Our little ballerina

Emily has been asking me if she can take ballet for awhile now. I finally decided to go and sign her up for a class this summer. When I went in to fill out the registration packet, they had some openings in the May class, and she was so excited about it, so I went ahead and signed her up. Tonight was her first night. She had a great time and did a great job (she definitely didn't get her coordination from her mom)! She can't wait to go back next week!

(By the way, if you see the flip flops in the picture, that is not what she wore to ballet. She just LOVES wearing flip flops!)

Fun at the park!

My brother sent us pictures from Indiana this morning of a surprise snowstorm that hit them this week. I was looking at pictures on another friend's blog this weekend and it was so strange to see her kids all bundled up. Here, the temperatures have been in the 80s, and it feels like summer already! They started getting our neighborhood pool ready this week and we think it's probably going to open this weekend. Emily can't wait!

Our neighborhood has a park area, and Emily loves to go and play on the slides and swings and to meet other kids from the neighborhood. They also have a sandbox and sand volleyball court. The Easter Bunny brought the kids some sand toys and she has been begging me to take them and let them play. I finally decided to take them this afternoon. They both had a blast! Surprisingly, Jacob didn't eat the sand, but he did pick up a few twigs and other things and try to put them in his mouth. Both kids were pretty sandy and ready for baths when we got home. Emily was already asking when we can go back to play.

Jacob's one year stats

Jacob had his one year check-up on Friday. He has grown a lot since his 9 month check up!

Here are his stats:

• Height - 30 1/2 inches (75th-90th percentile)
• Weight - 23 pounds, 10 ounces (75th percentile)
• Head - 47 1/2 cm (90th percentile)

The doctor commented on how much he grew between his six month and 12 month appointments and asked what happened. I told her that he started on solids at six months and he LOVES to eat!

How Texan are you?

You are 83% REAL Texan!!

You're way more Texan than average. You're parents were probably from here too. We're glad to have you. You probably go to the border for Christmas shopping and are well versed in BBQ, Mexican Food and .. well thats pretty much it.

How Texan Are You?

This is for all of my "Texas" friends. A friend sent me this quiz and I just had to pass it on :) I was born and raised here, but lived outside of the state for a few years (1998-2000 in Provo, UT; 2000-2002 in Vancouver, WA, and 2002-2005 in Lehi, UT). I'm glad that all of the time I spent away didn't take the Texan out of me :)

Almost 4 going on 25...

Emily cracks me up sometimes. I just had to share our conversation this morning while we were eating breakfast.

It started out with, "Mom, when I get bigger, then I can get married, right? But hopefully not too soon, right?"

(We've had the marriage conversation a few times before already, which is why she said 'hopefully not too soon.')

It proceeded to, "Then when I get married, I can be a mommy and I will have a baby. If I'm the mommy when I get married and have a baby, who is the daddy going to be?"

I had to explain that the "daddy" will be whoever she is going to marry.

"But how will I know who I'm going to marry?"

I thought it would be several more years before we'd have to have this type of conversation. "You'll just know" seemed to work for now.

"What about Jacob? Maybe I can marry Jacob and he can be the daddy."

I explained that she can't marry her brother.

"OK. Got that! Mom...what about a sister? I want a sister. When am I going to have a sister?"

This was a pretty heavy conversation for 7 a.m. on a Saturday. No wonder I feel so tired today!

Getting bigger every day!

I know that lately it probably seems like I have been adding more pictures and posts about Jacob than Emily. I think it's because I'm still in shock that he's a year old and also because I have a little bit of mommy guilt. I was going through our picture files the other day and I realized that we had hundreds of pictures from Emily's first year and hardly any of Jacob's first year.

Jacob is my little chatterbox. In the car on the way too and from work, he literally jabbers the entire way. It's cute because when Emily is in the car, the two of them will jabber back and forth at each other (the cuteness of this only lasts so long, by the way, but Emily's only with us for about 10 minutes of the commute, so it's manageable). Of course, the only words we can understand at this point are mama, dada, and bye bye, but he'll get there and I have a feeling that once he does start talking more, he will give Emily (who is a MAJOR talker) a run for her money!

He hasn't shown much desire to walk on his own yet. This is a mixed blessing. Part of me REALLY wants him to walk because he is getting so heavy to carry around, and so we spend a lot of time each day trying to encourage it. There's also a part of me that isn't quite ready for him to walk because I have a feeling this will open up a whole new world that has previously been off limits and he is so busy that we will have to majorly childproof. With Emily, we never had to put childproof locks on anything but the doors (of course she figured those out within 2 days, I think). Jacob's favorite things to play with right now are the outlets, remotes, and cords. He pulls anything that's in an outlet out of it and then of course tries to figure out how to stick things INTO the outlet that don't belong there! It's getting harder to find ways to contain him! :)

NOTE TO SELF: Beans and babies do not mix!

Yesterday afternoon we ate Mexican food for lunch. We got Jacob a kid's meal and he devoured it. I commented to Jason that we get our money's worth with him when we go out to eat. I didn't even think about the fact that he ate a bunch of beans. I'm not sure that the "after math" was really worth it!

Last night Jacob cried for an hour straight when I was trying to get him down to bed. Jacob is my kid who NEVER cries unless something is really wrong. I held him, rocked him, walked the floors with him. Nothing seemed to calm him down. I thought maybe he was starting to get more teeth so I gave him some Tylenol. Usually that calms him right down. Not this time! Finally, he fell asleep. At 11:30, he woke up again and was pretty much up until 2:30. I couldn't figure out what was going on. None of the usual "remedies" worked. Finally, I thought about the beans that he had eaten and it all clicked....gas pains. I dug out the Mylicon drops, gave him some, and within 30 minutes, he was asleep!

Lesson learned....it will be awhile before we let that poor guy have beans again!

My SD card is missing!!!

This morning I realized that the SD card I keep in our digital camera is missing. Last night, it was still plugged into the computer and Jacob was going for it, so I quickly popped it out and I thought I put it up on the computer desk. The smart thing, I realize, would have been to put it back in the camera, but that takes time...time I didn't have at that moment because my busy one year old was headed for the mass of cords under the computer desk.

So, now, I'm frantically hoping that:
1 - I can find the card because it has about a year's worth of photos on it and I don't think all of them have been transferred to the computer

and ...

2 - That Jacob didn't somehow get his hands on it anyway because if he did he probably ate it

Wish me luck!

UPDATE: I located the missing SD card. Jason was the culprit. We were leaving last night to go to Emily's "Spring Fling" at her preschool and I mentioned that I wasn't sure what had happened to it and he said, "Oh, I took it to download all of the pictures onto my computer." What a relief!

Mr. Determined

This morning, I was sitting at the table eating breakfast and feeding Jacob. I stopped to let the dog out when I heard a loud crash. I turned and my glass was on the floor. Jacob was in his high chair which used to be a "safe" place for him.

My new nickname for this little guy is "Mr. Determined." He does not let size or the fact that he is not yet walking stop him from getting something when he sets his mind to it. If they gave prizes for the fastest (and quietest) crawler, he would probably win. He also manages to find ways to climb, get up on his tippy toes, and reach, reach reach.

The breakfast disaster this morning was the second one in a week. On his birthday, I had him in the high chair and I was ready to feed him breakfast and I realized that I had forgotten a spoon. I went to grab it when I heard a crash. His breakfast was all over the floor and the bowl it was in was broken. I'm not sure we have enough dishes to survive his toddler years!

I'm hoping that his determination will take him far in life, but in the meantime, I'm just trying to be patient (and having to watch him like a hawk every second!).

Just another day in paradise!

Jason went to the Astros game tonight with some guys from work and so once the kids were settled in bed, I had a rare moment to myself. There are a million things that I probably should have been doing like laundry or cleaning the house or writing reports for work, but instead, I decided to take some time to just sit back and reflect. When I was in graduate school, "introspection" was a big part of our program, and I realize that taking that time every now and then to put things in perspective is really important and it's something that has been lacking in my life lately.

Many times I feel like I spend all of my time running around and I realized that makes it easy to lose perspective quickly. I came across a blog tonight for a family that recently lost their baby girl. They knew that she was going to die shortly after she was born, but they chose to continue the pregnancy and the blog details their "journey." They truly learned to find joy in every moment and it was very touching. (Here's a link to the blog: http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2008/04/letter-to-my-daughter.html warning: it's a TEAR JERKER!)

Then, I came across a link to a You Tube video for a talk by Julie Beck from the October 2007 General Conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrUZhhijlw8#)

I realized that I have so much to be grateful for and that I need to take time to stop and find joy in all of the little things. I'm so grateful for my family and for the opportunity that I have to be a mom and sometimes I feel like a complete failure because I don't have enough time to spend with the kids and when I am spending time with them, I'm grouchy or tired. My friend Jenna recently wrote about something similar on her blog and she set a goal to try to "be better." I am hoping that I can follow her example, take things one day at a time, and do the same.

As I was finishing writing this tonight, the Phil Vassar song "Just Another Day in Paradise" came to mind and I had to smile. I was hoping I could find it to add to the playlist on our blog, but I couldn't, so I'll post the lyrics here instead because I think this pretty much sums it up:

The kids screaming, phone ringing
Dog barking at the mailman bringing
That stack of bills - overdue
Good morning baby, how are you?
Got a half hour, quick shower
Take a drink of milk but the milk's gone sour
My funny face makes you laugh
Twist the top on and I put it back

There goes the washing machine
Baby, don't kick it. I promise I'll fix it
Long with about a million other things

Well, it's ok.
It's so nice
It's just another day in paradise
Well, there's no place that I'd rather be
Well, it's two hearts
And one dream
I wouldn't trade it for anything
And I ask the lord every night
For just another day in paradise

Friday, you're late
Guess we'll never make our dinner date
At the restaurant you start to cry
Baby, we'll just improvise
Well, plan B looks like Dominoes' pizza in the candle light
Then we'll tippy toe to our room
Make a little love that's overdue
But somebody had a bad dream
Mama and daddy
Can me and my teddy
Come in to sleep in between?

Yeah it's ok.
It's so nice.
It's just another day in paradise.
Well, there's no place that I'd rather be
Well, it's two hearts
And one dream
I wouldn't trade it for anything
And I ask the lord every night
For just another day in paradise

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

It's fun to be one!

I am still in shock that my "baby" is now one! Emily was born by emergency c-section and so with Jacob I opted to have a repeat c-section rather than chance having an emergency situation again, so his actual delivery was quick and pretty uneventful. I remember as they were first pulling him out, the doctor said that he had really chubby cheeks. Once he was completely out, I remember hearing her say, "Wow. He's big....really big!" They took Jacob away to get him cleaned up and Jason went with him while they stitched me up. The doctor, anesthesiologist, and nurses were all taking bets trying to figure out what his stats would be and finally someone called down to the nursery to find out. I was as shocked as everyone else when they told me that he was 10 pounds, 6 ounces! I knew he was going to be a big baby, but I didn't expect him to be that big!

Jacob has truly been a blessing to our family. He is such a happy little guy and has been from the very beginning. Whether we are at church, meetings at work, or out running errands, I always get comments about how easygoing he is. I don't think he inherited that quality from either one of his parents, but I sure hope he stays that way!

It has been fun over the past few months to watch him grow up and to see his little personality evolve. He loves his big sister and his face just lights up every time he sees her. He loves toys and will crawl off into his room (or Emmy's room) and just sit and play by himself. He also loves food!

Jacob really enjoyed his birthday. He loved all of his presents (thanks so much to everyone!) and kept trying to figure out how to get to the stuff since it was stuck in the boxes still. I think he enjoyed playing with the bags and the wrapping paper as much as he enjoyed the presents.

He also really enjoyed eating his birthday cake. I remember with Emily, we actually had to help her out with eating her cake so that we could get the typical 1st birthday "messy" pictures, but Jacob didn't waste any time diving right in (literally). By the time he was done, he was covered from head to toe and everywhere in between with frosting.

We are so grateful that this little guy is a part of our family and we can't wait to see what the next year will bring. Happy Birthday Jakey! We love you!!

Things you may not know about me #1

I decided it would be fun to throw out things every now and then on my blog that you may not know about me. One of those things is that I type pretty fast. When I was in high school, I worked a data entry job for a company where I keyed documents for Federal Express. I think I was probably making somewhere around $3 an hour (granted it was the early 90s and minimum wage was much lower), but we did get bonuses based on how fast we could type. So....I had some incentive to learn to type REALLY fast! It has definitely come in handy through the years!

I'm adding a link to my site for an online typing test. It's something quick and fun to do on those days when you're bored out of your mind :)

The happy helper!

One of Jacob's favorite things to do these days is to pull up to the dishwasher and help unload. Of course, his version of unloading isn't exactly the same as mine. First of all, he ends up pulling things out and just throwing them all over the floor. Next, the dishes aren't always clean and ready to be unloaded when he decides to help out. Plus, I really have to be careful to make sure that he doesn't get ahold of a knife or anything else dangerous! I sure hope he'll be as eager to help in a few years when he can actually really load and unload the dishwasher!!

He is growing up so fast and is curious, busy, and into everything these days. He found Emily's Easter stash the other day and raided the Easter eggs. His face was covered with chocolate and so were his clothes and the carpet. I guess chocolate is better than dog food, though, which is another one of his favorite things to get into!

It's hard for me to believe that he will be one tomorrow. This year sure has gone by quickly!

Time to cut down on "Mario time"

We got a Nintendo Wii a few months ago. For a long time, we only had the Wii Sports which came with it and the Wii Play. We had a great time as a family playing bowling and fishing and things like that. Then, one day, I made the mistake of sending Emily and Jason to Target together. Even though Jason says I'm the one who spoils her, she can pretty much talk daddy into almost anything, and so they came home with a new Mario Brothers game.

Maybe this is just typical for an almost four year old, but she has become completely obsessed with the game. Yesterday afternoon, we were at Wendy's eating lunch and she pointed out that "Mario is on TV" When we drove by the video store, she spotted a poster for Mario. She can sit forever looking through the manual that came with the game. So, this morning we had a long talk about how she was becoming obsessed with Mario. I told her that I thought we needed to cut down on her Mario time for awhile and that she could play any of her other Wii games, but that we needed to put Mario away for awhile.

It didn't go over well at first. There was lots of screaming and crying involved. I figured it was going to be a long day, but within 30 minutes or so, she came out in some of her princess dress up clothes and said, "Mom, I think you're right. I need to cut down on Mario time for awhile."

If only life could always be this easy!

What a week!

My intent in creating this blog was to post regularly and keep people updated on what is going on with our family. Unfortunately, this last week just flew by and before I knew it, the weekend was here.

Our neighborhood had a community garage sale last weekend. Jason and I went back and forth about whether we were going to participate and finally on Friday night, we decided we would go ahead and do it. After the kids went to bed, we ran around trying to pull out stuff that we wanted to get rid of and price it. I stayed up until almost 2 in the morning and got up again at 4:30 to finish organizing things in the garage. It was a LONG day. We were both glad that we did it and we made some decent money, but neither one of us got much sleep and I think we've been trying desperately to play catch up all week as a consequence!

Now that it is staying light later at night, I had set a

goal to take the kids and the dog out for a walk every night. This past week between the rain and me being so tired when I got home from work, it didn't happen as much as I would have liked, but we all enjoyed it on the nights we were able to get out.

I can't believe that Jacob will be one this next week. The time has definitely flown by! Jason and I were talking the other night about how organized we were before Emily's first birthday, but Jacob's kind of snuck up on us.