Busy Beavers

Danielle & I letting loose as the kiddos sleep!

We've definitely acclimated to the CA weather. We thought 50 degrees was FREEZING!

My girls with the Birthday Boy!!

Keeping it real with a game (or 40) of flip cup!!

My precious peanut drooling all over his sweater. No that's not our tree - the Dawson's are tree-less this Christmas. Sad I know.

All my mommy friend's at Sharon's Ornament Party

Chase playing with his buddies, Chase & Rylie. All within weeks of eachother

Chase eating Adisten's hand. Then he proceeded to pull her hair.

And then she balled. Bad bad Chase!!!

Hank and Chase chillin'

Chase's first sleepover at his buddy, Blake's house

Kisses!!!

My teeth HURT!!!

What is this??? We don't have one of these Mama!

Baby's First Christmas! I had to get a picture in front of some tree. Shhh he doesn't have to know!

Blake's mommy and one of my best friends, Lori

The Cookie Exchange winners!!

Mom's Night Out Holiday Party I coordinated - SO FUN!!!

I call December our Month O' Fun! We've had so much stuff on the calendar the last week that I thought it would be fun for you to see what we've been up to. A quick recap - we helped pack up Uncle Bryan's U-Haul as he decided to move back to WA (which was a sad moment, not a highlight), Daddy left for London for a week long business trip (another sad moment), Chase got his 2nd TOOTH (a painful moment...actually painful week!), I went to a Cookie Exchange where I got 2nd place with the brownies my babysitter made for me! Shhhh:), Chase and I drove up to Simi Valley to visit our friend's, The Easterly's and have Chase's first sleepover with his buddy, Blake, Chase and I went to an Ornament Party with 20 other kiddos, I went to the Young Couples Christmas Dinner, Chase and I went on a preschool tour at St. Paul's to get our name on the 2 year waiting list...seems ridiculous right?!?!, I had a Mommy Night Out which was MUCH needed, Dave and I went to a friend's birthday party while Chase went to his friend's Jack and Ethan's.............Wowee - that's one packed week!!! And this week doesn't get any less hectic! Luckily Dave is home this week so that makes it nice except for he is now sick!!! Ugh I knew those late nights with the British guys were a BAD idea! We head home to WA on Friday which I am sooo excited about. My only two concerns are traveling with Chase all by myself. Dave has a meeting in San Jose that day so he will meet us up there. Ahhh the things I don't do!!! AND the below freezing weather they are forecasting. And Dave tells me I can only have ONE bag! Dream on.............

Dave's masterpiece - a work in progress

You're probably wondering...this is the house they HAD to have???

One word - DUMP!


One more word - NEGLECTED!

The tree in the backyard was MAMMOTH (as you can see by the shadow)!!

Hopefully one day the area for our future pool - Dave says "dream on!"

Tree Demo Day!

One word - Ghetto!

Dave got absolutely zero work done this day as he drooled from inside watching all the action!

At least you can now see the house. No worries that tree will eventually fill in.

Rallying the troops - Dave and Uncle Bryan manuevering the Ditch Witch. The concrete like dirt gave them hell which was NO fun on this 90 degree day.

I know - I know - I am married to one sexy man! A laborer at heart. He was SO EXCITED he got all the ditches dug and piped for the sprinklers.

My dad and Dave getting crafty

What a fun way to spend their vacation...WORKING!! Thanks for ALL your help!

Rolled and seeded - it's going to look amazing!

With some green grass. lights, palm trees, and Dave's TLC, we finally won't be the dumpiest house on the block!

We had all those plants (aka weeds!) dug up and the workers put in a matching brick flower bed

The back yard...a great place for Chase to roam!

This is the open area where I want my make believe pool. Servando took out the concrete strip that went through the center of the lawn and bordered the entire yard with it. I can't wait to sit out and roast marshellows and drink wine around the fire pit!

Finally. Phew! This blog has been haunting me for a week now and it's still not what I hoped it would be but I think you get it. Prior to buying this house, I called it the "money pit" and so far, it's proven to be true! Just kidding. It really hasn't been bad. Thankfully Dave with the help of my family and Servando's crew have been able to keep the cost of the exterior down. Dave has big plans for outdoor lighting and music, palm trees, etc. so maybe I am speaking too soon! Regardless it is still a work in progress but getting so much better. We didn't paint the house but we did get a new garage door and plan to do something with the front door. The people before us, neglected anything about this house that potentially could make it look nice. As I looked through the picture folders on my computer I stopped to look at the interior transformation and WOW - I already had forgotten how much work was done - all at a very stressful time with Chase's arrival just a few weeks before. I will post a few of those pictures as well. Again a work in progress. We still have an entire living room to furnish and I am beginning to wonder what I am going to do with our WHITE family room couches being that Chase will be walking in less than 6 months!

Balboa Peninsula Holiday Cruise

ALL ABOARD! Our Captain - Big Tiny & DJ Mix Master

Only in Newport Beach - "MR. TERRIBLE"

Enjoying our first Duffy ride! I WANT ONE!!!

My girls - Emily & Danielle

The crew

AMAZING!!! Must be pretty tough to have that much dinero!

The lights lit up the water! It was gorgeous!

All done! :( Until next time which will be VERY SOON!

Once again the yard blog got pushed aside. I started but I got too overwhelmed by the 200+ pictures of every little detail that Dave is documenting. But it's coming...I promise. We have so much other fun stuff going on that I want to share with you so it may be awhile. This past weekend we went out on our friend's Duffy. Duffy's are BIG in Newport as are MEGA yachts. Quick fact - Newport Harbor is the biggest "Pleasure Boat" area in the country. For all you Washingtonians that are wondering what exactly is a Duffy -it's an electric boat that cruises about 5 mph.

It was the perfect night - good friends, stiff drinks, 62 degrees and surrounded by breathtaking yachts and multi-million dollar houses that were insanely decorated with Christmas lights/decor. We cruised by homes owned by the founder of Yahoo, the inventor of the Infomercial (which I don't know if you knew but I was recently in the Oreck vacuum informerical!), John Wayne's old home, Vanna White's abode...the list goes on. It's unbelievable. The question of the night though still remains at the forefront of my mind...WHAT DO ALL THESE PEOPLE DO TO AFFORD ALL THIS?????

Before I end this blog though I do want to say that although this area has an abundance of wealth, it gets a bad representation. The television show on Bravo "The Real Wives of Orange County" is disgustingly inaccurate of how the majority of people really are...at least the friends we associate with. We are still the average white folk that will never forget our roots that have met AMAZING down to earth friends!! Ironically though two Halloween's ago, we somehow ended up on the list at the newest "housewife" Gretchen's 30th Birthday/Halloween Bash. That is an entire separate blog. You want to talk about OUT OF OUR LEAGUE!! That was definitely behind the "Orange Curtain." They own the mega yachts, we just bum a ride on our friend's Duffy. Just how we prefer it!

All I Want For Christmas

"Mama, I'm ready and waiting to go see Santa"

The TALL Daddy's with their BIG boys!! This is our neighbor and good friend, Tim with his son, Hank

All aboard!! Going on the Irvine Park Train to visit Santa

It was all lit up with gorgeous lights

Like father, like son - sooo observant!

Our first Christmas with Santa...and not even a tear :)

Chase & Hank - 2 week apart and neighbors. BUDDIES FOR LIFE!!!

It won't be long and they'll be too big to hold! This is Danielle, Tim's wife & very good friend of mine

It must be getting close to 6:00 - he's had enough!!

Sure enough...he couldn't even make it home awake

This is sooo much more exciting than blogging about the stupid yard/sprinkler systems so all you blog followers dying to see Dave's masterpiece will have to wait. :) I wish I could keep up on the blogging better but for some reason it's the one thing that gets pushed from one to do list to the other. Anyway, last Wed we went to Irvine Park to ride the holiday train to visit Santa. We packed up the boys and went with Tim, Danielle, and Hank along with hundreds of other little kiddos from one of my mom's groups. We are so blessed to have the Thurmans as neighbors!! How fun it will be to see the boys grow up together and one day be too big to sit on Santa's lap. Already a thought that makes me tear up. :( After getting our first Dawson family Christmas picture, some hot chocolate and a cookie, we hopped back on the train as it was "that time." Around our house "that time" is about 6:00 PM when Chase can't seem to keep his eyes open much longer. All in all it was a memorable evening of holiday bliss...our first of many!!!

One thing though that I am ashamed of and will be the first and the LAST is the fact that our house is tree-less this Christmas. You'd think because it was Chase's first Christmas that we would have gone all out but no...just hasn't happened, nor will it. We've been so busy with other things that Christmas kind of snuck up on us and now with Dave leaving for London for a week long business trip (boo!) and the fact that we leave for WA on the 19th and won't even be around to enjoy the tree, I've slowly accepted that this year will be the LAST holiday with no tree, no lights, AND no stockings. I did put out one Santa that sits on my mantle staring back at me echoing, "Bah Humbug!" :(