The little things

I just got to thinking this week about all the little things that make me happy.  Those two little teeth right in this picture.  This is really the first picture I have been able to get of Annie with her two little front teeth.  Since my little camera broke, I have only been using my monster big SLR, that I'm only really good at taking pictures with outside where I can use the automatic setting (I'm explaining why the flash is so bright on her little face!).  She is just so precious, I'm loving those little teeth, her little rubber band wrist rolls on her arms, her little freckle on her thigh ("she's got a dot!" Jacob said and was so excited because he has one on his belly and Gwyn has one on her calf, and Brian and I have them all over, so that makes us all special.)   It just makes me want to hug them a little tighter, squeeze them a little longer, and never forget these little simple things that make mine and Brian's lives so much richer.

Gwyn closes her little eyes every time she gives someone a hug.  It is so sweet, like she is absorbing up some love through those hugs with her eyes closed.  She also sings all the time, all day long.  The other night, I had put Jacob to bed and I was about to walk downstairs, and I heard "move on back, move on back."  I walk over to her door to listen and I hear "wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish," she was singing the wheels on the bus go round and round to herself after Brian had put her to bed.  I still haven't cut her hair, I can just do so much with pig tails, pony tails, braids, etc.  I keep saying, she'll get a hair cut soon, but I can't bring myself to do it.  Please someone shake me, if her hair gets down to her ankles, okay?  She has also started a ton of excuses before going to bed, a few examples are the following:

I have to go potty (even though she conveniently is only "potty training" right before she has to go to bed)

She didn't say good night to us

She needs her lamby (or Dora, or Hello Kitty, or baby doll)

Her toe hurts

Her eye hurts

She had to put this toy away (even though her bedroom floor could be covered in toys, it is that one that has to be put away)

She has to give a toy back to Jacob

Jacob is my little helper.  He loves to help take care of Annie and he loves to play with Gwyn.  He asks to wake them up from naps, he likes to help me cook, and he loves being Brian's little apprentice.  He is getting so good at swimming, and can now tread water for a very long time.  I'm just surprised at how fast he is learning new things, and he is big into his letters now.  He loves school, and of course keeps coming home with treasures.  I'm saving them up from a week and I'll take a picture of what I have.  I've lost several in my dryer or bag or pockets, since sometimes he has me hold on to stuff for him.  The other day at Target, he found a feather and didn't have a pocket, but Gwyn did have pockets on her shorts, so he was cramming it into her pocket "for safe keeping" as he says. 

Brian started back to Tadpoles at church with Jacob this week.  The kids (3-6) go with just the Dads and do a craft, game, story, and most importantly, a snack.  Gwyn can't go until February.  He also took Gwyn to Starbucks (Strawberry bucks as she calls it), for some one on one time.  She was so excited to get her juice box and pink donut with sprinkles.  She came home and said she wants a giant donut next time!  Jacob had another swim lesson this week, and we're hoping to squeeze one more in before our instructor (who is a 2nd year med student), has to start clinicals next week.  She has been great, and we hope to continue next summer and get Gwyn swimming too.  Jason was also able to come over one night for dinner, hanging out, and swimming.  It was Jason who shot the video at the bottom with his new iphone 4, I may have to get me one just for the ability to video the kids at anytime.  Other that that, we've just been up to our normal routine.  The kids are both enjoying school, I've found this week that Annie will pretty much throw a miserable fit if she is downstairs with me while Jacob and Gwyn are playing upstairs.  I can't leave her up there with them by herself, but apparently, she doesn't like to unload dishes or fold clothes or clean (she'd rather be playing wither big brother and sister, and I can't blame her for that!).

Here is a couple of pictures of the kids artwork from school.  I got this idea from a friend of mine, since it is impossible for me to keep everything, I just plan on taking pictures of most of the things they bring home and then keep a few per year.  A few of his pictures from the first week (the car is an ambulance), and he did so good with the patterns of 0 and 1:

He put the correct number of dots in each section of the tree, and if you lifted the pocket he made up on the third one, he drew a picture of himself in it:

I thought the smallest to largest one was cool, and he told me he put material on his little person (that is him he said) on the leg because his leg was broken and in a cast:

Gwyn's (Jacob was very upset she had 3 boys and 2 girls in her family-the green one):

A couple of pictures from outside, Gwyn with her bug collection out front...this used to be Jacob's, but he has moved on to bigger and better things outside, so now Gwyn is the "bug keeper" of the house, but she gets pretty upset when Annie comes over and tries to eat them.

Jacob and his squirrel house (also a butterfly house because he spotted a butterfly coming out of it):

A very cool find, a dead bug:

All three kids:

You can't really tell, but I did the 80s side ponytail on Gwyn and she looked so cute!

Sweet little Annie is 11 months old today!!!

Gwyn at 11 months old:

Jacob at 11 months old (he already had his two top teeth too):

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob (after seeing a girl with braces):  Why does that girl have necklaces on her teeth?

Gwyn (when I told her to go pick out a different pair of shorts, she came downstairs with two clashing crazy patterns):  We can just pretend that they match. (I thought that was good enough that I let her wear what she wanted, since I tell her to pretend when she wants me to do things that I don't want to do)

Jacob (when I told him not to make a mess with his snack):  But kids make messes.

Jacob (when I told him to hold Gwyn's hand in the parking lot):  My pleasure!

Here is the Halloween Monster Mash of our family that was a result of  "I can't sleep and it is 4 am, so I'll find something on the computer to take up the time until a kid yells for me"

http://www.monstermashup.com/dev/webroot/afe3c8

And lastly, here is a very short clip of the kids dancing, Jacob and Gwyn are already trying to show Annie how to dance, but apparently, she has moves of her own!

The Joy of Having a Little Boy (and other stories)

I am truly in love with this little boy.  This is him playing with two locusts shells (the fragile little skeletons they shed), and we seem to have an abundant supply around here.  He is an expert "finder" and plays with them everyday.  He pretends like they are little airplanes, robot bugs, etc. and when he is done with them he always squishes them up into little pieces.  I asked him why he did this and he said "so the frogs could eat them"  Duh, Mommy, everybody knows that!  Since he has started school, he has started collecting his "treasures" again.  Everyday when I go pick him up, I see a variety of treasures in his little cubby.  Mostly rocks, pine cones, feathers, acorn and one time a twisty tie.  He is very proud of his loot, and I can just imagine him exploring on the playground and stuffing these in his pockets for safe keeping, he MUST wear pockets every day.  He has a little friend in there named Peyton, and her cubby always has several things too.  Jacob is such a sweet little boy, he loves to cuddle, loves to play with Gwyn, and to make Annie laugh.  He is "into" building things, I go out of the room for one minute, and he'll have every cushion and blanket off the couches and set up into a tent, or toys lined up to create houses.  The big, bad wolf (Annie) is always coming to knock stuff down, but he just puts things back up again.  I've got to get a picture of his "squirrel house" he's building in the front yard with little branches and leaves.  I'll have to put some corn out there (since this is what they dig out of trash can) to see if I can actually lure one into the house for him.  You should see his little face light up, he is so animated and he loves it when we cheer for him.  The other day the craft box, which he easily got out by himself was just too heavy for him to put back up, so Gwyn and I started chanting "Jacob, Jacob, Jacob!"  You should have seen his little smile, and sure enough, those muscles started working and he was able to put it away!  The other day, I picked him up from school and he was so excited to show me the "gun" he made (he taped two pieces of paper together).  I was trying to shush him, and tell him at the same time we don't make pretend guns, to which he was loudly replying, yes, I did, and here it is, isn't it cool.  I later had a serious conversation about we don't play with guns, we don't act like we shoot people, we don't make guns out of paper (where does he get this stuff, I think it is just embedded in his boy genes??).  He thought for a minute, and said, okay, next time I'll make one and it will look like a gun, but it won't be one.  I thought, okay, he's not getting it, I'll let Daddy handle this one!  Here is a picture of one of the houses he and Gwyn built the other day:

Both kids love school.  Jacob's class covers a different letter each week, they have to bring something for show and tell that starts with that letter, and cut out pictures of things that start with that letter.  Last week, it was B, so he brought batman, took pictures of a baby (Annie), batman, and a beach ball.  He also got to bring Bobby to school for a picnic.  So, we are always talking about letters, what letters words start with, etc.  Jacob asked me what letter was next week, and I told him A.  I started listing things that started with A.  He asked, what about shark, no, shark starts with an S, and I made the sound.  He asked what about crocodile, no, crocodile starts with a C, and I made the sound.  Gwyn asks, what starts with 4?  Ha, Brian was there and he said, 400, 44???  They are getting fun and are very interested in learning.  This year, he goes to pre-K four days a week.  It is 4 hours two days, and 5 hours two days.  He loves school, and was so excited on Friday when he got to stay home with me.  I told him we could do something special and he decided that he wanted a princess and superhero picnic...so, we did it (although at the last minute, he decided to dress up as a doctor instead of a superhero):

This is the kids "digging in," notice Annie has her face inside a bowl:

Jacob also brought out his doctor tools, looks like Annie is in need of another checkup:

Annie was part superhero/part princess:

Gwyn in her Tinkerbell outfit that she is going to be for Halloween (although now she says Snow White, but I'm reminding her daily how much she wants to be Tinkerbell since we already have that costume!):

The kids playing with sticks:

While the cat is away...Annie will steal some juice!

Sweet little Gwyn:

Jacob said, "Mommy, everything was DEEEE-Licious"

During the picnic, we sat the blanket right next to this LIVE locust, and I showed it to Jacob who attempted to pick it up and it started making that loud humming noise and took off.  It was so funny, Jacob got so excited and was after it, but it was just too fast for him.

Gwyn is such a girly girl, but at the same time, wants to do whatever Jacob is doing.  She loves her baby and Dora dolls, she gets Jacob to be Diego and she is Dora and they play non-stop.  They also play "babysit" where one of them plays the baby and sits in their little rocking chair, and the other plays the Mommy or the Daddy.  Gwyn is so sweet and it is so funny how she might say she wants to do something, and then if Jacob says he wants to do something else, then all of the sudden she changes and wants to do whatever he wants.  She also LOVES to sing.  She always asks me to sing songs, and sometimes I catch her just singing to Annie, and she loves to sing in the car.  Her favorites are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, "Baby Jesus" (Jesus Loves Me), and Jingle Bells. 

Little Annie is a night owl at least 2-3 times per week.  We will put her to bed around 8 along with Jacob and Gwyn, but sometimes she decides that she just isn't ready.  So, she yells and gets to come downstairs and hang out with me and Brian.  She is usually just walking around, she has a couple of her "go to" cabinets where she gets out all of Jacob and Gwyn's straws for their yogurt drinks and then she also loves my plastic cups cabinet and strings those all over the house.  The other day she was upset, and Jacob wanted to make her feel better so he went and got her a straw "because she likes them so much" he said.  We call her Destroyer 2 (Jacob is Destroyer 1, he is a master at this and can totally destroy the upstairs or downstairs in about 5 minutes).  This is Brian taking her back up to bed for the second time the other night.

Our back porch is finished!  This is one thing that we have wanted to do since we moved in because before we had absolutely no shade during the majority of the day in the backyard.  Now we have a porch with two ceiling fans and we've already been enjoying it so much!

Here are some more pictures of the backyard, Brian had to put the play set in two different pieces since the footprint was so large.  Jacob is checking the skimmer out, there is usually at least one frog in there.

The other side of the pool where the swings are now:

Another view of the back porch:

Saturday we had our friends Brad, Erika and Maddy over for dinner.  The kids had a great time swimming, playing, running around, and dressing up.  Annie pretty much tried to follow them wherever they went, and Gwyn was just mesmerized by big-girl Maddy.  The one traumatic event of the evening, is when we were outside.  The guys and the kids were swimming in the pool, and Erika and I were sitting under the porch with Annie walking around.  We looked down, and Annie had something in her mouth, and Erika got it out and it moved.  She dropped it and it was a lizard tail!  I totally freaked out, which lead to Annie totally freaking out!  I thought Annie had eaten a lizard and it was just the tail left, but Brad saw the lizard run off, and I guess left his tail behind when Annie grabbed it.  No, I'm not winning "Mother of the Year" again this year!  Poor little Annie, I used to joke with the kids that I was making lizard tails for lunch, but I just can't do it anymore!

I've been meaning to upload a couple of videos for awhile, and I finally had time to do it!  This is a longer post because I started at 4 am because I had to get up to start my pulled pork in the crock pot since I'm taking a meal to a family in our church after I pick the kids up at 1, so I had to start it early.  So, I find I am able to do longer posts when I don't have 3 kids asking at my feet asking for a snack, but who needs sleep anyway, it really is overrated!

Funny things the kids said this week:

Gwyn (to Brian when we were pulling into the church parking lot):  Park right there Daddy.  Brian looked at me and said, "Are you serious, she is 2 years old and already telling me where to park!  Already like her mother!"

Jacob to Brian:  You can go ahead and just get rid of that time out mat.  I'm not going to need it anymore (Oh really...I think we'll just hang on to it just in case!)

Gwyn:  Annie is a good sister.

Jacob:  Three more days of school and then I get to stay home with you? 

Gwyn:  What is my teacher's names?

Me:  Mrs. Raman and Mrs. Zarse

Gwyn:  Mrs. Raman and Mrs. Zarse, watch my mouth, Mrs. Raman and Mrs. Zarse (when she is trying to make sure she gets something right, she says, watch my mouth, because we always did this with Jacob during speech therapy)

Jacob:  Mommy, Gwyn is hitting my arm and I'm not hitting her back.

Me:  That is very good Jacob, now Gwyn, we don't hit.  So tell Jacob that you are sorry and tell him one thing you like about him.

Gwyn:  Sorry Jacob.  I like it when Jacob goes to school.

Gwyn (when they wore matching pink dresses to church):  Annie and me are on the same team!

Drumroll please....this is my 100th Post!

This is my 100th post!  I've been doing this right at two years, so I'm proud of being somewhat consistent of updating about once / week.  I know that both my parents and Brian's parents look forward to seeing the updates with everyday pictures of the kids, and this has kind of turned into our own little scrapbook of them growing up.  I bought a book of my blogs from Sept 08 til Dec 09, and I love to get it out and read back through things the kids said or did, how easily we forget even things from a few months ago.  I plan to order a book each year, and I know the kids will enjoy looking back through them someday...I know I will.  Hopefully, maybe Brian will start doing a blog every once in awhile, it would be nice to hear some things he has to say!

Well, the big news of the past week is that Jacob started pre-K and Gwyn started a 2 1/2 yr old preschool that goes two days / week.  Jacob goes Monday - Thursday, so when we went last Thursday, she didn't understand why she didn't get to go, so I told her that since she is 2, she goes 2 days per week and since Jacob is 4, he goes 4 days per week.  That seemed to suffice for now, at least til February when she turns 3!  Here are a couple of pictures before we left for school, Gwyn was so happy to wear her new dress from G:

I told Jacob that Mommy gets to pick out his clothes the first day of school, after that, he can pick out what he wants (and I did let him pick out his spider man socks to wear with his nice clothes).  He was excited to wear his belt, which he often wears with athletic type shorts that have no belt loops:

Annie had fun by herself with Mommy, grocery shopping is surprising pleasant with only one child, who is still intrigued with playing with my keys or holding a bag of pretzels that make noise. 

Another major thing that started on Friday is that Gwyn is now potty training.  She will tell you she is potty trained, but she isn't.  It started on Friday when Jacob built a "tall tower" of pillows to get into Gwyn's top drawer and get her Dora panties out (she had gotten them for her 2nd birthday, but they have never been worn).  I was putting Annie to sleep, and I came into her room to find a diaper on the floor, Gwyn's pants on the floor, and her panties on backwards.  She pretty much refused to take them off, except to turn them around (Jacob told her how they went because on his, the big character picture is on the back).  So, when Brian got home (around 1 pm), we decided to see if she wanted to try even though before this day she had not shown any sign whatsoever of being interested in potty training.  Well, Brian made her a sticker chart, and finally about 3 pm on Saturday she went in the potty (so for 24 hours, we went through about 10 pairs of panties and shorts - I had gone to get her more princess and hello kitty panties, which may have been a mistake because she had no problem taking the wet ones off since then she got a brand new pair with a new princess on them).  So, Saturday, she had about 5 stickers on her chart, she learned quickly with Jacob's coaching that if she just went in and tinkled two drops, they would each get treats.  She is doing much better now about telling us, but we are keeping her in diapers at nap time and bedtime (having washed her sheets 4 times in the last 3 days).  Hopefully she will start waking up dry and be fully potty trained within the next month or so!  She is very proud of her potty chart and loves her big girl panties.  She says, "I'm not a baby!"

 

I'm sure she'll kill me for this picture someday, but she's just so cute and she's so proud of herself!

Annie is VERY interested in all this potty business, and gets locked out of the bathroom, which she doesn't like.  So, if you ever come over to our house and have to go to the restroom, you can count on Annie walking over and yelling at you until you come out again.  She just wants to be in the middle of everything!

It was nice to have this extra day with Brian home on Labor Day, so we met some friends at a park downtown today, and the kids had fun playing in the splash pad, eating lunch (every time we pack a lunch for a picnic, the kids want to eat it as soon as we get there, so we end up eating lunch at 10:15 am), and running around. 

Annie had a great time.  She is now just about refusing all baby food and shakes her head back and forth "no" really fast.  She likes to eat nutella sandwiches, I found out today, when she swiped half of Jacob's.  I would have never dreamed of giving Jacob a nutella (made with hazelnuts) sandwich before he was 1, but Annie is 10 1/2 months and no one in our family has any nut allergy, so I'm sure she is fine. 

Jacob also gave her a sip of his juice box, and now you should see her run, yelling after a juice box whenever Jacob or Gwyn has one.  Poor little thing, wants one so bad, Jacob gave her his empty box and she walked around like this for at least 30 minutes and seemed quite content.

Jacob is very excited about school and is adding a new letter everyday.  He loves his little Tag reader, and is surprisingly good at it!

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob (when I asked him if he wanted to go to Jason's with me):  I could do that.

Jacob (when I asked him why he didn't eat his apple snack at school):  Nobody took the casts off for me (peels).

Gwyn:  Can I give Annie a piece of milk?

Jacob (as he's pedaling a mile a minute on his bike to the park):  You can't catch me!

Beach Bums!

Brian's Grandpa visited for 5 days from St. Louis, so we braved a trip to Galveston to take the kids to the beach.  They had seen plenty of episodes of Dora or Max and Ruby going to the beach, so they had their hopes up to see lots of crabs, dolphins, sharks, mermaids, and octopuses.  They weren't disappointed, both Brian and his Grandpa found shells with little hermit crabs in them (and thankfully this time, no one put them in their mouth - Jacob did this the last time I took him to Galveston when he was about 18 months old).  Annie did eat her fair share of sand, so that was super fun trying to keep it out of her mouth and constantly running her down to the beach to get her dipped off, only for her to be covered again in about 5 minutes.  Jacob LOVED the water and the waves, he wanted to be out there the whole time with Brian.  Gwyn liked to dig, and enjoyed walking down to the edge of the water and then turning around and running away when a wave came in...she didn't want to get her feet wet!  Here are a few pictures from the day, we had a great time!

Oh, and Brian was super proud of his deep hole he dug, just wide enough for his arm/leg to fit down there...this is the last picture before we packed up and headed home, you can tell Annie had enough!

I think Brian's Grandpa had fun with the kids, Annie warmed right up to him, and the kids had him playing hide and seek within about 30 minutes of his arrival, so needless to say, he had a very active weekend with us!  I had gone to lay Annie down for a nap, only to come down to find Grandpa scrunched up behind a couch playing hide and seek with Jacob and Gwyn.  I asked the kids what they were doing and they said it was their time to count like they just did this everyday with him.  Jacob and Gwyn had him reading books to them, serving him dinner from their kitchen, playing Batman house, and Dr Jacob and Nurse Gwyn were doctoring him right up!  Rick came in for the weekend as well, and the guys went to the Cardinals and Astros game on Monday night. 

Jacob was surprisingly content with just wearing a shirt to match the guys and staying home with us, instead of going to the game with them.

I took the kids to a friends house for a playdate this week, where she had a tea party set up for the kids.  The girls sat at the fancy tables and the boys sat at the big table.  Gwyn picked a seat out right away that had Minnie mouse on it, and then got upset when Addison sat down because she wanted to sit with Jacob.  It was pretty cute, Gwyn actually cut her little muffin with a knife and fork and drank her apple juice out of a little cup.  I dressed them all up and they all looked so cute!

Annie took part in the fun too, but after she grabbed the napkin that Gwyn had laid everything out on and pulled everything off the table, she got quarntined to play with the baby toys:

 

School starts tomorrow for the kids, Jacob will be in Pre-K and go four days / week, and Gwyn will be in the 2 1/2 yr old class and go two days / week.  We went up to their school today, they had an open house so that the kids could see the rooms, and both the kids are pretty excited.  Each room has a painting station, craft table, dress up area, kitchen, tools, tons of toys, reading centers, blocks, puzzles, games, etc.  They will both get to go to Motor (gym), music and Chapel each week.  I just hope whenever they see each other, that they are fine to part ways, Gwyn usually has a meltdown at church when she sees Jacob on the playground because she wants to go in his class.

The other night Gwyn was walking around in her dress up shoes and talking on her fake cell phone.  I said, "who are you talking to?"  She said, "I'm calling a knight to come rescue the princess."  She then said she was the princess.  Oh, how the times have a changed!  If a princess is in need of rescue, she just needs to flip open her cell phone and call a knight and let him know!

Here are a few random pictures from this week:

This one is before bed one night, they really are the cutest kids!  Gwyn told me this week that Jacob was her best friend and Jacob said that Annie and Gwyn were his best friends even though he thought you were only supposed to have one best friend.  I told him you could have more than one.  One night, when I had to put them all to bed by myself, I let Jacob and Gwyn watch one episode of a show (so they had to agree on one, or they couldn't watch any) while I gave Annie her bottle and put her to sleep.  Gwyn immediately said Little Bear, which is Jacob's favorite.  I told Jacob how nice that was that Gwyn wanted to watch what he liked, and he said tomorrow when he got to choose, he was going to choose Dora...he gets it!!!  How sweet! 

Annie loves her some finger foods, she pretty much wants to eat whatever we are having which usually makes for a big mess because she just shovels food by the handful into her mouth...I'm guessing about 30% get in and the rest is either in her highchair or on the floor.

Before heading to church on Sunday:

You can barely tell in this picture, but all three kids are in a sideways-turned pack-n-play.  We had this set up for Annie to sleep in while Brian's Grandpa and Rick were here, so for 5 days, this bed provided constant entertainment for the kids, who turned it into a house and a jail among other things.

The Big Cheese:

Funny things the kids said this week:

Gwyn (to Rick after he had Annie on his shoulders):  I want to sit on your roof too.

Jacob (totally out of the blue):  Do ants get hiccups?

Jacob: Thank you Mommy, this is delicious! (about dinner one night)

Gwyn (to Jacob about Brian's cousin Angie):  She is my cousin, not yours (Jacob got a little upset).