Ritz-Carlton baby!

This year for our anniversary, I wanted to surprise Justin by stealing him from work Thursday morning and taking him down to one of our favorite breakfast restaurants over in San Clemente, Fisherman's. The restaurant is on a pier and you can sit out on the patio, eating seafood eggs Benedict and watch the waves roll under the restaurant. So I emailed his boss two weeks ago and got permission have Justin miss that morning of work...

Little did I know, my Dad had a surprise for us. He had obtained a night at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel (Dana Point). So Justin asked his boss for the rest of that day off and we set off to Dana for our first ever (and hopefully not only ever) Ritz-Carlton experience. Everything was perfect! We had a breath-taking view of the ocean. We left the patio doors open all night so we could sleep to the sound of the waves rolling onto shore.









Another really cool thing about the Ritz in Laguna Niguel is that they have their own private beach. So it's never crowded with people. There are a few surfers in the morning, and a couple walking at sunset every now and then, but for the most part, all you can hear is the water. It was wonderful!





Really the pictures speak for themselves, we had such a wonderful time.







Happy 4 years to Justin, the man I love! Honestly it has been so much fun being married to you, that I would gladly do the four years over again! I wouldn't change a second!

Look kids, a deer!

Lets catch up shall we? Right before Halloween we went to the huge Pumpkin Patch out in Yucaipa. For Halloween Cade was a pirate, Tess a caterpillar. We went trunk or treating over in Rancho Cucamonga and on Halloween night we stayed home and carved pumpkins. From Halloween up until now it's all kind of a blur... We combined our families for thanksgiving, making it the best of both worlds and the day after that we were among the loonies to go black friday shopping. To get into the true spirit of Christmas we recently watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. "Where do you think you're going to put a tree that big?" (I forgot how stinkin' funny that movie is!) And there you have it.
Pumpkins


Sunflower Tessa


Cade and the Goat


Cade at petting zoo


Justin and I


Cade with the missionaries


Tessa

Tessa-Bells

She's just so stinkin CUTE!

It's been a while, yes, I know

So here's what's new with the Alfrey Fam....



My Brother Conrad just got home from his mission in Russia. He's a cutie huh?


My Sister Stacy, her husband Kent and their daughter Andi came down to visit. We took them to the Farmer's Market here in Redlands.


We took them out to Red Robin (thanks Katie, now I'm addicted) which happens to be Caiden's favorite Restaurant because it's full of "boons" and "pies" (balloons and French Fries).


Grandma Jacobs (Justin's grandma) came down to visit Jesse for his Birthday!


I put together a baby shower for my dear friend Katie, who decided to go into labor three weeks early on the day OF her shower, so it got cancelled. These are the invitations I made.


This is a picture of Caiden channelling Draco Malfoy from the 6th Harry Potter movie which, by the way, was so stinkin awesome!!!


Tessa turned 4 months old today!!


Does every mom think her daughter is the cutest baby in the world or is it just me?


She's just sooooo cute!


THE END!

Malibu Baby!

Every year we have a family reunion at Carpinteria State Beach for a week. This year the camp was full so we went to Leo Carrillo in Malibu. It was so much fun because almost everyone was there! My sister Stacy who lives in Idaho and my brother Conrad on his mission in Russia were the only ones we were missing.


It was great for Justin to have some time off from work... he's been working super hard.


Thank Heavens I remembered Cade's dump truck! It was a "must" at the Beach!


Everyone who knows my dad, knows that he has magical powers when it comes to babies. Here he is burping Tessa!


Here is Cade with his cousin Ashley... and his other cousin, Ashley! (It's a very popular name in our family)


When my cousin Spencer was little, the big boy cousins always took good care of him and made sure to play with him. It's so neat to see him doing that with Cade now that he's the little guy in town.


My Malibu Baby Girl looked more like an Alaskan Baby Girl! (You know me, I am always afraid my babies are too cold!)


One picnic table and a pothole and you too can have a son that looks like this! He's tough though.


Caiden sure loves driving in a car. He wishes that Malibu was farther away just so that we could all sit in the car longer... Come on Cade! Tell us how you really feel! (I hate traveling too!) It was only 2 hours, but I felt the same as Caiden looks in this picture.

Come on, don't be a Sissy!

So... I just had a baby, and I feel fat, how about you? I was thinking that it would be fun to see how many of you are up for a little challenge...

It's time for me to get into shape...meaning a different shape than I am already in... less round to be exact! So I have decided to get my booty in gear for the 2010Camp Pendleton Mud Run! This is the World Famous Mud Run! The Mud Run is a challenging 10K run with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, tunnel crawl, slippery hill climb, and the final 30-foot mud pit. Along the course there will be 6 water points with personnel staged at each. Doesn't that sound awesome? If you want more info go to www.camppendletonraces.com.

So who's in? I know that most of you are pregnant, or like me just had a baby. But you have no excuse because it's over a year away! I think it would be so fun if we could all run this together! If you live in another state, you are more than welcome to come and stay with me and we can all drive down together! I know my Fisher girls will be down, probably Katie too! Wendy will do it I'm sure. Jenny will say yes and it would be great to get Shelby out here... the Murphy twins will be due for a visit anyway (Michelle this is right up your alley!)... Ashley is probably already on line registering...Summer? Charis? Stacy? What do you guys think??? (Brandy, you are mega far away, but it would be greatness if you came too!!) And anyone else can come too, even those of you I dont know who are way into blog surfing!

(by the way, the pic is from a fabulous night of mud football when I was up at School)

Sleep...Who needs it! Not me!

I'm too sleepy to write anything really deep... sorry. Not only have I been up with the baby every night, but Caiden got really sick, threw up 5 times, and I have been helping Leo save the Unicorn (Little Einsteins) ever since. My poor Bubbas! (The song of the Unicorn is Caiden's favorite episode... at this point I'm not sure if DVR is a blessing or a curse). Maybe I can talk Cade into rescuing the instrument fairies (also little Einsteins) after this episode, just to switch things up!

P.S. "There is no charge for awesomeness!" (Name that quote!)

Our Easter....

Tessa's Easter


Caiden's Easter!


Justin's Easter!




MY EASTER!!

Introducing....

Miss Tessa Isabel Alfrey!

E. T. Sullivan once wrote these beautiful words:

“When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.”

These words discribe how I feel about my little Tessabel. She's absolutely perfect! We had a girl's night on her birthday and became good buddies. She and I already have a great deal in common. She's a binge eater that loves to sleep... need I say more? One of my favorite things about her is that she is such a lady! Everytime we get her to burp, it's so quiet and petite that I often ask Justin: "Does that even count?"

PS: Congrats to Jessica for her whitty guess! Tessa was born April 2nd, year of our Lord 2009 (that's how Justin announces the date sometimes:)

Wanna Bet???

Alright Ladies and Gents! Will you play a little game with me? I was wondering if any of you had any predictions as to when I am going to pop! Right now it feels like it's never going to happen! April 9th (my actual due date) feels so far away! So here's what you need to do: See if you can guess the day that little Miss Tessa Isabel will be born into the world! Whoever gets the closets to the actual date, without going over it (yes, some of the rules originated from the Price is Right), will win a prize! I will send the winner their favorite candy bar! (I thought about Rascal Flatts tickets, a free car, or a life size cardboard cutout of me with my huge belly as seen above in this post...but a candy bar sounds way better to a pregnant chick...) So, before you guess, here are the facts: Caiden was due the on the 12 of January, he came on the 4th. This baby is due on the 9th of April, but the doctor said that the way she measured, it could be more accurate to make her due on the 5th of April. One last rule is that you can't guess a date if someone else has already claimed it! Good Luck! (spouses may participate too!) If I were going to place my guess, it would look something like this:

Christy's Guess:
Reason:
Favorite Candy Bar:

Good Luck!!

Hiyah!!

So my mom has always played this "hiyah!" game with us since we were kids. If she was going to attack with a pillow, she would say "hiyah" before it hit us. Well, she taught Cade the phrase and he has gone to town with it. He will go grab a towel that I am going to grab and before he releases it to me there's a "Hiyah!" in there. If we have a pillow fight, many "Hiyah's" are said. Well, the other day, Caiden was in the corner of his room and I heard him saying "Hiyah" with a little more emotion and feeling. When I took a peek at what he was Karate chopping, I noticed he was bearing down and that his face was red... (yes, you are reading this correctly) apparently saying "Hiyah" helps Caden go pooh as well!

Now if you have noticed, I like having theme songs to match my blog. Unfortunately, the Diarrhea song is not offered on the playlist.com website. So as you read this, you can just hum to yourself "when you're walking down the hall and you hear something fall, DIARRHEA! DIARRHEA! When you're sliding into first and you feel a big burst DIARRHEA, DIARRHEA!" (sorry, that's the only song about #2 that I know of). So you'll have to settle for Brad Paisley's "I'm still a guy."

(gross! Who puts stuff like this on their blog??)

The Great

My Grandpa Hodge is a Great Grandpa Hodge almost 3 times now. He sent me an email telling me that such a title was much to long and confusing, so we should just call him "The Great." At first I thought he was joking, but he came down to California for a visit and tried to convince Caiden that "Great" was really his name.

I took this picture of them when they were walking through Ford Park on their way to the duck pond. I love it. My Grandpa together with my Son, separated by two generations.