3/26/2012

Well, it finally happened.  I caved!  We are now the proud owners of a White Lab Mix.  Other than his barking at night in his cage he really isn't to bad of a dog.  He does his business outside no problem, which is huge in my book!  He also lets Jacob pull his hair and just sits there and takes it.  Just wish could get the barking in the crate under control.   That is so annoying!!!  In fact he is doing it right now downstairs.  Augh!!  The kids really love him though.  They have finally decided on a name for him.  His name is Chewy (short for Chewbacca).  Of coarse that was Preston's idea.  It took some convincing from Preston to get Emily on board with the name.  She wanted to name him Jack Jack, then she wanted Buddy, then she wanted Budha.  But, Preston was able to convince her Chewy was the best name in the end.  So, Chewy it is - well at least until they change it again. 

Preston was so goofy when we got home today, while I was getting everyone out of the car he hopped into the drivers seat and told me he was going to "Take this baby for a spin".  I have no idea where in the world he learned that - I have never once ever said that.  Crazy kid.  Emily feels like the popular kid in school now that her party is coming up.  That is all I ever hear her talking about with her friends at school.  "I am having a party at my house".  Just hope I can live up to all her hype!  No pressure though.  Can't wait for her acutal Birthday though - I am going to stay up and blow up tons of balloons and put them in her floor for her to wake up with a balloon covered floor on her actual birthday.  I think she will be so excited about it.  No walking from Jacob yet.  But he is standing up a lot.  Still holding onto stuff to stand, so he just isn't ready to start walking yet.  And that is ok with me.  He can stay my baby for as long as he wants to.  He does try to be big too though.  He will come and stand at the coffee table when Preston and Emily are playing a game on it.   He wants to play too, they are usually so sweet to him about it too.  They both wrote him some birthday cards today.  I was listening to them while they were drawing them.  They both were talking about how they love him so much and how he is the best baby brother.  It was really cute.  Ok, better do something about the dog before he wakes up the kids.  Will post again soon.

Corrected Emily Invite

Ok, here is the corrected invite with the correct year!

Emily's 4th Birthday Invite

Had to make sure it was done by tonight so can get printed in the AM for it to be passed out to all the little girls in her class.  So tired now - going to bed!

Ok, so obviously I was tired - I don't even have the year right!!  The year is 2012!! 

3/19/2012

Has been a busy week.  Picked up my mom and Brandon at the airport on Tuesday.  Wednesday we prepped (more my mom - I had to work most of the day), for Jacob's party the next day.  Thursday we had Jacob's party.   I think he had a good time, except for the presents time.  He was so tired by that time that he was just upset over everything.  But he did like the presents he played with them all the next morning.  Friday took the boys (Preston and Brandon) to a pottery kids night out.  They had a good time.  They got to have a pizza party there and got to paint a plate with bubbles.  Preston had a good time - he talked a lot about it when we picked them up, Brandon didn't talk about it to much, so I wasn't sure if he had fun or not.  While the boys were at the pottery place, my mom and I took Emily to have a birthday dinner with just the girls.  Dean and Jacob had a night out together at home.  Took Emily to her fav place - Chili's!  (She gives the food thumbs up!)  She had a good time, we went to a different one than the one I took her to before, so the service was a bit slower and not as attentive, but she still had a good time.  On the way home I stopped and rented a movie for the kids to watch for movie night.  Rented Tales of Devereaux (some mouse movie).  Emily liked it a lot.  The boys kept trying to sneak and play video games in Preston's room.  I had Dean take away the remotes, so they had no choice, they had to be social with Emily.  My mom and I watched The Help - great movie by the way - and Dean watched some movie he rented earlier in the day. Can't even remember the name of it, just know I wasn't interested in watching it.  Then on Saturday we drove to Columbia, SC and went to the zoo there.  A lot of people here have said it was worth the drive.  It was ok.  If you don't know any better.  The Dallas Zoo with all their recent updates was much better.  The only cool thing about this place in comparison to The Dallas Zoo was that the animals are a lot closer.  Their enclosures aren't as big, so they don't have as much place to hide as they do in The Dallas Zoo, so we were able to see most of the animals from fairly close by.  Emily got really tired when we were ready to go - as you can see from the pic above she is away from everyone else.  She was just so cranky by then and didn't want anything to do with anyone at that point.  It was a chore just getting her in the picture!  When we got back home we had a small birthday party for Emily.  Basically, it was just singing happy Birthday to her and slicing up a cake my mom had made for her.  The next day Dean had to leave early in the AM for training and I had to take my mom back to the Atlanta Airport for her flight.   After dropping off my mom took the kids to McDonald's for lunch.  They of coarse loved it.  Jacob was a little leary of the food there, but once he tried the nuggets and fries he liked them.  The rest of Sunday we spent pretty much being lazy around the house since we were all really tired.

3/15/2012

No pics today, need to post since haven't posted in a while, but don't have a whole lot of time today, so will be a quick post.  Preston has his first dance last week.  Called a sock hop.  He had a good time, but he only danced for about 2 minutes tops.  The rest of the time he spent in the cafeteria chatting and eating.  Picked up my mom from the airport on Tuesday.  She goes back on Sunday.  Emily loves having her here.  Caught Emily cuddling my mom on her bed this morning.  It was really cute.  Jacob's birthday party got moved today (no big deal since only my mom is he non immediate family guest coming).  But that has made these past few days so event filled.  My mom and I are doing the cupcakes / cake ourselves, and has been a lot of prep work involved.  I honestly could not do this for a living.  To much time involved!  But, hopefully everything will turn out ok.  Will post pics later.  It is a Sesame Street theme as you could probably tell from the invite.  Jacob loves Sesame Street, esp Elmo and Cookie Monster.  He isn't walking yet, but has started to crawl correctly now.  He is also picking himself up to standing like a pro!  He is so proud of himself when he does it too, such a huge smile on his face.  Too cute!  Ok, have to get back to work and back to getting ready for the party.  Will prob post again on Sunday.

3/7/2012

Has been a while since my last post.  Jacob is now able to pull himself up on his own, she still crashes and burns a lot, but is able to do it.  He tries to stand up now everytime I put him down instead of just automatically go to the sitting position.  Got Jacob's invite done - it is attached to this post.  Took a long time since had to go through all my pictures of him, but I am proud of how it turned out.  Preston told us yesterday at the dinner table that he had a secret.  He said he was only going to tell Jacob.  So, he whispered his secret to Jacob, and asked Jacob not to tell.  I asked Preston if he could share his secret with me.  He said Ok, Jacob can tell you.  I gave it a few mins, then told Preston that Jacob doesn't feel right about sharing Preston's secret that it isn't his secret to tell.  So, Preston said he would tell me.  He came over to my chair and whispered in my ear - "I have a girlfriend."  I asked him who - he said "Alysia."  When I picked him up from school today I asked him if he could show me Alysia - he said she has already gone home.  Last night was the best night going to sleep since Emily stopped going to bed by herself when she was 2.  She went to bed on her own and fell asleep on her own.  It was a nice reprieve from the usual "I'm Scared" that I usually get.  Hopefully it was not just a fluke but is actually the start of a new routine.  I told her how proud mommy and daddy were of her - so hopefully that will help too.  Took Emily to Chilis tonight.  Her new favorite place.  Me and her put on some hand sanitizer and some lotion from bath and body works on in the car before we went in.  She told the hostess that she had lotion.  The hostess said that was nice.  Emily made her smell her hand, it was funny.  During dinner Emily gave everything a thumbs up.  She really had a good time, it was cute.  I wasn't sure if she was going to like it since she usually just likes buffets, but she liked it!  It was my way of letting her down easy that we weren't going to have her birthday at Disney.  I told her she will still get to see all the princess' and become a princess too, just will have to be after her birthday instead of for her birthday.  She asked why, I told her - so that daddy can hopefully be there too.  There is still a chance that he won't be able to come even in June, but a 50% chance is better than a 0% chance - which is what it would be if we kept the original April dates.  I think she will be ok though.   She goes to school so has made some friends, so I can probably do a princess party for her.  Time to do some research!!