You Know You Live in California...

You know you live in California when your 5 year old writes this, entirely on her own and unprompted in any way.

"Is it going to be an earthquake? Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes and yes."

 

The Perfect Combination

 A bowl of water + dry ice + dish soap = hours of fun!

Or leave the bubbles out. The kids are completely fascinated by the smoke too! Either way, it's a simple, inexpensive way for kids (and dads!) to have fun. :)

A Little Mega Update

Because I've been a major blog slacker lately, here is a quick rundown of what we're all up to these days.

Jon- Work, work, scouts, work, scouts, and work. He stays busy so we really enjoy the little bits of time in the evening and on the weekends that we do get to see him. He is working on Madagascar 3, which comes out next summer.

Sarah- Busy keeping up with the family, the house, and the never ending papers....seriously, why do schools feel the need to send home so many papers? And what am I supposed to do with all of Emma's assignments/art projects/homework that she just loves and can't part with???

I've also been going to Weight Watchers for the last 7 weeks to get rid of the last of my baby weight. I am PROUD to say for the first time in my life I have lost all of my pregnancy weight AND have gotten back to my pre-pregnancy size. And it feels really, really good. It feels good to be eating healthy, to have energy again, and to know that I reached the goal I set out to reach.

Emma is LOVING school. She has a really great teacher and is learning so much. She loves practicing reading and writing, loves p.e. and recess, and still loves art. Every inch of our fridge is covered with her paintings, pictures, and other art projects. She suddenly has a super busy social life, and honestly I am struggling to keep up with it! This girl has SO many play dates! Some of her best friends from school are Julian, Steven, Eric, and Kaden...yes, all boys! That's just who she plays best with. She also likes Hope, Lola, and Mayra. She and Matthew's best friend though is our neighbor, Brady. They LOVE playing with him and because they are so close and convenient they often end up playing together 3-4 times a week.

I go help out in Emma's class every other week for an hour. It has been a lot of fun so far. Last week we cleaned out a pumpkin, separating the seeds from the rest of the insides so they could count the seeds. The week before I helped them paint owls for a project they were making. Next week I am going to drive for her class field trip to a local children's museum/zoo. The kids usually come along with me, and she loves having us all there.

Matthew....oh where do I even begin with this boy??? He is on a mission to prove that he is completely independent and can and will do everything by himself. He is also out to prove that he will only do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. Jon is really good at making things fun and getting him to do what we need him to do. He has gotten him to eat ALL of his dinner 2 nights in a row now. The doctors are really concerned with his weight (he's 3 1/2 and still at 25 lbs), so we need him to gain so they'll let him be. They really want to put him on an appetite stimulant, but I told them I really wasn't comfortable with that. They're going to re-evaluate in February, so hopefully he's made some good progress by then. He also did allergy testing yesterday and it turns out he's only allergic to dust mites and grass. After talking to the immunologist yesterday at his appointment, his health issues all make sense now. This little boy has been tested for everything under the sun and everything has come back normal, except for his liver enzyme levels and his T-cell levels (but those could be abnormal from being sick). They do think he has asthma (I'm not convinced) and we know he has the allergies. The peak allergy times for grass are March-June and August-September. He ended up in the hospital in June and August....both high allergy times. So, he's just super sensitive. To avoid a repeat of this last year, they have given him a prescription for some allergy meds that he'll take during allergy season.

Other than that, he is also LOVING school still. He's making progress and will actually leave preschool without me having to go in and carry him out. Halleluiah! He loves show and tell at school, and he LOVES anything that has to do with Emma's school. She makes a lot of books at school and has learned several really fun songs. He could sit and listen to her read her stories and sing her songs all day.

And we can't forget Miss Ellie. She has started going to bed earlier....between 6 and 6:30, which is great. Some nights she'll sleep 12 hours, some nights she wakes up once to eat, and some nights she's up 4 or 5 times just needing her binky put back in. Those are really rough nights! She loves to come snuggle in our bed when she wakes up in the morning, and will usually go back to sleep for awhile after she joins us. Ellie is also a talker. I love listening to her babble.

On Sunday we went to visit Jon's family...and Ellie wouldn't let any of them hold her. Talk about a sudden and major case of stranger anxiety! She has never done this before. It was really sad, especially for Grandma! Hopefully this is just a phase and it passes really quickly!

And that is life in a nutshell for now.  :)

Can You Read It?

Emma wanted to do an art project but couldn't find the scissors. She was in tears and just really distraught over the whole situation. She ran into the playroom and came out a couple minutes later with this sign. Can you tell what it says?

"The scissors are gone forever. No scissors."  

I love how she even included the quotation marks at the end.  :) 

Emma loves writing sentences using her sight words (I like my mom and dad), etc but this is the first time she's tried to write a whole sentence by sounding it out (unless you count the "No mom alwd" sign...ha!). I love seeing her learn and stretch herself. This is really such a fun stage!

Four Months!

 Four months seems SO much older than 3 months. I don't know why, but it does. I love the stages babies go through as they get older. They just get more fun. I love seeing Ellie's personality emerge more as she grows. And the kids are having a lot of fun with her too.

At four months Ellie weighs 12 lb 15 oz and is 23 3/4" long. She is a drool machine and has to have something in her mouth at all times. A favorite is other people's fingers (eww....especially considering how fast little kids realize this! Why do they think it's so funny to have her suck on their fingers???) She also loves food. Whether or not I'm ready for solids doesn't matter, because she is READY. If we are eating or drinking something and don't share, she gets really upset. The doctor gave us the go ahead, so we've started giving her food once or twice a day. So far, she's tried rice cereal, cream of wheat, carrots, peaches, bananas, and strawberries. And jello....she's a really big fan of jello.

Despite being an amazing sleeper her first 3 months of life, Ellie has recently started waking up countless times every night. All she wants is to have her binky put back in and she's back to sleep, but it's really wearing us out to be up that much at night. I know we can let her cry it out but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. Any other suggestions?

Ellie is SO close to being able to sit on her own. She can sit alone for several seconds and can catch herself if she falls forward. It's the tipping sideways and backwards that gets her.  :)  She has absolutely no interest in rolling or being on her tummy, but LOVES sitting and standing. She also loves bouncing in her jumperoo.

Ellie can be super smiley and happy, but has also started to get scared more easily too. Anything sudden startles her and she bursts into tears. She's also started to show a little stranger anxiety.

The kids are so proud of their baby. They love to show her off and tell everybody about her. I went and helped in Emma's class today and took Ellie with me. The kids flocked to her. I don't think I've ever felt so popular in all my life.  :)  

We sure love this sweet girl!

This is how she looks most of the time....ready to eat anything that comes near her.  :)

 Her clothes always end up in her mouth.

The hands a favorite too.

New Shoes!

These are the shoes that Matthew has been wearing for the last 1 1/2 years (or more....). I LOVE Crocs for my kids. They're durable, easy to put on, and if WHEN they play in the mud I don't have to worry about them getting ruined. Turns out Matthew LOVES Crocs too....so much so that he has refused to wear anything but these shoes for the last 1 1/2 years (or more...).

It might not be such a big deal, except that he has worn holes through the fronts of the blue shoes, and after 1 1/2 years, the Cars crocs are still 2 sizes too big. I have tried and tried to get Matthew to wear real shoes. I have bought numerous pairs of shoes, I have taken him shoe shopping. And every time he refuses to even try the shoes on. He just loves his Crocs that much. I guess I only have myself to blame for that since I rarely wear anything but flip flops.  :)

This week I decided to try one last time. I was at the store and saw these super cool light up Lightning McQueen shoes. I hoped the lights and the fact that they were Cars shoes would convince him to wear them. And it worked! He instantly fell in love with them. After putting them on, he ran up and down the hall wanting us to watch how fast his new shoes made him run. And he has to show every friend, teacher, and stranger how cool his new shoes are. As for me, I am SO happy that he has finally decided to love some new shoes.  :)

And as you can probably tell, these have been well loved in their 3 short days of use.