hey, it's SLOTH!

     Has anyone seen The Goonies?! Oh it's a good ol' wholesome movie! Aaron and Matt were goofing around with PhotoBooth on my computer and this is what they came up with!

eh....LOL.

"Hey you guyyyyyths"

    Ah! you've got to love my husband and his little brother!

Evil Dr.

     Today was Emily's dr.'s appointment, and just as I suspected she knew EXACTLY what was going on this time. Given it was probably the worst appointment I've ever taken her too the doc actually complimented her on how good she was because most children her age are screaming the whole time and rolling on the floor in a tantrum. She didn't! So even though it was harder for me...it was good. I have 1000 stories for you all. I've going to sum it up with this:

I learned that I have a big headed, big brained, intelligent, better behaved than the average two year old, strong willed, and stronger than the average 6 year old, and 50% as developmentally as advanced as the average 3 year old daughter. Who can poop and clear out the office, and scream so loud that the neighboring doctors call to make sure everything is okay, and "never ceases to amazing" her doctor. She is 24lb. 9 oz and 35 3/4 inches long. If she walked into a room of 100 kids born on her birthday she would be has heavy as 55% of them (she actually went up on the growth chart when it's normal for most kids to drop right now, anyone who knows her, knows that she can eat more than me and Aaron put together). She is taller than 95% of kids her age and if she walked into that room again...she would have the biggest head.

     I did get some pictures while I was in there:

Eating cherrios on the table like a big girl, waiting for the doctor, after the mean nurse had torchured her with a tape measurer and scale

Her boo boo band aid

Yes, that is a couple of tears she shed when the big bad nurse came back and gave her, her shots. Yes she screamed bloody murder, and successfully kick the nurse, but as soon as the nurse was out of the room she was over it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY.

These are the orangutang glasses that she got from the Elephant Bar, I thought you would appreciate them :) Hope you like!

     Well it's time for me to put my daughter to bed, and boy does she need it after such a stressful day! (that goes for me too!)

Trip, what a trip

Sorry that I didn't do any posts over the weekend. I took it off for the first time :P This weekend we went to Bakersfield to celebrate Aaron's cousin, Caleb's 21st birthday. Today is his actual birthday. Happy Birthday Caleb! Also Happy Birthday to my dad (I have a picture for you that I will be posting tomorrow as a present) and Aaron's Grandpa Bill. I think Caleb is the last offical April birthday. I'm all done until next year! yay! April is a crazy month in this family!

     We had fun in Bakersfield. For anyone who has never been to the Elephant Bar (it's not actually a bar but a very nice and cheap family restraunt) it is AMAZING! Probably my new favorite place to eat. We ate there for Caleb's birthday yesterday and the waitress was so nice...she wouldn't let him get a drink...yet (he went back today and ironically had the same waitress) but she did bring him a sunday with a candle. It was really sweet! You don't seem to come across many waiter/waitresses that actually seem to enjoy their customers like this one did. I would have given her a 100$ tip if I could have.

     Today was my lazy get-everything-back-into-order-after-a-trip day. I hate them. I super clean the house before I leave so that it makes it easier when I come back. 

     My best friend, Raina stopped by today for me to design her tattoo. Since I pride myself in being a photoshop master, I was able to design whatever she wanted and then took a picture of her and pasted the picture onto her so that she could look at it and change anything that she wanted to. She loved it of course! :) I got to visit with her for a couple of hours, I pretty much love her to death!! Emily was shy at first (her new thing) but warmed up pretty fast. I took a couple while Raina was here:

Emily found Raina's shoes and was walking up and down the hall way with them on.

When Raina got ready to leave she picked up Emily to give her a hug. This is Emily waving and saying "bye" to me. Apparently she loved Raina so much that she was going to go home with her. She screamed for a good two minutes (a long time for a Emily tantrum) after she left.

     Tomorrow is Emily's very late 18 month appointment. We will see how she does. She's usually a trooper when it comes to shots and the doctor but this is one of the first ones since I feel like she might actually know what's going on. So we will see...I might just have to stick my camera in my purse and try to get a picture of the "big girl" at the doctors office for you all!

2nd post for the day

    Today is also Aaron sister Kaylee's 14th birthday. Happy Birthday Kaylee!! I just got a call from Kim to look out my window and there is Kaylee sitting in the drivers seat of the car. Part of her birthday present was to drive to the end of our driveway. I just about fell over when I saw her. I had a flash of what I'm going to be seeing all the time in just 2 short years! I can't handle all of this growing up that going on around here!

     Today was a pretty uneventful day. I ran some errands but other than that I took it pretty easy. I was on the computer and Emily brought me Aarons "fancy" wedding ring. He has two since his original became his work ring. Aaron is walking demolition machine...I don't know why but he can break anything. So before we got married I went out and got a titanium ring. "no scratches, won't break or bend" HA! I should take a picture of it now to show you...there's hardly even a ring left to it. With that said I bought him a nice ring (tunsten carbide...supposedly even stronger) Emily found it on the shelf above our bed and brought it to me. I had it sitting on the counter and my rings hit the light and it gave me an idea. Since we don't really have any pictures of our rings, I took one. Simple. set them up on my computer and snapped a picture. I LOVE IT

It reminds me of our marriage. Simple, and easy, yet perfectly beautiful.

That was cheesy, I know. Don't get me wrong, I do occasionally want to burry him in the back yard. But I do love him :)

AH! so this is what happens when you're child spends more time in the water than out! this picture doesn't do it justice either. she looked like the creature from the deep lagoon.

You have to look really close at this picture. Her eyes are going in different directions. Why? because she had just spun about 30 circles on my bed and landed on my pillows. But I love the smile!

I think I love this picture so much because I think this is the first picture that I've taken where she slightly resembles my dad. Maybe the flared nostrils (love you dad) from being winded? I don't know but she's perfect!

Happy Birthday

     ...to my "grandma up the ditch bank". I used to call her this because she lived catty-corned to us across the field and you would have to go UP THE DITCH BANK to get to her house. She would have been 76 today and not a day goes by that I don't look at Emily and wish that she was here to be a part of her life. At the time I loved her because she was my grandma and because she spoiled me ROTTEN. Now, with the mind of an adult, I not only love her because she was my grandma but because I can see now what a strong minded, strong willed, smart, confident  and sassy woman she was. I wonder how much influence she had on me in those young years and how much she made me who i am today. I wish I could know her now.  My Aunt Betty (my grandma's sister) just passed away a few months ago. I was fortunate enough to have her meet Emily. "She couldn't wait to get to heaven and see Norma again so that she could tell her all about Emily" I miss my grandma so much that it still hurts to think about. I know I will get to see her again some day and I know that right now she is looking down on me and I KNOW that she would approve. Happy Birthday grandma.

CRAZINESS

     That is pretty much the one word to describe my day! Most of you know that I'm a HUGE bum. It's okay, I will admit it. I usually get up at about 9 with Emily every morning to start our day. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting half of the day but when you really look at it, we go to bed at 11 every night so really...we get a little over an average nights sleep, but it's no 12 hours. I had planned on going to coffee with my friend Jill and Aarons aunt Bonni at 8:30, so I had gotten up at 7:30 to get ready. I knew my dad would be up so I called to see if he had gotten the video that I sent and this is how he answers the phone: "KAYLA?! IS EVERYTHING OKAY?!" Thanks Dad! He's like "You never call before 9 when you roll your butt out of bed. I was worried"  That just seemed to kick start my day. It felt like I was about 2 hours off for the rest of the day. 

     I made it coffee...late. I let Emily play in the bathtub for a bit while I got ready for my day.  For those of you who have been reading this, you know that I've struggled with these bath tub crayons. They are amazing and Emily loves them BUT they are a mess. I officially have the worlds cleanest bathtub! Well I had given up on them...and then I came up with an idea. I sat down and explained to her that if we make a mess, we need to help mom clean it up. I handed her a wash rag and showed her what to do. and GUESS WHAT?! She did it! She had as much fun cleaning them up as she did making the mess in the first place. Of course if Aaron would have done as good as a job as Emily, I would have been upset, but she did a very good job considering she's not even 2!!

     We got ready and went to coffee. After coffee we drove to San Luis to go to Costco. I normally don't shop at Costco because of their bulk items and my not so bulky house, but we needed some meat so I decided to stock up. They are amazing. I ran around with Jill and her sister Holly and her two kids Silas and Luke. Silas is 3 and the size of a 6 year old and Luke is almost 2 and twice the size of Emily. They are the cutest future football linebackers I've ever seen!. After we were done I went to see one of my best friends Meredith, who married one of Aarons many cousins. Her son just turned 4 months old and is 17 lbs. I don't know what it is about this family and big boys but they are BIG. It makes me look at my Emily and realize that she really is my petite little girl.

    On my way home I decided to drive the legendary Hwy. 1. I figured it would be beautiful and sunny since it was everywhere else but as I turned into Morro Bay it was cloudy and overcast and I wasn't in the mood so I took a short cut across the hills back to Paso. I don't drive this road often because of it's switch back turns and my obnoxious car sickness...sure enough, I was about ready to lose my lunch after 10 minutes into the drive. Needless to say I made it. and the few times I stopped because I thought I was going to be sick I took some pictures:

Morro Beach

Fog coming over the mountains

Rolling SLO county hills

Thistle, for the longest time these were my favorite "flowers" They remind me of Scotland everytime I see them and even though I've never been there, I would guess that when everything is green here, this is the closest I might ever come

Oh the irony! Right next to the Thistle is this beautiful but pesky flower slapping me back to reality telling me "HEY! you're still in California" 

The good ol' golden state's California Poppy

My munchy sleeping through it all

     I realized two very important things on this drive. I have two things that make my life more difficult. 1) My motion sickness. It's out of control. I couldn't even enjoy a great drive home. Actually I got home and curled up in bed because I was spinning like I had just got off of a horrible fair ride and then slept for 3 hours to get rid of it. 2) My fear of mountain lions. Don't laugh. It's really bad...I wouldn't venture more than a hop, skip, and a jump away from my car because as soon as I did I thought for sure I was being watched and ran to the car. Then I felt like something was chasing me. I've never even seen a mountain lion here, even though I know that they are prowling all over these hills. Maybe if I saw one and saw that it would be scared of me just like I am of it then I would understand that not every one of this is looking for Kayla Van Patten to eat. I think I need counseling! I'm kidding of course but this is probably one of my most legit fears.

     As I said before, I got home and slept off the effects of my windy drive. We will see if I ever get up early again!!

    A couple of quick updates on Emily:

-People keep asking so I thought I would let everyone know...the potty training has been postponed. I have complete faith that my daughter is very capable of learning what she needs to but I just don't think that she's ready. Understandable and not disappointing since she's only 20 months. She has the toilet part down packed BUT she doesn't know when she needs to go, therefore she can't tell me and I end up with a dirty expensive pull-up. So Aaron and I are working hard on teaching her when she does go, so that in the near future it won't take any extra work to train her.

-Emily has several new words and is picking them up like a sponge. "papa" for Aarons dad and grampa. "ow" for about anything that hurts just a little. (she learned this one from me. Every time she touched my sunburn it was OW!...she got that one quick) "i want that" which is nice because now instead of crying for something she points! There were a couple more but I can't think of them at the moment

-Emily is an escape artist. She has figured out the sliding glass door. GREAT. so now we have to have it locked all the time. I ran outside to grab something out of the car this morning and as I was digging through my mess, I heard "MOMMY" and looked over and she was hanging on the fence looking at me. Thank God for the fence :)

     I am so thankful that this day is almost over!! then I can get back to my regular schedule.

Don't mix business

http://mommyvp.blogspot.com

...with pleasure

     I've thought about it and thought about it and decided that since I'm trying to go pro in the photog business that I needed to separate my photography blog and MY blog. So here it is MommyVP! I wanted to do all kinds of cute names like Lil' Ems or E for trouble, but since I do plan on having more kids SOMEDAY I didn't want to have a blog for each one of them. So I figured this was a good "catch all". My other blog is going to turn into JUST my photography. Feel free to check it out whenever! BUT this one will have it all. So if you want to see it all, this is the place to be from now on :)

Brawley in Paso

     It was a scorching 99 degrees here in Paso today...you definatly wouldn't think it was spring!

So in exchange for a nice relaxing afternoon in Jessie's wonderfully air conditioned house I took some pictures of her and Reid. Here's my day!

My FAVORITE

I'm really sad that this one was blurry, but it's also hard to make 2 children sit still for more than a 1/20th of a second apparently. I plan on doing this one again and getting it right!

He loves me :)

This is also my close second favorite! And also the first time i really thought that he resembled his father more than his mom.

Rookie

     I learned ALOT of things today. One is that it is a production to take a fair skinned, light eyed, TODDLER to the beach and not fry her like a southern chicken. 3 times I slathered her in SPF70+ and in my concern for her, forgot about myself. Therefore I'm the homestyle chicken here. I parked 6 blocks from the beach, thinking that with the mass amounts of people making their way to the beach since it was 90 degrees inland today (hush Valley people, I remember your 120s all to well) that it would be a good idea...I forgot until after I parked about the huge bag, umbrella, stroller, towels and child that I only had 2 arms for and panicked. I tell you what, I made it...somehow. Sometime I think "I've got this down, this is easy, kids?! bring them on, I can handle anything" and then a day like today happens and I realize I'm a rookie mom!

     In my rush out the door I forgot to make sure that my camera battery was charged. I was actually just bragging last night about how my battery has lasted almost a month now and I take pictures every single day. Well, of course, with my luck, my camera died 5 minutes after being at the beach. I should have just gone home then because I was pretty depressed the whole rest of the time.

     THEN when I got home I realized that I had taken the majority of my pictures on the wrong setting. I rely on my display on the back of my camera too much. Since it was so bright outside, I wasn't able to look at it so when I got home all of my pictures were very "cold". They had a blue hue to them. Luckily it's a decently easy fix in photoshop, but still a mistake that I shouldn't have made in the first place.

    So, because of my many rookie mistakes you won't get to see the pictures of Emily running from the waves with her Aunt Kaylee or the zillions of ladybugs that were attracked to the ocean today for some reason. or Emily eating sand. or the beautiful wildflowers that lined the beach because I am apparently STILL making simple ol rookie mistakes. These are the best of the pictures that I did get.

      So now that I've complained the whole time...I did learn something new. One of my professional photographer friend inadvertently taught me how to make my skys blue in my pictures. This is super exciting because I LOVE color in my pictures and one of my biggest complaints is that my skys are never blue. Well folks I figured it out!! and even though in these pictures the skies are kind of blue green from having to add orange to the pictures to make Emily not look like she was sitting on an iceburg, I am so excited to be one more step closer to getting my pictures perfect:

I don't know what it was about today but she could not stop throwing things!! Most of the time it was cute but I KINDLY disciplined her when she would take aim at SOMEONE...no one wants sand in the face.

     I hate the sand more than anything in the world and the time has come for me to get to go de-sand my daughter! YAY!! perfect way to end my day. :)

Ah April!

     I don't know what it is about Aaron's family and April (or is it July?) but it seems EVERYONES birthday falls in April. Even though today wasn't Chris' actual 21st birthday (it's in 2 days) we did celebrate his birthday today. Chris is Aaron's closest cousin in age, best man in each others weddings, best friend and biggest riding competition. And even though they are so different they are so similar it's pretty ridiculous. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!

He's going to LOVE me for this picture.

Jessie, Chris' wife (one of my best friends thank God! it wouldn't have worked so well if our husbands were joined at the hip and we hated each other would it?). Anyway, Jessie's grandma made these cupcakes and a cake made like a berm on a race track with a red motorcylce, red tray, red cups and if you see from the picture above Chris is wearing a red hat and red shirt, I wouldn't be surprised if his shorts were red also. Aaron and Chris both are all about red. I know it has something to do with the fact that they both ride Honda motorcycles religiously, therefore 

"red is faster".

I'm really not sure why, but both of our weddings were RED black and white and we both have red kitchen accents and SOMETHING big and red in every room in the house. It's pretty out of control actually. Back to Jessie's grandma...I give her kudo's for these cupcakes. One, they were delicious and unfortunatly didn't take the time to admire them before I inhaled them but now that I look at the pictures, even the detail in the cupcakes is AMAZING.

GREAT grandma Grace (hence the Emily Grace) and Emily watching the cows

     These next few pictures almost made me cry. One of my most vivid memories of my grandma, my dad's mom, is when she showed me how snap-dragon flowers snap. For the longest time they were my favorite flowers, and even still every time I see one I snap their little heads and think of her.

Aaron's Aunt Bonnie shower Emily how they snap.

This one is for you grandpa Ray. My dad said that you like the black and white ones so I did one of Emily and the snap dragons in black and white. I hope you like it.

     And I leave everyone with the one of the best and most meaningful pictures that I've ever taken of Emily. Everything down to the lighting and composition is perfect! and It's Emily making the little flower snap her own finger.

Bath and Oreos

     I went to go see my friend Debbie today who was up here visiting family. Aaron was watching Emily is this is what I came home too:

Ms. Oreo-face. I guess her and dad had some cookie and milk. How sweet

I'm really sad that this picture is foggy...the steam in the bathroom fogged up my lense. It makes for a nice effect if that's what you're going for. I wasn't but oh well. and yes that is colored crayons all over the walls, again. Just so everyone knows, I've given up with those.

Me and my lovebug

     This is my post for the day:

 

    You can't say that we don't slightly resemble each other!

"touchy"?-edited

    After talking to my mom I decided to change this post around a little and I also deleted my disclaimer off of the bottom of the other post, but it doesn't mean that it's not going to come back up. I recently changed my settings on my blog to where anyone who read this could comment, blogspot or not. I meant for it to be for people like my dad and grampa who read this religiously but don't have one of their own. Apparently, I've got other "anonymous" people who read it but are to insecure to put their names when they make a comment. So because it's not worth me getting fired up over other peoples stupidity I'm going to change the settings back...if you want to make a comment and you are fortunate enough to have blogspot, go ahead, or you can leave a message with me on facebook.

    I do this blog for my family and loved ones that don't get to see Emily but still want to get daily updates on her. I do this for other people, not for me, and not for Emily. So to have someone post that I should use another method of discipline other than HITTING, I'm going to get a little "touchy". My "spankings" are anything but that. They are a little pat on a padded diaper bottom that let Emily know that I'm serious. I only do this after I've warned her twice already...the third time results in a swat (If I were to do this to Aaron it would be considered a love tap). And for all you who are curious, IT WORKS! It works amazing. She knows that mom means business and what she's doing isn't cute and that it needs to stop. I do this in the privacy of my own home so that I'm not embarrassed by her misbehaving in public or destroying things at someone elses house. You will thank me when she comes to visit you.

    I was originally quite irritated that I had to explain myself, and if you saw this before it was edited I apologize for being so frank about it. Again, I do this for the people that I love and by doing my post before, I was letting someone get the better of the entire purpose of this blog. Sorry.

     

WITH LOVE to everyone that I really do this for,

Kayla

Pesky Day

     Today was a horrible day. Okay so it really wasn't THAT bad but it was pretty tiring. I will try to sum it up in a nutshell so that you can see the pictures at the bottom. 

     It started out fine, a completely normal day; breakfast, bath, cartoons, lunch, mom's soap opras...ect. But today I didn't put her down for her normal nap because she had a doctors appointment. YAY. that would land right in the middle of her nap time. So I figured the easy thing to do was to keep her up. She would get a late nap but oh well, I just wouldn't let her take one as long as normal. So I get to her appointment, and the not so kind receptionist (I thought you had to be personal to get that kind of face to face job, APPARENTLY not) tells me that Emily didn't have an appointment today....you've got to be kidding me. I told her I got a phone call yesterday to confirm it and that I had confirmed it for today at 230. She looked at me like I was an idiot, then pulled out a rediculously large binder. It was their log book, the place where someone in the back who has the unfortunate job of calling patients puts down all of the people they contact. And guess what...My name wasn't in there. So, to make a long story much shorter... I didn't get Emily in the with the Dr. and I have NO IDEA who called me yesterday, but I made sure that before I left that the receptionist didn't think that I was an idiot and she kindly reschedualed me an appointment for a week later since the DR. wasn't even IN today. UGH

    After that I ran to get Aarons mom a birthday present. HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY KIM! ha. On the way to the store Emily got in about a 2 minute nap. I don't know what it is about those 2 minute power naps but it was like she had slept for 2 hours! but she was cranky and irritable. Aaron decided to go golfing since he got home early from work and this was my text message to him:

"i might not be sane if you dont come home quickly

shes getting into everthing...toilet twice, locked the door, she 

opened it. toothbrush in the toilet. tried for 30 min. to up upstairs

fell 3 times. got in trouble twice and spanked once then gave up. 

cat came downstairs. chased cat. got stuck in the bathtub. scrubbed

bathtub with toilet brush. got in the pots and pans cupboard.

pulled out everything just short of the blender blade. got in trouble.

moved to the untencil drawer. got spanked. decided to give her a nap

anyway. layed her down. got quiet. went to check. pulled everything

off of every shelf on the stand. and now shes on the kitchen table

with the cat. hope youre having a BLAST!"

     My daughter keeps me on my toes but hardly ever gets into the things that she's not supposed to. She like to please people so she doesn't ever purposely make me mad. I didn't know how to handle it! For once, since the week after I brought her home from the hospital I was completely lost and had no idea what the answer was! After I sent that text and had a little time to recooperate, I heard scratching on the bedroom door...this is what I found:

SHES DRAWING ON MY DOOR!

I didn't realize until after I took the picture that if you look to the side she is actually watching me in the mirror!! intelligent or sneaky sneaky sneaky? I'm not sure yet

"Yes mom? am I doing something wrong?"

From the tip top, as far she she could reach

to the bottom

And apparently everything in between!!

     Aaron got home right after this and when he saw the house he felt a little bad for me and cleaned up...what a man. He knows just how to get me in the heart! Aaron sat down and explained to Emily that it wasn't good to color on the walls, coloring was for paper...now she has to clean up her own mess....I'm thinking CUTE Aaron but she's a year and a half and a couple of months, she's not going to understand a word you're saying. Well, this was his result:

This picture was actually slightly staged. She was originally pointing to the spot where Aaron needed to spray and saying "a deer, a deer" which I believe is Emily for "right here". Aaron would spray the spot and she would gleefully take the sponge and clean the door!

    Through temper tantrums and me pulling my hair out, I know I'm going to go grey early, then to being the cutest child in the world, THIS is what my job is, and I love it! Just when I think that she can't do another thing to amaze me, she does! I love this girl :)