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Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Turkey Day!




Wow! So much to be thankful for this year! All those smiles from the other day are just the beginning! I am so thankful to have such a wonderful family! Not only my wonderful husband and beautiful children, but our extended family as well. We sure missed all of them this Thanksgiving. It was just the 5 of us, but we didn't skimp on the trimmings! So thankful for all that we have.

This was only the second time I've made a turkey, but it turned out nice and juicy! Yummo! We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole and we still have pumpkin and apple pie to devour! My poor hubby is a bit under the weather, so pretty much today was a jammie day for the kiddos. I did get Princess J dressed later in the day to play with the camera a little. She's a wild little diva, so she definatley gave me a run!
It's a tough balance to get Princess J to look at the camera, get it to focus, get the white balance right, get the focus right and everything else we learned at Krista's workshop. It was fun playing around though! Maybe tomorrow after a little early morning Black Friday fun, I'll play some more in the afternoon!
We hope you all had a beautiful and happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

{Smiles and Frowns}

So I picked up this idea from Krista quite awhile ago and thought it was a cute idea. I never implemented it, but I think now is a good time to do it! There is quite a bit going on around here....some good and some....not so good....

Smiles:
The care and concern that Princess J is showing for both her big brother and her little brother. Today, she wanted to play ball with both of them. She actively tried to engage Little J in a game of catch...Little J is good at catching, but not so good at throwing and then wanted to include Baby J....needless to say, the ball just whacked him in the head (it was a very soft ball..so no injury occured). She was very sad when I told her that Baby J was just too little to play ball with. Then tonight, she was laying in bed with me while I was feeding Baby J and she wanted to help hold the bottle while he ate.

Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Theraputics (FAST). All the work that they are doing to find a cure and treatments for AS! A Gala is being held to raise money for all the great work they are doing!


Grocery deliver by Safeway...1 hour early too!

Excited to pick up and borrow a new lens to try out on my camera! I see a little photo shoot with the kiddos in the VERY near future!

Gingerbread Lattes and Carmel Brulee Lattes!

Got a nice "tweet" from Jacqueline Laurita. I know I'm such a dork, but it's my brush with reality TV and she seems so sweet and genuine. :D

A few minutes in the day to read a good book!

Frowns:

Not enough hours in the day!

Trying to find time to pack up the scrap room to move it...not successful.

Missing my creative time with paper, scissors and glue.

Little J's teacher has been sick and was briefly in the hospital.

A couple of people I've been praying for have passed away in the last week.I didn't know either of them, but their stories and their courageous battles touched my heart. One was a young boy with a rare disease and the other a young mother of 2 young boys who battled Leukemia. Sending continued prayers to their families for comfort and peace. Hug your families tight and make sure you tell them you love them as often as you can!

Little J's continuous mischeiviousness is making life a little difficult lately. He doesn't understand danger and has no fear, so this mama is a little on edge lately.

That we are not able to attend the event in Chicago in December by FAST to raise money and awareness for Angelman Syndrome and research to find a CURE!

----------------------------------The next blog entry will have photos....I Promise!-----------


Sunday, November 22, 2009

{Crazy Random}

See....I told you I was back!



This week has been crazy busy, with tons of appointments! Thankfully, we made it through without too much trouble.

Monday was the craziest of all! Little J had his clinic appointment with CCS, Little J had to go to school, Princess J had her speech appointment and then we were off to meet with the school district. Craziness that all those appointments and running around occured btween 8:30am and 10:45am!

Tuesday Princess J had a hearing test appointment. Originally she was supposed to go on July 30th, but Baby J made his appearance on the 29th, soooo needless to say we didn't make it. Everything went fine with her hearing test except that she didn't want to put anything on her head or in her ears! Talk about DRAMA! This girl can scream and throw and tantrum with the best of them. They got enough information to say that hearing does not appear to be affecting her ability for expressive speech, so that's a good thing. I think it's good old fashioned stubborness at play....wonder where she gets that from? She'll return in 6mos for a follow up visit to try and get more detailed information on each ear, but for now all is good.

Wednesday, we heard that Little J's teacher was in the hospital with pneumonia! We've since heard that he's at home recovering now, but keep him in your prayers! He is such a great teacher and so genuinely concerned for his students. They've all been in and out sick over the last month...including Little J, so it's definately going around and this cold/flu season is starting out with a bang! My pet peeve has always been that some parents send their kids to school knowing they are sick! Often times I know it's a daycare issue, but please!

Saturday, I was so lucky to take a photography workshop by Krista! You can see the photo shoot she did for us this summer here! She is an awesome photographer and friend! She gave us tons of information and I'm actually beginning to understand a little bit about how to get the photos I want! It's going to take some practice and a different lens than what I have......insert Christmas wish here....LOL! I'm actually going to borrow the lens I think I want and test it out a little bit and see what I can come up with before I put it on the official wish list. My goal is to become a better photographer so I can capture all those moments with my littles.....time is going by so quickly and I don't want to forget a minute of it! I'm looking forward to her future workshops! Need to get a better understanding of photoshop as well....to fix all my bloopers! LOL! For now, I think Krista gave me just enough information to work my brain for a little while and give me something to play around with....just in time to try and get photos of the kiddos for our Christmas card! Hopefully, with Josh out of school for the week I'll be able to find some time to play around with the kiddos and the camera.....

So much to do and not enough time to do it! G got the Christmas lights up outside and they are just about ready to go for Thursday. Still gotta get the tree up and the Christmas dishes out too! I love Christmas and all the fun, but it's a lot of work! I liked it better when I wasn't the adult who had to do it! LOL! G is better at getting it done than I, but I'm going to be better this year! LOL! I also need to pack up my scraproom and move it! Oy! I need to make a dent in it this week! Otherwise Baby J may be 18 before he gets his own room! We're moving my scraproom downstairs again, Princess J is moving to my scraproom and Baby J is taking her room.

So much random rambling! If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me and thanks for coming back after my hiatus! <3

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Let's Start Over....Please?


This poor blog has been overly neglected this year. First it was neglected, because sleep seemed to be the most important thing while Little Peanut was in control of my body. Now that he's here, it's been neglected while we try to get used to being outnumbered by the littles in the house, overcome illness' (nothing serious) and keep our daily routine going. I love this blog and really want to get back to it, but I think I was over pressuring myself to have pictures everytime and really have something overwhelmingly wonderful to say.....




Let's catch up, shall we?


Little J- He's been a bit of a challenge lately, but overall is doing amazingly well. He's settled into his kindergarten class and seems to really love it and love his teacher and the aide that primarily works with him. He's making lots of friends and we're so thankful that he's got another "angel" buddy at school with him! He's still not a functional walker, but he's walking further and further independently all the time....so it's a matter of time! He's also discovering things that I had hoped would remain a secret or of non-interest for years to come....I'll leave it at that.
Princess J- She is still the sassy little diva she's always been. She is such a riot to be around! This is the first year she really "got" Halloween and she had a blast! Sadly, Josh was sick, so Halloween wasn't everything we had planned, but she had a great time. She can't say "Trick or Treat" yet, so when we took her door to door, we had her say "BOO!" when anyone opened the door. She thinks she was scary! She still runs around the house screaming "BOO!" to scare us! It's too funny!

Little Peanut-Is going to be a linebacker! He was born the smallest, yet he is growing the fastest! He is my little super chub! Currently he likes sleeping in a seated position....so thank goodness for baby swings and bouncy chairs, otherwise this family would be awake 24/7! He has (knock on wood) stayed healthy while Little J and Princess J have battled some colds and Little J a flu of some sort that is going around his classroom.

Everyone here has thankfully had an easy time getting our seasonal flu vaccines and our H1N1 vaccine. Little Peanut is too young to vaccinate, so it was important we all got the shots to do our best to protect him from what I fear is going to be a very crazy winter for colds and flus.


I will do my best to play catch up from past photos, but am not making any promises. I'm going to try and start fresh here and try to give you lots of photo love going forward!

The photo above is just before my parents left to go home. Little Peanut is only 1 month old and I just love the smile on Little J's face! My poor Little Diva was not happy about being contained for a photo opportunity....