Girls love me!

When Emily was little, I would say to her, "Who loves you?" and she would respond with "Mommy" and then I would ask her who else loved her and we'd go through all of the other people - daddy, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I just recently started doing this with Jacob and it's so cute when he would respond with "mommy."

Yesterday afternoon when I picked him up from daycare I got a bit of a surprise when I asked him our little question and he responded with "girls love me!" I was totally caught off guard and thought maybe it was a fluke, so I asked him again later and got the same response. I have no idea where that came from, but it cracks me up!

Jacob is growing up so fast and in some ways it's so fun and exciting to see him become such a big boy and in other ways, it's sad because my "baby" isn't a baby anymore. This past month has been a busy one for Jacob.

He started "big boy" swimming lessons at the beginning of the pool. We had been doing mommy and me classes for the last year and it was a bittersweet moment to see him move into the "big" pool all by himself, but he's doing great.

He's become super independent and I think one of his favorite lines when we try to help him with things is 'I help myself.'

He LOVES Emily and follows her wherever she goes.

He is also my little sidekick and LOVES to shop with me. Emily hates going to run errands with me, but on the weekends, Jacob will tug on my hand and say "Mommy, I shop you." I just love it and he is so good when we run errands together. He usually wants to carry his own basket which we add things to as we go. He's great about giving me hugs and "tisses" (as he calls them). He will come up to me, give me a big kiss and say "Mommy, I give you tiss" Then, he will say "Mommy, I give you hug" and then as he starts to walk away, he'll walk back and say "More hugs." I love it!

He moved into his "big boy" bed a month ago, too. He had been in a toddler bed for awhile but basically outgrew it. He had no problems at all transitioning to his new bed and even sleeps without a night light! We actually tried to put one in there and it totally freaked him out!

He loves Hannah Montana, too. He loves to watch the new Hannah Montana movie and does a mean "Hoedown Throwdown" I might have to film it one of these days and add it to the blog!

Those are the "Jacob updates" I can think of off the top of my head.

Emily update

I've been TERRIBLE about posting lately and so I thought I'd post a few updates.

Emily is absolutely loving kindergarten and I am enjoying the stories that she comes home with on a daily basis! Here are a few of my favorite tales from kindergarten:

A couple of days ago, she said, "Mommy, at school today this little girl in my class Kayla said that I had wienies in my lunch and I told her that she was wrong. I had HOT DOGS. WIENIES are things that you cook when you eat outside."

"Today at school my teacher told us that if we're good boys and girls all week then on Friday we get to go into the treasure box. Can you believe that they have a treasure box at my school? My teacher is the best teacher ever!"

"Mom, I noticed that you put some extra clothes in my backpack to keep in case I pee my pants at school." I explained to her that we were sure she wouldn't "pee her pants" at school, but we just wanted her to have extra clothes in case she got wet or muddy or something like that playing on the playground. She said, "Oh....well there was this one kid in my class and he peed his pants but he was dry in a flash because his mom packed him some extra clothes in his backpack."

The counselor came into Emily's class to introduce herself and sent home a little book to read. Her phone number is on the back of the book and Emily pointed this out to me and said, "Her phone number is right there so maybe you can call her to babysit sometime or whatever." I can just picture the counselor's face if I were to call her up and ask her to babysit!

From the time that she was very little, Emily has always loved to sit and draw. I think her two favorite gifts have been her easel (which is still a big hit) and her Magnadoodle (which she pretty much carries around with her when she is not in her room). Her latest thing is that she wants us to staple pieces of paper together for her so that she can make books. She has informed us that she is "an author" because she both illustrates and writes the books. She has really gotten quite good at drawing and the walls in her bedroom are covered with her artwork. I will try to post some pictures of that later today.

She is getting so excited as she is learning to read, too. She has learned all of her kindergarten sight words already and keeps bugging me to get her "some first grade ones." When we are out and about, she will point at different words and say, "Mom, that says 'insert word' - that's one of my sight words from school!" Each night, we let her pick one of "her" books to read to me and then I get to pick a book to read to her. Lately, she's had fun reading to Jacob, too, and Jacob idolizes his big sister, so he pretty much follows her around everywhere.



Emily is playing soccer again this year and this year they actually have positions, so she has found a new position that she loves - goalie! They have to rotate through all of the positions during the games, but goalie has definitely become her favorite and a ball has yet to get past her while she is playing that position.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween crept up on us this year. I bought the kids costumes online awhile ago. They both got to pick what they wanted out of a catalog and then I went online and ordered them. I learned a lesson about ordering costumes online and I will NEVER do it again. Both costumes looked nothing like they did in the catalog and were pretty flimsy.

Even though I bought the costumes awhile ago, I never did get around to actually trying them on either one of the kids. Friday Jacob had a Halloween party at daycare, and even though his costume was supposed to be 2T-4T, when we went to try it on, the shirts and pants did not fit. Thankfully, we were able to use his own shirts and pants and it worked out OK.

We went to put Emily's costume on yesterday (she wanted to be Thumbelina), and it was so flimsy and short and even though we tried to put a shirt and shorts under it, it just didn't work out. Thankfully, we still had her costume from last year (I usually sell their costumes from the previous year and use the money to buy costumes for the current year, but the person who was going to buy hers backed out at the last minute and at that point, it was too late to re-list it), and thankfully it still fit!


We started out our Halloween festivities at church. They do a thing called "Trunk or Treat" where people decorate their trunks and hang out and pass candy and the kids go trick or treating from trunk to trunk. Some people went all out and had really creative displays. Reed, Jamie, and Madison joined us for that and Madison was so cute in her little monkey costume!



Jacob was a "fisherman" (although he informed me Friday on the way to daycare that he was a BOY not a man) and he loved sitting on the tailgate of daddy's truck, which I'm sure is a glimpse of fishing trips to come in the future.


Here he is again hanging out in the back of the truck:


Emily was so busy running around with her friends that it was hard to get her to stand still for a picture. We are blessed to have a great group of neighborhood kids and several of them go to church with us. Clara (far left), Taylor (cheerleader), and Emily all started kindergarten together this year.


Here's a shot of the cousins and Aunt Jamie together!


Here's Emily ready to go out trick or treating in the neighborhood. That has become a daddy-daughter thing. We were going to let Jacob go out this year, but he had gotten scared by a few things (costumes and displays) over at the church, so we decided he would stay home and help me hand out candy instead. He would get so excited every time kids would come to the door and would yell out "Hi guys!" and I had to try to contain him and keep him from throwing all of the candy in their bags because he was so excited! The only time he was a little bit scared was when two boys came to the door in "Scream" masks.

Apparently Emily didn't handle the Scream masks very well, either. This year, Jason had her walk up to the doors by herself and he stood back and watched. At one house, a kid in a Scream mask opened the door and I guess Emily was screaming and halfway down the street because she was so scared. The boy felt terrible.



Overall, we had a great Halloween. Hope you did, too!

Two cuties!

I've been terrible about updating our blog lately, but I came upstairs last night after cleaning up from dinner and found Jacob and Emily sitting in the chair together like this and I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures. I sure love these two cuties!

Jacob loves his big sister and follows her all over and wants to do what she does. For the most part, Emily is pretty accommodating and doesn't complain much about this (except when he gets into her artwork and starts messing things up).

Hopefully I'll update and post more pictures this weekend to catch up on what we've been up to for the last 6 weeks or so!

Gremlins!

Last night some little gremlins visited our room. First Jacob came in and climbed up on our bed. I was so tired that I just decided if he wanted to sleep in our bed, so be it. The problem was, he DIDN'T want to sleep. He was tapping my face and sitting up and laughing and rolling all around the bed. So, I carried him back up to bed and thought I got him settled (at least, I THOUGHT I got him settled).

As I was dozing off again, Emily showed up to let me know that Jacob had come into her room and woken her up. I again took him up to bed to try to get him settled and as I was dozing off once again, I heard little feet running across the ceiling and giggling from...you guessed, it - Jacob! Once I finally got him settled, it was 3:20 and I was wide awake :( Sunday night I woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep. Monday night, I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Last night I was actually tired and would have slept through the night....but Jacob had other plans!

The kids meet Baby Madison

With last week being the first week of school for Emily, things were a bit hectic, and we also wanted to give Reed, Jamie, and Madison a chance to get settled in at home. Friday was the first time that the kids and Jason got to meet her.

Jacob was intrigued by "baby adison" (he couldn't say the "M")

Emily was excited to get to hold her new cousin!

I love the expression on her face in this picture!

....and the expression on Jacob's face in this one!

This is what happens.....

When your big sister decides to play dress up with you!



I pulled out a bin of clothes, including Halloween costumes, to list and sell online. While I was trying to take care of a few things tonight, I guess that the kids decided to get in the bin. Jacob came up to me and said, "Mama, I butterfly." I couldn't help but smile and of course had to grab the camera! I don't know what it is with sisters and dressing up their brothers, but I remember my sister and I doing the same thing to my brother when we were kids!



I'm so grateful that Emily and Jacob get along so well. They have the occasional spat here and there (usually over a toy that they both want to play with), but for the most part, they play really well together. I have really missed spending time with these two cuties since I've been at work and look forward to coming home to them in the evenings!