Anata no koto wo kangaeteiru

The title means I'm thinking of you in Japanese. (I think...) Tomorrow Rose, Linda and Grandma all leave for Japan. No, they're not going to compete on Season 2 of "I Survived a Japanese Game Show". They are actually going to do some sightseeing, visit with family and enjoy a trip with grandma in her home town. They will be visiting Osaka, going to Nagoya, Shiga, Kyoto and Kobe. Kobe is where grandma is from. We wish them very safe travels and a fun trip together. St. Christopher is the patron saint of travellers so we will be talking to him until you return home safely. Please take lots of pictures for us! Oh yeah, and one last request. Please come straight to Phoenix when you get back so we can see you! We miss you... Lots of love to these wonderful ladies in our lives.

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Jarem Xavier Beethoven

So you may or may not know, but I was quite the musical genius in my day. From the recorder to the tenor sax in the high school marching band, music is in my blood. Well maybe not genius, but my loving mother thought enough of my budding passion to buy me a keyboard. (Either that or she got annoyed with me holding up her Costco shopping trips while listening to the various "Demo" songs on the most expensive keyboards. "Ooh, that one has chopsticks... but this one has Twinkle little star." Clearly a virtuoso in the making.)

It appears as if our beautiful son has developed my love for music. Check out the video after the jump.

The piano that Jarem is playing is the same one my mom gave to me all those years ago. Thanks mom!

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Amber Alerts on your Cell

An AMBER Alert is a Child abduction alert system, issued to the general public by various media outlets in Canada and in the United States, when police confirm that a child has been abducted. AMBER is the backronym for "America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response", and was named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996.

You may have seen the electronic boards on your drive into work, or heard your favorite radio broadcast interrupted with one... but the fact is that since introduced, AMBER alerts have recovered 420 abducted children. In their first month, California sent 13 amber alerts and recovered 12 children. The last turned out to be a misunderstanding rather than an abduction.

The Wireless Amber Alert system is another way to get the word out to recover our children. Please sign yourself up. They will only send you SMS Text messages during an AMBER alert, not for marketing or any sort of distribution. You can sign up at www.WirelessAmberAlerts.org. Please copy the link to this page ( http://jamie2eric.blogspot.com/2008/09/amber-alerts-on-your-cell.html )and send it to friends/family through email. Our children need us! ... Full Post...

Busy weekend 3

This post is going to be sweet and short. I need to put emphasis on the sweet though. Hehe Yesterday we were all ready to go to church and then Jarem started to not feel so well and Eric really started to not feel good. Eric was running a fever and has been feeling really icky for the past month or so. Jarem is being a trooper and trying to get rid of those darned ear infections, too. I took these pictures of Jarem just before his meltdown yesterday. Poor guy. But at least he looked cute! Too handsome!!! I just love this little outfit Grammy got him and the hat from his cousin Braden. Enjoy...





UPDATE: From Daddy... The funniest thing was that as Jamie was dressing our young lad in this cute outfit, she kept repeating the following phrase in an accent that was either Cagney English or Australian, "Yes mutha, let us go play some golf. I will be your caddy, cheereo." ... Full Post...

Busy weekend 2

After getting family portraits taken, we took Jarem to his first professional baseball game. GO DIAMONDBACKS! We only stayed for the first few innings because we had to get home for Jarem's bedtime. But he really enjoyed looking at the field and all the bright lights and new noises. It was quite overwhelming though cause he fell asleep just in time for us to head home. Happy Birthday to Kathi! She got tickets in the suite and invited us. We had lots of fun on our first baseball game as a family. We can't wait to take Jarem back when he's older. Eric wants to get there early and hang out by the dugout. I can't wait to see them all decked out in their team gear with gloves on trying to get a ball from the players. Fun times ahead...






The other thing I forgot to mention is that Jarem got his first pair of Stride Rites this weekend. My sister and Emma went to run some errands on Saturday morning and they also stopped at a couple garage sales in their neighborhood. Well Jen found a pair of Stride Rites in PERFECT CONDITION! I call them Jarem's little moccasins. They are so cute on him! He looks like he's ready to just get up and start walking. Not quite there yet but they look cute on him! Thanks so much, Auntie Jen!!

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Busy weekend 1

We had a busy weekend full of fun times. Friday we hung out with Jen, Bradley, Braden and Emma for dinner. Korina was spending the night so we all just hung out, ate some pizza and watched the kiddos play. I can't say enough how awesome it is having them back in AZ! Saturday we went to my dad's house and Jarem hung out with Poppa and Miss C for my birthday.


Jarem was hanging out on the floor with Poppa and enjoyed all the cuddles. By the way, Jarem's Shirt says, "If you think I nap a lot, you should see my Grandpa!" - Courtesy of Gramma and Gary.

We had an amazing lunch (carne asada, chicken, rice and corn) followed by birthday brownies. YUMMY! It was nice getting to just relax together and enjoy a mellow afternoon at dad's house. We had a lot of fun watching Poppa kiss Jarem and play with him. It was really cute when they were laying on the floor together.



After Poppa's house we went and got family portraits taken. We need to scan them in so we can post them. We're working on it. Might be a while before those get up though. But I do have to say that the pictures came out really good of the three of us. We had fun getting them done, too.
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Yakulla Caverns @ The Phx Zoo

I know that talking about work really isn't the norm... but I just HAD to share this! Today was the preview of the new outdoor water play area at the Phoenix Zoo. It's called Yakulla (pronounced: Ya-Cool-Ya - from the Incan language meaning "Water Place") Caverns.


If you have children (regular or grand) around 5-12, you've GOT to bring them to the zoo. As you'll see by the videos after the jump that this is going to quickly become the busiest places at the zoo!



In fact, I'm trying to talk them into having a staff only day!!!
Enjoy the videos!

Yakulla Caverns outside


Here's a fun walk-through of the caverns

Why didn't they have stuff like this when WE were kids!?
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Grandma Betty

Please pray for the Usher family. Joanna's grandmother passed away today. This is our prayer for them.
Our prayer is that God comfort the Ushers with the special memories they hold in their hearts and their undying love for grandma Betty. We give thanks for the long life of grandma Betty. In Your goodness we ask You to grant grandma Betty with everlasting happiness. Lord, please look with love upon Your people who mourn and pray for grandma Betty. By Your glorious power give her light, joy, and peace in heaven where You live for ever and ever. Amen.

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My birthday! 25 already?!?

I know, not the most flattering picture. But this picture was taken on my birthday last year. This is me leaving our doctor's office and calling my mom to tell her that I'm officially pregnant!! We took the home pregnancy test on September 4th, 2007 and on my birthday last year we had our first doctor's appointment to confirm the pregnancy. We can't believe that a year ago we were just starting to dream and wonder about what our little angel would be like. That was such a special birthday present!!
Korina made me this crown. She's so sweet!! My head was too big though...

We had an amazing day yesterday. We are so blessed with amazing family and friends surrounding us. We had a pretty low key day but great nonetheless. The day started with some family cuddle time in bed. We brought Jarem in when he woke up and called his grandmas to let him talk to them. He is so vocal in the morning. I think he even muttered a "happy birthday mommy" in there. Wishful thinking... After family cuddle time, my mom came over and brought us breakfast. Jen wanted to cook for us (which would have been amazing cause she's one of the best cooks I know) but we just didn't want to leave the house. We instead hung out with mom for a little bit at the house before she headed out to get some work done. After that we napped and laid around the living room in quiet. It was so peaceful just being together and not needing to focus on TV or anything else. We could just hear the ticking of Jarem's swing and his heavy breathing. After that we woke up and got ready for lunch with the fam. We all met at Paradise Bakery for a late lunch before church. We had a good time and lots of laughs of course. The boys even snuck in a few football score checks here and there.
Being silly...and kind of scary now that I think of it. After lunch we went over to Jen and Bradley's house for dessert. Aunt Stef made me a yummy cookie cake and Jen provided the ice cream. It was so much fun having everyone together and just relaxing at their house. I love having them back in AZ!! It's still surreal to say, "Let's stop by Jen and Brad's house." We feel so spoiled having them here and getting to see the kids playing together! After dessert we went to church and then got some more ice cream to take home. Karen, Uriel and Raf came over and stayed until Jarem's bed time. We are honestly so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives! We can't wait until Jarem can walk and play with Raf more. It was so cute cause Jarem was in his jumper and Raf kept coming over to play with him. They're such a great family! All in all we had a great day focused on family and friends, the things we love most. Thank you so much Niki for driving all the way out there just to be with us for lunch. You're so good to us!! Can't wait for our time to hang out. Thanks to everyone who called and texted me, too. My day felt so special and I couldn't thank God enough for all of our blessings while in mass. My amazing hubby does everything he can to make my day special and as always, he makes my life so amazing. Thank you Eric for planning the day and for giving me everything I needed. I loved hanging out with you and just being together with Jarem at home. I love you...

My handsome boys wore matching outfits. They looked so handsome!!

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Joanna and Gramma Rose--Happy Birthday!!

Our family has so many birthdays in the month of September. I'm sorry to any that I miss along the way. It's such a busy time of year! Three important birthdays were this weekend. Gramma Rose and Joanna both celebrated their birthdays on Saturday and my birthday was yesterday. We missed getting to see Rose for her birthday. Hopefully we can make another visit to WA or have her down here again soon. She's been out every month since Jarem has been born so far. Hopefully we can keep the visits that frequent! It's been so nice getting to see so much of her. We miss you, Rose. We did get to see Joanna on Saturday though. Eric, Bradley, Jen and Joanna all played in the Seton 3-on-3 basketball tournament. We spent most of the day together all hanging out at the gym. Eric and Bradley's team didn't do too well but Jen won the championship. We stayed for dinner at Joanna's and had so much fun getting to hang out with her and see her. She's such an amazing friend and we really wish she would just move back to AZ already!! hehe We love both of you September 6th birthday girls!!

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Tough guy

Yesterday Jarem had his 4 month check-up. We were so excited to see how big he is getting and ask all our questions about his development. I got a call in the morning from Jarem's daycare though asking us if we knew about any problems with Jarem's right ear. His teacher said it was leaking some green goop. (That's the technical term.) GROSS!

I had been noticing since Monday that when I cleaned his ears after bath time each night he seemed to be having a large amount of wax. I showed it to Eric, my mom and even Aunt Linda. They all reassured me that it was probably nothing. Well when I heard that it was green yesterday I started to get scared.

I called the nurse's line at Gateway Pediatrics (Jarem's pediatrician office) and told them what had been happening. While dialing and holding I also googled his symptoms and found that he probably had a hole in his ear drum. Sure enough Google was right. While at Jarem's appointment yesterday we found out that Jarem had an ear infection that went undetected. He ended up getting a hole in his ear drum and the green goop was the fluid from his infection discharging. Yummy!

He has amoxicillin and ear drops to help him heal. We go back in two weeks to make sure the hole has repaired itself in his ear drum. Our little Jarem is such a tough guy! We didn't even know he had an ear infection. He's still our calm, cuddly, smiley and happy little boy. We really don't want him to be prone to ear infections like mommy was. We want him to have daddy's ears since Eric has never had an ear infection. Pretty amazing!

About Jarem's pediatrician, Dr. Sudha. She is the most amazing pediatrician in the whole entire world!! Dr. Sudha was recommended to us by Karen and Uriel and we couldn't be more grateful. She is such an amazing doctor! It is so fun to watch her with Jarem. She loves on him and really has a personal relationship with her patients. When I interviewed pediatricians I had Rose in mind. The way Rose talks about her patients and runs her practice is something we wanted. Dr. Sudha has a new beautiful and amazing office. Not to mention her associate Dr. V is also amazing. They visited us everyday while we were at the hospital. We absolutely love Gateway Pediatrics and especially Dr. Sudha.

Last note, Jarem weighed 17 pounds 8 ounces and is in the 90% percentile for height, weight and head circumference. He's doing great!
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Baby Jarem - Back to the Front

He did it! Baby Jarem rolled over from his back to his front for the first time yesterday!!! Hit the jump for the video.

When you're watching this video, listen for the rave review that Jarem is getting from mommy while on the phone with Grandma Rose. It almost sounds like a movie preview. Anyway, mommy makes for GOOD (funny) background noise!

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Our little model

So we went shopping with Aunt Linda while she was here visiting. We went to this cute baby store called Pumpkin Patch. I think it's my new favorite baby store. Our friends Karen and Uriel got some outfits for Jarem there that we loved. This was our first time actually going into the store and they honestly have the cutest clothes!! We are starting to look at winter clothes for Jarem since he's already in 9 month outfits and they're quickly getting tight on him. He's such a big boy! We tried some different hats on him and he is such a cutie!!

Please notice that in every picture he is sucking his thumb. It's an all day thing now. He always has his thumb in his mouth (or his toes). Too cute!!
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