Christmas Update

I hope everyone had a blissful Christmas. Ours was busy but wonderful. Of course, I ran around like a crazy woman last Sunday finishing my shopping. Then Christmas Eve we had dinner at my parents' house. We opened presents, which I was super excited about because I had made a calendar for my brother and my dad. I am addicted to photo projects like scrapbooking and calendar making, which totally makes sense because one of my favorite classes in high school was yearbook afterall. After dinner, the 3 of us headed to Thane and Kristi's for our annual xmas eve pj party. It was a big night because Avery wrapped up all her binkies and left them for Santa to give to new babies who needed them. She's so damn smart that she totally understands this concept. I know it was rough for Thane and Kristi too because they are the ones who got to hear Avery cry for binky for the next couple of nights, but she's doing well without it. Christmas morning we had breakfast at Barb and Ed's house and opened presents there. We had decided to only get presents for the kids this year, so it didn't take us the usual 4 hours to open presents this year. I think we were down to 2 hours instead. An improvement indeed. Then we headed back to my parents for Christmas dinner. You see we had to do 2 dinners this year. Otherwise, we would have tried to cram 35-40 people into my parents' dining room for one big dinner. They have a good sized house but not that big, so we split it into 2 dinners. My parents rule!!! To take on such an undertaking is impressive. But they have always been the best host and hostess for holiday meals and I know everyone appreciated their scrumptious meals. Poor Pop even cooked two prime ribs. Both were excellent! It was great to have so much family together this year too. My cousin Lisa even got to see her dad and brother for Christmas. Again, it was a fantastic holiday for us. My goal is to have my parents, brother and whoever else can make it to my new house in Colorado for next year's Christmas dinner. I've never hosted my own holiday meal, so that should be tons of fun to do next year.

Miss Inara made out with some fabulous gifts too. Everyone had Colorado on the mind because she got some great clothes to keep her warm. Speaking of Colorado, I think I've decided not to move any more. I looked at the weather online today and saw -15F. Gulp. Actually, double gulp. What am I thinking? I've never experienced negative degrees. Boy, am I in for a new experience. I might be moving back in April after living there for just a month. Just kidding. It's all about layers, blankets, and the heater for this girl. Back to gifts. Shawn and I got gift certs for a couple date nights, which I'm all about. I guess people have sensed from my blog that we miss going to the movies. I can't wait to use the gift certs to catch up on a few movies. So thank you everyone for all our wonderful gifts.

As for baby girl, she's getting so big!!! She's sleeping really well every night, getting 10-11 hours of sleep. Yes!!! Shawn said to me the other day that it's probably time for us to put her to sleep in her crib. The thought made me sad because that means my baby girl is growing up and doesn't need me any more. Just kidding. But it's hard to imagine that she's grown up so fast already and it's only going to get worse. Sadness. We are going to try her in the crib starting after new years. Every day it seems like I notice something new about her. It's amazing how much she has changed in just 3 months. One day last week I was overcome with a passion to write a poem for baby girl, so I disregarded my to do list and laid down next to her and wrote a poem. It's the first one I've written in quite awhile actually and it felt so good to do it. I've decided that I'm going to write her a poem every Christmas now, a special gift for my baby girl. I shared it with the family. I read it to Shawn Christmas morning and he got teary-eyed. My mom totally cried, as I knew she would. Kristi loved it and told me I should write more. That meant so much to me. I even made Tom, Kristi's dad, cry. I can't wait for Inara to be old enough to read it. I hope she knows how much I love her. She is the greatest Christmas gift I could have ever wished for. If I never receive another present the rest of my life, I will still be happy because I have her. I'd much rather watch her open gifts as she gets older anyways. My whole life is about her now and that in itself is the best gift I could get.

Shawn will post all the pics from Christmas on http://www.shawnandmarisa.com/ later today. Love to you all and have a safe and wonderful New Year!

Sending everyone holiday hugs

I'm sending a great big hug your way. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas. I love ya guys!

The last few days have had their ups and downs

Friday the three of us went up to Bakersfield. Shawn played golf with the guys while Inara and I had lunch with Nina. It's the first time I've been able to sit and talk with Nina since her mom passed away 3 weeks ago, so I was glad to be able to spend some quality time with one of my best friends. Inara was so good and slept while Nina and I had a 2 1/2 hour lunch. I love good long conversations like that, especially with such an amazing friend. That night we went to dinner with a big group of our friends: Mike and Nina, Carlos and Sasha, Irish and Clay, Jeff and Bree, Kimber and Scott and his brother. Sitting there at the table I got choked up because I knew it would be one of the last times we'd get to hang out with some of these friends before we move. I got super sad but hid it pretty well. Saturday morning the 3 of us went to visit Carol, Shawn's old boss. She's one of the nicest ladies I've ever met. She even had a gift for Inara and had posted Inara's picture up in her restaurant. We had a great time chatting with her. We then went to see Greg and Tracy's new house. I'm so excited for the two of them. Their house is really spacious. Yes, it needs a little work but I can see the beauty that lies underneath all that floral wallpaper. Afterwards, we headed over to my cousin's house for my aunt's 50th birthday party. I was totally shocked to hear the news: my cousin Kim is pregnant!!! Holy cow!!! That was a big surprise and I totally cried because I'm so excited that our family is growing. But then I got sad realizing that Inara and Kim's child won't be able to see each other as often as I'd like. I think the big move is really starting to set in. Saturday night we then met up with Jason, his parents, Thane, Kristi, Avery and Kristi's parents for our annual Christmas dinner. We went to Kristi and Thane's afterwards to open presents. We truly have the best friends. Jason made me a portrait of Inara that is so adorable. He and his mom Diane also got Inara some super cute outfits and monkey toys. I do love monkeys! Tonight I hung out with my other two best friends Sierra and Elizabeth. We saw Sweeney Todd (which by the way was very good) and did our gift exchange. I totally cried as I looked through the photo album Elizabeth made for me. I'm going to miss my friends SOOOO much. I know I will see my parents for sure but it's always harder for all the friends to make it out of state to visit and when we come here I can only hope people will be able to take a break from their busy schedules so we can visit them. I'm so very luck to have the friends I do and I hope they all know how much I LOVE THEM!!!! If I could only convince them all to move to Colorado though. Sadness...

The Biggest News Story Out of the Tomlinson Household

It's not the best news to be sharing but I figure it's best to start telling people finally. Shawn and I have finally decided it's time to move and have set the move date for Feb. 26. Yes, that is only a few months away and it will be really hard to do now with baby girl, but it must be done. We know if we stay in California we will never buy the house we want. With home prices dropping everywhere, we can get a much bigger house for the price we would end up spending here on a townhouse. We've already been looking and we'll be able to afford a 4 bed/3 bath house with a big yard in Colorado or we can get a dinky townhouse/condo here. Not a difficult choice to make really. Yes, it's going to be super emotional to move away from my parents, my brother, and all my friends, but I must think of what is best for my family. I want to provide Inara with the best life and living in an apartment in HB is not it. There are so many people here that I will miss, but there are so many reasons why I can't wait to move away. Yes, I'm California born and bred but I've always loved the idea of living where there are fewer people and more trees and nature than concrete and high-rises. Besides I'm hoping that with us living in Colorado people will take vacations and come visit us. Who doesn't like the idea of winter getaways and playing in the snow? This way you don't have to live in the cold weather only visit for a few days. So there it is. The news is out. I'm ready for all the guilt trips and sob stories, so let me hear 'em.

Award Season Has Begun

I'm posting the link for the nominees for this year's Critic's Choice Awards in case any of you are into movie awards as much as I am. http://www.bfca.org/NomineesWinners.asp. I am super excited this year for a few nominees. First off, Shawn and I didn't get to see Into the Wild yet but REALLY want to and it got tons of recognition for the Critic's Choice Awards. I'm super excited that Eddie Vedder got nominated for Best Song. Yay for Eddie. I love his soundtrack for Into the Wild and play it for Inara when we're hanging out in the nursery. Also, I've been a big Sean Penn fan for years, so I'd love to see him get the award for best director and/or writer. He was so passionate about this film on IFC's Iconoclasts which aired about a month ago that I just fell in love with him even more. If anyone has seen this movie, I'd love to hear what you thought of it. The other film that got a few noms that I really want to see is Juno, about a teenager girl who gets pregnant and puts the baby up for adoption. By this description, you wouldn't think it's a comedy but it is. I was excited to see Judd Apatow's two summer hits, Knocked Up and Superbad, get nominated, especially considering how much I love his TV show Freaks and Geeks. Apatow's the perfect anti-Hollywood guy in my opinion, so let's hope all this talk about him doesn't go to his head and he ends up writing overly commercial crap. Other nominations to note, who would have ever thought Casey Affleck would get an award nomination? This one is for The Assassination of Jesse James. I was glad that Javier Bardem got nominated for No Country For Old Men, which I did get to see. He's so creepy in this role that I was totally weirded out by him throughout the film. Michael Cera got two noms for Superbad and Juno. In case you don't recognize the name, he played Jason Bateman's son on Arrested Development, another great show you should rent/buy if you missed it when it was still on tv. Lastly, Cate Blanchett, my favorite actress, got nominated for both Elizabeth: The Golden Years (which was an alright film) and I'm Not Here (which is the film about Bob Dylan where several actors, including Cate, play Dylan in different points in his life). I'm hoping to get out to see the latter one too. Man, having a baby sure does cramp my movie outings. Ha ha. Hopefully, my mom and Barb can watch her every weekend after Christmas so I can get out to see the Oscar contenders cuz you all know how much I love the Oscars and I have to see the big nominees at least.

What's been going on

We have new pictures posted. Visit www.shawnandmarisa.com to see the latest collection of pictures. You can find new ones of Inara with Uncle Spanky and her playing with her tummy time toy. We've started her laying on her tummy to build up her muscles. (The pictures are of her on her back though so you can actually see her face.) I also spend time every day reading to her. I figure I better start now if I want her to be a lover of the written word like her mommy. Also, I've decided even if we're just going to be hanging out at the house all day, I want her to wear her cute dresses before she grows out of them, so there are a couple pictures of her all dressed up and smiling away. She smiles all the time now and I've heard her giggle at least 3 times. If you click on the link Timeless at the top right of the screen, you can see Inara's 3 month birthday picture on the octopus chair. Can you believe it? She is 3 months old. Happy birthday baby girl. I can't believe how much she's changed in just a couple of months. Her eyelashes are super long. Yay! Her hair is growing a lot and her legs are getting chunky. Her face has filled out too, so she finally looks a bit like me now with a big round, chubby face. I'm sure she's going to love that when she gets older.

We had some really sad, heartbreaking news this past week. One of my best friends, Nina, lost her mom to cancer after a rather long battle. So Friday we headed up to Bakersfield for her mom's memorial service. It breaks my heart to see friends in pain because I wish I could do something to make it go away. Nina, I love you! For anyone who is looking to make a donation to an organization this year, I always recommend the American Cancer Society and in Laurie Taylor's memory, consider the Leukemia Society www.leukemia.org. I know Nina and her brother Carlos are setting up a site to make donations in memory of their mom, so I'll post that when I get it.

The drive to Bakersfield wasn't too bad. It was Inara's first road trip. Yes, another first for our little girl. We stayed with our friends Greg and Tracy. It was great to catch up with them. Inara had fun staring at the Christmas tree lights. I hope that's alright for her to do. That night she actually slept 11 hours in between meals. That's insane to me. But I've been told that she'll wake up when she's hungry so not to worry. We paid for it the next day when we were driving home because we had to pull over and feed her because she was so hungry and wanted the world to know it. I'm pretty much not breastfeeding any more, so we had to stop and get a cup of hot water to warm her bottle. Thank god for Starbucks. Inara was happy as could be and fell asleep the rest of the drive home. We then dropped her off at my parents' house and Shawn and I went out to dinner with friends to celebrate Jason aka Monkeyboy's birthday. It was nice to relax and visit with friends but more importantly for the two of us to be able to eat warm meals. Those who are parents will totally understand that last comment. Today I have an Arbonne open house and then we are going to join Jason at Yogurtland in Irvine, our new favorite place. Tonight I'm going to work on Christmas cards and the other two will have some quality father-daughter bonding time. Man, do weekends go by way too fast. Hopefully I'll find some time this week to get my Christmas decorations up and actually get some wrapping done. And so another week begins.

It's Thursday?

I almost let another week go by without posting. There's a good reason too. Inara is sleeping so well at night that she has decided she doesn't like napping for very long during the day. I get little cat naps out of her which really doesn't work well for trying to do things like update my blog. I guess I can't be too mad because she does sleep through the night so I get some sleep. However, she is going to sleep at 7 and 8 at night and I'm so not going to be when she does. I use that time to check emails, wash dishes, finish laundry...all the fun tasks of mommyhood.

This week I've started a new leaf of sorts. I've decided that even if we aren't leaving the house for the day I'm still going to put Inara in one of her cute outfits. Since she's starting to grow so fast, I don't want her to outgrow clothes before she gets to wear them. I'm taking pictures of her cute dresses and will post them once we get them uploaded off the camera.

This has also been a sad week because my best friend Nina's mom passed away on Friday after fighting cancer for a number of years. The three of us are going up to Bakersfield to attend the memorial/celebration of life on Saturday. We wouldn't miss it because we want to be there with our friend Nina as she's going through this difficult time. Send a warm thought Nina's way today.

Gotta use this quiet time to shower and get myself cleaned up so I can start another wonderful day of juggling.