Hugs and Kisses

Jace is not an affectionate sort of toddler. He never has been. He's never wanted to cuddle. Giving hugs? He can take it or leave it. Mostly leave it. Squeezes? I don't think so. Really he can't even sit still on my lap for longer than 3 seconds.

Anyway, I've been trying to train him to give hugs and kisses. It's not working. I'm pretty sure he knows what I'm telling him but I'm not totally sure (he's 18 months and knows a whole lot more than he lets on sometimes). So anyway, this week I decided try my efforts with renewed vigor. I would get a kiss from my baby boy. He will not say no to a mother's love. A hug once a day is good for the soul.

This was all met with an upturned nose, a quick look in any other direction but moms, or a complete and encompassing blank stare. Ok fine, maybe he really doesn't know what I'm saying.

But maybe he does.

I decided to try blackmail. An activity I try not to resort to but at times am forced to. Before bathtime the other night Jace was dancing around in his birthday suit just waiting to jump in. Did I mention Jace loves taking a bath? As soon as Jace got mobile he began crawling for the bathtub any time he heard someone turn the water on. When he gets in he swims around in absolute bliss. There's nothing Jace likes better than a nice, warm bath and a rubber ducky. I took one look at Jace's excited little face and knew what I had to do.

"Jace? Do you want to get in the bathtub little guy? Ooooh, the bath is soooooo much fun! Let's get you in..........Give mommy a kiss Jace, and mommy will put in the bath....."

No look of confusion, no blank stare, no glance in the other direction. There was absolutely no hesitation. An open mouthed kiss came my way, about took my nose off, and then it was gone. I was left with a string of slobber and a big smile.

I got my kiss.

Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Here we are on Christmas morning getting right to it. We got kind of a late start for the morning because we had sick kids. Abby was hacking up a lung all Christmas Eve night which made it hard for Santa to get everything ready! Which is why she slept in on Christmas morning. She actually came into our room in tears when she first woke up because she felt so bad. Poor little girl! Jace and Brooklyn were up at 7:00 and they came and hung out in our room until Abby woke up (around 8:00). Jace did not understand why he was locked in mom and dad's room and was really not very happy about it!


Here is the new addition to our house. His name is Bucky. We adopted him from someone's front porch!! Really. We had been trying to find a spring horse around here and no one carries them anymore. I went online and discovered that these things were expensive!! Like anywhere from one to two hundred bucks! What!! I am not a good enough mother to justify spending that kind of money for a toy that may or may not be used.
Fortunately, Darren remembered seeing Bucky sitting on someone's porch out in the country where he goes hunting. So, he gave them a call, discovered he actually knew one of the family members and Bucky became part of our family! (Just for the record Darren did throw down 5 dollars for our new toy. He felt it only fair;) Talk about a bargain! And Jace loves his new horse. And so do the girls. I did try to play Cowboys and Indians with Brooklyn but she got scared and ran upstairs. Luckily one of my arrows hit her in the bum on the way up so I won!



Here's Abby with one of her favorite presents - a PillowPet! Why these things are such a craze I have no idea. But my girls think they are pretty awesome!

Jace loves to ride pretty much everything (which is why we got him a horse) and his new truck is no exception.

Later on we headed over to Grandma's and Pa's to open a few more presents and eat Christmas dinner with all the fam.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Woes of Childhood

A few days ago I was in my kitchen cleaning up when I heard Brooklyn talking to herself in the living room. She does this quite often. What's really funny is when she's mad at me she goes storming off into her room muttering to herself about what a mean mommy I am. Once she gets the door to her room closed her voice changes from her whispered hisses to normal talking and I really get hammered. I would feel bad about it if it wasn't just so darn funny! As it is I try to ignore these kinds of tirades hoping they absolve themselves!

So back to my original story. I'm in the kitchen (because I basically live there. Not cooking really, mostly cleaning up after Jace who thinks he needs to be eating 24/7. Seriously.) and I hear Brooklyn talking to herself again. I perk up my ears and really listen. Brooklyn, in one of her most sad and dramatic voices is saying "I never asked for this. " Deep sigh. " Why did I get such chubby cheeks?"

At this I peeked around the corner to see Brooklyn looking in a hand mirror with downturned lips and big eyes staring at her reflection. I about lost it. I knew it wasn't funny. But it really was. So I rearranged my face to go talk to her. I started out with the spiel all good mommy's tell their children. It went something like this.

"Brooklyn, you're beautiful and perfect just the way you are!"

And then I gave her a brilliant smile.

She wasn't buying it. "But mom, I have chubby cheeks!" Like that was the worst thing that could happen.

So then I lied. "No you don't Brookie. You're just right."

At this she glared at me and grabbed two chubby fistfuls of cheek. "Yes I do. See."

I began backpedaling. "Well Brooklyn, look at my cheeks. They're chubby too." I blew my cheeks out to make them really chubby. "We're just a family of chubby cheeks."

Another bright smile.

And that was the end of it. And I'm really starting to wonder how to prepare for the teenage years. If I can!

Happy Birthday to our Abby! Abby's big day was December 14 and she turned 6 years old! This is Abby and Brooklyn with their birthday dresses from Grandma Dena. Brooklyn actually got a dress for her birthday on her birthday but it was too small. So Grandma came to the rescue and brought these two out for Abby's birthday. The girls absolutely love them!

Here's our birthday girl raking it in! She's reading her birthday cards because she can!

Here are the kids plus Grandma Suzette. Abby didn't have a very specific request for her cake (after I shot down the castle and monster theme) so we just did easy peasy! As long as it's pink who really cares?

Things about Abby now that she's 6!

She started Kindergarten this year and loves, loves, loves it!

She comes home from Kindergarten extremely tired (meaning grumpy!) after her hard day at school (she goes a full day).

She loves to draw and some of her favorite things to draw are her family, herself and Brooklyn as superheros, fairies, princesses etc.

She has started piano lessons and had her first recital 2 days before her birthday and did great!

She always wants to be in charge of her younger siblings (and I'm not talking babysitting, I'm talking bossing around!)

She also loves playing with Brooklyn and she can get Jace to laugh harder than anyone else.

Skirts and tights are a must - unless it's really cold out:)

If Abby could have one wish granted it would be to have real wings that could make her fly.

To my favorite Abby in the whole world - WE LOVE YOU!!

November Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to me!! And to Brooklyn! But first we'll tackle my birthday (which won't take very long!). My birthday landed on a Saturday this year and we celebrated by Darren going hunting:) My man did not fail me and brought me home a nice plump goose to take care of. Or I should say several. Since it was birthday I refused to touch them and went back to baking my cake! Anway, while I was baking my cake, my girls were over at my neighbors house baking me cupcakes. Surprise! Suffice it to say we had plenty of cake! Aren't they beautiful?

I invited Bat Girl and Wonder Woman to my party and they were a hit! I bought these costumes at the after Halloween sale at Walmart for $4,99 and was so excited for the girls to wear them. Abby loved hers from the get go. Brooklyn broke down in tears when I showed her Bat Girl.

"You want me to wear that black costume? But it's all black!" Sob, sob, sob.

Anyway, I told her that she was only invited to my birthday party if she was a superhero.......

(Oh, relax, I wasn't really going to hold her to it. But it worked;)

And now, she loves being Bat Girl. It's hard not to with me singing the Batman theme in the background! So here are my Super Girls!

Happy Birthday! I'm not sure why Darren didn't join us in this picture, but he was there.

Now moving on to Brooklyn's Birthday! She turned 4 years old and has been looking forward to this birthday for a long time!

We had Grandma Suzette, and Pa (my mom and dad), and Grandma Lu and Grandpa Sim (my grandparents) over to celebrate.

This is Brooklyn's new coat from Grandma Suzette and Pa and her new boots from us. And no, I didn't ask her to pose for me. These things just come natural to her! Very conscientious of fashion and looking good!

Here's Jace, Abby and the birthday girl. Grandma is holding Jace - sorry for cutting off your head mom!

Brooklyn asked for a rainbow cake - again! This is the 3rd rainbow caked we've done in our house and the second for Brooklyn, so we decided to use skittles instead of frosting this go around for something different. Brooklyn loved helping make the rainbow.

Things about Brooklyn at age 4:

As I've said before, she loves looking "beautiful". She can spend all morning getting dressed up, fixing her hair, putting on her play make-up, etc.

Jeans are not an option.

She wants to go to school very badly.

She loves going to our neighbors house to visit and would go every day if I let her!

She just reached 40 lbs and has graduated to a booster seat.

She is very tenderhearted and can get her feelings hurt easily.

She's our most cuddly child by far. And also most dramatic! She has facial expressions like you wouldn't believe!

She loves going to the gymnastics open gym every Monday.

She is getting more picky about what she eats (she used to eat anything) and at the moment hates anything with noodles.

.

Pink is her favorite color.

.

She loves watching Tinkerbelle movies, Barbie movies, and Scooby Doo.

.

Painting fingernails is a favorite past-time.

.

Happy Birthday to my big 4 year old! We love you!

Halloween 2010

Halloween has finally come around - er, to my blog that is! Unfortunately, in my scramble to find little girls fairy wings, bumble bee wings, the candy bowl, shoes, and jackets all around I forgot my camera. The good news is my mom had her camera. The bad news is my mom's camera is tiny and hard to hold steady which results in blurry pictures. My point with all this rambling is that I got no good pictures at our Trunk or Treat (which was on Saturday). Which also means that I got no good Halloween pictures since we didn't do Halloween on Sunday.

Anyway, this is my little bumble bee. I can't even tell if he's actually wearing the wings that I insisted on bringing. Figures. All my plans are thwarted by this little guy. He also wouldn't stand still or even look at the camera for the woman who does everything in life for him (for those of you who aren't mothers I'm talking about me). How ungracious. There was also a hat involved, but I think we all know how that went over. Not good.

Here are some pictures of my little fairies. These were taken long before Halloween in my attempt to capture beautiful fairy wings and tutu's. Unfortunately, I don't really know what I'm doing as a photographer and was not happy with my results. So I just put my camera away that night and vowed never to look at them again.

And I didn't - until a few days ago and I realized that these were about the only pictures I had of the girls in their Halloween costumes. ( remember? I forgot my camera on "Halloween"?) Sigh.

So I weeded through the rejects and pulled out the best ones. (And in comparison to the one picture of my poor little Bumble Bee, the Fairies are looking pretty good!)



This is Brooklyn. She's trying to fly away. And it almost worked!

Happy Halloween!

Grandpa's Punkins'

We've made it our yearly tradition to get to the pumpkin patch that's down the road. My Grandpa works for the farmers who grow the pumpkins so we feel like we have the run of the place!

Here's one of Brooklyn's picks. I say "one of" because we ended up with a whole trunk full pumpkins. If you notice the shirt that Brookie's wearing you may recall my last post. This is the infamous "ugly shirt" and also the day of our battle. I know this since it is the only day she has worn this shirt - oh wait, I think Auntie Breezy conned her into wearing it one other day. Anyhow, I've been trying to get her to put the shirt back on so I can take a picture of it and put it with that post - to no avail.

You catch my drift.

Poor little Jace face planted about 3 minutes after we got here. I turned my back for half a second and it was all over. He wasn't even in the field. Or walking over rough terrain. I guess he just tripped over his own feet!

Abby found the tiniest pumpkin and Jace carried it around in his little hands for the rest of the day. It was a perfect fit!

Here's everybody with our pile of pumpkins. We always like to make sure we have plenty of pumpkins to decorate our porch with. A little too many you may be thinking. Well, just ask Abby and Brooklyn - you can never have enough!

Until next year!