A birthday party with Princess Arden and a visit to the Queen Mary (Week 146/8)

Hello everyone!  Fun post this week with lots of pictures!  Some good news - I haven't had any kidney stone pain for a over a week now.  Yay! Went to see the urologist again on Tuesday and got an x-ray and an ultrasound.  Conclusion: unknown.  The stone has gone missing - not sure if it's still there (some stones can't be seen on x-ray), but there's some blood in my urine (lovely huh!).  So I'm sitting tight as long as there's no pain until my followup appointment.  OK!  Enough about that!

This past weekend we got to attend another birthday party for one of Tyler's friends!  This was the first one that I got to go to since Katelyn was born (missed 3 of them!).  Arden was the birthday girl and her and Tyler are great friends.  Here they are at Build-A-Bear Workshop (where the party was held).  Tyler was funny - when the lady went to give him his nametag, he chose to put it on his jeans instead of his chest!  He's too cool for school huh. :)

Tyler actually plays with Arden a lot at school.  I love that he has his close circle of good friends!  Ooh, and how cute and preppy is Tyler in his cardigan and polo?

Before the party started, the kids were playing right outside near the fountain.  Here are some random pictures as the kids started arriving.  The little blond girl is Catherine - she is so cute!  I remember when she first started at Tyler's school - she was the new girl and couldn't even walk yet.  She would sit and whimper since she had a hard time adjusting.  Now she is so dainty and adorable and friendly!

OMG.  The more we witness Tyler with his friends, the more we're seeing how silly he is.  I always knew he was quite a ham, but it's getting out of hand!  He's quite the flirt - likes to do outlandish things to impress the ladies.  Here he was running, doing a quick turn and purposely falling on the floor.  Then he'd laugh and look at the girls for their reaction.  We have a class clown!  Ahhh! 

Here's the kids playing on the water fountain.  Tyler does love his water!  That's Nikki in the pink next to him.  She's super girly and cute, but really mischievous too!

Here's a video of Tyler getting all excited when he got his hand wet in the water.  That's a no-no.  He's not supposed to be playing in the water!

Tyler's not listening.  Tsk tsk.  Nikki actually then put her foot/shoe in the water too.  Tyler wanted to do it too - until Will stopped him.  What a follower.

Time to head into the bear workshop!  It was really cute, they had all the kids line up behind the birthday girl next to the fountain.  Tyler was right behind Arden, ready to go!  What a good boy, patiently waiting...

Until he quietly and sneakily inched his way in front of Arden.  Hah!  He was still looking all innocent, thinking no one noticed.  We had him get back behind the birthday girl.  Still, I thought it was funny that he did it so quietly...

I've never been to a Build-A-Bear workshop - so I was excited too!  The kids started out by picking out their stuffed animal skins - there were lots of different bears, bunnies, dogs, etc.  I was secretly hoping Tyler would choose a panda but he went with a dragon!  Nice!  Here are some of the kids with their animals.

It's really cute, they all get these little cloth hearts that they put in their stuffed animals.  First they give it a kiss and make a wish.  Adorable!  Tyler got to help step on the motor pedal that filled his dragon up.  

His dragon is done!  Yay!  Gotta say, the dragon is pretty cool compared to the cute little bears.  :)  Tyler was fine with the dragon but, of course, I insisted that we get him some clothes to wear.  Isn't that the point of Build-A-Bear anyway?  They had so many cute costumes - Jedis, storm trooper, darth vader, etc.  I ended up choosing a Knight costume because Tyler didn't care either way.  What did Tyler want to name his dragon?  Knight.  Yes.  Knight the Dragon Knight.  So imaginative huh!  Sadly, the dragon stayed in his box once we got home and still sits in the box today (per Tyler's instructions!).  Hmph.

After the kids finished their stuffed animals, we all headed out back to the fountain for cupcakes and snacks!  Tyler is totally not into sweets and only took a lick of his cupcake because all his friends were wolfing theirs down!  That lick was all he ended up having.  I, on the other hand, had 2!  Bad Kathy.

Group picture in front of the fountain!  Why am I not surprised that it's my kid that is off to the side and refusing to sit with the group?  Hah!  He has these weird mood swings sometimes.  I would have helped get him back in the group picture but I had Katelyn in a sling and I couldn't really bend down and stuff.  (Oh yeah, Katelyn was GREAT that day. Had her in my pouch and she slept the ENTIRE party!)

After the party we headed to the Atrium (we were at Fashion Island) for an early dinner with a few other families.  I really enjoy hanging out with other families with kids - its so cute watching the kids run around - especially since they're all good friends and go to school together.  Makes not having our social life almost worth it. :)  Here's Tyler with Maddie playing around the koi pond. Tyler actually wasn't careful at some point and almost fell in! (That's water in between the stepping stones).  Luckily he grabbed some random dad who was next to him (stranger to us!) and the nice guy grabbed him back and kept him from falling all the way in!  Whew! Only soaked one shoe and sock.

Sunday we had Will's parents and some of their friends over for Prime Rib.  Yum!  Here's Will's mom with Katelyn.

Here's Katelyn with both grandparents.  M I N I  Tyler.

Here's Will's parents with their friends.  They are actually pediatric surgeons from Shanghai.  Their grand-daughter Angie was actually our flower girl at our wedding!

Group picture before prime rib.  Yum Yum.  Angie is great with Tyler - he loves playing with her!

Monday night my mom came over to spend the night so that she could help watch Katelyn for me since I had my urologist's appointment.  So helpful since I had to get an x-ray and ultrasound, etc.  That night we dressed Katelyn up and drove up to Long Beach to the Queen Mary to meet my dad (he was staying there for a IEEE conference).  Here's my mom with Katelyn and Tyler.  Love it!  Tyler's smile actually isn't super fake!

This picture makes me laugh,  I love it!  Katelyn has become SOO smiley this past week or so, and this one catches one of her super huge laugh/smiles.  

3 generations of women!  This is probably my favorite picture of the week.  I love Katelyn's dress too!  It's a 3 month dress, but I'm not sure if she'll even get a chance to wear it again!  Seriously, what's the point of ridiculously cute newborn clothes?  Katelyn is in pajamas/sleepers 90% of the time!

I need to remember to keep taking pictures of Tyler also - don't want him to feel left out!  Although, we totally aren't doing the monthly photo studio portraits of Katelyn... there's just not enough time!

How did Katelyn get so chubby!?  I swear, I only feed her breastmilk!  Tyler was like this too - a total porker as a baby, but has totally thinned out now.  He's quite solid though.  Man, look at those arm folds.  Maybe I should feed her less...but we feed on demand so it's tough!

The Queen Mary!  Tyler was very excited to go see the "Big Boat!".  When he saw it, he said, "I want another one!".  Haha!  He had a great time running around on deck and just exploring the boat.  Here he is with my parents.

The hotel rooms are actually not as tiny as I thought they would be.  It's cool seeing how these rooms were back in the day.  In the bathrooms, you even have a choice of hot Saltwater to shower in!  We took some pictures of Katelyn on the hotel bed.  Love it!

Family picture!

Here's  a picture of Katelyn and me.  Where is her hair going?!  My hair is so dark now - I think it might be time to lighten it again!

For walking around the ship, I put Katelyn in my Rockin'Baby pouch.  It's the easiest of all my slings, and she falls asleep pretty quick in there.  I also like that she can look around too if she wants to.  

Here's Tyler and Will looking through a telescope on deck.  I love how curious Tyler is about everything.  

Here's the view they were checking out.  It was quite windy out there.

We decided to have dinner at Sir Winston's - the fancy restaurant on the top of Queen Mary.  No elevator access, so we (by we I mean Will) dragged the stroller up a steep flight of stairs.  Note to self:  Queen Mary is NOT very stroller friendly!  The restaurant was pretty cool - all old-school, totally felt like a 1930s fancy restaurant!  Katelyn woke up after we sat down and enjoyed looking around before I nursed her.  It was great, she knocked out in my arms all dinner!

Group picture!  Tyler was very happy eating the bread and his milk.  He really liked the lobster bisque too!  Good thing it was a Tuesday night and quite empty (although not sure if they get busy on the weekends!) and a loud 2 year old didn't really have too many people to bother.  The food at the restaurant, although quite pricey, was not so great.  Aww.  I guess you're paying for the ambiance! We had a great ocean view as well!

Katelyn's 8 weeks!  We headed to her pediatrician's for her 2 month checkup.  Stats:
Weight: 13.9 oz
Height: 23.5 oz
Head Circumference: darn it, I always forget this one.  Must remember to put this in later.


She's a big girl.  Doctor's office says 99% for weight but online I'm seeing it calculated closer to 93-94%.  Haha, not like it makes such a difference.  My doctor said I shouldn't be concerned - that I just have rich breastmilk (she's exclusively breastfed).  Tyler was always really big too as a baby - what can I say, I have good milk!  Katelyn also got her shots, sniff sniff - very sad to hear her cry so hard!  Here she is getting weighed.

On a positive side note: Katelyn has been sleeping GREAT since Sunday night.   O M G!  I totally don't want to jinx it, but she's been doing 5-6 hour stretches, then nursing, and sleeping another 4 hours or so.  4 nights in a row so far - can't believe it!  I think the big change we made was putting her in her own room for her naps and nighttime.  Maybe we were being too noisy before?  We are pretty stoked, but am going to be ready for her to revert at any time.  Yay Katelyn though! 


Here's her 8 week bear picture.

Tyler has gotten better at drawing happy faces!  They are so funny to look at.  The eyes are always little dots.  Same with any attempts at hair or ears.  Love them!

Super cool Tyler with his ray-bans.  Ray-bans for kids?  Who pays money for that stuff - they were $100 at our optometrist's!  We only got them because we had extra $ covered in our vision plan.  

Hi Katelyn!  This totally totally totally could have been a picture of Tyler when he was a baby.

Here's a picture from my girls visiting!  (Pardon me, I'm in my bathrobe! haha!)

Here's Katelyn with Trina and Mariam!

Here's Katelyn on her rocker - she stares so intently at her little toys now.  She's so much more aware - and sometimes I think she's watching TV!  Love that she is smiling so much and talking so much more now.  Finally!

Here's a short video of Katelyn in the rocker.  We can actually have dinner altogether now!

Tummy time picture!  Since Katelyn is a tummy sleeper, she doesn't mind being put on her tummy.  Our pediatrician did urge us to at least try to get her to become a back sleeper though.  She said that Katelyn had a pretty head shape - that I must be holding her a lot! haha, yup!  She said they see a lot of babies with flat heads since they sleep on their backs. Not Katelyn!

Here's a video of Katelyn talking to Will.  Definitely seems like she's more chatty than Tyler was.

Last picture of the week!  I went to pick up Tyler from school and watched him playing in the yard.  One of his teachers asked him to use the potty and I watched him run to the bathroom and go all by himself!  It was so cute!  I had to sneak this picture of him.  He's getting great at potty training - but will still have an occasional accident (not so fun).  

Have a good week everyone!