bad... as in really not a good idea

Lex's current video of choice is Megamind - mostly for the sound track. This is not a movie I put on when we need her to relax, cause the moment she hears the music she jumps off the couch with a, "just a minute Mommy! I need to dance!!".
Here is her tribute to MJ...

6 Weeks Later

We have successfully passed the 6 week mark - only a little bruised.
David mentions at least once a week that I need to get back into the blogging habit... so, here is an update:

David - is absolutely loving school... his program, fellow residents, and faculty. Apparently orthodontics was worth all the blood, sweat, and tears - because I have never seen him more excited or happier. His schedule is much more relaxed than it was in dental school. His day usually starts at 8am and ends at 4:30pm, and depending on how fast his little legs peddle he's home by 5pm . It's almost like a real job!
He is also the ward mission leader - so between meetings and going out with the missionaries he is pretty busy on the weekends and evenings.

Lexi - is growing and growing. She turned 3... and is absolutley giving us a run for our money. Most days I think she is closer to 13 than 3. She has started turning David and me against each other with, "but dad/mom say Yes!" When in fact we are both standing there saying no...
She has loved winter here in the Pitt. Snow angels and snow men have become her closest friends - that happens when we have no contact with the outside world for days at a time. We are looking into a preschool program for her that would start in September. I have very mixed emotions about her starting "school" already... mostly, i just cant believe she is old enough to qualify. She is very excited about school tho - she's SO super social, even walking through the grocery store if she sees another kid around her age, she runs over arms outstretched chanting, "hi friend!!" It's definitely gotten to the point that hanging out with mom all day just doesn't cut it.
She is an adorable big sister. I was terrified that she would turn into a black-ops specialist when her 'only-child' world was turned upside down, but to my relief she taken on the role of 2nd mommy more than anything else. She loves to talk to him, give him toys to play with, and even sing to him when he's unhappy. I'm sure conflicts will arise, but thus far, there have been no death threats or assassination attempts.

Press - is... Hmmm, press is press! He had his first check up yesterday. he's gained a whopping 4.5 lbs - now tipping the scale at 12lbs. He is behind in length, but ahead in weight (37th percentile and 80th). As the doc described him, he's short and chubby. I am always worried with nursing that they are not getting enough to eat - but clearly that is not the case with Press.
He has officially started sleeping through the night - YAY! All-in-all he is a great baby... happy when he should be, and forgiving when I cant figure out why he's screaming.

I am adjusting to have 2 kids. Honestly, it has not been nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be - guess we can chalk that up to Lex being helpful and Press being a good baby. I am more than a little ready for winter cold to be done... We have been stuck in the house more days of the week than not, and I am going more crazy than the kids! (however, pushing a stroller with 2 kids is astonishingly more difficult than when there was just one... who knew adding one chubby baby would make SO much difference?)
We are a few months short of our YEAR mark here in the Pitt... and, yes! I am still calling it the Pitt. Enough said on the matter....

That about does it for now... obviously not much happening around here!

Preston Chance

Preston joined our family last weekend - another successful self-induction with caster oil.
He slipped out unnoticed early Saturday morning, and has kept us on our toes ever since. Weighing in at 7.9 lbs and 19.5 in long, he beat out Lexi by a whole pound - even with coming out a whole week and a half sooner.
here are a couple pictures of the little guy and his first few days...

How the kids compare.
Lex < 1 week old



Press < 1 week old

The potty chronicles

Well, we have officially started the potty-training process. We have been going for about 3 days... to sum up:
day 1 - we both wanted to die.
day 2 - watched her like a hawk; considerably fewer accidents... considerably tired of the whole process.
day 3 - she just needs to poop! But will actually say "I need to go potty". progress, even though it ends up with me running to the potty every 10 minutes.

I cant wait till its over. David is actually much better at the whole process than I am. Somehow he manages to make it fun - rather than a "mom is going to kill me if I don't relieve myself while sitting on this uncomfortable chair with a hole in the middle".
My prayers over the last few days have been short, sweet and to the point...
"Please - just let her PEE!"

Welcome to the neighborhood

David took this at his bus stop on the way to school yesterday.
Should I be worried?



oh and in case you missed them the first time. I slowed it down a bit to highlight the soldiers with ginormous guns hanging out the back of the truck.

One wild street

Bet you can't guess where we have been?
One of the things that attracted me to the house we chose is the fact that it's close to the city and thus close to a lot of things to do with Lexi. One of which happens to be the Pitt Zoo/PPG Aquarium.
We are about 2 miles away - of course that means it's definitely against my moral code to drive, and we must walk. We went there on Tuesday morning and then again today - we try and get there early to beat the crowds; stay for about an hour - enough time to do a lap; then head home just in time to catch an afternoon nap. Some times I am so impressed with my parenting, I am speechless!

I wish that I could say I was walking there on a semi-regular basis for the sake of my 2 year old... however, that would be a lie. The only way I can bribe her into her stroller these days is with a promise that she can see the animals and fishes! Bribery - who knew it was such a useful tool?!? (okay, so pretty much anyone who has kids, works with kids, was a kid, likes kid's cereal - well, you get the idea.) I may not be in the running for an originality award, but all I care about is not having the neighbors craning their heads out their windows trying to discover if the ear piercing screams means a child is being kidnapped... that could be a major damper on my morning. Have I mentioned how nosy people around here are? Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in Mayberry (however, everyone had their teeth on the TV show - that could have just been Hollywood tho, you know how 'they' are)... "neighborhood watch" what is that?!? I just want to be left alone! Unless of course someone is stealing all my "good stuff" - then by all means pull out the binoculars!

ah, I digress. Lex loves the animals, but she really loves the aquarium. She could spend all day wandering around looking at all the fishes. No compliant from me that she happens to love the one area with air conditioning... I try to think of ways other than past dinners we've had to help her identify what she's looking at. People get pretty weird when they walk by and I'm saying, "remember last night when we had the rice, and the lemon flavored white stuff? Well..."
I do my best to stick within the safe parameters that Disney has been kind enough to construct; "look there's nemo". Boring!

Anyway, so far it has kept her attention. We'll see what happens when the amount of days we have lived here actually reaches the double digits. oh blessed release, has it really only been 1 week?!?



exactly how I feel everyone morning when David says it's another beautiful day in the pitts


I wonder if she's thinking what I am thinking... "a little butter, some fresh lemon, maybe a little dill..."


caught red handed trying to slip them some contraband. So that must be the reason for all the "no food allowed" signs posted everywhere... which I ignore...

July 4th

The one highlight of our move thus far was definitely the 4th of July. David's sister Merrilee drove down from DC and spent the weekend - even though she had to bring her own bed, sheets, and towels... thought we'd better start training family early so that no one gets the wrong free-loading idea. We may have a 3rd bedroom, but you know how family can get when they think they have a place to stay when they visit.

Anyway, we had a great bbq - David actually got it into his head that we should call him the "grill dr". Bet you can't guess how much he really wishes he'd never said anything... I seem to have that affect on him for some reason. hmmmm, it's a thinker...
After food we went into the back and lit fire works. Lexi loved the show. She sat on my lap and covered her ears with my hands whenever we had one that screeched. we finished off with the sparklers, and I held my breath the whole time hoping that lex wouldn't light herself or me on fire.

While all of that made for a memorable first holiday in the East, I have to admit that my absolute favorite part of the day was watching David during the fireworks. Every now and then he'd walk to the bushes and start stomping on flashed of light he saw. I don't know how many he ended up "putting out" before Mer asked him what he was doing. He responded that he was "putting out sparks" cause he didn't want to start a fire. I was actually going to let him keep think that he was saving the neighborhood, and see if he would catch on that the "sparks" were happening before we even lit the fuses. Poor smokey the bear has obviously never been around fireflies before...

just a little backwards around here

This picture should tell you all that you need to know about the pitts. (and, consequently ensure that no one comes to visit us with the promise of pitts having appetizing unique food of it's own...)
This is the famous Primanti's Pittsburgh sandwich. Under the layers of coleslaw and french fries believe it or not there is a hamburger patty suffocating.

When David and I came to the pitts to find housing, we decided if we were going to be locals we had better try one of the famous sandwiches ... looking back, this SHOULD have been my first clue about how my adjustment would be! I tried to have an open mind, but after the first bite, it was hard enough to even have an open mouth! Yup, that bad.
Mom called to tell me that she learned from the food network that the reason they made everything into a sandwich was to make it easy to handle for workers who couldn't sit down for a lunch time meal, the "grab and go" idea. Normally, anything remotely resembling multi-tasking gets my seal of approval. However, I am definitely not able to endorse this effort; this is one of those 1 step forward, 5 steps way WAY back! It is (extremely) safe to say that I will never have to have another authentic pitts sandwich. In fact I am hoping to get through the next 3 years without doing anything else remotely pitts authentic...

The pitts is not known for it's food - much to mom's dismay. when I ask locals were the best places to eat are I usually hear something along the lines of, "We really like Taco Bell, but if we are splurging we treat ourselves to Red Lobster!" Ah, how much I could say about this... the lives that could be saved!! It is a tragedy when I think of the rising generation thinking that Red Lobster is the pinnacle of the culinary world - If I weren't taking such a high dose of anti-depressants I am quite sure that my blood pressure would even be a little raised...

Week 1 in review

The Pitts lives up to it's name.

Pittsburgh as advertised:


Pittsburgh as a reality:


Alright alright, so it may not be AS drastic as I make it seem but the past week has been an interested experience for me.

As of today we have officially been living in pitts for 1 week - though only in our house for 4 days... oh how many posts I could write about the Dingbats (more on that later). We took a red-eye from WA last week - my master planning being that Lex would sleep on the plane. How do I never see things as they really WILL be?!? Lex was awake for 3 of the 5 hours, factoring in a 3 hour time change; voila two super-sized sleep-deprived parents and one mini tornado of destruction. chalk that up to "one of those things I will never do again with a 2 year old".
After arriving, we stopped by our house to find it still occupied, shock of all shocks, by the dingbats. So we checked into a hotel, closed the curtains and feel asleep while the sweet chant in my head sang "it's all a dream... you'll wake up back in LA... it's all nothing but a big back-country scary dream!"

You can imagine my disappointment when I opened my eyes and nothing had changed... After a few nights in the hotel, we finally got into our house last Saturday, and reconnected with the world through internet last Thursday.
In that past few days Lexi and I have done a lot of walking - and even managed to know where we were some of the time. The streets around here are like nothing I have ever seen before. The first question people ask when they discover we've just moved here is, "do you have gps?". We were pretty happy to be able to answer "yes" until we discovered that not even our gps knows where we are usually. I take it as a sign that most of the time the gps thinks we are in the middle of one of the three rivers... I'm thinking it could mean one of two things: 1-the pitts is just as twisted and confused as I think it is, or 2-the gps is trying to do me a favor and lead my to the middle of the river to put me out of my misery... it's anyones' guess really!

The people around here are very nice - in that "I am heavily medicated to deal with the fact that I live here" sort of way. I met a young girl at the playground today who told me her life story in about 10 minutes flat. Trust me I got all the details about how her mom and dad are de-vorsed, and she never gets to see her mom. But she has over 100 cousins who live in pitts (interesting seg-way into my ever evolving theory of inbreeding around here...), and how she can ride her bike outside, but JUST until the black people come out but then she has to go home cause they steal all the 'good stuff'. Yes, it was an interesting crash course in my new life. Honestly, I could have stayed all day to get her take on world politics and the crisis in the middle east, but just then she saw - you know - a black person and had to hurry home just in case, I've never seen little legs peddle SO quick!

Church was an interesting experience (sidebar: I feel as tho I may possibly be using the word "interesting" A LOT... I have tried to think of other ways to express things around here, but for now interesting is really the best that I can do...). How can I adequately sum up 3 hours of awkward conversation openers. A couple of the most memorable:
"We tried to live in your house, even got their first...", insert awkward silence.
"We live in Stanton Hills too! but, we don't live in the safe end...", ahhhh - sorry about that. Be sure to let us know how that works out for you.
"You used to live in LA? WHY on earth would you move to Pittsburgh, did you not have a choice?", certainly wasn't for the company, I can tell you that much at this point.
"how old are you? Oh don't worry there are like 5 other girls in the ward that old OR older!" 5... that many huh?

Living in the East so close to historical sites, I am feeling a connection with the founding fathers. They lived by the moto "give me liberty or give me death". I admit that I am not quite that convicted to my cause (maybe if there was no light at the end of the 3 year tunnel), however, I think that my moto for my life in the pitts will be "give me liberty or give me drugs!".
All the natives I meet assure me that things will get better... then they smile that toothless grin and tell me there is "nun-udder place in this here world they'd rather live..."
comforting... so comforting...

House Hunting in PITT

Preparing for the upcoming relocation, David and I took a trip out to PA last week. After 4 long days of searching, researching, and touring... we settled on the first house we looked at. It's the closest of all we saw to campus - which is good for David. Has a washer and dryer which is good for me. And a backyard which is great for Lexi!

Graduation is June 6th and we'll be moving (hopefully) soon there after...
Goodbye sunny California - Hello most livable city Pittsburgh!

front...

back...

living room ...

the neighborhood...

Little Tutu

Lex started dance classes over the weekend. Here are a few clips of her first class.
She was a little apprehensive in the beginning, but she warmed up by the end.

Sadly, she is in fact the child in the class that follows to beat of a different drummer... apparently the music she hears in her head one wouldn't normally hear at a ballet. I half expected the dance teacher to tell us, ever so politely, that ballet requires grace and poise... and... well... see for yourself.

He's really done it!!

We found out early this morning that David was matched with an ORTHODONTIC RESIDENCY at the University of PITTSBURGH!
it came as a huge shock! We didn't really have Pittsburgh on our radar, but the more time we have to digest and think about it - the more we are falling in LOVE with the idea.

DOWNside: we are farther than we would have hoped from family for 3 years.

UPside: After 16 years of working, planning, and hoping - David no longer has to wonder if he'll get the job of his dreams.

It feels as if the stress has finally been lifted - it's amazing the power of an email these days. When we looked at the computer, this morning, the only word we were looking for was "congratulations" - anything else, we knew we could deal with, as long as there was a congratulations! You can imagine the joint exhale that took place after we located the much anticipated C word.

I don't know many details about the program it's self, but David got along really well with the faculty and said the area was beautiful. We think the program starts in early July - which means we'll be moving during the month of June.
Sad - bye sunny California...

I know nothing about Pittsburgh (other than the fact that the name makes me think of an arm pit... might as well say it - we are all thinking it!)
Here are a few interesting facts about our future home:

• It's known as "The City of Bridges" and "The Steel City" for its many bridges and former steel manufacturing base.

• While the city is historically known for its steel industry, today its economy is largely based on healthcare, education, technology, robotics, and financial services.
• in 2008 Forbes listed Pittsburgh as the 13th best city for young professionals to live.
• in 2009, Pittsburgh was named most livable city in the United States and 29th-most-livable city worldwide.
• The city is often utilized for physical activity. The city has some 712 sets of stairs, comprising 44,645 treads and 24,090 vertical feet (more than San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Portland, Oregon combined).
• The city is connected to downtown Washington, D.C. (some 245 mi (394 km) away) by a continuous bike/running trail through the Alleghenies and along the Potomac Valley.

of course we cannot forget other equally important facts like, that Scranton, PA is the home of Michael Scot and Dunder Mifflin.
and, Hershey, PA is only 3 hours away from downtown... yup, I do in fact mean Hershey like the chocolate!!

Though we have always tried to stay hopeful and confident, getting into a residency (not to mention the most competitive dental residency) has never been a sure thing - and has taken a LOT of work. So we are both humbled and grateful for all the thoughts, prayers, and encouragements that have come our way! This a truly a blessing - we had to print off the acceptance email and hang it on the fridge, so we have proof its actually real!!

the birthday princess

Well, it has officially been 2 years since Lexi graced us with her presence... and we've loved every minute!
Here are a few pictures from the day...







She not only helped me to decorate her cake, but she had to taste and re-taste it to make sure it was up to par






birthday balloons and other presents
she caught on pretty quickly to the concept of opening presents... and oddly enough seem to enjoy it

video highlights

fyi: because i am an idiot! most of the video are sideways instead of straight on. One day, i will remember that you can't turn the camera if you want the video straight.

Oh well, it's not like lex will use these one day to look back and remember something important like a birthday or anything...

What the?!

This is the face we see now when we say, "smile!".


Talent agents are knocking down the door... Hollywood has worked it magic.


it's almost painful...

growing pains

So for the past 5 days, this is what I have been finding when I go in to get Lex first thing in the morning, or up from her naps...
...sorry had to take the picture off after talking to my parents and getting creeped out about the thought of people stealing naked Lexi pictures for all the wrong reasons...

Apparently, the time for potty training is drawing near - but she seems more than happy to simply be 'au natural'


there are some who tell me that she doesn't know what she is doing. That she's just exploring. That she doesn't mean to make more work for me as I have to wash and rewash her sheets...


oh she knows... she definitely knows...