Halloween and Remodel Update

Halloween

For Halloween this year, we went to downtown Huntington Beach with the McCoy family. Halloween was also our moving day, so they were nice enough to let us hang out at their house for the evening. Jerry and I weren't in the mood to dress up but the McCoys looked so great in their costumes!



The Marchbank Family Halloween 2010

The city closed down Main Street and turned it into a family festival with bounce houses, trick-or-treating and vendors. I think everyone with kids in Huntington Beach was there. We also saw one of Jerry's co-workers, Bill with his daughter Abby. We had dinner down there as well--a fun night with friends!

The McCoy Family Halloween




Bill, Abby, Jared and Jerry

Baby Dean

Remodel Update

We are now two weeks into our room addition remodel and of course there have been some set backs. Our contractor made some great progress the first week and was already ready for our first inspection at the end of the first week. The city inspector was very difficult and wouldn't approve the foundation work due to the underground foundation looking different to what the engineer had drawn (a very common thing in construction since no one has x-ray vision) and usually the inspector will do an on-site approval. Not this inspector. He made our engineer redraw and resubmit the changes which has delayed us about a week.



First floor, Jared's old room and attic



Foundation work



Our "sky light" or no roof. This is where the new room will be.



Jared's old room with one wall missing. Getting ready to add the third room.



The view from inside Jared's old room

Stay tuned for more updates as the project continues and wish us luck for passing inspection so we can continue construction and get it done before I have this baby in 10-12 weeks!

Construction Adventure and 23 weeks

For the past month and a half, we have been going through the motions to add a second story third bedroom to our current home in Huntington Beach. So far, we have had an architect do the design, an engineer do the structural plans, submitted the plans to the city and hired a contractor. Tuesday the city came back with the revisions they want done and our architect says she and the engineer needs another week to make these changes. Then she has to resubmit the updated plans back to the city and we play the waiting game for them to approve our permit to start construction. Our target start date is November 1.

So for weeks we have been prepping our house for this major project.

First, we had to completely empty our attic which had over 5 1/2 years of stuff in it. Then we had to go through each box and decide what we were keeping, what we were tossing and what was going to our garage sale. We had our garage sale last weekend which went great, and what we didn't sell went to Good Will.

Next we took everything off our walls (mostly pictures). Our last major undertaking is packing boxes.
Jerry will still have some kitchen prep work to protect our appliances, cabinets and granite from being damaged before the demo starts but we are almost there!

Doesn't all this work and planning make you tired? Now add into the mix that I am 23 weeks pregnant with our second son and it makes this even more exhausting. Plus Jerry and I both work full time and have a very active 2 1/2 year old who is probably wondering what the heck is going on. Thank goodness for my mom who has helped us watch him while we did a lot of this prep work! Thanks mom--we love you.

Needless to say, I know all this work will be worth it when it is done. We will have more space for our growing family and it will add more equity to our home. Stay tuned as this adventure continues....

Of course I couldn't finish my post without a picture of my little man playing with his favorite things--cars and trucks.

August Summer Fun

I cannot believe it is already September and I am just now posting about August! We had a busy and very fun August.

We have a lot to celebrate in August (birthday's & Jerry and my 6th wedding anniversary) on my side of the family so went to dinner to celebrate my sister's 22nd birthday and my dad's birthday.

The Rassp Family (My dad, his wife Denise, and my Grandpa & Grandma with Jared)

A group of mom friends and all the kids got together to go to The Splash Pad at Sigler Park in Garden Grove.

It is a fun place to take kids in the summer time although Jared and Noah weren't too sure about actually going into the cold water. They just liked observing from afar.

We took Jared to Sea World for the first time with Jerry's mom, Carla, which he just LOVED! He wasn't too sure about going on the rides as you can tell by the look on his face while he was waiting in line with Grandma Carla, but the Elmo's world play area was a huge hit! We had to drag him out to try and see the animals/shows.

He wanted to go give Elmo a hug--so cute!

Playing in the water fountain in the Elmo's play area.

We went to see the 4-D Elmo show as well which he thought was scary (this picture was taken before the show actually started). He wanted out of that theater so bad and kept saying "all done now!" We saw the Shamu show which he also didn't like but he loved seeing the dolphin show and the sea lion show. I think the big splashes Shamu makes scared him too.

We had a great day but were all so tired at the end of the day (me being pregnant and Jared having no nap). Jared fell asleep the minute the car turned on.

Some exciting news...

This post is long over due, but we have been crazy busy all summer long.

We are very excited to announce we are pregnant with baby #2 which means Jared will be a big brother! We decided to share this news early on with family and friends, so at my Grandma's birthday party, I gave her a very special gift which I am pretty sure she loved.

Her reaction....priceless. I had my sister capture the moment for me since she was the only one other than Jerry who knew our little secret.

I purchased a frame for her that fits two 5x7 photos. Once my mom saw her reaction she instantly wanted to know what all the excitement was about. Here is her reaction.

So our second bundle of joy who I will call our "love child" is due on Valentine's Day (hence the name)--which means two kids with February birthdays. I guess you never know-- he or she could come early since Jared did, but I doubt 14 days early! We will see!

Stay tuned to to find out soon if Jared will be having a brother or a sister!

Our First Family Vacation

Last month, our family got to go on our first big vacation on a Caribbean cruise. Last year when Jared was about 18 months old, we were supposed to go to Hawaii with my mom and sister but Jared got sick with an ear infection and we were told not to fly.

So with the airline credit we had, we decided to fly to Tampa and our ship left from the Port of Tampa. Carnival cruise lines has a kids club starting at age 2 which is nice so mom and dad can get a little vacation time as well. Too bad he didn't like going there very much or we would have taken him more often!

Jared did so great on the airplane and loved watching them take off at the airport while we were waiting to board the plane. He is such a good little traveler. He only slept for 45 minutes on the way to Tampa and a little over an hour on our way back to OC. We brought our MacBook and his favorite move--Disney's Cars--to entertain him when he got antsy toward the end of the flights but we never had any tears which was great!

Jared loved sleeping in a hotel room (our first night in Tampa before boarding the cruise ship).

My boys relaxing by the pool waiting to leave Tampa!

Our cruise had four stops--The Grand Cayman Islands, Rotan in Honduras, Cozumel in Mexico and Belize City in Belize. Our first stop in the Grand Cayman Islands we went to Turtles, Turtles and more Turtles. It was a fun excursion where you got to pick up the turtles and you could even go swim with them (and all their poop so we opted not to with the baby).

The largest turtle was over 600 lbs!

After the turtle tour, they had a lagoon you could swim in or lounge at which was great because it was so hot and humid there!

Our next port was Cozumel. We went to this awesome beach called Paradise Beach and as you can see it truly was! All the fun slides and climbing walls you see in the background could be rented for the day, they had food and bar service, massages, jet skis and much more all right there. We all had a great time in Cozumel.

Our next port of call was Rotan, Honduras which was just beautiful. It is a new destination for cruise ships and I loved it there. We went to another beach called Mahogany Bay and it was also beautiful.

Doesn't the picture below look like a postcard? They had ski lifts they called the flying chair lifts that took you from the port down to the beach but if was a very quick walk.

After the beach, we had lunch at the only restaurant. Do you think Jared is tired? I love this picture...

On the ship, Jared liked to play miniature golf with his dad, eat ice cream cones and run around like a crazy man! I think he knew his way around the ship better than we did. :-)

Our final port was to Belize. Our original plan was to leave Jared at the kids club so we could go do an adventurous excursion but Daddy decided he didn't want to do that last minute so we all went to Belize. We ended up just looking at all the shops but not doing anything there which I was pretty upset about. I mean, how often do you get to go to Belize? Oh well, next time when we go without children some day.

The rest of our trip was spent swimming and relaxing at the pool. As you can see, Jared loved this part!

Our little "swimmy fish" as we call him now. You would never know that two weeks prior, he was scared to death of the water! Thank God for those swimming lessons I enrolled him in prior to our trip!

Our first family vacation was a lot of fun and adventure! I am glad we were able to go and spend the time with our adorable son. We will always have these memories to cherish.

So would I do a cruise with a toddler again? Absolutely! Next time, I think it would be fun to go with a larger group of friends and family. Maybe a Disney cruise next? Who's coming?

YP and the chatter box

YP--you may be asking what YP is. YP stands for Young Preschool at the OCC Harry and Grace Steele child care center. Jared has graduated from the toddler program and is now in the YP class (ages 2 - 3). In mid April, most of the toddler program got moved into the YP class due to a new classroom being added for an after school program. This has allowed for more room in the other classrooms. This transition has not been an easy one. He is now in a completely new room with all new teachers and has has a tough two weeks. Friday was the first day in two weeks that he didn't scream when I left. It just breaks my heart to hear him like that, but the teachers say he stops crying as soon as he can't see me anymore. He hasn't been napping well at school either (but has been taking 3 hour naps at home). Jacob, his best friend at school, is also in the YP program now, so he does better when he is there with him. I am hoping this week we have no more tears.

Jared has finally started talking--a lot! He has been saying words for a long time, but now he puts three or more words together and says new words every day! Some of my favorites are "cool truck dude," "see ya OD" (or OJ as Jerry calls him), "ah man", "no, no fireworks" (He loves going to the Angel games but doesn't like the loud fireworks), and "I go in dada cuck" (or truck). There are many more phrases but these he says so cute.

One of my favorite things to do lately is listen to Jared and Jerry ready together before bed. They just sit in the rocking chair and read books together. Jared knows a lot of the words from his favorite books (Engine, Cars and Trucks) so most nights, Jared reads (some of the words) to Jerry. They also sing songs together--my personal favorite is "Sweet Caroline". Jerry says, "Sweet Caroline," and Jared goes, "ba ba ba". Jerry: "Good times never seem so good" Jared: "So good, so good." It is soooo cute!

Jared has also become a huge fan of building things with blocks. He loves when Jerry or I make it really talk and then he gets to knock it down.

I am just loving this age (most of the time). Don't get me wrong, he has his fair share of temper tantrums, but he has so much personality, is such a happy boy and gives us so much love and joy every day.

Jared's turns 2 part 2

My Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Jeff were nice enough to host Jared's second birthday party for the family. He had such a great time as you can see by his expression. She made yummy lasagna, salad and homemade bread sticks--yum!

My Grandma got him an ice cream cake with trucks on it (his favorites--trucks and ice cream). This time, he did better when we all sang happy birthday to him (no surprised look on his face like from party number one). Now he starts singing the happy birthday song when he wants ice cream.

Jared is a very lucky (and spoiled) little boy. He got so many great gifts that he just loves. Anything that is a mode of transportation (car, truck, airplane, train) or Elmo are perfect gifts for him. I think his favorite that night was the Elmo--what do you think?


Jerry's dad, Grandpa Chip, got Jared a petal car for his birthday which he absolutely loves! He thinks it is so cool to drive his car around the neighborhood and refers to it as a "cool car." I think it is a cool car too--thanks Grandpa Chip!
Happy Birthday baby boy! I can't believe you are two--I love you!

Jared turned 2...

On February 29, 2008, our amazing son Jared was born. Yep he is a leap day baby--a very special boy who will be forever young.

So each year when his birthday comes close, everyone asks us which day we celebrate it on. I think Jerry has the best theory on the subject. He says if you are an English person, you will say to celebrate it on Feb. 28 because technically, he was born in February; if you are a math person, you would celebrate it on March 1 because he was born the day after Feb. 28. I say it is a great excuse to celebrate it on both days. What do you think?

The day of his birthday party (Feb. 27) was pouring rain! My grandparents bought him a train table for his birthday so Jerry and our friend AJ put it together while Jared was napping. These pictures are his reaction to seeing the train table for the first time. (I think he liked it).

Jared LOVES Elmo so we decided on an Elmo theme. This is the awesome cake my friend Sarah made. Her company is called Brady Cakes and she makes every kind of cakes, cupcakes and cookies you can come up with. Thanks again Sarah for this FANTASTIC cake! Check out the video below for his funny expression when we sang Happy Birthday to him.

Despite the rain, I think everyone had a good time crammed into our small house. I am glad most of our friends and my dad's family could all make it to celebrate his special day.

This year, Jared actually liked opening his gifts and I didn't have to do it for him. :-) He got so many great toys and new clothes for the summer. Thanks everyone!

Stay tuned for birthday celebration #2 with my mom's side of the family and Jerry's dad!