Pickin blueberries on Apple Hill (all pics taken by the talented Alexis Wiseman, my personal photographer)

Baby Max

Max Daniel Wiseman was born on May 22.  8lbs 7oz 20 in.  we're loving him!  Maybe I will start posting again!

The Nativity

Favorite cousins: Cal

Thanksgiving with the Wiseman's

Kid's discoveries

While I was posting on here Gabrielle noticed the baby bouncing around on the right and asked if the baby in my belly was naked. When I told her yes she couldn't believe it. Struck with pure giddyness she was laughing and wanting an explanation. She is worried about the baby's bum touching my belly. How would it be to learn new and interesting facts on a daily basis?

Mud fun!

Our backyard doesn't exactly drain well we've discovered-it makes for great mud play. Yes that is a pacifier in Cal's mouth. He doesn't usually have it during the day except for his nap and now I don't have to feel bad about it because a speech therapist told my sister that it's fine up until 3. So he will be hating life in about 6 months.

Weekend in Paso with Grandma Kathy

Halloween

New lip and lost tooth

This is from a year ago.  You can see how the lip hangs down so you see all her teeth and her gums and it's so wide.
Here it's still lopsided, but it no longer hangs down and it's not as wide.  Notice the missing tooth.  We were sitting on the couch and she hands me something and asks real casually, "What's this?"  "Um it looks like a tooth!  Wait let me see your mouth!"  Sure enough, it as her tooth!  We checked on line and discovered that some kids do lose their teeth as early as 4.  It's very weird because she suddenly looks so big!  She asked me if she was old now and I told her yes.  

This is Cal's new move he loves it.  

Fathers and sons and daughters

Well what's new? Not much, but I feel like I should write and not just post pictures. I'm ready for fall, but I need to relax seeing as how it's suppose to be 103 tomorrow. Gabrielle has been in preschool for a few weeks and really likes it. Cal is talking non stop and has so many opinions-it's rather annoying-what happened to the kid who goes with the flow? The kid who stays in the cart? The kid who is happy with whatever food I place in front of him? He is long gone, but he's still liberal with his hugs so I guess it's ok. Luke is taking the kids camping tomorrow with a friend and his kids. Gabrielle is so excited. I'm excited to have a quiet house, but I will be hanging out with my friend's tomorrow night and then on Saturday I'll be going to Time Out for Women with my friends. I should be quite rejuvenated by Sat night. Also I have turned over a new leaf and I have decided to start doing things differently. I had an epiphany this morning when Gabrielle came in and woke me up. I thought-ooogh I don't want to get up- then I thought-this is ridiculous Andrea do something different, clearly what you're doing now isn't working for you so change it. So insted of going downstairs in a fog and getting Gabrielle breakfast, then trying to fall back asleep on the couch before Cal wakes up, I went to my bathroom, washed my face with cold water and a lemon scrub, got dressed, went downstairs and drank some water and a emergenC. Then this afternoon instead of picking up the kitchen and family room and being too burned out to get to laundry and upstairs etc, I started upstairs. I feel like my brain needs switching up-who knows what I'll do tonight? It could be anything-I don't even know! WHOO I'm crazy!!!! My inspiration came from George Costanza. Do you recall the Seinfeld where george did everything opposite of what his instinct was and then everything started going right for him? Dang that was a good show.

I love this picture. They made these at the gym daycare. You can kind of see Gabrielle's smaller lip in this one. It looks great. I'm just waiting another week or 2 to post a good pic of it when the incision is healed even more. We're really happy with it especially because she is. She says, "I can't even believe it my lip is tiny!"

"NO BUGS!"

There was a fly in the house while cal was eating his breakfast and he was not happy about it. When he would see it he'd yell, "No bugs!" and cover his eyes.
Looking apprehensive, he'd peel his hands away from his eyes checking to see if it was safe, only to see it again.
He eventually just kept one hand up to shield his eyes from the horror that is a fly.

I typed too soon...

Well we spent 2 freezing days in San Francisco for Gabrielle's surgery and it looks like we'll be heading back sometime in the future.  The plastic surgeon said he couldn't get it all.  He needed to be conservative because he didn't want to make it too small.  It is a lot better just not as small as we thought it would be.  We set the wrong expectations for Gabrielle and the first thing she said when she came out of anesthesia was "Is my lip tiny?  Are you sure it's tiny?"  Then she fell back asleep and when she woke up again she was licking her lip and asked, "Is it still big?"  It was really swollen so it obviously felt really big to her.  It's getting better and better and the incision looks so good-I don't think there will be any scar.  I'll post pictures in a few weeks when it's to it's optimal size.  

Bye bye hemangioma

We leave tomorrow morning for San Francisco for Gabrielle's pre-op. Her surgery is on Friday morning. Luke's mom will be watching Cal here so we can have a fun day with Gabrielle after her pre-op. Then we will stay in a hotel so we can be there for her surgery bright and early in the morning. I'm not really sure what to expect. I know it won't look perfect, but I am excited to see her with a normal size bottom lip-she's excited too except for the eating soft foods part. She will have to be put under so there is always that small nagging "what if something goes wrong" feeling, but I'm sure she'll be just fine. Of course we will be rushing her out of recovery since we get charged by the hour and her insurance does not cover it. ooogh insurance companies!!!!!!(I'm shaking my fist in the air at them). Well I will post pictures when I can!

Cabo!

Hawaii

Camping at Gualala and Cal's 2nd B-day

i hate moving

I don't know if I posted on this blog that I'm moving, but if not-we moved. About 15 min away to Rancho Cordova. Our renters moved out and we were sick of renting so here we are. I am actually really excited-I really like this house and we're getting new countertops. So our kitchen is not in working condition and I'm so sick of going back and forth between the 2 houses. We have maybe 1 more trip and then we'll have everything here. the actual act of moving sucks. What makes it worse is having crazy kids. What makes it even that much worse is when one kid is obsessed with being out front (of course it can't be the backyard-has to be the front with danger lurking everywhere) and this same kid has pink eye. I had no energy to deal with Gabrielle's drama if I didn't let her wear what she wanted to church today so I said ok to her outfit telling her it was out last Sunday here and that was the only reason it was ok. She wore a blue and white dress with pink leggings with an awesome peach and white scarf (thanks to Martha's knitting) tied tight around her neck. She wore it the whole day and was so excited telling me that everyone was going to love her outfit. Hopefully this scarf isn't the new "tiny black shorts".

Easter Party

Easter Party

You've come a long way baby

Wow-I came across this pic yesterday. I'm amazed at how small her hemangioma is now!!! We'll see Dr Hoffman (plastic surgeon @ UCSF) next month sometime and hopefully get her surgery for her lip scheduled. I'll ask about her cheek too. It still has slight fullness on that side-it's very soft though. my only concern is the skin, but hopefully it's gone down slow enough so it won't be a problem.

Sunday duck feeding with friends