. he's always wanted to visit oahu. we've gone to maui and kauai, which is where his dad was raised, but he has a lot of family from oahu. his grandmother is buried there, but he was unable to find out where so that he could visit her. we miss Chad and look forward to thursday when he finally comes home.

miss you daddy! love you!

day 4

no words needed.

day 3

okay, so this picture is not the best quality and Dylan looks really asian because it's blurry, but i wanted to post it anyway. we met up with Toni and her family for dinner and once Dylan warmed up, her and Bailey had some fun together.

day 2

last week we went to my mother-in-law's office to take her out to lunch, and so she could show Dylan off to her co-workers. when we got there we hopped on the elevator. there were 2 ladies on the elevator and one of them looked incredibly familiar to me, but as always, i couldn't figure out how i knew her. so we go to the office and hang out for a bit and as we were headed out to lunch the ladies from the elevator were there in the same office and stopped to talk to Dylan. almost immediately, the familiar one asked if i had had Dylan at hoag. i said "i knew you looked familiar!" she was one of the nurses on my delivery! she told us (and everyone that was now standing around) how it was her first delivery on her rotation and that it was the most amazing delivery ever. [warning: the bragging really begins here] the lady she was with chimed in when she started talking about me and how i delivered Dylan drug-free (and scream-free at that) and said, "oh that's you? she's mentioned you several times!" i was blushing. anyway, Chad commented on how it is so strange to go through such an intimate moment of your life with people and then never see them again. it was really neat to run into Heather and for her to get to see Dylan now, a year and a half later. here is Heather with Dylan and i.

photo a day-take 1

so, I feel as though I've been sucking at this blogging thing lately. I've really wanted to post more. so to get the ball rolling, I'm challenging myself to start a project: a photo a day. I plan on posting one photo per day for a month to help me get my momentum back for blogging. thank you Jenny for inspiring me to "keep it coming"!

today's photo was taken in Uncle Josh's office. Josh watched Dylan for a few hours today and when I picked her up, we went up to his office to meet his co-workers. thanks to him, she's infamous (that means more than famous lol) up there! this is D hard at work:

exhibit A

here's a sampling of what Dylan does with phones. just a sampling, it gets better. more to come.

where does the time go?

It has been months since my last update. Time flies when you are chasing around a toddler! Dylan is now 17-months old. She's so much fun. She has gotten such a great personality showing through these last few months. She is super silly and funny. She's also very smart. (I know,

every mother says this. That's fine though.) This is what Dylan has been up to lately:

expanding her vocabulary

mommy

daddy

dog

bird

cat

cow

sheet (sheep)

donkey

ball

eat

pay (pray)-she folds her hands and says this when we sit down to eat and usually 3 or 4 times during the meal

nanny

pops

josh-yes, with a j! she only said it with a d for a short time

ni-night-she says this when she's ready to lay down for a nap or bed time)

boss you (bless you)-said, in fact, when someone sneezes and sometimes when one coughs

daint doe (thank you)

aside (outside or inside, depending on where she is and where the desired destination is)

where doe (where'd it [or he or she or whatever] go?)

baby

bobby

bath

data (cracker)

bapple (apple)

nana (banana)

cheese

eyes

toes

bayee (belly)

no-brilliant right? i try not to teach her no and of course she enjoys the use of it!

yea

wa-wa (water)

oooh, teentee (oh, stinky)

who'saat (who's that?)

hi

bye-bye

dance

*update: she also says horse, bait-bo (skateboard), shoes and where's your shoes?*

Dylan uses all these words in their proper context.

Gosh, I know there are more. I will update that when I remember them! There have been a few 3-word phrases she has used as well. I knew I should have written them down, but they'll come back to me.

She also knows and usually uses sign language for eat, more, all done, thank you and she has her own for "love you". It started with teaching her to blow a kiss. We would say "love you" and blow kisses. She would blow kisses with her hand just under her chin instead of on her mouth. Now when we say blow kisses, sometimes she will do that. But when we say "love you" she will

put her hand under her chin (as if to rest on it) off to the side. and that's her "love you". It's the most precious thing you've ever seen. Trust me.

She also knows the sounds of a cat, monkey, cow, duck, sheep, owl, lion, and says choo-choo for a train.

Oh and she counts to 3. No big. There was actually a full day that she was counting to 5. But it hasn't happened since. She will count to 3 just before hopping down a big step or getting up from a seat, or doing something super exciting. And sometimes just for fun.

Dylan also enjoys high-fives and knuckles (or pound). Oh and you gotta see kung-fu hands if you haven't yet. My mom has it on video. I'll get that from her and post it on here. It's great! Anyhow, as you can see, Dylan's been busy growing and learning. Everyday is something new. It's so wonderful to watch her grow and to see her mind work.

Here are some recents: (Check out her hair, it's growing like wildfire!)

first painting experience for Pops today- Happy Birthday Pops!

paparazzi shot

Dylan Tim Tim seen shopping this week with her mother and grandmother at ToysRUs

learning to water the plants like Pops

mommy taught her how to line her dolls up

praying

enjoying the sunshine

hangin' with precious cousin Trey