It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Jason was busy last week putting up our Christmas decorations. The kids and I were so excited as we watched the transformation around the house.


The first year Jason and I were married, we decided that we would start a tradition of collecting a new nativity each year. This was the first one we purchased on our first Christmas Eve together and it's still my favorite.


This is another favorite. Jason bought part of it for me on our second Christmas and the rest of it on our third Christmas.


Once the Christmas decorations started coming out, Emily started asking if "ELF" would be coming back again this year. We told her that we would have to wait and see and sure enough, Elf made his appearance on Friday morning and brought us "Santa Buddies" which we watched as a family that night.


Tonight, I've been busy wrapping 24 Christmas books while watching Christmas movies on The Hallmark Channel. We will read one book together as a family each night starting on Tuesday, December 1st. I got the idea last year from Meredith's blog.

Tomorrow night for family night, we'll pull out our Little People Nativity, read My First Story of the First Christmas, and make this cute advent chain that I saw posted on Make and Takes (one of my favorite blogs!) a few days ago.

In years past, I feel like I've spent so much time running around "doing" and not enough time focusing on what is most important. This year I'm looking forward to making the time to celebrate and focus on "the reason for the season" with my family.

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!

Grandma and Madison

I took this picture on Sunday after I had already posted the other pictures. This was my mom holding Madison. She now has four granddaughters, one grandson, and another grandbaby (gender has yet to be announced) on the way.

Reed and Jamie are home from the hospital now and adjusting to all the joys that come with having a new baby (especially the lack of sleep).

More school pictures

Emily is still loving school. I love hearing her stories when she gets home every day. Yesterday she apparently got her picture taken for her lunch card, so she was pretty excited about that and keeps asking when she can buy her lunch.

Apparently during recess yesterday, some boy (she knew the name, but I can't remember) called her and another little girl "losers." Ahh...the dramas of kindergarten!

I love back to school clothes and can't resist sharing pictures of her in her new outfits!

Fun with Grandma!

Jason's mom came to visit for a couple of weeks when I first went back to work. The kids hadn't seen her in over a year and Jacob especially has changed a lot during that time! The kids had so much fun with grandma and loved the airplane rides and horsey rides along with coloring lots of pictures, reading lots of books, playing Barbies and Princesses and plenty of snuggle time.

While Grandma was here, the kids also got to go to Rainforest Cafe for lunch one day. That is Emily's favorite place to eat, so she was thrilled! I was at work that day, but here are a few pictures that Jason's mom took.





I also swiped this picture of my two cuties from her blog:



We loved having Grandma here and can't wait for her next visit!

Emily's 2nd day of school!

Emily's second day of school also went well. She woke up early yesterday morning, so I was sure she'd be exhausted by the time she got home. She did tell Jason that when she got home, she wanted a snack and to get into her PJs because she was really tired, but then when I asked her about going to swimming, she quickly turned things around and got an energy burst again.

According to the teacher report that came home, she had a GREAT second day! We are so proud of her and so glad that she is enjoying school so far:



Yesterday was also a success because they apparently got to have recess even if it 'was only for a little while.'



While I was taking pictures of Emily yesterday morning, Jacob came running over and said, "Me too!" so I couldn't resist taking a picture of the two of them together.

Emily's first day of kindergarten!

Today was Emily's first day of kindergarten. Even though I knew it was coming and we went through all of the preparations to get ready, I think I was still in a bit of denial. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital, so I'm still trying to figure out how we got from this....(this picture was taken right before we left the hospital with her)

to this....????

I remember when she was little, I looked forward to all of those "milestone moments" - sitting up, crawling, first words, first steps. Now, I wish we could slow time down just a little bit.

I didn't get to take her to school because I had to be at work (school) myself, but in some ways I think it was easier to have Jason do the drop off this morning because I don't know if I would have been able to hold it together. He walked her to her classroom this morning and said she was eager to jump in and start working. He took these pictures of her in her classroom before he left:

She got home right before I did and was eager to tell me all about her day. I thought she'd be exhausted, but she was full of energy and shared every little detail with me. Her only disappointment was that they didn't have recess today. I cracked up when she told me about lunch because she said, "Mom, some mommies forget to pack their kids lunches and then the teacher has to give them this card and then they have to go get a lunch from this little place but they have pizzas and milk and stuff like that so maybe one day you'll forget my lunch and I can get something like that."

I was a bit disappointed to find out that her teacher will be out all week due to a family emergency and Jason said her class is up to about 30 kids now! I hope they get that new teacher hired soon!

I'm so glad that today went well for her and excited to hear more stories from the
days that are to come!

Welcome Baby Madison!

Today I had the privilege of joining Reed and Jamie as they welcomed their newest family member, Madison, to the world. It was truly a miraculous experience and I can't quite find the words to share everything I felt. I'm so grateful that they let me be a part of it.

She arrived at 12:01 p.m. (I think that was the time they announced it) and was 6 pounds, 7 ounces and 18 3/4 inches long.

Here's the nurse cleaning her up.

And the weigh-in:

Proud mom (she worked HARD!)

Proud dad

First family photo

Last days of summer...

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted on our family blog! Each summer, I go into overdrive trying to plan a bunch of fun activities for the kids trying to somehow cram as much as I can into the short eight weeks that I have in an effort to "make up" for the other 41 weeks of the year when I'm working. This summer, I felt especially driven because Emily starts kindergarten in a few weeks and somehow I felt like the years were just slipping away from me.

On the last day of summer for me, I had a bunch of fun activities planned for the day only to be informed by Emily that she didn't want to go out. She just wanted to spend time "hanging out, watching movies, playing games, reading books, and snuggling with me." It was one of those moments where I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. I wanted to laugh because of the irony - I had totally missed the point, it seems. I wanted to cry because it felt so good to realize that I didn't need to do all of those big things to impress them - what mattered most to them was having those moments with me.

I was having a conversation with a good friend from work about this whole "going back to school" (AKA "work") guilt that I go through about this time every year. She is MUCH wiser than I am and had this to say to me ~ "If your kid knows that he or she is loved without limits and knows that you are in their corner no matter what, then they feel secure and confident about who they are." I just loved it. I was reading Marci's blog and it sounds like a similar conversation came up during our book club group this month(I wasn't able to make it, and I'm sorry I missed it).

Having said all of that, we couldn't end our summer without one last trip to Chuck E. Cheese. My sister Melinda and her kids have been in town and so we went with them and my parents to play one last time and the kids had a blast!

Frazzled!

Some days I question whether I'd really be able to make it as a full time stay at home mom. Yesterday was one of those days. I set myself up for failure. I somehow convinced myself that the kids and I would be able to run seven errands right in the heat of the day and before they'd had any lunch.

Jacob has a love-hate relationship with his shoes. He loves to wear them, but then he also loves to take them off and throw them. So, each time I'd put him in the car, they'd go flying and I'd have to crawl around trying to find them and put them back on every time we'd get to our next destination. I think he thought the whole thing was incredibly funny.

He is also going through a very independent stage and has decided that he is "big" now and doesn't need to ride in the cart. But, he doesn't want to hold my hand, either, and so I have to weigh out my options - deal with the temper tantrum that will ensue if I make him sit in the cart or deal with the likelihood that he will walk around the store picking things up at his leisure. His favorites, of course, are the candy that always manage to place right at the registers and at eye level for a toddler...

By the time we reached Kroger which was our seventh (and last) destination, I was singing the hallelujah chorus in my head. And that's when Emily kicked in. "Mom, you're a liar. You said we were going to the grocery store, but this is NOT the grocery store. Grocery store starts with G (and she proceeded to make the "g" sound just in case I didn't know). This is Kroger. Kroger starts with K...(followed by the "k" sound for emphasis)."

We made it home and I was unloading the car and counting the minutes until nap time and then I saw them there together at the window so excited and watching a little Gecko that was on the other side and then it hit me - it's these little moments that I get to share with them that I would ordinarily miss that makes these days that I get to be at home with them so precious.

I got another reminder later in the afternoon when they both crowded up on my lap wanting to rock and read books.

Girls night IN

For weeks now, Emily has been asking me if we can have a slumber party and I have been promising her that we could as soon as I was done with work. So, last Friday was the big night.

We had a fun-filled night and watched her two current favorite movies: Princess Protection Program and The Parent Trap. I don't think any slumber party is complete without popcorn and Sweet Tarts!



We painted nails (I painted hers and she painted mine)



We played games and danced....



But when it got to be after midnight and she asked if we could have a pillow fight, I had to tell her it was time for "lights out." There's nothing like having a slumber party with your 5 year old to make you realize how "old" you are. I think the last time I was up that late was New Year's Eve and it was a struggle to stay up until midnight then!

I'm not sure what I was thinking doing this the night before 4th of July since that was a long day, too, but it was worth every second, especially since she kept telling me repeatedly that it was "the best night ever."