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In the past two days, Emily has changed from being a three nap kid to a two nap kid. Which also means she has started going to bed 45 minutes earlier.
So at 7:15 Eric and I were sitting on the couch wondering what on earth we should do with our spare time. I decided to go to the gym, since I’m always wishing I had more time to exercise. Then I went to the grocery store, because it’s so nice to grocery shop without a baby in tow. And then I came home, to this:
Eric had brought home a bunch of stuff from his parents house yesterday. Among them were all of his childhood Lego sets, which he had been saving for our future son…I guess he had grown impatient. He was putting together a castle, complete with drawbridge and tower; wheeled explosive launchers, warriors on horseback, archers. He even had a guy who was missing hands that was in the dungeon. I had no idea that Legos were so cool.
Eric let me help with the assembly, then he set up the battlefield. By this point it was too late for the soldiers to commence in killing each other, so the battle has been rescheduled for 3:00 this afternoon.
So, how are we spending our spare time? Playing with Legos. Awesome!
We joined Eric’s family to celebrate his Grandad Albert’s 91st birthday this weekend. He and Eric’s grandmother Shirley have been out visiting from New Jersey since just before Thanksgiving. They moved up their annual trip so that they could get out here sooner than later to meet Emily. It is such a treat for us to have them here visiting, especially to get to celebrate his birthday with him.
We had started this blog largely due to Eric’s family being on the East Coast, and wanting to make sure they felt included in Emily’s growth and development. Although Albert has never commented, I know that this page is bookmarked on his computer and he visits often to see pictures of his first great granddaughter.
I hope this one cheers your day Albert! Happy Birthday from the 3 of us.
A wonderful Christmas for the Johnson family.
Starting with Christmas Eve. After a long day of last minute shopping, wrapping and coordinating with family, we were headed up to Rock Harbor for the 6:00pm service…and we were late! Eric and I decided to relax and accept the fact that we would be sitting in the overflow with Emily on our laps. At this acceptance, I took a deep breath, turned off my phone and switched gears to the actual purpose of Christmas. Praise God for the 30 minute drive to church, otherwise this shift may not have happened. Amazingly enough, there was still room in the nursery for Emily, and we were able to find seats before the service began. It was a wonderful service that spoke straight to my heart. I believe I encountered the Good News of Christ in a brand new way this year. From the perspective of Mary, as a mother. I was very emotional. We always appreciate how Pastor Mike can put a fresh perspective on a message we’ve heard so many times. We sang Christmas carols, prayed as a body of believers, Emily played with the Christmas decorations and we even enjoyed some hot cider when we left.
Christmas Day. We started at my parents house with my parents and my sister’s family. It is so much fun to be with her kids on Christmas morning. Mom had arranged an abundance of beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree and Dad was making cinnamon rolls and Americanos. Emily was such an angel. She was thoroughly interested with each gift that she got. She tried to unwrap them, so we’ll give her an A for effort, then she played with that gift until it was time to open another one. What a wonderful way to start the day.
In the afternoon we went to Eric’s parents’ house, where we enjoyed Christmas morning all over again with his parents, Aunt Mary (from New York), and grandparents (from New Jersey). We all opened our stockings first. Lyle takes great care in filling all of our stockings with must-haves that are individually wrapped. I got a new chapstick that was wrapped – that’s not easy. Then we moved to the living room where we opened in order of youngest to oldest – since Emily was napping, that meant I got to go first. YES! I got an assortment of kitchen goodies that I had been wanting, Eric received some new soccer stuff, and Emily got some homemade specials including teething biscuits, yarn balls that jingle, and her first handmade ornament. She’s a very loved little girl.
Christmas Evening. We continued our Bellesi family tradition of going out for Chinese food at Peking Dragon in Dana Point, in recognition of our favorite Christmas movie. We had a lot of fun being together as a family and the food was delicious. Sizzling rice soup, egg rolls, mushu pork, dumplings – and those were just the starters. Fortunately for us the restaurant was very loud, so Emily’s squeals blended in nicely.
Day after Christmas. We spent the first half of the day in our PJs and played with our favorite gifts:
Emily’s Alphabet Pal
At this rate, Emily will know her ABCs by her first birthday.
Eric got me an iPhone.
Best gift ever! Thanks baby, you spoil me.
I got Eric a Kelty backpack child carrier, headlight and flint for camping.
Clearys/Wheelers we’re ready. Lets plan a trip!
Once upon a time…I was living in a studio apartment in Studio City aspiring to be one of Britney Spears back up dancers. That never happened. But during that time, some other things happened that I hadn’t planned on: I had orange curly hair, I wore clothes that had been cut up and safety pinned back together, and I made 3 amazing girlfriends.
Left to right: me, Blythe, Shannon and Stephanie.
8 years later…we’re still great friends, we’re all in significant relationships, some with families, and while we all have normal colored hair, I must point out that Blythe was wearing lime green skinny pants, and Stephanie had on Christmas socks with black pumps. So don’t worry, a unique style is still present.
We all got together (kids and all) at our house, for the first time in a long time. Everyone brought some glorified appetizers and we caught up, laughed a lot and played some games.
Later in the evening we turned off al the lights, except the tree, and played Scattegories. So romantic!
Good times girls! I hope we do it again soon.
We’ve been meeting with our small group for almost four years now. It started as a community group through a church start up we were all apart of. Now the church is no longer, but we still meet together every other week to eat, pray, worship, or sometimes just watch the Office or kick some butt in darts. We love these dear friends.
The Clearys hosted our Christmas party, and as always provided a great meal…
We played darts (I broke more of them than I got on the board)…
adorned some ugly elfish hats (thank you SYM)…
enjoyed a real fire (sadly we forgot our DVD version at home)…
and had a gift exchange (weird…the Titovs left with their own gift). Great fun!
A great turnout for the Capistrano Valley High School Alumni Soccer game. Every December Eric has made it out to play with his old buddies. Its a great time for the guys and its fun to get an annual check in with them and their growing families.
Eric’s team has won every year until now…It wasn’t a good year for the “old” alumni (Eric’s team & fellow seventy-seven team members: Devon Adams, Scott Shone, Jason Faulk and Brad Chapin). They got beat by the young alumni and then again by the high school team. Rough one!
Lyle and I froze our buns off in the cheering section, passing Emily back and forth to serve as our personal heating blanket.
Despite the loss, it was a super fun night. Go Cougars!
Emily had her 9 month check up yesterday. She’s in good health and progressing right on schedule. She currently weighs 19 pounds 2 ounces and she’s 28 inches in “height”. Her biggest milestone this month is her efforts in crawling, as you can see in her picture. She seems to be so proud of herself and loves that she can get to the things that she wants and further explore the world around her.
But I must admit, my favorite development this month is her “mama mama mama mama” calls all day long. She has entered into a bit of a separation anxiety phase, which the doctor also said was healthy and good. I must admit that I am loving it! Not only because it is so sweet and endearing, but also since I’m sure its another phase she will grow out of quickly and in no time at all I will be missing the days that she needed me, and only me…and now I’m crying 
This is such a fun age, and especially fun to see her experiencing it at Christmas time. She got her first Christmas gift from one of Eric’s clients the other day and just thought it was the coolest thing – probably because we acted like it was the coolest thing.
Every morning I turn on the Christmas tree lights and she smiles and applauds. At night, Eric turns on Christmas music and shuts off all the lights so we can fully enjoy the tree. He and Emily look at the ornaments one at a time. She especially enjoys the ones that jingle. Then they dance around the house together. We conclude the evening with Eric and Emily on the couch watching me do a ballet dance to “Have Yourselves a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland (my favorite). Emily watches me with absolute amazement, relaxed and snuggled into her daddy’s arms and beaming with delight. I wish we had video to document this, its really just the sweetest thing. She may want to be a little ballerina after all. We will have to wait and see.
There’s no questioning the fact that Emily looks like her dad. But these ones could be his own baby pictures they look so much alike.
Emily is learning how to crawl. The perfect time for my video camera to STOP WORKING! Sadly I have no action shots to share, but here are a few stills…use your imagination.
She has a few different styles:
THE SEAL – hands in front, dragging her legs behind her.
THE INCH WORM – she pulls her knees in, puts her butt in the air, then plunges forward. repeat.
THE PUSHUP – this one is really amazing…she holds herself in a plank position, shifts her weight forward an inch, then comes down moves her hands and feet the same inch and does it again.
THE STEAM ROLLER – eric taught her this one. not traditonally crawling at all, she just rolls multiple times to get to what she wants.
She’s gaining speed at all four styles. She spends a lot of time on her hands and knees just rocking, because she can – she’s very proud of herself. As am I.
Eric’s soccer team, Seventy-Seven, had a family day on Sunday. It started with their game in the morning – which they won 4-1. We got this picture at halftime. All together there are 30 kids represented amongst the players, 20 under 5. So this picture doesn’t exactly capture the madness.
After the game, there was a BBQ and pool party at one of the players’ house. Burgers, hot dogs and everything else that tastes good to accompany. There were about 10 boys that were jumping off the rock water fall – doing flips, belly flops…one right after the other…like, on top of each other! I just thanked God that he gave me a girl (so far). It was amazing that no one drowned. Other than one child’s eye brow getting split open, it was a fantastic party.
I love that Eric still has an outlet for his guy time, competitive spirit, and a chance to exercise his skills on the field. I realize how important all of this is to him and I’m so thankful that he’s able to play with such a great group of guys, who are family men, and who share a lot of the same values. Its so fun to take Emily and cheer him on on the side lines. Their season just ended, and they won their league for the 3rd time in a row.
What a stud, huh?
