Thursday, January 29, 2009

another funny story...

every night since sarah was a little baby, i have sung (sang?--that is one of those verb tense tricky ones!) "i love you Lord" to each of my babies>infants>toddlers. i don't really know why that particular song became the last one i sung/sang every night, but no matter what other songs i sing first, i always end with that one.

at various times over the years, sarah and drew have either listened or sung/sang along. depending on their mood, degree of sleepiness, age, etc.

well, drew is in a "singing stage" right now. and he is CRACKING me up. i leave his room laughing every night.

you know at the end of the song when it goes, "take joy my King, in what you hear..."

for some reason, drew thinks the words are, "take joy movies, in what you hear..."

it is too too precious to hear. i have been trying to figure out a way to record it without getting too much of my voice and without him knowing i'm doing it...you know, 'cause he's a stinker and totally wouldn't sing it if he knew i was really listening :)

just a sweet memory that i don't want to forget...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

jacob and sissy...1.18







somebody loves her new little brother A LOT!
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both of the kiddos LOVE to hold jacob. and sweet little drew still sings to him every time he holds him--just like he did in the hospital! the other night, the kids were loving on jacob and making him smile SO big! i think he smiles bigger for sarah and drew than he does for me :) of course, we had to grab the camera to capture jacob's big ole smiles.
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and although blogger officially hates me and won't post ANY of my pics in the order i want lately, the pic of jacob asleep in the swing was right after all the sweet smiles. he was tuckered out.
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btw, the cute little monkey (a gift from aunt jodie and the j's) is jacob's constant companion in the swing. before the monkey, he wanted nothing to do with the swing and NEVER fell asleep in there. NOW, with the monkey, we have a happy little guy who frequently catnaps in the swing...often times at dinner time which is a HUGE blessing! thanks so much 4 j's!!!
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neither sarah nor drew liked lovies as babies. jacob is a different story. he LOVES to have a blankie or monkey(!) next to his face while he is sleeping!
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one of my friends with 5 kids said that the more kids you have, the more the recessive genes come out of the gene pool!!!
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sarah and drew were short and fat for the first 2 years...jacob is long and lean...
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sarah and drew had brown eyes pretty much from the get-go...jacob's eyes are still blue at 3 months...
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sarah and drew look so much alike, they would never be mistaken for NOT being siblings...jacob doesn't look that much like them...
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i don't know if my friend's theory is scientific or not, but it seems to be proving true in our little family!!!
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okay, i got WAY far off on that tangent :)
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bottom line, the big kids LOVE their sweet little brother!!!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Monday, January 26, 2009

we love uncle andy!!!...12.22 (found these on my old camera!)





the kids were SO SO happy when uncle andy was in town. i think andy had a sarah sized impression in his lap! she was on him like white on rice THE. WHOLE. TIME. he was in town! it was so fun to watch my kiddos bonding with their uncle!!!




Saturday, January 24, 2009

too funny!!!

scene: sitting at the dinner table. sarah, drew, mommy, and daddy (jacob was asleep...go figure)

we are discussing how the kids need to eat FIVE more bites of salad before they can have a chip.

out of nowhere...sarah says, "mommy, when you hear your eardrum sends a message to your brain".

HUH? she MUST be a genius :)

(actually, they studied the 5 senses at school this week!)

then, as tim and i are so flabbergasted at the turn in the conversation and laughing so hard, sarah keeps talking...

sarah says, "mommy, pop pop can't hear me when i talk to him...i think he has a broken eardrum!"

ha ha ha!!! what a little smarty pants, huh?!?

thank you preschool for teaching my little girl so much!!!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

current events...

first of all, i am COMPLETELY caught up on blogging...savor the moment because it has only happened once or twice before! and i'm sure i'll be behind again before you know it :)

i thought since i was caught up on pics, i'd take a second to write about what each kid is doing...you know, since this is basically all 3 of their baby/toddler/childhood memory books combined!!!

SARAH:

~she is SUCH a busy body! she has to know what everyone is doing ALL the time!

exhibit #1: saturday afternoon, she woke up from her nap before tim, kelly, drew, or jacob woke up...she answers the phone (a BIG no-no!) and tells mimi and poppy that everyone is alseep, and mommy is asleep IN THE CAR!!! so, mimi and poppy get concerned, because they think i am really in the car--you know, carbon monoxide poisoning!! sweet poppy drove over here to make sure i was okay! of course, i was asleep upstairs in sarah's room and she just didn't know where i was!!! i felt so bad for my parents...but i was SO thankful that they checked...JUST IN CASE :)

exhibit #2: sunday, jacob was asleep. sarah came to us and asked, "where's jacob?". when we said he was sleeping, she RAN into our bedroom and looked in jacob's bassinet. she RAN back to us and said, "jacob is NOT in his bed...where is he?". he was safely sleeping in his actual room, in his actual bed. granted, that doesn't happen all that often, BUT she was frantic because she didn't have the 411 on EVERYONE in our house!!!

~she just had her evaluation by her 4 year old teachers to discuss her progress in school and whether she should go to kindergarten or the 5 transitional class. she got all "+" signs! her teachers said she was ALWAYS happy, VERY social, and VERY smart!!! she WILL be going to the 5T class because of her birthday falling 2 days before the cut-off. i would rather her be one of the oldest in her grade instead of the youngest!!! her teachers agreed that it just wasn't fair to send her to kindergarten before she turned 5! of course we want to give her every advantage in life...

~as i've said before, she is NEVER quiet and NEVER still...she is always singing and dancing around! most of the time its fine, sometimes it really really really gets on my nerves!!!

~she is very sensitive to/aware of others' feelings. her little friend courtney is moving to ohio after this school year. she has repeatedly told me and her teachers that courtney is moving, and courtney will be sad, but it will be okay because courtney will make new friends at her new school!!!

~her new year's resolution (unbeknownst to her!) was to stop wearing a pull-up at bedtime. i have to say, this was really just laziness on my part! i didn't want to have to change wet sheets in the middle of the night! but, she has only had 1 accident since january 1st! i'm very proud of her!!!


DREW:

~he still thinks he's just as old as sarah!!! he THINKS he is sounding out words, just like sarah! if i can't understand what he is saying, and ask him to repeat himself, he will say, "duh-duh-duh-popcorn"...you know, like he is saying the beginning sound of popcorn :) too cute!!!

~his new year's resolution (also unbeknownst to him!) was to start wearing big boy undies all the time except nap/bedtime. we have been toying around with potty training for a long time...again, laziness/new baby-ness kept us from going full force. so, starting january 1st, NO MORE DIAPERS/PULL-UPS!!! he has done really really well! he's only had a few #1 accidents...usually when he's at school or sunday school...too busy to potty! and the first couple of days he totally did NOT grasp the concept of doing #2 in the potty...now he's a #2 machine! i think getting FIVE WHOLE skittles when he does #2 in the potty has something to do with that :) so, we quickly went back to only having one child in diapers...hip hip hooray!!!

~he has acquired quite the collection of boy dress-up clothes, but still prefers to wear a combo of girlie dress-up clothes! he is usually sporting a princess dress, sunglasses, bunny ears, and wielding a hockey stick or leaf blower when left to his own devices...what a mess!!!

~he is getting much better at "sitting still" activities. he loves to have a book read to him, he loves to put together puzzles, and he will sit quietly and play with his trains or cars for a good chunk of time (in toddler time!). its nice that he isn't a tornado of energy at all times anymore :)

~he is slowly moving into his role as middle child...he was NOT happy for a while that jacob was stealing some of his attention. but, now he seems to be adjusting...his behavior has definitely improved since the new year. he is usually really loving with jacob. and talks in the highest voice possible to him...i guess he is trying to mimic my "baby talk" voice...

~he is really trying to grasp numbers...he can count to 10+, but doesn't understand "more" and "less". he and sarah had the longest argument the other day because sarah said they wanted "10 candies" and drew kept saying, "NO! i want 4 candies!" and he totally thought he was asking for more. drew's number requests are often accompanied by him holding up a different number of fingers than what he is saying too. so funny!!!


JACOB:

~he is growing up TOO TOO fast! i can't stand it! he is already learning to put himself to sleep...or he would be except i WANT to rock him because i figure he's my last little one to rock!

~he is SO SO long! he has outgrown all 0-3 month clothes and is too long for his bassinet already!
~he LOVES to stick out his tongue. and will do so if you stick out your tongue at him!!!

~he is always moving his arms and legs...like, "hey...i can control these things!" so funny to watch. but SO glad he is out of that whole stuck-in-fetal-position-thing that makes dressing and diaper changes impossible!

~he thinks he can "talk" and will carry on "conversations" with us. complete with precious facial expressions!!!

~oh, and he just realized he can "stand"! oh...that makes me so sad! he looks too grown up locking his knees and trying to be in the standing position all the time!

~just in the past couple of days, he has noticed his hands. i LOVE it when newborns find their hands. its so funny when their hand happens to pass through their vision field and they always get this expression like, "hey...what is that?!?" and the same thing happens again 2 minutes later :)



well, i ended up working on this blog for several days...too much to write in one sitting :) so, i broke my streak of blogging every day. i have taken some more pics since i started this post...so i will get those up asap! thanks for reading!!!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Saturday, January 17, 2009

kate's 2nd birthday party...1.3










all 5 of us went to kate's 2nd birthday party the first saturday of the year. the party was candyland themed...and deana went ALL out! the kids decorated gingerbread cookies, made gingerbread men with stickers, listened to the candyland story and tasted all the different candies, ate a delicious candyland board cake, etc etc etc!!! it was a precious party! the kids had so much fun! by the way, the sweet old lady holding jacob is kate's great grandmother...she held sarah when she was a baby at anna's 1st birthday party 4 years ago!!! i have pictures of that somewhere :) what a fun day!

Friday, January 16, 2009

rockin' new year's eve...12.31














this year, for the 2nd year in a row, we went to the york's house for new year's eve. we added the higginbotham family to the mix this year...meaning we had 6 adults and 7 kids!!! what a crazy night! actually, it was pretty calm for the most part. the kids happily played upstairs for most of the night without incident...well, except for the lipstick on the carpet :) everyone had a great time! after the kiddos went to bed, we played the new game i got for christmas...it was hilarious! i'm surprised we didn't wake up the kids with our antics!!! happy new year!!!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

visiting with friends from long ago...12.29 and 12.31

kelly, regan, colleen, elizabeth (ej), dianna, and amber
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on monday night the 29th, amber hosted dinner at her beautiful home for a group of girls that i have been friends with since early high school. we all have kept in touch for almost 13 years now by email and try to get together at least once a year when everyone comes "home" to germantown. sadly, we remembered to take a picture after laura and christy had left :( there are 16 girls total who are a part of this group...we live in tennessee, texas, mississippi, alabama, louisiana, and missouri so we don't ALL get together very often. and i think we have 14 husbands, 27 kids, and 2 more babies on the way!!!
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ej with walker, lucy, dianna with brady, grace, kelly with jacob, sarah, and drew...this was one of the hardest pictures to take that i have ever been a part of!!!


on friday morning, dec 31st, those who could came to my house for a playdate! tim and dianna's husband, josh were there as well as the mommies! it was mass chaos! the kids had lots of fun playing together and terrorizing each other! everyone was wiped out after playing so hard! it was so great to get to see "the next generation" playing!!!