Best parts of my day

• Being woken up by either a) the girls begging for food lol. or b) josh kissing me (either option is awesome)
• Hearing the girls say "bye, my booey" when josh leaves for work (we have no idea what that means, but they've been saying it for more than a year)
• Watching Jack actually EAT ON HIS OWN. Omigosh, he's finally eating finger food by himself (no medieval force-feeding torture machine needed ;-))
• The girls "tippin toe" (tip-toeing) out to the living room and peeking around the corner to see if they can get up from their naps.
• or if Maria has preschool, it's when we're waiting in line and she asks me what every single button or knob in the car does. She laughs the whole time b/c she thinks it's hilarious that I answer her every day. lol I LOVE that laugh and I wish I could bottle it up and save it for 10 years from now lol.
• Sophia helping me with the laundry. She loves helping me sort it and put it in the washer and she absolutely HAS to push the buttons. lol.
• When Josh gets home and the girls RUN, SQUEALING to the back door to see him. then he gives them the mail to give me and he gives me a kiss hello...no matter how dirty he is from work (however, some days it's more like a peck due to oil, grease or whatever else is on there lol).
• after-dinner dancing! (not always every day)
• The good night "routine" when we put the girls to bed.
• 8:01 when the house is quiet and josh and i have time ALONE :D
• laying in bed with josh holding hands and talking. i love it. it's nothing special, but we've done it every night for the last 6 1/2 years we've lived together. (except for a short time when he worked midnights :-( and an occasional fight that went over-night lol).

1 year and 8 days...

Ok, so I realized yesterday that I hadn't done a post about how far our little Jack-in-the-box has come since New Years day one year ago. So here we go.

• he's pulling himself up to stuff, cruising and standing on his own (no official steps yet though).
• he thinks he's hilarious. he's always laughing at the "funny" stuff he does.
• he mimics everything we do and it's freaking adorable.
• I've been trying to get him to blow kisses, but instead of him doing it when I'm done, he just grabs my hand and puts it to my mouth. then he'll pull it away and laaaugh.
• he's a PITA about eating. I mean a TOTAL pain. no way in the world can we get him to eat Cheerios (etc.) off his high chair tray. no, no. instead he throws them all on the floor, screams in irritation, then when I put him on the floor, he eats them all off of the floor. on a positive note I've been cleaning the floors daily, so it's making me a better housekeeper ;-)
• he likes a little action. he's easily bored when it's just the two of us. but as soon as the girls (or anyone) enter the room he's a happy camper.
• I'm pretty sure he has "younger sibling syndrome" (I'm also pretty sure i just made that up). once he became mobile, he automatically thought he was one of the older kids. he'd rather go back to the play room with the girls and just sit and stare, than be out here with all his toys.
• favorite thing to play with in the entire house...the flap on the dishwasher detergent thing. no joke. it's like an addiction.
• he LOOOOVES the vacuum cleaner. if he's in his bead and I'm vacuuming, i can hear him in there jumping up and down laughing and squealing with delight.
• his "lovey" is a sock...any sock will do (but he does prefer the smaller ones). it immediately goes in his hand while he starts sucking his thumb. hilarious...and a little perplexing.
• he's got mama, baba and dada down, but that's pretty much it. however baba is used for all things with that sound (bye-bye, bad boy, and of course bottle!)
• STILL NO TEETH! (I know, right!) we're looking on getting a group rate for a pair of little baby dentures and Josh's new tooth. ;-)

3 years and 1 day

(three weeks old)

(three years old)

(yes that is a 1 & a 2...it does equal 3 after all...;-)

So, our little Pia pants is 3 years and 1 day old today. Here are some things she can do right now and some things I always want to remember about her right now.

(and I just remembered that I didn't do one for Jack on New Years day, so I will do that tomorrow, I promise).

• She speaks like a 4 yr old. She's always been advanced with her speech (maybe it's genetic lol) and that has just continued. .


• she runs, jumps, kicks, climbs, throws, catches* and all that fun stuff.


• she is absolutely OBSESSED with Jack. she loves him like I have never seen a child love another child. I really thought that Maria was protective of her when she was born, but that is NOTHING compared to how Sophia is with Jack.


• she eats with a spoon and fork well, however it's not exactly clean...same goes for a cup (she does it, but if we're having company or something i usually just give her a sippy so she doesnt get all excited and knock it over).


• she makes up songs and sings them all.the.time. (yesterdays went a little something like this...."happy birthday to meeee. everyone gonna sing to meee. because it's my birthdeeee.) and i hope i always remember the way she dances right now.


• she recognizes the basic shapes and colors


• she knows some letters (including "S" of course) and tries desperately to write her name.


• she speaks Spanish...neither of us have any idea what she's saying, but who cares. (she's actually doing it right now lol)


• She almost always puts her fingers in her dimples when you ask her to smile for a picture.


• she's an EXTREMELY picky eater (which I'm SURE is Gods punishment for the way I was about eating at her age...or ALL ages lol) and this includes hiding food in her cheeks and storing it for hours...or going and spitting it out in the bathroom (another one of those things that I have NO idea where she got it from....;-)**


• She's about the hungriest child ever. She asks for food CONSTANTLY and last week she finally found an answer to my question of "why are you always asking for food?". her answer..."because mommy, I'm hungry when my bodies hungry". Can't really argue with that logic (esp. when she says it while she's lifting up her shirt and rubbing her belly).***


• she likes to "call" people on her phone and she actually has a whole conversation with them that generally starts a little something like this..."hey. whats up. what are you doing? nothing? oh. ok...." and almost always leads to "when you comin over?".


• she's working on sharing and taking turns. however I think the fact that I've heard her put her barbies "in the corner" says a little something about how that's going lol


• she LOVES being read to. her favorite is "are you my mother". she asks me to read it to her daily and i do it happily because i know that it wont be long before she's reading it on her own.****


• she begs EVERY DAY to go to preschool and still gets teary when we drop Maria off at school.

• She's sooooo polite it's about the cutest thing ever. Even if I tell her no about something she STILL says "ok thanks mom".

• She's always asking people to "play twirly whirl" with her. Which pretty much just consist of each party holding one end of a string and twirling it around. But she thinks its the coolest thing ever. :D

*ok, her catching isnt exactly perfected yet, but she still tries and that's whats important.

**i know that sentence is grammatically incorrect, but I can't figure out how to fix it and still make it say what I want.

***she actually did this at the restaurant last night...gotta love her.

****she has most of it memorized already. i keep trying to get it on video and can't quite get it all for one reason or another.

365...er 362 days

I just read a blog that shared an awesome idea. You take a picture a day, every day of the year and post it on a blog. I've decided to do it. IDK what my theme will be just yet, so until I find my inspiration, it will be totally random. also, I will try my best to not put the pics on my facebook for those of you that are my friends over there, so as to avoid the monotony (except for the first one because i was unprepared).

Here's the link to it, so follow me over there and let me know if you are doing it too and I will follow you too!

last new years eve..

All I can seem to think about today is what I was doing last year on this day.

Last year on this day I was in the hospital.

• I was waiting (impatiently) to have Jack.
• I was scared.
• I was nervous.
• I was happy.
• I was MISSING MY GIRLS sooo badly.
• I was hoping and praying for a high platelet count.
• I was hoping and praying for him to "catch up" quickly.
• I was hoping and praying that nothing was wrong with his belly.
• I was hoping and praying I'd get to see my LAST baby before anyone else in the family (no such luck).
• I was hoping I could handle 3 babies in less than 4 years.

I have no idea what 2010 is going to hold for our family, but I do know that we have been very blessed during 2009 and that's all we can really hope for.

everyone else is doing it

Since everyone else is doing it, I guess I'll do MY Christmas recap with a few of the million pics I took. :D

Well, we have definitely had a BUSY last 5 days. AWESOME, but busy.

Wednesday, we went to this free family event that was sponsored by the local churches, called "The Arctic Express". It was fun and the kids had a really good time.

Thursday we had some fun checking out the lights (see the video in my last post), after opening some new Christmas PJ's.

Christmas day was awesome, of course! We did just what we ALL wanted to do. We stayed home and enjoyed the day playing with toys, visiting with family and eating! The kids LOVED all their gifts. We had a yummy dinner, of which, there were NO leftovers! (I'm thinking about going and buying another ham so we can have some "leftovers" lol).

Saturday morning Josh's dad brought gifts over and we had a nice Christmas visit with them.

TANGENT:I think that my father in law is the best "receiver" of gifts that I know. No matter what it is, he is always so thankful and appreciative of it. I know that's a strange thing to say, but I always think of that because I hate when you think you got someone something they will like and they are just like "eh". He is never like that. He always recognizes the work that was put into something etc.

Also Saturday afternoon was my dad's family Christmas party which was lots of fun. There were quite a few people missing, but also some out of towners that got to be there, so that was really nice.

Sunday we went to my moms house for our Christmas visit. We got to see my Grandma (first time since June) so that was really good. And everyone got some really nice gifts and had some good food.

So the next couple days are going to be spent finding places for the new toys, getting rid of some old ones and catching up on the laundry (for me) and playing with new toys and watching new movies (for the kids). I hope everyone had a WONDERFUL Christmas!

Some awesome Christmas Lights

This year, we spent our Christmas Eve checking out the Christmas lights around here (after putting on new Christmas Eve jammies :D). A couple of houses were AMAZING and I took a video of the one house. Enjoy!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!