Spongebob Birthday

 Birthdays never go by without a cake & candles (blown out & re-lit over & over) in our house. This year for his big day Joey chose to celebrate with Spongebob. After blowing out his candles he then decided he wanted his mama's chocolate cupcake instead of his cake. It's a nice way to end the year every year. Watching our boy celebrate his day & thinking about what the next year has in store for us.

The Many Faces of Joey

Joey's five. It's hard to believe because even though his older brother is already 6, Joey just seems so much younger to me. He is such a smart boy but he is by far our most challenging child. Defiant, hard-headed, not influenced by peer pressure or intimidation, funny & he still has a smile that melts our hearts. He can now write the letters of the alphabet & numbers. He's learning to read & color in preschool. During his well check he passed his hearing test & vision test. He's 42" tall & 38lbs. 30% for both. He's an outstanding athlete when he wants to be & he will be playing baseball in the spring again. He loves to make faces & here are just a few of them. 

Sad face 

mischievous face 

angry face 

& my favorite, happy face.  

Our boy is full of life & even though he's difficult at times he brightens each of our days. We love you Joey!

Boarding

Johnnie started asking for a skateboard sometime right after his birthday but we told him that he would have to ask Santa for that because his parents are just not that cool. So he began writing letters to Santa weekly & drawing photos of himself on a skateboard that we would find all over the house. After months of this he was very excited on Christmas morning when the last gift opened under the Christmas tree was a board for him to learn to ride on along with elbow & knee pads. So right after breakfast we headed outside to learn how to ride. Before he really tried to ride he had me take a photo of him standing on the board to show me what he would look like once he learned to ride. And then he stepped on to really try. After a few minutes he got the hang of it & didn't look half bad. I'm sure there will be bumps & bruises along the way but watching him learn to do something he really wants is worth it.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is always exciting but now that I have children it means so much more to me. Seeing their faces when they come down the stairs to find the tree lit up with presents all around is something that I will never forget.  

And this year was the first year that Holly was able to join in on the fun. Santa Claus brought all the gifts the kids asked for. We follow the same tradition for Santa that a lot of our friends do. Something you WANT, NEED, WEAR & READ.  Johnnie was very specific for his WANT request. He had to have Patriots gear so he was given a 

tee shirt & a beanie.  

Joey stuck with his love for Spiderman when requesting his WANT. Sheets so as he put it he could be with Spidey even while sleeping. Jimmy also WANTED Spiderman stuff so he received a tee shirt & some Uggs since he is constantly wearing his mama's. And well Holly got a little help with her requests but the one thing she does ask for all day are books, books, books so Santa didn't disappoint. And just as expected she wanted to read them as soon as she unwrapped them. There were family gifts, family hugs & of course family photos. It was a wonderful Christmas morning & I feel very lucky that we are able to be so generous with our kids & hope they truly appreciate how lucky we are to be together with family on this special day. 

Cookie Time

Just like every year we made Christmas cookies for Santa Claus. But over the last few months my boys have decided that they are tired of my camera so on this night I let them enjoy the cookie decorating & eating & focused my camera on Holly since it was her 1st time participating. She enjoyed decorating them but she loved eating her goodies even more. First she tasted the icing & once she did that the excitement on her face showed how much she loved the cookie.

Photo Time

Every Thanksgiving my family comes over to celebrate the day at our house. So I always take the opportunity to try & capture photos of the family. Easier said than done when it comes to getting 4 kids to look forward. Whether or not I capture them smiling I'm always happy to have new photos of the kids & the adults. Here are some of the photos. This year there are lots of photos of me instead of Rick because my dad gave us a scare & had to visit the hospital (all was fine) but Rick took him so he wasn't around for the photos. Don't want to share too many since they are in our Christmas card. As always it was a wonderful day & the pictures will be a nice way to remind me of the day. Even the one of them ignoring my attempts at taking their picture.

15 Months

Hard to believe & yet it's true. Our baby girl is now 15 months old. 

19lbs 8oz (5%) & 30.5" (18%) long. She is no longer nursing, she loves drinking from cups with or without straws, she is very quickly becoming a daddy's girl & she is happily  communicating with us even if she only knows a few words. Mama, dada, cat, wawa, dat (what's that?) no, uh-oh, muhr (I want) & bampa(grandpa). She knows what we are asking her to do when we talk to her. She loves to help empty the dishwasher & waits for you to say thank you after she hands you EVERY.SINGLE.UTENSIL. She loves to wrestle & get dirty with her brothers in the backyard. She absolutely loves music & dancing. Every time she gets my phone she puts Gangnam Style on & starts dancing. It's really cute. She is such a fun little girl & loves to give us the serious face when she sees my camera but with enough time I always capture her beautiful smile.
 

Baby It's Cold Outside

For months it has been RIDICULOUSLY warm here but then just yesterday it was suddenly cold. Runny noses, sniffles inducing cold.  It was a high of 63 degrees. Anywhere else in the country this would be warm fall weather but for us here in southern California it's the break out the jackets & hats, the hot chocolate & warm coat weather. Well we did just that so the kids could play outside. The runny noses still came as well as the cold fingers & complaints of being cold but they did have fun staying in their warm pjs most of the day & my uggs were being used by all the children. Daddy loves this weather & took advantage of the beautiful sunny day to play golf. I love not being HOT this time of year but I'm pretty sure the kids are already hoping for the warm weather to come back. Especially Joey who still insisted on wearing shorts & a tee shirt.

 

May the Force Be With You

This Halloween we decided to dress up as the characters from Star Wars.The boys absolutely love the movies & a good friend of ours had a Yoda costume that Holly could borrow so it was an easy decision to make. So Halloween night came & with great anticipation we all got dressed to go trick or treating. First we gathered together for a family photo with & without the masks.

 

We also took a photo of the kids with Auntie Kayci & Auntie Kim's boyfriend Joe who came dressed to help with the kids.

Jimmy was very scared of Kayci's costume & each time he saw her face with the skeleton make up he would say "Kayci scary." And Christian's eyes kept the boys wondering all night. We heard "Where did Christian's eyes go?" basically every 5 minutes as we went from house to house. Even Holly was scared of the face. She is always our smiley baby but she  spent the evening making very serious faces almost as though she knew she was in costume.We made it around 1 block before our boys said they were bored & wanted to go home & eat candy. The boys were willing to take a few more photos but then they only wanted to dig through the candy to choose which pieces to eat.

 

Yoda was more willing to be in photos but still without her smile. With her mama, her grandpa & her daddy while she enjoyed a lollipop that we could not tear away from her.

It was a great Halloween & Darth Vader & I will never forget it. We know there will soon come a day when our kids will definitely not want to spend Halloween with us so for now we take advantage & dress up together..