My New Car And The Park!

I am still LOVING my new car!!
Here is a brief story on how we came about getting it: My little Jetta I have had for almost 5 years. It was a good little car while I was in college (Wow, even though I've been out of college for almost 5 years...holy cow. Guess it wasn't much of a college car!) but it was nice before we had a baby! In the last few months it's been having major problems. Actually, it's always had major problems, but they have escalated. It had over 110,000 miles on it and was needing repairs every month! We HAD to get out of it. I hated driving it because I knew it was a matter of time before it broke down and left me and Paiton stranded somewhere. Matt and I have been looking somewhat, mostly trying to figure out what we'd like to get next. We knew it needed to be bigger and have leather seats. Those were both MUSTS. Our dogs go to Nana and Papa's with us and they shed like crazy year round. Cleaning dog hair out of cloth seats all the time is a nightmare.
I liked the Dodge Journey and the Dodge Nitro. Matt was kind of iffy about both of those, he didn't trust them to last long. He introduced me to the Mazda 5. It's technically a van I guess, but they don't call it a van. It's not shaped like a van but like a low SUV. Which is great. I love driving my parents Durango, and tall cars, but I am so short that getting Paiton into her car seat in those is quite the event and I really didn't want to deal with that daily. The 5 is short, about as tall as me, and I can easily get P into her seat. I went and test drove one and fell in love. I had my lists of "wants" - seat heaters, a moon roof, dvd player, etc. The only "must" we had was leather. We went back and forth between two 5's, one was fully loaded with all my wants and the other was more practical and more affordable, BUT it didn't have leather. The dealer really wanted to sell us that but we just knew we weren't going to settle for something that didn't have what we deemed necessary. When the dealer saw that, he made an offer we couldn't refuse: he'd knock $2500 off the car and have them reupholster the seats to leather. We had a deal!
He even went and announced "We'd like to congratulate Matt and Ashley Locke on their purchase of a brand new Mazda 5!" on a bullhorn! It was neat!
So we are the proud owners of a brand new car!!
Here are some pictures of the things I love about it:
It has cup holders! Not a big deal to most, but I didn't have cup holders in the Jetta so this excites me!!
The fact that it only had 30 something miles on it when we bought it!
AND...it's an automatic!! The Jetta was a stick and I used to love it but I was so tired of it!!
Paiton loves it too! She says "Weee!" while we ride in it!

So, that's my new car in a nutshell. And we love love love it!! It is such a MOM car! At first it kind of bothered me to think of buying a "van" but then I realized - mom's are smart!! Vans are so much easier to get in and out of, especially since it's usually just me and P!! It has tons of room and it drives really nicely!!! LOVE IT!!
Ok, onto other things I love - my kid!
Yesterday we met our best friends, Kim and Cohen at the park. Paiton kept saying "Hi Coco!"
The weather has been perfect yesterday and today. It got up to 71 yesterday and to be honest, Kim and I were roasting at the park! We were SO hot!! Today I wore a tanktop because it's supposed to be in the 70's again and I wanted to be prepared!


And yes, that's my child insisting on wearing her sunglasses. She has more pairs than I do!! She is so hilarious with her girliness!!
Last night we had spaghetti for dinner, yummy!

Update on B

Here is what the story is on what B had (as told by my mom!)

Brandon got his pathology report yesterday. He has Meckles Diverticulum(I think I spelled it right!) It is congenital and he had the tumor since birth! Its apparently very rare, only 2% of the population has it. I guess removing it is the only treatment! Its not dangerous or cancerous or anything. The pouch is filled with tissue and cells from other organs like the stomach, liver, pancreas. Normally it is reabsorbed in the womb but in some people that doesnt happen and it becomes attached to the small intestines. The surgeon said his was dying the cells were dying and became infected so thats why he got sick. No further treatment is needed and it won't come back so he just needs to heal from surgery and he's good! Good news!!

So, I guess he didn't eat his twin after all!

Very weird and the nerd in me is dying to research that, so I will be doing that later! :)
And about him eating his twin, Matt and I decided that what was most likely was that B actually had a twin but since he was such a giant baby when he was born he got hungry in the womb and ate him up and the baby's been there ever since just waiting to punish Brandon, hence the illness and surgery! Hehe :) We even named the twin Brandine.
Too bad it's not true, it's a good story!
(Check the post below for some exciting news...)

Our Family Is Growing...

Bet I made your hearts pound a little with that title didn't I!?
Well our family IS growing...in the vehicle department! More pictures to come, but here is a sneak peek at me with my new ride!!

It's a 2010 Mazda 5. It's a van, but not. As you can see it's a lot smaller than a typical van but it does still have the sliding doors, which at first I was leary about, but now I realized that I don't have to try and balance doors open without hitting another car to get the baby out of her seat - woohoo! Love my sliding doors! And LOVE my new car!
More pictures and a bigger story to come!

Where is my baby!?

Yesterday Paiton turned 17 months old!! I can't even believe it! Time is flying by.
But first, on Monday night we celebrated Ryan's first birthday!
Before all the festivities began Paiton gave us a pretty good laugh. She had an elastic headband in her hair and I guess as she was playing it slid down over her eyes. Matt noticed her trying to walk around with it covering her eyes and as Matt, Brandon, Carissa and I stood and watched she walked around Frankenstein like, not being able to see and with her arms out in front of her, and walked smack into a door! It was hilarious! She fell backward and Aunt Carissa ran and got her, and she wasn't hurt, so we didn't feel too bad laughing at that one! Although it did cause Brandon to be in a lot of pain. He tried really hard not to laugh, but couldn't help it!
Ryan nicely let Cadon and Paiton help him open his presents :)
(This picture is just to prove to everyone in California that Brandon did survive having a portion of himself removed!)



A must:
Wearing the Mr. Potato Head glasses. Every kid does it!

Ryan almost got to play with his new lawn mower from Nana:
Paiton loves this little 4 wheeler and always wants to ride it:
The other day I bought this little crate to put Paiton's books in (she has way too many, we have boxes and boxes filled!) but she decided it would be more fun to empty it and sit in it!

She has also become very helpful. Every night after the dogs eat she runs right up and grabs their bowls to put them back in the cupboard! It cracks us up! I guess she's just seen us do it so many times she knows that's what you do!
And for whatever reason right now she finds it very fun to stack things. Like this we found yesterday:

This can't possibly be my baby:


She is just such a TODDLER now. I can't get over it. Luckily she still likes me to cuddle her to sleep every night, which I plan on doing until she is sick of. I love those moments of snuggliness and babiness. She is such a fun kid but I am already miss some of those baby things. Not all, but some!

A couple funny Paiton-isms:
Last night she discovered the word "Why?" So then everything was "Why?" "Paiton you need to eat your dinner." "Why?" "Paiton please don't climb on that." "Why?" "Paiton don't scream like that!" "Why?" It was so funny!
This morning she walked up to me and handed me Toy Story and said in a complete sentence: "There you go Mommy." Then pointed to the TV. I said "Did you just say 'There you go?'" And she said "Uh huh. My movie." Umm....ok! She cracks me up with what a little person she is, you just never know what will come out of her mouth next!!

Ryan's 1 Year Photo Shoot

Today I did Ryan's 1 year pictures!
Happy first birthday Ry Ry the birthday guy!!
We love little Ryan SO much and we are so glad we got to celebrate his birthday with him! This morning Paiton and I headed over to do his one year pictures. I had a feeling they turned out great so I stayed up tonight editing them and I just can't wait to share them!!
Ryan is very serious, so we didn't get too many smiles. I took over 200 pictures and I could have easily posted 100 GOOD ones here.
So with no further ado, here is our super cute birthday boy!








Then it was time to get messy...

This is quite possibly my favorite picture from the day: (I am a sucker for baby feet...)






And then he got up:Because this looked more fun:
Let me know what you think of the pictures!!

Dora Kitchen!!

The other day my good friend Brooke sent me a link to a Dora kitchen she had found on craigslist. The only problem was that it was in Indiana! I had never seen one before and knew I had to find one somewhere for Paiton. I searched our craigslist and there were 2!
Matt and I went ahead and got it for Paiton.
We took a video of her coming downstairs and seeing it for the first time and she was so excited! Just listen to her little voice saying "Whoa!" "Dora!" "Boots!" It's so sweet.




She loved it so much she gave Dora kisses!


Glad it was a success!!
On Saturday we went to a friends house for dinner. Jake was amazed that Paiton could work his iPhone! She knows how to get to a game she can play and do it!