Thanksgiving 2010

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. We have a family of three beautiful kids. This year for Thanksgiving we had my parents, Brian's parents, my brother and sister. We dearly missed Josh and Abby, Jason, and Vivian and Jay. This year we had two turkeys. We had a great "regular" turkey and a deep fried turkey. The deep fried turkey was a huge hit and I think a new tradition!
Matthew napped before dinner and managed to get up just in time for dinner. He sure wasn't go miss out on food!
Dessert this year was two pumpkin pies, a pumpkin cheese cake, and a pecan pie. The pumpkin was all pumpkin that I cooked and strained back in October. It was so much work but they were good. We had Peanut Pumpkin Pie and Long Island Cheese Pumpkin Pie. There was also a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin Cheesecake that was just amazing. I can't wait to make that again. Oh and I liked the Peanut Pumpkin pie the best!

Thank you Lord for all that you gave our family this year. We feel so blessed with our little family and everyone that joined us today to celebrate all that is blessings in our lives!

3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Matthew is ONE today. Happy Birthday, Matthew! I can't believe he is one already. I know that a year ago today I woke up and wonder how much longer I could stand being pregnant. Matthew decided there was no more growing room and was born about 4pm weighing 8 lbs 10 ounces. He is still a big boy. He is now wearing 24 months clothes even though he is only a year old.

As of today we have
a 3 year old ...
a 2 year old ... and
a 1 year old ... until Aug 24 when Grace turns 4!
Let the comments begin because I know they will be coming!

Grace in her love for independent playing asked yesterday go play on the playground. Sophie was taking one of her rare naps so Grace was out there alone. Brian kept checking on her and she had fun out there by herself ... well until she got stuck because the play house door wouldn't open and she refused to go down the hot slide (smart girl!) or the rock wall board. She is lucky Brian saw her and rescued his Princess!

Sophie still loves to sing. If Grace and Matthew fall asleep in the van and Sophie is still awake, she will sit back there singing songs to herself. It is so cute to hear Old McDonald, You are my sunshine, or Itsy Bitsy Spider as you are driving along. We must not forget these songs ... they are certainly better than ones we will be hearing from the back of the van ten years from now!

A Growing Little Dude and Potty Updates

Matthew is still cruising. He has learned to be happy and play in his bed when he wakes up. On top of all of that, he is eating everything and anything. He will eat anything I feed him. He will only turn down food when he is stuffed and then half a hour later he will eat again if he sees something else.

We can officially say that Sophie got the hang of potty training ... most of the time! As a result she is now a candy monster and will tell you about her potty success but quickly ask for a piece of candy to celebrate.

Grace has started sleeping through the night without a pull-up!!! She does this about half the time but is doing really good with it. She is very proud of herself in the mornings so try to make a really big deal of her success.

More Teeth, Singing, and Preschool

Matthew now has SIX teeth. He is teeth are so sharp. He is a biter so watch out.

Sophie loves singing ... singing ... singing. She catches on words to songs really fast. The songs Grace learned at preschool Sophie now knows. She is a smart singing cookie. You are my Sunshine is her favorite song at bedtime these days.

Grace has finished her first year of preschool. She made so much progress in school this year. It is great to see her come out of her shyness even though she still love independent play. She did really good in all of the areas of school and is on track for being in the four-year-old class next year!

Applesauce, Nickname, and Cruising

Grace surprised me the other night and made up an applesauce song at bedtime. It basically was the word applesauce over and over and over again. I rarely get bedtime duty as that is a daddy job per Grace and Sophie so it was nice to see this side of Grace. Brian tells me that this wasn't the first time she picked the applesauce song to sing so it must be a favorite ... at least for now!

Sophie's new nickname might just be "Crash." She has the most banged up knees of any little child around. As soon as one boo-boo gets better, she is scrapping them up again. People including Grandma, of course, are now commenting and asking about her poor knees. Sorry, Sophie. You are related to your mom and her mom and we lack coordination too.
Matthew has started to cruise around stuff. The coffee table is his favorite cruising object as it was for Sophie and Grace. We are very thankfully for its round corners. Matthew is trying to get more teeth and is still not sleeping through the night for me. The sleeping thing will have to change here soon. It must.

Two New Looks and a Favorite Saying

Matthew, well Sophie, gave me my first ever visit to the ER. Sophie claims she shut Matthew's finger in our closet door and that is how it got a big slice in it. One ER visit, two stitches, one band-aid, and four hours later, he was doing OK again. I had to hold him as they put the stitches in his finger. I bruised his arm holding him still. He then flipped out completely when the doctor went to put the band-aid on his finger. ugh. I hope to avoid that place for the rest of forever. I am sure I won't but I have no desire at all to go there again!

Grace's favorite saying right now is "You make me laugh." She will just look over at you and say it or you will say something and that will be her response. I have to say having a 3.5 year old tell you that makes you feel like you are worth something!

Sophie has a new look this summer. She has skinless knees. The poor child has no coordination and is always tripping over her feet. I don't know how she does it. Well, I do know how she does as I have no coordination either so hopefully that means she will out grow the part where she tears up her knees. So if you see the boo-boos on her knees, give her kisses. Gosh knows, she needs them!

Crawling, Singing, and a Shadow

Matthew is crawling like a mad man. Slap. Slap. Slap. You know he is coming when you hear the slapping. The slapping on the floor as they crawl is one my favorite things about the crawling age. It gives you time to get ready to give them a big smile as they turn the corner looking for you! We also had to lower Matthew's crib all the way down. Now if I don't drop the side, I end up dropping him into the crib. oops! To add to his first, he has started standing next to stuff now. Standing at the coffee table is one of his favorite activities right now.

Grace has become a singer. In a typical preschooler way about half the time she belts out the songs like she shouting down the street. Her memory is getting really good and she is remembering songs she learns at school and singing them at home. She sang Skin-a-ma-rinky-dink as part of her Mother's Day Tea at preschool and now likes to sing that at home. I must try to find the TV show that song was part of ... sadly it is the only part of the show I seem to remember watching as a kid!

Sophie has become Grace's shadow. She is a little follower when it comes to playing. It is probably a good thing because Grace is a little bossy-boss. One of these days, Sophie will get tired of it but we find ways to use it to our advantage now. We commonly ask "Sophie can you had toys to Grace and then Grace can put them away." I am sure this will back-fire on us one of these day. For now though, it is useful and with three of them, we take what we can get!

A Nine Month Old, A Repeater, and An Encourager

Matthew is nine months old! He is trying, trying, trying to take one nap a day. If we get in the car in the afternoon though he finds himself a second nap. The main issue is that his one nap isn't really long enough to keep him going through out the day.

Sophie loves to repeat what you say. I have learned that I have to be very careful with what I say around her. She is a little bugger like that.

Grace has become a little encourager. Some of her recent comments have been ... "good job, Sophie". "yay Sophie", and "Come here, Matthew." She dearly loves her brother and sister ... well, unless she is beating them up.

Teeth, No Naps, and Writing

Matthew now has two top teeth to go with his two bottom teeth. They aren't the middle teeth though. They are the side teeth so he looks very silly!
Sophie is trying to give up naps but the thing is that she still needs naps. So we have taken to letting her sleep where ever she falls asleep ... on the floor, on the couch, in a chair, and in whatever uncomfortable position.

Grace loves to get up on the computer and "write" her name. She wants to spell out her name and see it on the screen. She gets very excited to do this any time she thinks she can get time on the computer.

Another Tooth and some Easter Egg Hunting!

Matthew has a second tooth! It came about a week ago but disappeared. It is now there for what seems like good! I still can't get a good picture of thsee teeth though. So the best way to know they are there is to put your finger in his mouth and he will bite your finger. You will then KNOW they are there for sure! haha

We took the kids to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday.
Sophie is a machine ... an egg hunting machine. Sophie grabbed one egg after another. Brain described her as a machine. Her bucket was almost full. She was a blast to watch!

Grace is a looker ... an egg hunt looker. Grace stopped to examine each egg before picking up the eggs up and would wander past several others before find another to examine and pick up. Grace did end up with a decent collection but it took a lot of encouragement to pick up the eggs.

I think they are due for some yard Easter egg hunting here soon ... if the yard every dries up from this Spring rain that keeps showing up every few days!

Growing = Updates

Grace's preschool update - I had a parent/teacher conference with Grace's preschool teacher recently. Grace has finally started talking a lot at school. Thank goodness. The child talks up a storm so it is good to see she is finally comfortable with talking at school. (This is part of the reason is in preschool so it good to see it paying off.) I was also told that Grace loves individual quiet play. We knew that. She loves to quietly play at her doll houses. Sometimes she asks Sophie or daddy to play with her but she is most often happy there by herself. In her self portriat, she now has six identifiable body parts (arms - 1, legs - 1, face -1, eyes - 1, mouth -1, hair - 1). This up one from her fall picture. They like kindergardners to have seven so she is really on track there!

Sophie is a big girl. Sophie has taken interest in going potty again. Grandma has been a big encouragement on the days she is here. Sophie seems really excited about going potty which is great. She is still working on it but is on her way to being potty trained. This is good so she can go to preschool in the fall too!

Matthew is growing up on me. Matthew is making more noises. I got a mama finally! I was even around to hear it!! He has also started saying "bu-bu". Maybe I call him Bubba too much? Maybe. He is also say "ga" when he sees Grandma. He knows how to get what he wants! Matthew LOVES to stand which is great except he expects to do this a lot which means you have to hold or be ready to catch him a lot. He still has one super sharp bottom tooth. The only picture of said tooth is on Uncle Greg's camera. It sure is hard to get a picture of it!!

First Memories and Questions

Matthew's firsts ... Matthew decided to pile a whole bunch of firsts into 24 hours. He cut his first tooth (it is a bottom tooth), he got up on all fours and stayed there for a decent amount of time, plus he started staying da-da. Now all three kids have said da-da as their first word. Too bad they don't yell that in the middle of the night! =P

Grace's memory ... Grace's ability to remember stuff is pretty darn amazing. She has started taking dance classes. She tells me which way to turn to get to dance class. She also knows the way to preschool. We have caught her saying phrases that we say too. She say them in context and just rattles them off. Matching is becoming one of her favorite games. Before too long, I think there will be some mommy-Grace Memory game smack down happening. I still love that game and never had anyone who wanted to play with me because I was too good at it. Maybe I will meet my match in Miss Grace!

Sophie's questions .. what ya doing? what's that? Sophie is a question asker. She will be an expert at the twenty questions game for the sole reason that by the time you get to twenty questions you be completely frazzled and completely insane. She doesn't let up. Her curosity is amazing and highly encouraged I will add but at times, it would be nice if she was just happy with the answer we gave her!

Sitting, Talking, and ... Bleeding

Bleeding? What? Keep reading ...

Matthew has become a pro at sitting up. We have pulled out the trusty blue mat again and he sits on it to play for the longest time. The girls are doing great playing with him and mostly not overwhelming him with their craziness and loudness! Matthew took his first bath sitting up this week. He wasn't sure about it but did finally realize he could still splash like he loves to during bath time while sitting!

Grace has started talking at school! Grace's preschool teacher told Brian in the fall that she didn't talk much which we laughed at because she doesn't stop talking at home. We knew it would come when she got comfortable with school. It did and now she is a talker at school. Her sentences are so clear too. She told us the other night at milk wasn't her favorite. When asked what her favorite drink was she said "lemon-lade and chocolate milk". (lemon-lade = lemonade) It is fun to have those little conversations with her!

Sophie can blame Grace for what will be scar on her forehead. Grace claims that she shut the bedroom on Sophie's head and that is why I found it bleed everywhere yesterday. Every hour or so, Sophie reminds who ever she can that she has a boo-boo ... as if the butterfly and the band-aid on her head aren't enough of a sign to everyone that she has a boo-boo! Thankfully I was able to clean it up and dug out those butterflies that were in my Christmas stocking (good thinking, mom!) She will have a little scar but will survive. Grace didn't finally tell Sophie that she was sorry. Sophie's response was "No!" Grace's response back was "You are suppose to say you're welcome." I admit it. I laughed.

Mommy Thoughts: Yesterday was a day that stressed me out. It was not my day in that the van had a flat tired when we went to leave for the doctor's office. I apparently wrote down the wrong day for said doctor's appointment (I wouldn't have scheduled it for the day it was scheduled so I have learned to double check what they tell me!!) Thankfully, they saw Matthew anyway. The tow truck and wood delivery guys came at the same time. Grace busted Sophie's head open. It just wasn't my day. That being said, we all survived and that is what really matters. It took me awhile to admit that but when they were all in bed (even if it was short lived due to the boo-boo), it was all good in our house.

Talking and Growing

Grace's catch phrase lately is "hmmmm, maybe ..." This works for just about anything. It works for: do you want a snack? Response: "hmmm, maybe an apple." Are you ready for bed? Response: "hmmm, maybe play on the bed with daddy." To top this phrase off, she holds one finger on her chin like she is thinking really hard about it. It is all you can do to not bust out laughing at her little Miss ways!

Sophie has taken up Grace's Dora addiction. Yes, Dora is still queen and Aunt Amy's analysis of Dora that it is the same show over and over again is right. Sophie loves Swipper's catch phrase of "oh, man" when he doesn't get something. She uses it correctly in context which is very funny. If you ask her what Swipper says, she says "oh man" while swinging her arm like he does.

Matthew is trying to out grown his nickname of "Little Dude". I hate to tell him but he will always be my Little Dude! Little Dude is now in 18M clothes at almost 7 months in age. I was pulling out more and more of his 12M clothes into the don't fit drawer and finally decided to give in and just move his clothes up to the next size. Here I thought years of clothes saved up for him and I will be lucky to get to one year with all of these bargain clothes I had saved up. I better get buying clothes in the next sizes up ... soon!



Sophie - "oh, man"

A Hungry, obsessed mini-me or divide by three?

Hungry, Hungry Matthew: This week Matthew started expand his eating the past two weeks. Yogurt, banana, and sweet potatoes have been tried so far! This is on top of his oatmeal eating. Matthew is a hungry dude! I have a bad feeling that he is going to eat us out of house and home. Matthew is also trying to use sippy cups. The straw ones are all he has tried so far but he sure can get some liquid out of them. As a warning, if you are holding any food or a cup, he will try to steal it from you.


Sophie is a mini-me. A mini-me of Grace. Anything that Grace can do, Sophie can do better. Wait. Sophie catches onto EVERYTHING that Grace does. I show Grace how to hit play on the DVD player. The next thing I know, Sophie is hitting play. Sophie is singing most of her ABCs. Sophie talks in complete sentences. Sophie is working on potty training (and doing amazingly good!) Most of the time, Grace's mini-me doesn't bother her so I will enjoy this while it lasts. I know it will end since I too have a sister!=P

Grace's obsession. Grace is obsessed with Dora right now. Specifically, Dora TV shows and movies. She can seriously sit there with Dora on the TV all day. If you try to tell her Dora isn't on, she goes for a movie. When you want to get something done, this obsession is nice. At any other time, this obsession is enough to drive to insane. I am thinking The Little Mermaid obsession was better since at least it was a decent length movie. If you hear Grace "No swiping Buddy. No swiping." This is thanks to Dora and her constant "No swiping Swiper. No Swiping." Cute the first time, not the one millionth.

Hello 2010!

I made it a year! I admit my last several posts of 2009 are still in the draft mode but I will finish them here soon. It is great to look back over my posts from last year and see how the kids have grown.

This year will be exciting, well that is what I keep telling myself. For the first time, Brian won't be staying at home with the kids full time. He will doing his student teaching semester that he put off doing a year ago due our finances. Thankfully, my mom will be watching the kids during this short time frame since it would near impossible to find a day care to only take them for that time or someone to watch them during that time. We are so thankful for her doing this already and it hasn't even started yet.

Grace is still loving school. She was really excited school started back up this week. Brian has started to work on some crafts with her (a snake and a mask) and she loves them. She does get very upset if Sophie "breaks" her crafts though!

Sophie is flirting with wanting to potty train but isn't committed to the cause yet. She is a full blown two year old with the attitude and tantrums to go with it. Some days we want to send her back and get our 1 year old back. Sophie loves Matthew and is a really good big sister to him when she shoves his pacifier back into his mouth!=P

Matthew is a growing boy. He is 5 and half months and is fitting in his 12 month clothes perfectly. I have learned that when this happens he has a few more weeks left in them. It is a good thing I have a stash of 18 month clothes already. He is doing good with his eating oatmeal. That is he is doing good if Brian feeds him. He still won't eat much of it for me which is expected. Brian told me the other day that Matthew will eat us out of house and home if he keeps up his levels of eating.

A family moment: The girls, Brian, and I had a game time for the first time the other day. We played Hi Ho! Cherry-o. Sophie didn't fully get it but enjoyed it. Grace will run around asking to play the "cherry game". We are looking for to more family game nights as they get older!

Their Favorite Things ...

I did a favorite things post awhile back and I really love thinking about the kids favorite things. Maybe because that is one of my all time favorite songs from The Sound of Music? Maybe because I see so much of them through the changes in their favorite things? At any rate, I love them and am excited for this post. I am going to try to remember favorite things that have gone by the wayside already and the ones that are in the limelight right now for each of them.

Gracie ...
Back in the day: Sleeping Beauty Disney movie, breakfast (she isn't into it these days)
Lovin' it right now: school, drawing, princesses ... any Princesses!, Dora, games, asking for TV shows such as Mickey Choo Choo, Dora, and Phineas and Ferb (so we have to record them on the DVR)
Good ole standby: her blanket (a.k.a one of the Gerber cloth diapers that we use as burp cloths), jumping on our bed, the doll houses, baby dolls, Little Gym

Sophie ...
Back in the day: Lady and Tramp (a.k.a. "Dog Movie"), Little Gym (she isn't getting into it)
Lovin' it right now: reading books, singing songs, Disney movies, princesses, baby dolls, her new car seats that have a cup holder like Grace's
Good ole standby: her pink blanket, her pink bunny, still my dancin' queen, jumping on our bed

Matthew ...
Back in the day: sleeping all night, sucking his hand (not his thumb, but the part between his thumb and first finger)
Lovin' it right now: waking up once in the middle of the night, rolling over on his back (wait, he HATE that but he still does it!), pacifiers, football on TV (not sure what we do when football season ends!), a nightlight in his room, his Melissa and Doug snail toy
Good ole standby: walking ... he still loves be held if you are walking around, being held