I have really been thinking lately about things I am loving about my children. Being a mother is the hardest *job* I have ever had! It is difficult at times to remember to be grateful for my children and to always like them–for I will always love them. I don’t know if life would be easier if they were farther apart in age, and have often wondered that, but at the end of the day this is our life, our family, and it isn’t going to change. So I thought it would be fun for others, and important for me, to write a thankful post regarding my children.

I AM THANKFUL FOR….

rocking chairs. Months ago Phoebe started asking to be rocked before bed. Although she is not a baby anymore and doesn’t really need it I know she enjoys it. I love that after a busy day of running around and being active she and I can sit in the dark, her head resting on me, and have our sweet, quiet moment together. Mmmmmm snuggles!

potty trained children. It is a whole lot cheaper than buying diapers and wipes, I don’t get poop on my hands anymore, and it is less time consuming for me. Some people say I got them potty trained *early* (Phoebe was trained a month after her second birthday) because I think around 3 or just after is average. All I know is that it was perfect for our family.

kisses. A simple kiss or 2 can make pretty much any boo-boo better and can stop the tears. The girls give each other kisses which reassures me that they really do love one another. They also readily give mommy and daddy ones too. Just this morning Sophia climbed into our bed and promptly gave me kisses all over my face telling me “I am kissing you momma!”

candy. I love candy very much, always have and probably always will. My girls love candy too, and we have spent time snuggling on the couch over a good Dr. Suess book and a bag of gummy bears. We also enjoy sharing Twizzler Pull-n-Peel and pretend they are worms, snakes, bracelets or necklaces. It is fun candy!

one on one time with my children. BJ and I have both had ‘dates’ with Sophia and will probably start them with Phoebe next year. The girls are so different when by themselves and can be so sweet. This special time lets them know they are unique to us and know that we have time for them and their interests.

cooperative play. When the girls play together with no fighting or hitting it once again reassures me that they love each other. It also proves to me that it was in fact a good thing to have them close in age so they can develop this blossoming friendship. Plus, Sophia is good at being an example to Phoebe about imaginative play.

healthy appetites. This mostly applies to Sophia, but the older Phoebe gets the less picky she is becoming–Yay! I *almost* don’t have to worry about what Sophia is going to eat. She is beginning to enjoy spicey things more or strange things. She actually licked a bite of octopus the other day. She tells me she “loves meat” and will ask me for broccoli or carrot sticks for a snack. She pretty much eats what we eat which makes some meal times a lot easier.

their lovely faces. I love looking at them and admiring their eyes or faces. They truly are beautiful girls. I know this might make me sound like a proud or vain mom, but it is hard to forget how cute they are when everywhere we go I get compliments about their eyes or cuteness. I also enjoy the fact that my children resemble me. There are some families you can look at and think “Those kids belong to them?!” –they look nothing alike. When the 3 of us are together I often get comments about how they look like me or that there is “no doubt who they belong to!” I love looking at them and seeing in their faces that they are mine.

communication. Both girls learned to speak and use more words (for their age at the time) than what is considered ‘average’. I loved being able to communicate with them and now have conversations with them. They let me know what it is they need and I pretty much don’t have any guesswork. Their clear communication has also made my life easier in some ways when dealing with them. And anything that can be made easier for a mom is a good thing!

unique voices. Phoebe is quite the entertainment for BJ and I and she doesn’t even know it. She has this “accent” (for lack of a better description) that makes all sorts of words interesting. A sample: berks (books), goldfirsh, and beahrs is really all I can think of for now.

rough play, and children that enjoy it. I like running around the house pretending to be a monster, dinosaur or dragon while roaring and chasing the girls on foot or hands and knees. They run all over the place smiling and screaming. We also play hide and seek often, but it usually turns into just me hiding out really well and then popping out and scaring them. Once again, they are all smiles in the end.

Categories: Heather, Phoebe, Sophia
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Sophia has finally hit the age where everything is of great importance to her. Holidays have become huge events with weeks of anticipation beforehand. As of today, November 18th, she has Christmas fever and is greatly anticipating the arrival of Santa.

She did however have a great time for Halloween. I made sure to teach her how to be a polite little ladybug (Phoebe was a pirate and as such did not need to show the same level of decorum as a dainty ladybug). Here’s Phoebe perfecting her AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! replete with a clenched fist swinging in front of her chest to punctuate the exclamation.

In the run up to the actual day of Halloween we were able to participate in one of the most crowded events I’ve ever witnessed. The fire department of our nearby town has a complete miniature town where sponsors were able to erect Hobbit sized businesses so curious young citizens could practice obeying traffic laws in power wheels with an entire town sized to their own dimensions. This town is called safety town.

Safety town opens to the public to allow trick or treaters to trick or treat in safety… or at least in a crowded miasma of more corporate sponsored candy giving in the hopes that we might sign up for junk mail on a whim. I am not opposed to the practice as it was a pretty good time. The wait was about an hour but the fine gentlemen of our local police and fire departments were doing their organizations a fine service by chatting with the little ones and even letting them climb on the fire trucks and figure out how to ring the bells on the front bumpers of the fire trucks (Sophia figured out how to ring the bell and finally had to be asked to quit because it was too loud).

I have to report a devastating loss at safety town. I lost one of Phoebe’s blankets while we were there. If you were not aware each of my children has some attachment to a blanket. Sophia is not as attached as Phoebe is but even Sophia becomes concerned if her blanket is not with her at night. Phoebe however, is very very attached to the feel of her blankets.

She slowly finds a “corner” and holds it in one of her hands as she rests her thumb in her mouth and rubs either her cheek or her nose with the corner. While at safety town I had draped her blanket over my shoulder. In the commotion of taking 1 photograph (it was pretty dark by then so I only got 1) and shuffling our children around I dropped the blanket and didn’t realize I had dropped it for quite a while. Sadly her blanket was gone. It has been replaced by other blankets and happily Phoebe is able to swap them out… provided the blanket has a corner.

The following week Halloween actually arrived and we carved pumpkins. I then took the little ones out to go around the block and trick or treat. They did very well. They were polite (except for Phoebe who was able to announce the she was a PIRATE!! and yell AAAAAARRRRRRR after saying trick or treat at nearly every house. I believe this is actually polite for a pirate to announce themselves before shouting AAAARRRRRR). They got plenty of candy and they both discovered a love of Chocolate.

Tags: family,Halloween,pictures
Categories: BJ, Weekly Family Update
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This post has truly been a LONG time coming. We have done several fun activities over the last few months and I just have not gotten around to posting about any of it. Now I am getting so far behind I simply cannot wait any longer or it will be out of control! This will mostly be pictures….

We finally decided to go to the lake this year. You know, that lake that is only 5 minutes from our house but we have never put even a toe into to? We went for Labor Day knowing it would be the last big swimming hoo-rah before the weather would start to change too much on us. We had a BLAST! We met up with some other friends while we were there and they were kind enough to share their food and company with us. The girls thought it was the coolest thing ever being at the ‘beach’.

Flying kites, just Daddy and the girls. It was quite a windy day so the kites stayed up wonderfully.

We went to the State Fair this year! YAY! BJ and I went years ago in the first few years of marriage before kids. We felt it was definitely time to go back. Phoebe only went on 2 rides and Sophia got to do 5, which I am sure rocked her world. We ate fried cheesecake, sausage on stick, nachos, popcorn, and who knows what else! We went overboard!

This picture is of us after that boat ride and even though I am smiling I totally felt like puking and passing out. Sophia was ready for another ride.

We went with Nana, Papi, and Aunt Catey and they had had the wonderful idea of taking the Dart Rail there to avoid traffic and parking costs. It really was fun for all us even with as crowded as it got (tons of other people had the idea of taking it to the fair as well). You can see here Sophia threw up her hands as if she were on a ride. It was truly a fun and new experience for them. (BJ’s note: Sophia also threw up her hands as if she was no a ride when the DART train started moving. It was the most hilarious and cute thing. Half the car was looking at our little darling hamming it up with excitement).

BJ’s note: I’m posting this for Heather and will be adding some other posts.

Categories: Heather, Weekly Family Update
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As you may have noticed there was only a single update to our family site in the month of October. This is really sad since we actually filled up every weekend with some sort of activity. Admittedly we had some downtime in the middle of the month due to my bringing H1N1 home and spreading it around after our trip to the State Fair.

Heather is working on a catch up post to fill in the October gap. I could lay blame on Heather as she has read EVERY SINGLE book in the Harry Potter series during the month of October… but I can’t do that without also laying the blame on myself. Sickness, school, and work have kept me busy. I’ll also admit that I’ve been a little preoccupied due to the release of Forza Motorsport 3.

Other items of note in the month of October. My youngest sister turned 18 and my mother celebrated the 24th anniversary of her 29th birthday. After we catch up we still have a lot of things to cover, like:

• Writing letters to Santa
• A visit from the Browns
• Our usable garage
• Why I’m so awesome at driving cars in a videogame
• The marshmellow test, and many other things

Tags: family,fun,games
Categories: BJ, BJ's Life
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Pistol. Fireball. ADHD. Excitable. Choose a word and that is Sophia! She has so much energy and has become more hyper with time. I began in home Preschool for her with one other little girl from our church. The first day she could barely sit still, or listen, pay attention, or quite wanting to grab at things. I understand this is new to her, she will have to get used to this new schedule in her week, and that there will be an adjustment period. She was a little better the second day and so it gives me hope that each day will be better still. I am excited about being able to teach her more formally and have a little friend in the house to share this time with. She is already catching on with memorizing and recognizing numbers and letters.

She also asks me all sorts of questions about being able to do things or places to go. Some of my replies simply have to be “When you are older.” or “When you are bigger.” So she has started to say to me, “When I be 20 years old I can ride a motorcycle.” “When I be 20 years old I will go to school.” On and on and on with “When I be 20 years old”! Apparently she can do anything as long as she is 20 when it is happening.

More fun quotes from my lovely 3 year old….
I am loading up with gas.
You look gorgeous! (while looking at me trying on a new skirt)
Does my dada have a bum-bum?
My bones are moving.
I don’t want anymore, because it’s too yummy.
I was just freaking out.

The older she gets the more beautiful her face gets. Her eyes even seem bigger and more beautiful even though I know they haven’t changed really. Her face is beginning to look a little more grown up to me. Because she is tall for her age and well spoken/articulate she often gets mistaken for a 4 year old most places we go. I tend to agree.

She recently had her first dental visit. I took her a few weeks prior to my 6 month cleaning so she could see what it was all about. She was well behaved, curious, and asked a lot of questions. I was so proud of her then, and became even more proud of her after her visit. Once again she was so well behaved, wasn’t afraid, and cooperative. They took a 360 digital x-ray of her teeth which was quite an interesting experience as well. You have to be positioned very specifically with your front teeth biting down on this plastic stick (also in a specific location). With a little maneuvering we finally got her into position and she was so still. Seriously, I just could not believe how good she did for all of this and my heart was swelling with pride for her! Also, an x-ray of a child’s mouth is SO COOL. Her adult teeth are already forming so you could see them resting above her baby teeth. You could see the shape and size of them. And her last molars were just sitting tucked up in her gums in what looked like a perfect white bubble. I almost couldn’t stop staring at the image it was so amazing. I suggest this for every parent. It is neat to see your child’s mouth in that way.

She is an affectionate child and can often be found telling us she loves us. It is so random and very sweet. She enjoys hugs very much and tries to out-hug her daddy when giving a big bear hug.

Categories: Heather, Sophia
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