“Happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” ~ Denis Waitley

It’s a happy day. Enjoy!

Well, you know I’m not talking about me! I consider myself grown up once I became a Gysen. Well, I wasn’t yet. I don’t think I truly grew up until I became a mother…the first time. That experience, in and of itself, grew us up. BUT….there is one Gysen that is growing up, maybe a little too fast. But, we’ve been told that’s what they do.

Our 26 month and 19 day old has a big girl room now. I finished it up yesterday. The bed was already in there. Got it, the nightstand and dresser at an estate sale. Thanks for the great deal Sandra Mae!! Now it’s all together and we are trying to get Gabriella to sleep in it. We have had her sleeping in our room since we brought her home in June 2008. I think it’s time for her to be on her own….so to say. She did ok last night. I put her down in our bed *only because she just wouldn’t in hers….I’m going slow…this is a big thing* and then moved her to her bed at 9pm. She woke up at 1:50am and I went in and layed down with her till she went back to sleep. Subsequently, I also went back to sleep. I woke up at 3:15 and went back into my bed. She woke up at 6am and came back to sleep in my bed. I count this a victory! Then she slept in our bed till just before 9am. What else would you call it?!

Um…just a side note. It is POURING outside right now! Wow! It makes me want to snuggle up in a blanket and read a book. Ha! Like that’ll ever happen

So, here’s some pictures of her new room. Too fun! Not too girly, but totally Gabriella.

the before: We did this almost 6 months before we brought her home!

Gabriella’s new bed…her changing table is now a bookcase…fun!

floor to ceiling of her new bed…

her shelves…lots of good stuff up there!

So, I am noticing a trend with my blogging….I don’t do much of it anymore. Yeah, I’m very observant No, I tend to update my status on my FB page and spy into the lives of others rather than write down things that are happening in my life on this site. I need to change this. So, maybe, starting today I will update my status on my blog instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?! That was my last post afterall. FB is very  addicting for me. AND I’ve discovered why! I live most of my life with a 2 year old. I have little to no adult contact during my day. This is the sad life of a stay at home mom. AND that was sarcasm, by the way. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything!

So, what is my status update today?! Well, since I already posted it  on FB……..staying inside means I get to do a LOT of cleaning. Today I’ll be getting Gabriella’s big girl room all set up as she will be sleeping in there from here on out! I understand this will be a LOT of work for me….but really, what else do I have to do?! Ha!

So, what do I do now? Elaborate on that? Hmmm….it’s going to rain again today, there’s nothing outside to do because it’s wet and soggy, and there is PLENTY inside to do, so I am cleaning out Gabriella’s room and turning it into a toddler’s paradise…however that turns out…I’ll let you know. Why did I have to tell everyone that? Sheesh! It all goes back to that adult contact, because someone will probably comment on that and I will respond back and it’s like I had a little adult conversation there It’s silly, but that’s how I roll.

So, yes, the weather. Seems menial to talk about the weather, but we NEVER, well hardly ever, get weather in Southern California. It was a big deal that it was 70 and not the usual 80 on Christmas day. We have had a straight 3 days of rain. And this isn’t normal sprinkly, oh crap! it got my car wet enough to make it dirty, rain. This is windy, flying in sideways, flooded my backyard, rain. AND we need it here in SoCal. AND it’s not done. The biggest of the storms is supposed to be hitting sometime today and bring some “inches” of rain and “feet” of snow to our Mt. Baldy. This is excitement around here!

So then, here I go to make my daughter’s room up! Wish me luck and we’ll try this again tomorrow!

Oh, and here’s a picture of Gabriella, since it’s been awhile

"Pa" and Gabriella ~ Happy Birthday Pa!




Make a Smilebox greeting

We were finally able to take a long awaited vacation, our first real vacation, as a family *minus the dogs*. We went camping up the coast in our little trailer for 4 days and 3 nights….for under $200 including all our food and the campsite Yay us!

This is our favorite little spot in California. It’s supposedly the halfway point of California. It is California’s most central spot. It’s a little campsite, first come first serve *kinda*, called Jalama County Beach. We are reluctant to tell people about it because we’d hate for it to get too busy and we aren’t guaranteed a spot each time Call us selfish, whatever. Anyway, it’s only $28 a night with hookups. And you may wonder to yourselves, “why do you need hookups for a tent trailer?”. Well, we need hookups because it’s freezing camping on the coast in November, so we have a little space heater that helps keep us warm. PLUS we need lights at night to see. AND I need to blow dry and straighten my hair…most importantly. All that for $28. We’ll take it!

Needlesstosay…we had an amazing, relazing, rejuvinating week as a family. We’d wake up early, drink our coffee, make breakfast, clean up, pack a lunch and leave for our 3 hour walks up the coast, come back, take a nap, take showers, make dinner, then go inside the trailer for the rest of waking hours because it was FREAKING freezing!, go to bed by 8 or 9pm and start all over again the next day. That is a vacation for us! We LOVE it!

And how could you not?!

Gabriella turned 2! I can’t even believe it. So she’s been a big part of our lives for almost 2 years now. *We found out about her when she was 23 days old*. And she’s been with us for just about 18 months. What a change she has brought to our lives! We are truly blessed!
We had a monkey party for her this year. Monkey cupcakes and banana decorations and treats. We invited about 1/2 the people that we invited for her 1st birthday and our house was still full of people. There’s no getting around it. We both have big families that LOVE this little girl to pieces
Grandma & Grandpa Gysen, Uncle Daniel & Auntie Carrie, her Auntie MarJ and Uncle Darin couldn’t make it to her actual party so we had dinner at G&G Gysen’s house on her actual birthday. 2 parties for the 2 year old!

The birthday girl!

We make a point of reading the cards first...look at her face!

Opening her gift from Alyssa...it's Hoho!

Make a wish!

the monkey princess at her party

And these are from her Monkey Party…so much fun!

my first fondant project tackled…monkey cupcakes

She couldn't wait to sing "Happy Birthday"!

Connor, Emma & Ella in the garden

opening some of the MANY presents...thanks everyone!

Another year to celebrate the gifts that God has given us..our most special gift here on earth is this little girl. Thanks to all who helped us celebrate!

The TOT’s group at church went on a field trip to Amy’s Farm in Chino. Gabriella & I tagged along. What a fun trip! Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

So, we’re half Taiwanese right? Yes. We consider ourselves that. So, we need to do some of these traditional celebrations. This past January, we celebrated Chinese New Year with my friend Hong and her family and this past weekend, we celebrated the mid-Autumn Moon Festival. It’s kind of like our Thanksgiving, I guess. Chinese families get together on the full moon evening to eat together and then there’s other festivities, like a lantern parade or a dragon parade. Then they celebrate the moon. They eat a dessert called a moon cake and there are other things that go along with this, I’m sure, but this is all  I know.

So, we went down to Los Angeles to celebrate at the Moon Festival. There were a lot of festivities. There were acrobats, contortionists, the Shaolin Warriors…they do some sort of martial arts…it was pretty cool! We took our friend, Kay, with us. She has better pictures than I do. But here are some of mine….

Daddy & Ella

 Mommy & Ella

 

 

Lanterns decorated the plaza in ChinaTown.

The saving grace from boredom…it worked for awhile

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hop Louie’s for dinner…mostly Cantonese, but they tried with the MooShu Pork. We prefer Mandarin Chinese food, but the building was cool & it’s historical…ooooh!

 

 

 

 

The moon even made it’s appearance. Beautiful evening!

Sometimes I wonder what I do all day! I am a stay at home mother to a *almost* two year old. I think sometimes that I don’t do anything. For instance, right now I am finally writing my blog. I am glad to be doing it, since it’s been a long time. I don’t know why I haven’t done it in a long time, because I really don’t do anything. At least I don’t have anything to show for the things that I do do…doo doo Hehe.

Yeah. So, I wake up in the morning whenever the girl wants to wake up, unless it’s too late and I feel the need to drink my coffee in peace. Sometimes I do that. Then I make the kid some breakfast, clean out the coffee pot, and put the dishes away in the dishwasher. Gabriella eats her food in the living room on the coffee table, so I join her in there for one of the many shows I have lined up for me on the DVR. By the time the show is not evenhalf over, Gabriella is begging me to watch one of her two shows… NiHao KaiLan or Jack’s Big Music Show. So I finish watching my show and wait for my niece, Alyssa to be picked up for school around 8:40am. Then I stick my “exercise” clothes on and put my exercise DVD in and do my 20 minutes with Gillian. I am sweating profusely by now and we both go upstairs and take a bath/shower.

Finally clean, we get dressed and I let Gabriella watch her show, so I can get ready in peace.Then I decide what we’re going to do today. Today I had stuff to return to Target and groceries to buy at the 99 Ranch Market…my new favorite supermercado! So, now we have food to eat for the rest of the week. Gabriella loves to go there too because they have real live fish, crabs and lobsters in the back. She OBSESSES over these things! So much so, that she threw THE biggest fit as we are walking out of the store today. Ignoring it best I could, with lots of people gawking and whispering the whole way to the car…like their kids never threw fits…I stuck her in the seat while I unloaded the food into the trunk. Yes, she’s my joy! This is all about 2:20pm, about an hour after naptime was supposed to begin.

Around this time, I stick the new Beethoven CD in the player to get her to sleep in the car on the way to pick up the girls from school.  Samantha gets out at 2:42pm We’ll be late and Alyssa gets out at 3:30pm. Gabriella sleeps the whole time. We get home, I unload the groceries and put them in the correct areas of the kitchen while I have my little urchin girl wrapped around my leg with a pear and a paci and a sippy cup in one hand. Guess her nap isn’t over. Upstairs we go for some cuddle time. And here I sit. So, you see, what did I do today?!

Some days I wonder. But I am so tired that I decide here and now that I have done a whole lot. And now she is telling me from downstairs, as I let the girls watch her, that she has to go “peeeeepeeeeee”. And I am on the clock again. Yes, what do I do all day?! I am a mom.