Rawr! Here's the End of Year Update

Okay so let's see what I can give you all!

Tanya: Okay for me, I finished another semester of college. I got 3 As and 1 B. Once they fix a little error (the system lost my grade for one of my classes) I'll be acknowledged on the Dean's List. From there I will attempt to join Phi Theta Kappa. I also made a decision about where I will earn my BA. ASU (Arizona State University) offered me the chance to earn my degree completely online. Online or not, ASU is a respectable college and will look good on a resume. So Fall 2010 I will be working on a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies -- Dual Concentration in Human Development and Political Science. I am excited and hope to keep to my plan. Going with ASU I might even end up ahead of schedule *Gasp*


Ray: He's a good ways into his deployment. He's been working hard to get his promotion and I know he'll get it very soon. He's amazing like that. Really the only hold up is getting enough promotion points. He's already gone to SGT school and gone to the board to get promotable status so yay! It's just the evil points. He watched Emi on Christmas as she opened gifts. Of course he wishes he was home but not much that can be done about that. He did reenlist, and at the moment he's considering his options. Whatever he decides I know he'll be great and he'll have his family's support.


Emilee: She's growing faster than I can keep up with. She's got a small vocabulary that includes Mama, Daddee, Uh Oh, Whoa, Hi, Bye and More. I think that's a good start for her age. She's 17 months old as of Dec 16th and is so happy to be mobile and vocal lol. She'll be transitioning into her new room at school on the 4th. She'll be in a toddler room instead of infant. I'm just so happy for her. They'll be teaching her so much more there and she'll get to be with kids her age, though she will be the youngest for a time. Hehe but I do have to work on a couple things with her...like the fact that she laughs when I say no...and that she screams when she's happy, sad, mad...ANYTHING XD Indoor voices...yeah...XD


Julian: He's growing nice and strong. I have an appt for him and me on Tuesday and I'll update people then with more but last time they checked his heart rate was nice and strong, he was right on track for the latest due date and he's been kicking away. Strong little boy! I'm working on getting his things in order but I still have till April so I have time lol



Overall: Things are pretty good for us. Sure we'd love for Ray to be home, but everyone has to make sacrifices, this is ours. Anyways, here are some pictures to tide you all over until I get off my slacker butt and post again.

WHEE!!!!

Okay so I am totally happy at the moment! As most knew, Ray was intent on having this pregnancy be a surprise. Well last week he changed his mind! I swear I didnʻt have anything to do with it. No coercion! Nope nope, none! Heh but today I had my ultrasound and it really wouldnʻt have mattered anyways. Baby was flashing the goods like nobodies business *laughs* Oh but that was the only point he cooperated. Yeah! Thatʻs right! Weʻre having a baby boy! Ha! I guess I have better lucky than my parents *laughs* So baby boy will be Julian Estabon Theodore Perez! *cheers* I am super excited! I get to have a baby boy like Ray that is all taught by the big sister! YAY!

And Here is the very obvious proof!

YAY VACATION!

Okay so Ray's deployed...and he's doing well enough, though missing all of his family.

As for Emi and me, we're going to Colorado in about 6 hours. At least that's when we head to the airport.

So for now I am gonna put up a bunch of pics for you guys.

The New News

Okay so here's the deal...Ray's in Iraq. He's safe and sound, set up in his room and all is well...other than the fact that he isn't here. He's decided to reenlist...so this means there will be at least one more deployment and at least one more duty station that isn't Hawaii. So there's that...

I am pregnant for the umpteenth time...okay the second, but all anyone has said once we told them is "don't they know how to prevent that?" so yeah...

Anyways I had an appt today and they changed my due date from March 25th to April 27th...hurrah...it will make finals week interesting...but at least I won't be a blimp for graduation...

I do have a picture of the new baby. We won't find out the gender until the little one is born, so don't ask.

Enjoy the new picture of the new baby and a couple cute ones of Emi!

P.S. Forgive me for the short post...but I am tired and have nausea...you understand...right?

Never Gonna Be Every 5 Minutes

Okay so my dad keeps saying that everyone wants me to update this every five minutes. Well tough for them. I know that sounds harsh, lol but my life doesn't revolve around my blog. It's the other way around, remember?

But here's an update since last time.

We went to Colorado, it was loads of fun. Emilee got to go to the Children's Museum and she had a BLAST! We also had a family party at Ray's Uncle Speed's house where he made spaghetti for Emilee. It was a good party for Emilee and she got COVERED in Spaghetti and Cake. We also went to the Ren Faire and bought Emilee and outfit. She loves it very much and it will fit her for a long time to come.

Mostly we just had fun with family and friends and let Emilee visit with everyone possible.

We got back to Hawaii with three days to spare before my dad got into town. He'll be here until the 20th. We are having the OFFICIAL birthday party for Emilee a day after her birthday for convience sake. It's going to be a Tinker Bell theme and it should be fun. About nine kids will be here and my mom bought Emilee a ball pit to play in. I just hope everyone has fun.

Anyways, here are some pictures, and I'll see you guys next month *laughs*

As Promised...

Here are the pictures from the last few weeks.

Hope you all enjoy them!

Emi riding around on Daddy's Back at the Zoo!

Emi playing at the fishie tank in the Keiki Zoo!

Emi and Mommy watching the flamingos.

Emi making a silly smile face. It was funny, had to share!

No....I didn't forget....I swear...*flees*

Okay so we all know I've been very bad about updating this. I'd love it if Ray would update once in awhile, but meh, he's busy and I have nothing better to do. So I just have to remember to actually do it. It's been months since my last update, so there are a few things that I can mention. I'll break it down into people.

Emi: We took Emi to the zoo for the first time. It would have gone a lot better if I'd thought about the timing. Instead I decided we should go at 10am...which is when Emilee tends to get tired. By the time we were strolling around the zoo, she was trying to catch some zzz's. Poor little one. But we got some cute pictures and I made a photobook out of it, if anyone wants to order one. But Emi has gotten really tall. She's about 28in the last time she was measured. She was 75 percentile for that. She's still proving to have Ray's metabolism, as she is only about 18 lbs 5 oz which is 35 percentile. Not dangerous or anything, but not your average heavy heavy baby. She's been making strides in the walking department though every time she takes a few steps she realizes crawling is faster, throws herself down and crawls the rest of the way. She did learn how to properly climb onto the couch which is giving us a heart ache because now she wants to climb up and over EVERYTHING. Today she climbed over the arm of the couch and took a nose dive off. No damage, but scared the begeebus out of me. Which reminds me about the movie theatre. We went to see Up! on opening day and typically half way through a movie, Emi gets bored and wants to crawl around so Ray will take one end and I'll take the other and she'll crawl around. Well this time she got past both Ray and me and CLEAR across the threatre. I noticed she was gone and then got Ray's attention to see if he saw her. Lucky for us, some nice people pointed out that she was playing with them. Emi is just TOO friendly and curious. Little rascal!

Ray -- He's getting all ready for deployment. It sucks and all that jazz, but not much we can do about it. We went to his pre-deployment briefing where they gave us information and drove home the fact that they really are going. Otherwise, Ray seems pretty good. A few hectic things at work here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. He did pull his back the other day and was in a great deal of pain. I teased him for being an old man, but still rubbed his back to help it get better sooner. He seems better, but his back bothers him from time to time now. He's getting old and broken hehe.

Tanya (Yeah, that's me) -- I finished another semester of college with As and Bs. No big feat but still happy with myself. Now I am just sorting things out as well as I can. I am a planning person, but I have found myself in no plan hell. The military keeps messing with me, and I keep having to change things up, and it's annoying me so much. Still I'll make it work. I have a lot of trips planned to keep me and Emi distracted during the deployment. One in October where I will go on a cruise with my mom and Emi will hang out with her Meemaw and aunties in Colorado. One in November (though it is still in the planning stages) to have Thanksgiving with Heather and Chris. One in December/January to see my Aunt and Grams, as well as my dad and Sister(s), and a few friends, including Tatiana, Jarvie, Crystal, Buddy and Dan. It should be fun and interesting. Then a trip back to see Tatiana in March (unless the military screws with me again) and during this trip Ray will join us for his RnR.

But the one trip we all are looking forward to is in just under 2 weeks. We are going back to Colorado to spend some time with family before Ray has to deploy. It should be fun. We plan to go to the Ren Faire once or twice as well as spend some time with friends we haven't seen in awhile and then have a pre celebration party for Emilee so she can have her family celebrating her birthday, even if it will be about a month early. She won't notice, and will just enjoy the time with family. As we all will.

So there you go. Hope you enjoyed this little update. I've got pictures, but they are on the desktop, which Ray is hoarding at the moment. So I'll put them up as soon as I can...and remember...lol

I HAVE MY SANDY!

So Sandy has been here since Tuesday! YAY!! I love having her here. I missed her lots and lots, and it's saving my sanity to have her here even for a little bit. A lot of craziness has happened though. She was supposed to get here on Monday, but United got stupid and she had to get switched to a different flight the next morning. And then she was supposed to go home today, but due to bad planning she missed her flight home and now can't leave till Monday. So yeah...CRAZY. But I'm enjoying my precious time with her and we are gonna go Karaoke tomorrow and do a BBQ. So yay! Savor savor.

Ooo but we did go to the beach together and we got the CUTEST picture of Emi! So here it is to share with you!

CUTEST EVER!!!

And this is just funny cause of our faces!

What's going on in Paradise!

Okay so not much has changed. Still working on school, Ray is getting back into work now that he's graduated from WLC. Emi has almost figured out how to walk. She stands up just fine, and walks well with her walker, but she hasn't completely put the two together. But you can tell that she's toeing the edge of that, and almost has it figured out. I fear the day she does figure it out, I'm already tired chasing after Crawling Emi, Walking Emi is going to be so much more exhausting. So much fun! *laughs*

Ray and I are sick. I've been sick for nearly two weeks and he's been sick for about fiveish days. It sucks and I'll probably go to the clinic and get checked out tomorrow. Just too much of a hassle to worry about it during the week. Kim and Hunter have been living with us since March 9th and will remain until April 12th. They are PCSing and needed to clear housing to bank some extra BAH. So we are helping them out. But since they are here, Ray needs the car most of the time so that him and Hunter can always get home without hassles or having to wait around.

Ooo but Sandy is coming on Monday. She's going to save my sanity I just know it. Next week is spring break for me, and I am going to take advantage of it, dangnabit! We are going to go all touristy and check out all the stuff that Hawaii has to offer. It should be fun. =)

Anyways, that's about it. Gonna leave you with some cute pictures!

Emi giving Daddy a hug! SO CUTE!

So CUTE! I love Emi in overalls!

No Mommy, I wasn't driving, I swear!

Emi was bored and was trying to get the camera and eat it!

Oh So Bad

Yes, I've been bad. I haven't posted in over a month. *smacks hand* Bad Tanya.

Anyways, let's try to catch you guys up to speed:

On Feb. 10th, Ray went off to WLC, which is a course that prepares him for being an NCO, which is a leadership position. He's been doing good at all his evaluations, and will be graduating on March 11th. The one down side to this is that he's been forced to stay at the NCO Academy all this time. The ironic part is that the academy is about 10 minutes away from our home. So he hasn't got to come home even though he's been so close. Stupid if you ask me, but whatever. It's almost over and he'll be home and get a lovely row of days off.

Just before Ray left, he and Emi got sick. This was the first time that Emi was ever sick. She had diaherra and vomiting. She didn't seem any different though. Kept going along at her normal pace, but there was no doubt that she was sick. She stayed sick for TWO WEEKS. I felt so bad for her, but I was told that all I could do was wait it out. Once she got over it, I had to schedule her for her shots which she didn't end up getting till March 3rd. But now she's all caught up on shots and doesn't need any more till she is One. I'm getting excited as she gets closer and closer to her birthday. Though she doesn't seem patient at all. She's been crawling since she was five months, cruising since she was five and a half months, and now she's started to stand up without pulling herself up using a couch or me. She just stands up and looks at me like "Yeah mom, I can stand, so what?" and then sits back down.

I haven't been able to catch it on camera because it happens so randomly and it is over so quickly. Silly goose. I just hope she doesn't start walking yet. She uses her walker a lot and just walks along with that as support, but I don't want her to walk on her until Ray is back. Of course I have no control over her, so if she decides to be a punk, then so be it, but I can hope that she waits. Ray would be so sad if he missed her first real steps.

I've been keeping up with college slowly but surely. I've only missed a couple assignments in one class, but I should still manage a B if I kick butt and a C if some more things come up. Still I should pass all the classes. After this semester, I only have 2 more semesters to go. I am considering taking the next semester off, but only if my professors aren't cool with me disappearing for two weeks when I go on my cruise to Canada. If they are kosher with it, I'll do the work during the trip and just email it back, but if not, I'll have to take a break. I'm hoping it won't come to that though. The sooner I get my degree, the sooner I'll be more supportive of my family.

But for now, I'm just focusing on Ray's fast approaching birthday. I have three gifts for him so far, and I have to take Emi out to have her pick out a gift for him from her. It should be fun though.

Anyways, that's about all that's been going on. Scrapbooking is a given, but other than that, I've just been dealing with college, taking care of Emi and minding the house. =P

Anyways, here are some pictures for you guys!

This is how Emi typically look like when she takes a nap. Cute huh?

Daddy and Emi at the Ace of Cakes event!

Emi with her new Valentine's Monkey, CHLOE!

WHO WANTS A CLEAN HOUSE!?

Okay, so on Saturday, the people from Clean House came to Oahu. YAY! So I went and met them. Yep, I was a dork and went to go see celebrities. Shun me later =P

I had fun standing in the LONG line waiting to go up and see them. I had a lot of fun talking to the people around me and even got on television. *laughs* Ray played with Emi in the grass, but it was so short and prickly that she didn't enjoy it much.

We got some cute pictures of Emi while we were in line.

When we finally got to the front, they said we couldn't take pictures with them, but we could take pictures of them. I went up with Emi. She smiled at Eugene, Trish and Mark. They all said hi and talked about how cute Emi was. Trish asked Emi if we had a clean house. I laughed and so did Emi. We got autographed pictures and all that jazz.

We also saw Niecy there, but she didn't say hi or anything. I thought it was a little rude, but whatever. Trish and Mark and Eugene more than made up for it.

We got some pictures, and we went back home. I'll upload the pictures when I remember to grab the camera out of the car. *laughs*.

If you want it, come and get it!

Okay, I had more pictures taken of Emi! We got some prints, and now we want to offer them to others. So if you want a wallet, speak up now while supplies last! *laughs* And if we run out, we will make more, but you know what I mean! Send us your snail mail address! All addresses to be sent to ayvina@comcast.net . Don't be shy! =)

Here are a few of the pictures from this session:

Money issues.

One issue solved, and another arises. Just my lucky day. So I talked to my friend, she completely understands my requests and thinks I was silly to worry about it. I feel better now. And I even have the lovliest of back up sitter if something should ever come up. So I am at peace. And then I find out that my boss, lovely lovely boss who I explained upon hiring me back that I needed to work Tuesday/Thursday shifts, tells me that she scheduled me to work Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Lovely, just peachy. So after I found that I couldn't switch into MWF versions of my campus classes, I told her I had to quit. I HATE that I have to quit. I LOVED working there, but there's nothing I can do. We can't afford 50 min round trip drives every day for the next sixteen weeks, not to mention Ray needs the car too. And we also can't afford to pay my friend THAT much money. So yeah, my hands were tied. I have an interview tomorrow for another job on campus, but I doubt they will be able to fill my requests on such short notice. Schedules have all been made. I'm screwed, and we're out a lot of money.

The Recent Dilemma

Alright, so I had gotten my job back because a friend of mine had said she'd be willing to watch Emi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Figured it'd be okay, I'd pay her at the end of every week and we'd all be good. And since the State pays weird and my first paycheck wouldn't be till the 20th of Feb, I paid her in advance so that she knew she'd always get paid. Now though, I don't know what's going on. She called yesterday and said she was leaving her husband, and wanted to go back home. Now she's decided that things have worked out and that they are staying together. Well that's one issue solved for now. But now she's hanging out with someone a LOT and I don't mind the person, she seems funny and nice, but she does some things I'd rather not be done around Emilee. I don't want to be a bitch and say, "Don't go to that persons house while you're watch Emi." Because then she might just decide it's not worth it and say she's just going to stop babysitting and then where would I be...but I always don't want Emi around that sort of stuff. It's fine for them to do it, it's their choice and their life, but I should be able to have some say as to whether my daughter is around it, right?

*sighs* I just don't want to lose a friend and my job because of this. But I also don't want to put my daughter at risk...I just wish there was another way. I'm still not being called any time soon for child care, though the second I am, Emi is going there without a second thought. But I don't have many people I can ask to watch Emi without feeling like I'm being annoying. I mean I have plenty of people I hang out with, but I don't want to ruin the fun we have by asking such a huge favor...*sighs* This all just sucks and I am not sure what to do...

EDIT: Well I've decided that risking a friendship is better than risking my daughter, the obvious answer of course. So if my friend doesn't like that I'm going to ask her to just watch Emi at her house, then I'll just have to change my schedule so that I have one more online class and drop the two campus classes and my job. It will suck, but I'll do it if I have to. I'm not putting Emi at risk just so that I can have 10 hours of work and two campus classes.

My Apologies!

Okay, I've been terrible, I know. Eventually I'll get Ray to update for once. *Gasp* Horror, I know! Anyways, we've been pretty good. Emi has been crawling like crazy, getting into EVERYTHING. She loves it, we love it but wish she hadn't figured it out THIS soon. *laughs* It's nice though. It means she's curious like us, trying to figure things out. And I love the fact that I can say her name and she'll come right to me with the biggest grin on her face. Emi will be six months on January 16th, which is fun. She had a weigh in and length check on the 2nd for WIC where we found out she was just under 25 inches long and 14 lbs 14 oz. Not too bad for her age. I think right on target for height, but still under on her weight.

Emi started solids last month but got her first taste of rice cereal. She doesn't like it on it's own but LOVES it in her bottle. Downs the thing in nothing flat! So funny. Oh and today we went out bowling with another military mom with a 13 month old daughter named Brianna. Emi and Bri seem to get along swimmingly, though the first time Emi crawled on Bri she was like, "What the heck?" but eventually thought it was funny. As usual, I sucked at bowling but had loads of fun. For once Ray didn't win either game. Anne beat us during both games.

Let's see, I'm still scrapbooking, which is fun. I had a crop this afternoon and have one tomorrow night as well. It will be nice to crop without having Emilee with me. Ray will be taking care of her. Also, next tuesday, I start back at school and have two campus classes, and I have a work study position. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll be busy from pretty much 730 am till 5pm and Emilee will be staying with Kim, who's watching her for us, which is very nice of her. This being the first time I'm away from her this often, I'm probably going to be that mom that sets down a few ground rules just cause I'm a worrywort, but I'm sure Kim will understand.

Ray's been pretty good. Work has been annoying him on and off, but overall I think he's doing good. He's working towards getting promoted to SGT, which will be nice for him. I think he put in a packet to go to WLC which is a leadership training thing I believe. It will be a month long thing where I won't see him. It will definitely suck, but it's all to help him further himself, so I'll be supporting him 210%. He's also doing this thing that transfers all the schooling and stuff he's done with the military into civilian credits which will be nice. It will make finished his degree that much easier.

So there's that for you guys. To appease you all for my shoddy updates, here are a few pictures.

Emi and Mommy. Beautiful picture taken by photographer friend and fellow Scrapbooking addict, Almarie!

Emi laughing cause Daddy was being silly!

Emi with Daddy on Christmas Day!

Emi with Mommy on Christmas Day!

Emi in the sink of the hotel we were staying in CA.