I'm back! An update...

SO much has been going on in the past few months. Ryan left his job at the University of Phoenix and is concentrating on real estate and mortgages. Things are beginning to look promising, and we're very excited about the possibility of him working from home. Just having him around on workdays the past week has been wonderful. He's excitedly put the home office into fully functional order, including installing the awesome computer he built. (Never thought I'd utter that phrase. When I think "tech-guy", Ryan doesn't immediately come to mind. But he did great. Our computer's fantastic and he saved money making it.)

Anyway, hopefully it'll all work out, because Ryan would love to concentrate entirely on real estate. He LOVES being a realtor, and I would love for him to do what he loves.

And while we're on the subject of Ryan, I wish I had a picture for this next story...
Ryan went on a turn-around trip to Vegas for his friend, David's bachelor party. They all went to an incredibly nice restaurant at the Palms where, as it so happened, Hugh Hefner was having his birthday party. (I was thrilled to hear that the bunnies were there, and Eva Longoria sat at the table next to them.) Ryan doesn't get starstruck, so when Jamie Foxx walked in...
Ryan serenaded him with a song from his Academy Award-winning role as Ray Charles. As the story goes, someone pointed and said, "There's Jamie F..." and before he could finish, Ryan was soulfully belting out, "I gotta woman...way 'cross town...she's good to meeee...oh yeah!..." His audience, including Mr. Foxx, apparently got a huge kick out of it.
What a goof.

Besides being a world-class mom, I have been busying myself taking some substitute jobs from the Alhambra School district and enjoying playdate after playdate with Emma and Mary


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Corey

Payson and Kennadi


and, soon we'll be adding adventures with the newest addition on Ryan's side, Lise and Matt's beautiful baby BOY, Collin Christopher Arensberg.

We were all at the hospital for his birth - although due to circumstances beyond our control we couldn't meet him until the next day. That night, though, I witnessed the single cutest scene ever. I still cannot believe I didn't get pictures or video. Marissa had gone in to visit a high school friend, coincidentally in there to have a baby down the hall. (This is the reason there are no pictures. Had she been available, I'm sure we could have made a flip-book of the entire incident.) Anyway, I told Eric and Ryan I would take all four kids down to eavesdrop outside Lise's room. [It's almost 10pm and none of them had had a nap and Brooklynn and Payson were still drying off from their accidental p.m. run through the hospital sprinklers. (Thanks for looking out for us, Uncle Eric!)] That being said, they were VERY well-behaved. They were SO excited to meet their new cousin. So, I had them lined up along the carpet line. They're leaning their little bodies as close as possible without falling over, and they're all cupping their eaers, as they'd seen me do. We heard the very first cries and they were silently jumping out of their skin. They'd muffle their squeals and tiptoe-jump and then go back to silently listening, cupping their ears. Another newborn cry and they'd lose it all over again. They couldn't stop hugging eachother. It was awesome. And baby Collin is awesome. To hear the details of his life's beginning you'll have to follow the link to Lise's blog. I've been struggling to give her some quiet family time and, as a result, don't know nearly enough about his first days.

I've also been trying to find the time, with Marissa, to restart the efforts of our photography company. Now that she's back from Prescott we can get something going. It's tough to do all the set up with kids running around everywhere, but I think with time we could make it pretty great.


Mickey has been his cherubic self. He's just over 20 pounds of adorable.

He's killing my back though. ;) In the past month he adopted separation (from Mama) anxiety. When I'm not there at all he does pretty well, but if he knows I'm anywhere in the vicinity, he's not smiling unless I'm holding him. Still, he's SUCH a happy little guy. He's always smiling and laughing. He LOVES his sister. Everything she does is hilarious or amazing. I love watching them interact.

Milestones: We're working on crawling and sleeping through the night. I'm certain he has the ability to crawl. He just needs to believe ti. It'll be great when he does. He is so anxious to explore!
Sleeping through the night - not yet. Boo!
Hopefully soon - before he can pull himself up from laying down. Otherwise, I'm screwed.

And Brooklynn... what a little wonder. I had heard three was harder than the "terrible twos". That hasn't been true. Two had a lot of dramatic trials and tribulations. There seems to be more testing, now. She understands so much more that the drama is much shorter-lived. She enjoys learning and it's so much fun to watch. The latest thing we're navigating is her lack of understanding her role in our family - as a child, that is. Ryan told her to do something the other day and she looked him right in the eye and firmly, confidently said, "No, Daddy. You do NOT have a choice here." Several times a day we have to turn our heads to hide our laughs, and then turn back with our serious faces. I don't think we're fooling her.



We're working on potty-training. She's doing great, but it's taking FOREVER! I hate this milestone.
You know what I love? Three-isms:
* Drawing pictures the other day I got the following description of her scribbles. She drew - a robot, a flower that died and fell down, one that's alive, mom when she was little and someone is trying to hold her, and one of her heart: "It's big."

* A while back I bought her "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". We always called it Willie Wonka, but for some reason Brooklynn has always said "Murry Zinka". I have no idea why, but I'm pretty certain she's messing with me. One day I said, "Say w-w-wonka."
"Wonka"
"Good. Now say w-w-willie."
"Wiw-wee."
"Good. Now say Willie Wonka."
(triumphantly) "Murry Zinka!" *eyes twinkle*
Months later I tried to trip her up. I couldn't, for the life of me, remember the name she'd come up with and thought, surely, she wouldn't either. I turned swiftly around to her and, out of nowhere, pointed at her and said, "Willie Wonka?"
She smiled quickly and innocently asked, "Why you call me Murry Zinka?"

* We were looking at a Scooby Doo book when she decided she wanted something new because (and I quote), "Scooby Doo is lame."
"Really?" I questioned, "When I was little I LOVED Scooby Doo."
"Really?" she responded, "When I was little I thought he was lame."

*One day she'd watched Shrek 2 and the second it ended she asked to watch it again.
"No, honey. You've watched plenty of TV. Maybe we'll go outside and play."
Just then our dog, Holly walked up and dog-talked at us...
I said, "What do you think Holly wants, Brook? Do you think maybe he's hungry? What did he just say?"
Brooklynn, in just a whiny a voice as Holly had used says, "I not hungry. I not want doggy food. I wanna watch Shrek 2!"

* And the best: Ryan and I had run to the store and Brook was at Justin and Michelle's new house with mom and dad. For some reason (I think because she's three), she yelled at mom. Mom told her she needed to sit in time-out and she refused. So, dad insisted. When she'd quietly been sitting there, sulking a few minutes, Uncle Justin approached.
"What's wrong, Sweetie?"
"All those people," she points, "hurt my heart."
!!!!