Brayden's first trip to the pumpkin patch

Here are some pictures of Brayden's very first Halloween. He was here the weekend before so we went to the pumpkin patch....unfortunately they didn't come up for Halloween and his other grandmother (they live with my son-in-law's parents) is a Jehovah's Witness so they didn't participate in trick-or-treating this year.

At the start of the hayride to go out to pick a pumpkin Brayden was asleep.

But then he woke up and was ready to find the perfect pumpkin.

Here's Kyrah with her pumpkin.

And finally......his "just my size" pumpkin.

Either he's big or she's small. In this picture Brayden is 8 1/2 months old and Kyrah is 3 years old. Hard to believe that he was a preemie and only 5 lbs 12 oz when he was born.

In other news.....life is busy! Tony is a senior and has been attempting to find a job for a couple of months now.....so far no luck. It's a sad time when McDonald's isn't even hiring. Ashley works a lot though....and goes to school full time still. She is still majoring in History although her direction has changed a few times. Originally she wanted to be a college professor, then it was a high school history teacher and now it is a history teacher at a school for the hearing impaired. She is taking sign language right now. Brandi is enjoying the baby.....I haven't been able to get her to part with him for a weekend yet but I'm persistent.

I am almost finished with my 1st semester of nursing school....wahoooo! I am in week 11 out of a 16 week semester. It is tough.....but so far I am still holding on to an A. I don't expect to keep it though...I still have 2 more tests and a final, yuck! I am getting ready to register for the 2nd semester in about a week....and that is so exciting, I won't be the "red button" anymore!!! Let me explain.....at the school I go to each semester is assigned a colored button (or whatever it is called) that holds your ID badges. Red is 1st semester, green is 2nd, yellow is 3rd and blue is 4th. You have no idea how exciting it will be to not be red anymore!!

Let me tell you about my excitement at the hospital last week. We have only been at the hospital for about 4 weeks....not consistently....and we are assigned a patient to take care of. My patient was 95 years old with pneumonia. Well on Tues I thought she didn't look quite right so I took her vitals....well, she was crashing. Not yet coding but her blood pressure was 77/30 and her pulse was in the 160s....not good! I immediately notified the nurse and we called for the Rapid Response Team. Within about 2 mins the room was filled with personnel, from the ICU nurse, nursing supervisor, respiratory therapist to my instructor who happened to hear the code. It was all so exciting....not for my patient but for me. I thought I would be pushed aside but instead I was thrust right into it because I was the only one who knew anything about this patient. In all my reading and studying I didn't think that I could recall what I was able to recall when the situation called for it.....it was so nice to know that I am really learning something and I actually felt like a nurse!

Just a few updated pics.....

They grow up so fast.....

Here is a picture of my niece, Kyrah. She turned 3 yesterday.



Here was her birthday cake....it was a princess theme so she was the Birthday Princess.

And here are a couple pictures of Brayden.....he is so freakin cute, if I do say so myself. He will be 8 months old on the 9th.

Brayden's getting so big.

It's hard to believe that he is almost 6 months old already. I don't get to see him too much since they moved 2 hours away....I've only seen him twice in 2 months : ( He is starting to develop his personality and it is so fun to watch. He loves to giggle and when he is giggling you can't help but smile. He is eating "big boy" food now too. Next up will be crawling and then walking.






He's my chunkey monkey : ) Hard to believe that he is still on the lower side of the weight/height charts, isn't it? Of course that's because he was only 5 lbs 12 oz when he was born.

And just to compare, here are some pictures from when he was born.

Happy 23rd Birthday Brandi!

23 years ago today I was in labor with my oldest daughter Brandi. Hard to believe that it's been that long ago already....time really does fly by. I was only 16 years old when I had her and didn't know what to expect....now 23 years later I'm 29 and still don't know what to expect, LOL.

Happy Birthday Brandi!

1st Anniversary!

I can't believe that it has been a year already...seriously, where does the time go? DH and I were supposed to go to Tahoe for our anniversary but decided to cancel once I got accepted into nursing school....got to start saving some money in preparation for my loss of income. We took today and tomorrow off but have no plans...we are just hanging out together. We will make up for the next couple of anniversaries once I am finished with school....maybe we will re-enact our honeymoon. Since the 1st anniversary is paper I bought DH some tickets to see Toby Keith on 7/25 and he bought me tickets to see Gary Allan on 8/23..yay!

Happy 1st Anniversary honey!

Happy 19th Birthday Ashley!!!

How is it that my middle child is now 19 years old but I haven't aged in years? Hmmmm....very interesting. : )

Happy Birthday Ashley!

Good News!!

In an attempt to finally update my blog I thought I would let everyone know that I have offically been accepted into the Fall 08 nursing program. As you are aware it is a lottery system here in Sacramento due to the number of applicants vs. number of spots....475 people applied for 30 spots. I applied to all 3 programs available and at first I received a rejection letter from all 3.

Fast forward 1 week from the date of the letters and I received a phone call at work telling me that someone had dropped out and I was the first person on the waiting list. I was so excited, scared, stressed and overwhelmed all at the same time. From what I can gather the drawing is strictly lottery but the waitlist/alternate list is based on your grades and since I had a 4.0 GPA I was at the top. I will offically become a nursing student on 8/25/08.

Of course I still haven't quite figured out the financial aspect yet....I will have to quit my job and we will have to live strictly off of DH's income and any loans I can get. The real scary part is that I supply the health insurance for us. Not sure how the next 2 years are going to be for us but one way or another we will make it work. Wish me luck.

Once again, Tony is Rancho Cordova Athlete of the Week.

After finishing a pretty dismal season for the high school, the Lancers won the opening tournament for Summer ball. They are the exact same team but it's amazing what a difference it makes when they are facing teams much more in their age range. As you know the varsity team didn't have any seniors at all on their team and ended up only winning one game during league. During Legion ball (summer league) they basically face most of the same teams but minus the other teams graduating seniors......now their record is 8 & 1, their loss coming after 8 consecutive wins. Here is a copy of what was in the Rancho Cordova newspaper...Go Lancers! And Go Tony!!

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Callen starts 5-0, wins tourney


Jeremy Franklin picked up a pair of wins, including a complete game, nine-inning affair, for the Callen Pool Supply Jr. Legion team.
Grapevine file
- The Callen Pool Supply Jr. American Legion team, made up of players from the varsity and JV teams at Cordova High School, wasted little time putting forgettable high school seasons behind them, chalking up five wins in their first five games, taking the championship of the Kennedy Memorial Day Tournament in the process.
Callen topped El Camino, 11-1 in the season opener, then picked up wins over Kennedy, 7-6, Lodi, 5-4, McClatchy 8-6 and El Dorado, 3-2.

Rancho Cordova 11, El Camino 1
Jeremy Franklin picked up the win for Callen, striking out seven without allowing a single earned run. He also doubled and tripled on the day for Rancho Cordova, driving in three runs in the victory. Andrew Renken went 2-for-3 on the day and Matt Brooks was 2-for-2 for Rancho Cordova. Both Renken and Brooks stole a pair of bags and scored twice for Callen.
“I thought our outfield was a real key in that game,” said Callen manager Chad Parker. “It was really windy that day and Renken, Brooks and Jesse Smith all played well.”

Rancho Cordova 7, Kennedy 6
In the first of three come from behind victories, Callen Pool rallied from a 4-2 deficit with three runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh during the opening round of Memorial Day Tournament action. John McCants bounced a grounder to third base in the seventh inning, which scored Brooks and, following a slight bobble, allowed Tony McDaniel to score, as well.
“I just kept him going,” said Parker. “You’ve got to try to score and win the game in that situation in the game. There was a play at the plate but Tony beat the throw.”
Chris DeCesare picked up a complete game win for Rancho Cordova, striking out seven hitters.

Rancho Cordova 5, Lodi 4
The Flames took a 4-1 lead but a three run rally in the sixth inning helped Callen Pool knot the score, thanks in great measure to Renken. Renken picked up a RBI pinch hit that drove in a pair and eventually scored the tying run for Rancho Cordova. Mike Wallace and Brooks reached in the seventh inning and McDaniel connected on a single that plated the winning run. Wallace struck out eight and allowed one earned run in the complete game win.

Rancho Cordova 8, McClatchy 6
The Capitals scored four runs in the first inning, but Callen Pool Supply rallied for four of their own in the third to take a 5-4 lead. With the score knotted after five, Rancho Cordova added a run in the sixth to take the lead once and for all.
McDaniel once again picked up the game-winning hit, driving in Smith. McDaniel picked the team out of trouble in the fifth and picked up the win in relief. Wallace added some pop to the offense, going 2-for-4 with a home run and a pair driven in.

Rancho Cordova 3, El Dorado 2
Franklin rose to the occasion once again for Callen, pitching all nine innings of an extra inning ball game, setting down 13 consecutive hitters at one point.
“He pitched really well that day,” Parker said. “His fastball was a good in the ninth inning as it was in the first.”
Rancho Cordova scored a pair of runs in the second inning when Wallace singled and Brooks followed with a home run to give Callen Pool a 2-1 lead. El Dorado, made up of players from El Dorado, Union Mine and Ponderosa High schools, tied the score and sent the game into extra innings.
In the ninth, the pitching hero, Franklin, became the hero of the offense, walking, stealing second then advancing to third. The final heroics were provided, for the fourth game in a row, by McDaniel, who crushed a ball to left, driving in Franklin.

Unfortunately the ad that names player of the week isn't available online....I will have to scan it and post that one day : )

Brayden pics!

On Saturday I took Brayden to have his very first pictures taken. I did this as a wedding gift to my daughter...she is getting married on Wednesday. But the more that I think about it the more I realize that she might actually be mad about this because she wasn't there for his first pictures. Uh-oh. Nothing I can do about it now....so here are some of them.

Jr Prom 2008

Tonight is Tony's Jr Prom.....hard to believe that his junior year of high school is almost over. I always thought that the boys had it so cheap and easy when it came to dances...well, I was wrong. Tony's Junior Prom cost almost $400!!! That's about what I always had to pay for both of my daughters, with the dresses, hair & make up, etc. Well the boy may get to rent the tux (not cheap either, I paid $140!!!) but he has to pay for everything else....or I should say I have to pay for everything else. Here are some pictures.....
And just because you can't have a post without Brayden here are a couple of his 2 month old pics : )

Proud Mommy moment

As you know (because I am sure I have mentioned it on here just a few times) my son is on the varsity baseball team for his high school. The team is composed of mostly juniors with a couple sophomores and one freshman....no seniors, which for those of you who know sports are aware this is not a good thing. But alas we headed into the 38th annual Easter tournament hosted by our high school this week....and since the team was 0-4 at this point I didn't have high hopes. I am happy to report that I was wrong.....the team took 3rd place out of the 10 teams that were there. In my opinion though...they tied for the championship. Here's the reason.....my son's team finished 4-1, the second place team finished 3-2 and the championship team finished 4-1. The way they worked this tournament doesn't make any sense to me....how can the 3rd place team have a better record than the 2nd place team? Go figure. But alas...we finished 3rd....Wahoooooooo!! Go Lancers!

During the presenting of the trophies they also select the top players from all the teams participating and name them to the All Tournament team. Guess who was named to the All Tourney team.....yep, MY SON! Double Wahooooo!!!! I was quite excited at this point. Of course all it means is that you get a t-shirt that says All Tourney but still....you had to be one of the top players to get that coveted T-shirt! So finally it was time for the 3 individual trophies....top pitcher, MVP (which we all know goes to someone on the championship team most of the time) and Top Hitter throughout the tournament. Well guess what.....are you ready....drum roll please....the Top Varsity Hitter for the tournament was MY SON! OMG! That is so freakin amazing! That means out of the 125 or so kids in the tournament my son was the number 1 hitter! I'm not sure what his batting average ended up being but I do know that in the tournament he hit 2 triples, 4 doubles and quite a few singles with at least 6 RBI's that I can remember. WAHOOOOOO....way to go Tony! And he is only a Junior! Well done son!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

So far I am enjoying Spring Break....only because I took the whole week off work! Yay! My son's team is playing in an Easter tournament and the games are during the day so I usually take some time off during this week to watch. I will also be dropping Ashley off at the airport in a couple of hours so she can head to San Diego to spend Spring break with her boyfriend. Other than that I plan on doing nothing! LOL. Actually I hope to motivate myself to at least work on some of my wedding pictures and finally get some framed....as well as my daughter's senior pics and graduation pics. I also hope to hang some pictures back up in my house....I took them down to paint and haven't hung them back up yet, and that was about a year ago!

In other news...I turned in my final application for the nursing program today. I am pretty discouraged too. I was the 364th person to turn mine in and there is still a month to go before the cut off. The admissions clerk told me that there were over 800 that applied last semester. 800!!! That's insane! Usually all the applicants apply to all 3 of the programs so I am guessing that there were about that many that applied to the other 2 as well. Each school only accepts about 25 students...and it is supposedly done by a lottery system. So I basically have about a 3% chance of getting in. Actually it's probably less than that because 2 out of 3 of the schools take almost 1/2 their class from previous applicants. I have heard the horror stories of it taking 3-4 years to finally get in but I was really hoping that was an urban legend.....looks like it was true! So it sure makes you wonder why we have such a huge nursing shortage here because it seems that there are plenty of willing students.....so where are all the schools for the students to go to?!

And finally.....for your viewing pleasure...more Brayden pics : )

Here are some of his One Month Old pictures.....with Kyrah, who is 2 1/2 now! Where does the time go?!
Before you panic....I didn't leave the baby laying like this with Papa Jim not paying any attention, it was only long enough to take the pictures.And his "do you mind, I'm trying to sleep" look.....
So....are you tired of Brayden pictures yet? : )

2 out of 3.....

So far I have submitted 2 out of the 3 nursing applications. I will submit the last one on Monday. Wahoooo! I won't hear anything for 6-8 weeks after the mid-April deadline...so around the end of May. I am kind of torn about whether or not I want to get accepted for the Fall 2008 semester. I definately want to hurry up and get the nursing program out of the way but then again if I waited until Spring 2009 it would give DH and I more time to get our finances in order before I lose my salary. I still applied though because it is very rare to get accepted on your first try and all the programs give preference to returning applicants. Anyways....keep your fingers crossed for me : )

In other news....my son is having a pretty good year so far for his baseball team. He has already almost hit the ball out of the park a couple of times and we are only 4 games into the season. However...not having any seniors on the varsity team is definately showing...the team is 0 & 4.

Brayden turned one month old on the 9th. I can't believe tomorrow he is going to be 5 weeks old already....where does the time go. Here are a few pics of him from when he was about 2-3 weeks old....I have some from the day he turned one month old but they are still in the camera and DH took that to work with him.





More pics coming soon.....

Just a little update....

Hey everyone! It has been awhile since I blogged so I thought I would just briefly post about what is going on in my busy-as-always life.

As you know my g-son was born on 2/9 and let me just tell you that he is the most adorable thing ever! I don't get to see him during the week so I go through major baby withdrawls....last week I called just to make sure he hadn't started walking already, it had been 4 days since I had seen him. I implemented Sunday Family dinner night so that I will at least get to see him once a week. DH will also get to spend some time with his daughter other than just their Wednesday night dinners. Brayden is 3 1/2 weeks old and at his last check up weighed 6 lbs 6 ozs. He is still so little! All I ever want to do is hold him so everyone says I am a baby hog : ) I still haven't decided on a name.....sorry, but 39 is just too young to be grandma. Ashley started referring to me as Nona (No, like the word), which is short for No name. LOL!

In other news it is baseball time! Wahoooo!!! My son is a junior in high school so he is on the varsity team. We don't expect them to have a very productive season this year because there aren't any seniors on the team, mainly juniors with a couple of sophmores and one freshman....but look out next year! Even though they haven't won a game yet (they just started) they are giving the other teams one hell of a battle! In last week's game my son got just a little cocky though.....he hit a deep fly ball and since he was so sure it was out of the park he just trotted around the bases, well it landed just inside the fence. He got a clean double out of it but had he actually been running he would have had at least a triple! Bet he won't do that again.

Ashley is doing well...she works and attends college full time. She originally was a history major but now she wants to double major...history and psychology. I hope she sticks with it!

I am currently filling out the applications for the 3 nursing programs that we have here in Sacramento. I will be sending them in within the next 2 weeks so keep your fingers crossed for me! It is a lottery to get it.....there are usually about 450 applicants and only 25-30 slots. I have heard mixed things about whether grades play a part in getting accepted....if they do I might have a good chance since I have a 4.0 GPA. I am kind of torn about whether I want to get accepted on my first try.....for the most part I do but then I think that my son will be starting his senior year in August and there are all those Senior expenses so losing my income would not be good. But DH and I are trying to get rid of as many expenses as we can in preparation for the loss of income........he bought a 2001 Mercedes E320 that he will be fixing up (it is a great benefit having a husband who can do auto body work!). It was wrecked but not that badly. He got it for $3k and figures it will cost another $2k or so to fix.....and if we choose to sell it we can probably get about $13-14k for it. Right now the plan is to sell my car so we can get rid of my car payments and I will drive the Mercedes for awhile.

Here is some good news......the other day I was looking for the patches my son received his freshman year for his participation in sports (I put them away for safekeeping and can't remember where). I didn't find the patches but I did find some of my video tapes that I thought had been stolen. I was sooooo unbelievably happy. I have the tape of my son's touchdown and my daughter's dance recitals. I wish I had all the tapes but there were quite a few that were in the camcorder case so they are long gone.....but at least I didn't lose everything!

Well I guess that's it. I will try to post more Brayden pics soon.

More Brayden.....

Here are more pictures for your viewing pleasureSleeping with his mouth open.Aunt Ashley
Ashley says he looks like a little old man here....or maybe Mr. Magoo. I think that he just looks too freakin adorable!
And here is my favorite picture....he looks like he is praying.
That's it for now....but I'm sure that these won't be the last pictures of Brayden that I post. Stay tuned to watch him grow up : )

PS.....I was told that during a conversation with my dad Brandi told him that having Brayden changed everything. I'm not sure of the exact extent of the conversation but I do know that it was about me. Here's to hoping things are going to start looking up.