This has not been a good week for things around our house. A lot of things have been broken for some reason, within a matter of days! The week isn’t even over yet either! Here is the list so far:

toilet handle in guest bathroom
my precious Neti Pot
child lock on TV entertainment center
both outlets in master bathroom
on/off switch to carpet vacuum

I am nervous for my house! Hope nothing else breaks….at least my sense of humor hasn’t!

Categories: BJ
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Heather has already explained that Phoebe loves pockets. Phoebe not only loves putting things in her pockets but also having her hands in her pockets as she travels about the house.

This backfired on her today. She had some little girl jeans on with pockets that barely fit even her tiny hands. She had to work to get her hands in there. Unfortunately she also had to work for a second to get her hands out of her pockets.

Any parent of a toddler knows they fall over periodically as their excitement outpaces their coordination. She tripped with her poor little hands in her little pockets. She couldn’t brace herself while falling and kissed the carpet. Poor little dear. I heard a very very sad cry start then I picked her up and comforted her. She wasn’t very hurt, just embarrassed at her loss of dignity.

Tags: falling,Phoebe,pockets
Categories: Phoebe
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Phoebe has discovered the power of pants and shorts with pockets. She enjoys walking around with her hands in her pockets, looking very cute as she is doing it, or stuffing what she can into them. Phoebe will tend to get confused if she is in pajama pants or other bottoms that have no pockets. She circles herself and pats her legs looking for them saying “pocket?! pockets?!” Just yesterday she was walking around in only a diaper. She took some little magnet animals she had and stuffed them down the front of her diaper. She proudly looks up at her daddy with her big gap toothed grin and says “POCKET!”

At least she didn’t have a poopy diaper at the time.

Tags: pockets
Categories: Phoebe, Weekly Family Update
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It should come as no surprise, with my family, that I am making a post labeled ‘Drama Queen’. This time it is about Phoebe. She had her 2 year well check earlier this week and received 2 shots, one in each leg. I am honest and up front with my children about shots, so when she was about to get it I told her it was going to be “a pinch that would hurt, and then be an owie”. She only cried for less than a minute and was fine after that–what a trooper! However, the rest of the week has been another story. Her legs still ache, one more so than the other, and so she has reason to complain. She will wake up from a nap with a twisted, sad face saying “owie, owie”. I found her squatting on the floor the other day, grabbing her legs rocking back and forth, mumbling in a whiny voice “owiw, owie, owie” over and over again. And then she jumps up all happy and runs off to play! She continues to bring it up at random times in a day and will pat her leg, say “owie” and be done with it.

She does this with regards to other things as well–keeping them fresh in her mind and bringing it up or repeating it over and over throughout the week or month. Whatever she chooses it to be at the time! This doesn’t sound like a future stereotypical woman does it?

Tags: check up,owie,shots
Categories: Phoebe, Weekly Family Update
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Phoebe is 2 years old now. She is changing rapidly. Words, sentences, questions, phrases, and the ever present squeal still endlessly flow from her little mouth. Any new word or phrase she experiences will inevitably be repeated until she is satisfied that she can recreate it. Sometimes the process is labored for her but in the end she ends up saying something.

She’s a joy to be around. It’s the exultant squeal of delight from Phoebe that makes me love coming home after a day at work. I’ll let Heather post about her Birthday party since her perspective of the day was different than mine (I spent most of my time making BBQ chicken). I just wanted to wish Phoebe a happy birthday.

Tags: birthday,family
Categories: Phoebe
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We don’t have a July 4th tradition. We do whatever we feel like doing any given year. Last year we visited family in Bryan Texas, and I managed to get some good shots of the fireworks (see above). This year they were otherwise occupied (Samuelson family reunion).

One of our neighbors had approached us with an idea. Block party. Sounds fun. It would only take a few grills, some shade, and some neighborly spirit to throw one together. He talked to enough people however that it quickly became a rather large party. They closed down our street, put up some bounce houses, water slides, and our neighbor labored for days building a large misting gazebo of sorts.

The kids had a blast and it was nice to get to know our neighbors better. At the same time the day was very very hot. I admittedly spent at least half the time indoors. I also didn’t share my grilling skills with the neighbors. My grill was too busy cooking 4 racks of spare ribs and 5 racks of baby back ribs.

Because of the days activities the kids were way too tired to go see fireworks. They went to bed early. Phoebe laid down on the floor in the living room and promptly fell asleep. She has never done this before. She was obviously exhausted.

Categories: BJ, BJ's Life, Weekly Family Update
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As BJ mentioned in a previous post, we won a weekend night stay at the Westin Stonebriar Resort and breakfast for two. We attended a NICU reunion for Phoebe a week before our vacation and submitted our names for the prize drawings, having no idea what they were. When we got back in town it was my birthday that weekend. We had a stack of mail and I waited until Sunday, my actual birthday, to open it all. In the pile was the gift certificate and a card from one of the nurse managers congratulating us on winning the grand prize from the drawing. What a nice birthday surprise, huh? Plus, our 7 year anniversary was only one week away so it couldn’t have come at a better time! We cashed in on our prize this last weekend and we had a blast!

The room (standard guest with king size bed) was nicely decorated with plenty of room for us. We checked in and left to walk The Shops at Legacy for a place to eat. We found a small sea food place called Half Shells. They are popular for their oyster nachos, which I actually tried! They were fresh and delicious. We will happily go back! We also stopped by a chocolate factory/store called Shokolad. Chocolate covered nutter butters and oreos….need I say more? We did at least buy the girls some colorful sprinkle chocolate drops. We bought several other chocolates and headed back to the hotel. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of the hotel and the big flat screen plasma TV….wait….we can get the TV thing at home…..but anyway, the peace was nice and being able to take a quiet, uninterrupted bath was lovely.

The next morning (I must add at this point that you would think we would have slept in. I REALLY wanted to, and had hoped to, but I was awoke by 6am and didn’t really sleep much after that. Same for BJ I think. Bah!) we got ready before heading to breakfast. They have a breakfast buffet where a woman is standing there with all sorts of omlet fixins’. She also made huge, deep pocket waffles right there if you wanted too. We each had wonderfully delicious custom made omelets and fresh fruit. We went out afterward and checked out the pool area. They had a ping pong table out there as well, and had it not been for our bloated bellies we would have battled it out. I sat by the pool and enjoyed the nice weather and stillness of the morning. After more vegging on the bed and TV watching we decided to head home a little sooner than our check out time. It wasn’t all that exciting of a weekend, but it was the perfect little getaway and peace of mind we needed!(BJ: Having time alone without any children to start crying out of nowhere is a much larger gift than this post might seem to indicate… however we try to keep these posts rated PG…ahem)

When we got home we figured the girls would want to burn up some energy and it was a perfectly windy day. BJ had just bought some kites a few weeks prior and we had not had a chance to fly them yet. We took them to a huge public park in Frisco BJ had not been to before. BJ raced his car, the girls played on the playground and we all flew the kites. BJ bought a small one just the right size for Sophia. It was so cute and very easy for her to fly. We didn’t take the big camera (shocking I know) so these kite pictures were taken on my iphone. We all came home and passed out for some great naps. What a great weekend!

Categories: BJ, Heather
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The heading of this post is how Sophia pronounces Sorcerer. I don’t know where this “sorcerer” stuff came from. She rushed up on me a few weeks ago with no shirt on and just pajama pants and yelled “I’m a swor-sor-rwar!” Of course, it took me a moment to even realize what the heck she said she was. It has since progressed to “sor-sor-roar”. It HAS to be pajama pants, and she HAS to have her shirt off to be a sorcerer. She loves to do sorcerer poses if you ask her…..

Categories: Sophia
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