San Diego!!!

I apologize to the wide blogging world for withholding pictures of my kids for so long. I realize you've probably been pining away while waiting for me to get my act together. Well, my act is still not quite together and I have doubts that it ever will be again (if it ever was to begin with). But I will give you a few pictures to appease your curiosity/voyeur tendencies/appetite.

We have been having a blast in San Diego. It's beautiful every day (which we appreciate oh so much more after living in Portland), we LOVE our location, Paul has a good job, and my kids keep me more than entertained. I am really loving being a mom; more than ever before. I feel so grateful to be able to be their mama. Not just because they're incredibly cute, and not just because Amelia sleeps through the night (most of the time), or because Reece has an imagination bigger than the giants that chase him around the house (daily...unless they're hiding in his room, or in time out...that's right, I put his imaginary giants in time out, and it's no easy job). It's just everything. There's also the fact that we live half a mile from the zoo, four miles from Sea World, and can see the ocean from our balcony. Jealous? Then come visit! We'll take you out for some great Mexican food and we'll make Reece sleep in the hall so you can have your own private suite (with crib and air mattress included).

I guess part of having a great time being a mom is not taking many pictures. I have been horrible at documenting Amelia's cuteness and Reece's increasing cleverness. I love reading friend's blogs who write quotes from their kids or post silly things they do. You just won't get those things from this blog, because I am a slacker. But you will get pictures. And without further ado...
Reece's new friend is Elijah. We swap babysitting with E's parents, so these kids get to hang out quite a bit. We forced them to wear animal costumes, and cuteness ensued. That lasted about two minutes.

This is how Amelia looks most of the time. Except without the hat. And maybe more puke. Reece calls it "pute," and is super good and bringing me burp rags at a moment's notice.

These are in no order, because Kyle was here in early August. He helped us move and Reece misses him terribly. In fact, while I was posting these pictures Reece kept saying, "I want to see the picture of me with Uncle Kyle!" He misses his buddy.

Amelia comes from Fontana stock.

We visited Dave's family in early September. We were only there for a weekend but we all had a blast. Hooray for living close to family! Also, Reece and Amelia have 16 cousins, and Reece loves them all. In fact, whenever he sees kids that he likes or wants to play with, he calls them his cousins.

Our beautiful, smiley, peaceful girl. She really is an angel.

She's so chill. I can't say that enough. We love her. Also her hair is thinning daily. She takes after her daddy, I guess.

When I was a little girl my mom would tell me that if I stuck out my lower lip any more, a bird would come and land on it. Amelia inherited my bottom lip.

Okay, our kids seriously have the coolest hair. While Amelia's hair doesn't stick straight up naturally, she still has a rockin' natural mohawk. She also has a mullet in the back, but we try to ignore that.

At Sea World on the Elmo ride. We're big fans.


Uncle Bryce came to visit us in late August. We love him. In fact, we even made up a little song about him, which Reece will sing and dance to. It's pretty clever, if you ask me. ("Uncle Bryce is so nice." That's it. Awesome, right?)

At La Jolla Cove with Uncle Kyle. We've since explored this beach more and it's super awesome. Tide pools, sea lions, gorgeous waves, secluded beaches. Sigh...

Now start planning your visits. We can't wait to see you!

Amelia update

Don't get too excited, we're not actually posting things like our move to San Diego, or the goings-on in our lives. Just one video of how cute Amelia is. She rolled over last week for the first time at 12 weeks. Reece rolled over at 6 weeks, but Amelia is much more graceful. We love her.

Still Alive

We're still alive and loving our awesome kids. Thought somebody out there might care to know.

Amelia Jane Weitzel

So...we had a baby. A girl baby, more precisely. I haven't had much time to blog, though we've loaded a few photos onto Paul's Picasa album (link on the right). She's perfect. She's calm and sweet and beautiful. My water broke (ruptured, apparently. They had to break it later again...not sure what happened) and so I got induced about three hours earlier than scheduled. I was on pitocin for 20 hours before she made her debut, though the actual delivery only took about 7 minutes. I wasn't a fan of being on an IV for so long, but the short delivery was a big improvement over last time. A HUGE thanks to Uncle Kyle for babysitting Reece for about 48 hours. I seriously don't know what we would have done without him. In our opinion, he's got a ticket straight into heaven for his help this last week (not sure how much our opinion counts, though).


Reece has taken very well to his little sister. He calls her Mia, which we think is adorable. He loves to give her high fives, send her little toe-piggies to the market, and "comfort" her when she cries (patting her head). We have been so blessed with two amazing kids. And both good babies, besides. Amelia has such a calm temperament (just like her brother did), and hopefully it will stay that way. I even got 6 hours of sleep last night (not simultaneous).


Thanks to everybody for your love and prayers and support. We couldn't be happier. Babies bring such a sweet spirit to a home, and we're basking in her spirit.

Grandma Nancy is on her way to our house right now, and the Carr clan is heading up on Friday/Saturday. We can't wait to see everybody! Amelia's blessing is on Sunday, so if you're in Portland, please come! We'll give you food afterward.

We love our little Amelia Jane!

Reece man, the American hero!

Reece just keeps doing cute things. None of us are surprised, I'm sure. But it does mean I should be keeping a journal or something to document. Since that's not happening, I'll just continue to occasionally update this blog. You're welcome.

The first video is Reece loving on his little sister, who still happens to be in utero (35 weeks!):




Next we have Reece's turn at leading the FHE song last night:

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Spring Burst 5k/10k

So we have been super busy lately, but I'm not sure what we've done. Paul loves his job and I'm loving spending time with Reece (right now he's shaking his crib bars trying to convince me to let him out of bed without a nap). We've had game nights with Staci, Dave and Kyle, we visited Silver Falls near Salem (possible pictures to come soon), and most importantly for this post, I somehow convinced the lot of us to run a race. Paul ran the 10k and Reece, Kyle, baby and I walked the 5k. Paul did really well and ended up getting 3rd in his age category with a time of 50:32. Our 5k time was around 54 minutes, if that gives you any idea of how awesome Paul is. He literally ran circles around us, as the 10k track just doubled the 5k track. Reece also did amazingly well, thanks to uncle Kyle's iPod touch and it's accompanying Angry Birds game.


The belly in this shot is 33 weeks. And yes, I pushed a double jogging stroller. That doesn't make me awesome, just desperate. Reece was on one side and Curious George on the other. I tried to convince Kyle to let me sit while he pushed all of us, but I guess I'm too heavy these days. Darn. Here's to many more family fun runs!