Thursday, December 20, 2007

Baby 3 at Last!

Its already been over a month since baby 3 finally decided to join us in the real world, but somehow I haven't had time to post some pictures. I did send around an email, but I've felt bad about neglecting my monthly committment to the blog. There won't be many details, but I had to at least post a few pictures.


Hadley Reece
Born November 7, 2007 (11/7/07)
10 lbs 0 ozs
23" long


We love the date, and if I can't remember that birthday then all is lost for me:)

The hospital actually measured her at 21" at birth, but we don't think they were too careful because she measured 23" and then 24" a couple days later. So unless she sprouted an inch a day we're pretty sure they just didn't pay attention. We didn't care for the nurse that cleaned her up and measured her anyway, but that's another story...

A couple pics of Hadley with Emmy, Gage, and Blake:






HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!!!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween is so much fun with kids. I don't even remember having that much fun when I used to go out trick-or-treating. Emmy designed the jack-o-lantern this year on paper first and then I set out to carve her creation.


I think it turned out to be my favorite Halloween pumpkin ever!!! I couldn't have made one that interesting to save my life. Behold, Emmy's 7 eyed Monster!!!


Emmy has been excited for over a month and she could hardly stand it all day waiting for it to get dark. At 4 PM she even said, "You know, its God's fault its not dark yet" HA!!! I had a good laugh at that. I then tried a disertation on how if God gave us what we wanted all the time we wouldn't be able to be happy because everything would be too easy. Of course the point was entirely lost on her. Having things her way all the time sounded pretty good to her:) Hope she grows out of it, but she is a girl... :)

Fortunately it gets dark pretty early this time of year so after an early dinner we all got dressed up, and much to my surprise, everyone enjoyed it...and I mean everyone!

I thought Gage would hate being stuck in his outfit, but he wore it all night long without complaint. He looked so cute as a giraffe.

Emmy was a truly terifying witch. It didn't take any convincing to get her to hold still for makeup. She loves dressing up, and she has been talking about being a witch for ages. She could hardly take it that it was finally time.


My favorite part was when we met some neighbors for pictures, and ALL the girls had dressed like princess brides. That's all Emmy could talk about last year, but this year it was all witch for her. This picture of her among all the sweet princesses makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it. I just love it!


I didn't think I'd be able to convince Blake to dress up, but what better way to utilize a 5-day overdue prego belly than on Halloween?


And of course, I dressed up as myself...white trash hick boy from Eastern Oregon:)

Don't I look handsome:)

Blake got the most attention by far. Everyone that passed would gasp when they realized it was her real belly, and at least 20 people stopped to take pictures. It really was quite a site. Both the kids got tons of compliments too. Their outfits were fantastic. Nobody really loved mine...but a few people did say something about Farmer Bob...or offered their orthodondists number... I think too many people thought my fake teeth were real...or maybe it was just a boring outfit. Most of the parents didn't even dress up, so I personally thought we were the cutest family in the neighborhood:)

Friday, September 28, 2007

Halloween in September

So this year Emmy is SOOOOO excited about Halloween. She has been shopping with momma for costumes and decorations for the last two weeks and spent hours decorating the house with momma. We've tried to warn her that the baby is due around Halloween so we don't know what's going to happen yet. We may be trick-or-treating in the hospital, but gosh darn it we're dressing up and getting some candy!!!

The kids have both tried on their potential outfits. Gage isn't so sure about his. It lasted all of 10 or 15 seconds and he was over it! He might have to go dressed as a baby... or Charlie Brown (thanks for the idea mom!)



Emmy is not only patient with her outfit, but absolutely dedicated to being a terrifying witch!!! She's been studying the door hanging of a witch we put on her bathroom and said she MUST have a big warty green nose and pointy chin, and while she was sitting on the toilet the other night announced that she MUST have a green bottom too. We were impressed she projected the green skin from the face of the witch to the rest of the witch's unseen body, but its a theme that's getting a bit tired in our household. Emmy has a recent fixation on her bodily functions. Its just a stage, and a healthy one no doubt, but it will be nice when she wants to talk about something else:) Good thing Halloween is coming. Its been a great distraction. From first thing in the morning til right before bed she wants to wear her witch hat around the house and we had to hide the $1 broom, afraid it would break before the big night!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Auntie Cara Comes to Dana Point

Auntie Cara and Uncle Tyler came to visit from Mesa last weekend with a big group of Tyler's friends from High School. Of course the weekend they decide to come is the first rainy cold weekend since April!!! It was a beautiful weekend at the beach though, and a nice change from the 140 degree Arizona weather! They didn't seem to mind the cool wind. Dana Point was beautiful, especially from a beach house, and the kids loved the piles of rocks there.

35 Weeks - YIKES!!!

Yep, we are officially on standby. Baby 3 any day now. I'm scrambling frantically at work trying to stay caught up. It would be just my luck to have the baby come right before a deadline. With deadlines every day I can't do much to avoid it... but at least I can try! Blake has just finished organizing everything and giving the house a good cleaning. All she has left to do is pack the hospital bag and get as much sleep as possible!!!

Blake is still getting as cute as ever, but that belly is getting pretty ripe! She stuck on some tatoos (thanks Piper) so the kids could put their hands on her belly and Emmy loves it. This one's my favorite:


Slideshow of more belly and kid pics
(Click on pictures for larger pics or to download from web albums)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

First Day of Preschool!!!

I wish it was my first day of preschool. That sounds fun right now:) But no, Emmy just started for the Fall on Sept 18. This is her excitedly jumping out of the car to run in, and she was definitely excited!!!

When she gets there she always runs straight to the table and starts drawing or painting. It seems to be her favorite.

I'm always curious what else she does in preschool because she doesn't talk about it much. I think she likes having somewhere she can go that's all for her!!! I'm tempted to ask her teacher if I can set up a video camera for the day, just so I know how she is when she's away from us. I'm so used to her being home with us that I can't stand not knowing everything. Now Blake can't even fill me in on her antics... I guess I'll have to get used to it.

When Emmy started summer preschool she bumped her face on the first day and had a huge bruise across her nose and lips. On her first day of Fall school Gage had an alergic reaction to some antibiotics and had a horrible rash.

As my mom always says... there's always something...

Better rash than a spill down the stairs or something. They keep us on our toes!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Evil Minivan....

Yes....its true...the Martins own a minivan :(

Do I need to say more?

Now Blake can't ever say I didn't buy her a really nice present. See, doesn't she look happy and grateful?

The car seats are huge these days and our Camry wouldn't fit 3 across in the back seat....so it was unavoidable. It really is nice to have for a family. The kids love it, and its convenient for Blake too, even though there is a definite stigma with owning a minivan. There's no turning back now.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Monster Surf for Labor Day - Thanks Mexico!

The heat has been unseasonably hot for nearly a week, the weather reports blaming the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico for freezing the high pressure over Southern California. Each day the temperature seemed to get a degree or two hotter. But the hurricanes did something else too. They brought some monster surf to a world famous spot on our local beach called "The Wedge" in Newport Beach. The surf there piles up against the jetty and brings waves many times bigger than other spots on the same beach, and when there is a storm out in the ocean the waves are enormous. But unlike huge waves like the pipeline, the waves at the Wedge are usually a mess as the waves bounce off the side of the Jetty and the backwash collides with new incoming waves. Its exciting and completely unpredictable. Take a look at typical storm condition surf, where the waves just destroy anyone in the way.



This one shows perfectly how messy the waves are, most peaking in odd places and closing out on all sides.


Of course I couldn't leave the beach without a little swim so I dove in, intending to stay on the right side of the wedge, just catching the side of the big guys, but the backwash is so enormously powerful that it sucks you directly back into the middle of the wedge. The most terrifiying part of the area is that the current pulls inward from both sides so if you get caught in an early part of the set, you are pulled straight back into the center of the next one. I only found out after breathlessly escaping from 3 pounding waves that you are required to have fins to swim there:) I won't forget for next time... After all your strength is pounded out of you from the first waves pummelling you don't feel you can hold your breath as the rest of the set pounds your chest. I really felt lucky to escape only short of breath. Fins would have been helpful...

Blake said she had contractions the whole time we were there. I found her the highest spot on the beach and dug two walls and trenches of sand to keep larger waves back, but the waves were so big and unpredictable you really didn't feel like you were far enough away. In my 10 years of coming here I've never seen summer waves that topped the berm above the waves. Its always been dry. You can see Emmy standing on what is always the dry shelf, many many feet above the water level:

I have to say though, I was quite proud to have engineered walls that kept her seat (look at the spot below the umbrella) dry when a huge wave snuck up on everyone. The wave came so close to washing our stuff away that Blake just didn't feel comfortable sitting back down hoping that was the biggest one of the day so we moved our stuff back, but you can see the nice dry spot where she had been sitting. Is that a proud husband protecting his 8 month pregnant wife or what!!! :) Blake is rolling her eyes as she reads this right now.... LOL

Beside us a family with a newborn baby ran away, leaving their bags and towels to get soaked. Some boys behind us lucked out becuase our walls diverted the wave and kept an area dry where their stuff was left while they swam.

You can get an idea of the size of the waves from a couple shots Blake took while I swam showing a swell piling up against the jetty and then the size of the mess after it broke, with me underneath somewhere... You can see in both pictures tiny little heads of stupid people floating in the water...what a rush!



The weekend got calmer from there, and thank goodness because Blake was going to go into labor nearly 2 months early:)

The only thing bad about the rest of the weekend was the heat. We shouldn't complain about the heat because it isn't nearly as bad as the East Coast with heat and humidity, but it was getting hard to bear day after day, especially with no A/C in the apartment. We usually don't need it, but the 95-100 degree days made the only pleasant place the local mall. Apparently everyone had that idea because our favorite indoor play area was packed with kids and tired parents. That didn't stop the kids from having fun though:) They seem to love the chaos of kids bouncing off each other as they jump from place to place.


We didn't last long because even the malls had turned down their A/C to save electricity and it was so crowded. We luckily had a party to go to for Labor Day, and thank goodness they had A/C.


We stayed until dark:) Emmy had a great time playing with her friend Meyleh.


Gage found plenty to do as usual.


Gage wasn't sure what to do about the new baby, except stay as FAR away as possible!


But Emmy, in typical big sister fashion knew just what to do and started reading and talking to him, and made sure he didn't roll off.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

At the beach

I took a day off on August 13th to spend some time with the fam since I'd neglected them so badly over the weekend and selfishly spent Saturday hiking instead. I also needed some recovery time after the big hike since I don't work out much anymore. My legs were pretty sore for a couple days.

We had a great trip to our favorite local beach on Balboa in Newport Beach. It was all the more fun because I knew everyone else was at work instead.

I'll just leave this as pictures since noone really cares what I think anyway:)

Caution - Nudity Involved (but don't worry, its not me!)
(Click a picture to enlarge and view separately)

Climbing Mount Baldy

For those who come here for pictures of the kids (that's pretty much everybody) you can ignore this post as this one's just for me:)

I've been planning a hike up Mt. Baldy for a few months now and was so excited to actually go. It isn't a long hike as far as distance goes with only about 11 miles round trip. But the elevation gain is almost 4000 feet so its pretty much straight up the whole way. Adam decided he didn't want to take the trail so we went straight up the ski lift for the first mile or so to the lodge. He calls it a good "warm up" even though its over 1000 feet up in just a mile.

It doesn't look steep, but it gets worse fast!
View from the bottom:


Looking back from half way to the lodge.


Above the lodge the view started to get much better




Devil's backbone was my favorite part.


The trail went right up the ridge with great views off both sides.

The only bad part was the crazy strong wind that tried to push you off the backside drop off..


We made the summit by just after 9:30 so 3 hrs.


The view from the summit is hard to capture in photos. Its really the 360 view that is amazing.


We sat for 45 minutes and enjoyed the view, though I had to put on my long sleeve. The wind was strong, and pretty chilly at 10,000 feet.

I thought we'd be fast going down, but we took our time, mostly because I kept finding rocks to pick up:) Adam was patient with me though seriously every 5 feet I'd see one I just HAD to examine:) This one was like 3 feet across and looked like a chunk of meteorite that stuck in the dirt

Actually, I think its a schist....but I'm not a geologist, just a dork who likes rocks a bit too much. Adam calls it "a problem" but I wouldn't go that far, though my little pack did get so full of rocks by the time we made it to the lodge that it was tough to carry with one arm. You really had to wear it or pick it up with two hands. I ended up packing out 25 or 30 pounds of rocks.

I could feel my feet starting to blister a bit, probably cause I wore cotton socks and running shoes. The cotton held in the sweat and softened up my untrained skin. I convinced Adam to take the chairlift down the last mile and carry my rock-laded bag. Then my senses escaped me and I decided I would race him down on foot:) I did actually beat him pretty easily, but that last leg (1000 drop in five minutes of running) really did me in after a long hike. I got a couple nice blisters too. My feet were burning up after the run down from the lodge so I was happy to spot a cool spot on a creek to cool my feet.



Of course within a few days Adam and I were making plans for climbing Mt Whitney. It isn't tall at over 14,000 feet, but its the tallest in the lower 48 and no equipment needed. It will be a great one to conquer. And poor Blakey thought this hike would get the urge out of my system for awhile. It just fed the beast though.... there's no turning back now:)