What I found upstairs tonight...

In case you were wondering how our little sleep experiement is going...

I guess being that much closer to mama's bed is totally worth it. Actually Ollie has been doing a great job sleeping in his bed all night long. Now if only I could get the both of them to sleep past 6:15, then we'd be talking.

Doula for hire

I am finally ready to launch this doula career of mine! With a few births under my belt, I feel trained and ready to start taking on clients so spread the word to any who may need doula services in the orange county area. My website is in the works so I'll let you all know when that happens. I can't wait to have my very own website! My plan is to take two clients a month so there will be limited space. I currently have November open and another spot for December. If you'd like to give someone my name or info, write me a comment and I will give you my email and # privately. It is truly magical to be apart of something like this. I feel so lucky!

October is seriously the best

It's official, the fall is the BEST season there is and I don't care what anyone else has to say about it. Today we woke up with rainy skies, drizzle, and blustery wind. We put up all our Halloween decorations, went to the library and checked out all the Halloween books we could get our hands on, and then made the most decadent homemade chicken noodle soup.

Both kids went to bed amazingly well tonight. Oliver and I drew up a picture about how he needs to stay in his bed all night instead of coming into mom and dad's room and wanting to sleep there (he has a little bed set up next to ours for the Ami crying nights). I realized today that Ami has been sleeping all night for a while now but Ollie still comes in at night. So I drew this picture of Ollie sleeping in his bed with a big smile on his face and Ryan and I sleeping in our bed down the hall with big smiles on our faces. We talked about how happy everyone is to sleep in their own beds. Ollie calls our bed "mama's bed" and he kept pointing out that Ryan gets to sleep there too then he'd say "wait a minute" and look for Dad's bed. So funny. After I finished explaining the picture to Ollie, he told me everything back almost word for word. He's getting to be such a smart kid. Let's see how tonight goes. I'm ready for a full nights sleep:) You wouldn't think waking up a few times at night would cause so much fatigue but it sure does for me.

In other news, this blog is going private my friends. I have totally been avoiding it because I sort of love that anybody can look at my blog but then I think about the crazy people that could be looking at my blog and it creeps me out. Actually, after watching an Oprah episode on a craigslist rape victim, I got a little spooked and decided better safe than sorry. Poor Ryan had wanted me to go private for a little while now and he was like now you'll go private for Oprah! I do love that woman. I love you more though:) But yeah, in my ideal world I am completely trusting of individuals but I realize that when it comes to my family, I can't always be that naive. I still hold fast to the fact that most people are totally trustworthy and good, but for those who aren't, you will not be invited into my life.

So please, if you do read this blog, send me your email and I will add you to the invited readers list. Since my comments must be moderated, your email will not appear for the public so have no fear. I think blogs are an amazing tool to connect with people and it really does make me sad to do this. Anyways, if you're there and read this, I love you! Keep reading.

Ami's Party!

The birthday group!It doesn't get better than chocolate covered strawberries. The girls got good taste.

The menu inlcuded the above mentioned strawberries, cupcakes, rice crispy treats, spinach artichoke dip, cheese and crackers, grapes, and chocolate tort. Yum.
My cute client with her darling new addition and sweet hubby.

Ok so I got creative and I might need to show it off for a minute. It might not happen again anytime soon.

Ami got a birthday girl toss in the air. Seriously look at that excitement. I got 3 other pictures just like this. She could have gone all day.

Ollie needed a turn to make sure it really was as fun as it looked. It was.

Cousin love.
Our walking birthday gal.

These two sugar craving kids were probably the most excited of the group. Ollie and Cambria took full advantage of the food.
Thank you friends and family for coming. The day would have been so incomplete without your love. Amelie had a great time turning 1. So can time stop now??

It was someone's birthday yesterday...

Our birthday girl enjoying her treat yesterday.

She walked around this place like she owned it. She must have known it was her bday.

So this is really happening. Amelie is officially a year old and I seriously can't believe it. Yesterday I just kept looking at her thinking, how did this happen, and how are you walking and jabbering and laughing and being such a big girl playing alongside your brother. This girl gives my life such complete joy, that's really all I can say about her. She emits happiness and joy wherever she is. I feel like she will bring so many people throughout her life that light that they've been looking for. She will make everyone so happy for knowing her. Seriously, what more can you ask for as a mom. Here are some of my favorite things about my sweet AmiJane...

-I don't believe for a second that she is shy but sometimes just for fun, she likes to tilt her head to the side, being bashful and grin. It is so cute, I could just eat it up.

-She is super tough. She has fallen in the pool (neglectful parent?) like 3 times this past week, nothing crazy but enough that most kids would be in tears. Well she pops right out of the water and looks around and smiles, like, mom did you see that?!

-She has been in this big pointing phase lately. I love to see all the things she deems point-worthy and watch her little chubby pointer finger pop up at the first sight of something interesting. Lately it's been birds, or anything in the sky.

-She greets everyone with a huge smile and both arms held high over her head.

-She follows me around the house all day, wanting to be apart of anything I'm doing. When I finally cave and pick her up, she sighs, puts her fingers in her mouth, and sometimes lays her head on my shoulder, like, finally mom, this is where I've wanted to be all day.

-She loves music, especially our Yo Gabba Gabba cd and will sit and listen to it until it's over. Sometimes I'll peek in and she's balancing on something and bouncing up and down with the beat.

-Lately she has realized that the louder you are in our house, the more attention you get (awesome). She was sick of being seen as this good-natured, quiet, submissive gal and has found her inner Oliver. Well those two can have some screaming matches just for the fun of it. Well it's mostly fun for Ami cause Ollie is usually saying "Ami, too loud", and she gets a kick out of this huge voice coming out of such a small body.

I remember that Ryan and I prayed, almost every night when I was pregnant, that we'd get sent this sweetheart baby girl of our dreams. A baby that would be easy, laid-back, happy, and joyful. Prayers are definitely heard and answered because we got just that. So to our big one year old girl, we love you and can't wait to see you grow into a more beautiful girl every day. Love you! Mom, Dad, and Ollie

Fun at the beach

On Sunday night we all had a craving to see the ocean so we headed down just in time to see the sunset. It was seriously amazing. The kids played on the playground in the dark and us adults planned future trips.

Thursday we went to Leslie beach and enjoyed the afternoon. Ryan is still between jobs and basically doesn't have a whole lot to do on Bloomingdale's so he's been home early and we've been hitting the beach frequently. It has been heavenly. Ami said her first "bye-bye" to the train as it passed.

This is one of Oliver's favorite games, the Ami chasing game. The more kids there are to join in on the chase, the better. I cannot get enough of the squeals of delight on both ends of the chase.

Amelie practicing her walking skills on the sand. She is getting to be quite the mover these days. You can tell she's just so pleased with herself and is already planning on how to keep up with Ollie.

What is with 1 year olds and stairs? Well Ami is no different in her obsession with stairs lately. All she wants to do is go up and down, walking of course, none of this crawling business. I LOVE this walkway and I love the above picture. The future is so bright.

This is such a classic Facer face I can't even handle it.

Hello Gerber baby. Wait, I'm not sure if a true Gerber baby would be caught eating so much sand. To Ami's defense, her sand eating has actually calmed down a bit. She is much more interested in storing things in her mouth like rocks, coal, seaweed, shells, all that good stuff. Occasionally she starts actually eating the seaweed. She must think it's really tasty.

We stayed until dark and topped the night off with some sushi. Seriously what is with the sushi obsession lately? It is the only thing we want to eat lately. It just leaves you feeling so satisfied in the best way possible. I need to learn how to make some delicious sushi.

Go Angels!

So Ryan got four tickets through work for the Angels game on Sept. 8 (totally behind, sorry) and we had casually mentioned to Ryan and Mary on the Lake Powell trip that they should totally come. In true Johnson fashion they booked tickets when they got home and planned a short, 22 hour trip, just to see us, oh and the game:) So we picked them up from the airport a half hour before the game and then took off.

This was the longest game in history, ok maybe not, but it seriously felt like it. It was actually a really good game with a couple amazing moments and then all the sudden we blasted through 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, all the way to 16 innings when finally the Angels won! So we got out of there late, decided to get some dinner in Laguna and luckily we found a restaurant that would serve us food. The next morning we went to the beach and just soaked in the serenity before they had to leave to the land of no ocean. Ryan and Mary were both ready for the airplane and I totally made them get up on the rocks to take pictures, especially of Mary's baby bump and they got soaked by the waves. It was really funny to watch but probably not that comfortable. I blame it on the lack of wave knowledge. I did not get wet when I climbed up:)

As usual, it always feels wrong when we leave each other. Let's not do that anymore.

Amelie at the beach

And I HAD to mention the arrival of some very special people to our neck of the woods. My cousin Andrea just moved here with her family from Arizona and I am seriously so excited to have them close by, the town next door in fact. I can see the beach days and bonfires now:) Oh btw, she is an amazing photographer in case your in the market.