Happy Birthday Lily!

My youngest is now three years old. It just blows my mind how fast she is growing. I wanted my children to get a little older before we have babies #3 and 4. Jason and I wanted it this way to help save our sanity....I just don't know that that plan is going to work!

Miss Jane loves Dora, Barbie, Tinker Bell, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, playing with our neighbor David, playing with Chloe, trying to do Chloe's homework, going to "pretty school", swimming lessons, dress-up, going to see the two Nanas, and wearing pink. She will put on a different outfit 3 times a day if I let her...and they all have to be pink. She will have a melt down if she can't wear pink pants. So every few weeks I go to Target just to pick up a pair of their toddler $4.00 comfy pants in some kind of pink pattern. She has a ton of other clothes but it's like pulling teeth to get her to wear them! What can I say? I'm glad she's a kid that knows what she wants!
Chloe and Lily are very different. My friend Carolyn commented on this as we were taking a walk one day. We were watching them run ahead of us and she pointed out how Chloe runs with a purpose and determination, knowing exactly where she wants to go, pumping her arms and gritting her teeth. Lily runs while looking around at anything and everthing, her arms swinging casually, and her feet kicking her butt. She often runs into things because she is looking behind her and not at where her feet are taking her. (please see the Calamity Jane post for questions on this)!

Lily can have fun in any situation but often wants me to hold her hand. She'll go and do things independantly and then makes a bee-line for Mommy as soon as she's done. Maybe this is why she stayed in the womb two full weeks longer than her sister.!?... She loves to sit on my lap and cradle my face with her two little hands. She tries to "mommy" me...it's really very sweet! She also gives the greatest hugs!

She's my peanut, a total light weight. She found a pair of shorts that are size 6-9 months at Nana's house a few weeks ago and they still fit! They are pink so she has decided that she really likes them a lot and need to be part of her winter wardrobe!

She knows how to get into trouble and also likes to point out when others are getting into trouble. I know that I use middle names when I get mad. This realization came to me when I heard her say, "No Daddy Jane"!

She is such a sweetheart and has brought so much joy into our lives. Here are a few of my favorite Lily pics:

This is about 12 days before the day she was born.

Her first Halloween. Only 11 days old!

Three weeks old!

Three months old!

11 monthssame 1 year old!Eighteen Months!

Two!

Practically 3!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEANUT! We love you!

Vegas, Here We Come!

We just found out today that we will be moving to sunny Las Vegas, Nevada in April! I'm excited to know where we will be going. In all honesty, I'm scared to death to move that far away from my family. --Seriously, I'm a home body. Buffalo is the farthest I've ever been away from home. (Pretty sad, I know)! I detest the 45 minutes it takes us to get to Jason's parents. And I really hate the hour 1/2 it takes to get to my parents'. Now, I'm gonna be on the other side of the country! And I thought I'd like to move to Germany! HA!
Oh well. I guess I have to cut the umbilical cord sometime. I'm 30 years old....I guess now is as good a time as any! I've been ignoring the fact that this was going to happen. Secretly hoping that the Air Force would send us back to Rochester. Sad, I know...Reality is sinking in. We're moving whether I want to or not. So, these are my wishes for when we move out West:
1. I better get to go to hike or horseback the Grand Canyon.
2. We'd better have a boy to help balance the estrogen level in our home. (no, I'm not pregnant yet)!
3. I want to go see General Conference in person. (And visit friends in Utah)!
4. I want to visit our family and friends in Oregon.
5. I want a pool and central air.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

You never know what you're going to get during a sacrament meeting, despite all of the direction we've been given on how to bare a proper testimony from the leaders in the church. During sacrament meeting this past Sunday a woman got up and started chastising the congregation for not doing enough. The point she was trying to make was that our Bishop does so much for us regardless of what his needs are....he puts us first. But she was hitting the podium with her hands and her shoe as she made each point. It was kind of like watching an evangelical pastor get riled up during a sermon. Lily got a little scared and buried her head in my chest. After this went on for quite some time, the bishop got up and whispered something to her, she changed her tone and finally wrapped things up. This part I did not hear because I had to take Lily to the bathroom. As we were coming back into the chapel a friend who was seated close to us was walking out and smiling. She proceeds to tell me that Chloe made a comment about that "testimony". In her not so quiet little voice she turned to Jason and said, "Well that wasn't very nice"!

Happy Birthday Chloe!

Chloe Mae

7 days old.

4 months old

7 months old

9 months old One year old
2 years old
3 years old 4 years old
5 years old

My oldest child is now 5 years old! She is in kindergarten and loves it. She can swim the width of the pool without any help. (she'll actually swim for hours at a time if I'd let her)! She is a socialite and makes friends everywhere she goes. Everyone knows her name-she may or may not know theirs. She is fun, emotional, dramatic, sensitive, loving, and eager. She is currently worried about fire safety. Last night she made Daddy check the batteries on our smoke detector. She really wants to take her gee-gee with her if there's ever a fire in our home. She does not like to be anywhere by herself...a trait I think she inherited from me. I would scream if I realized I was all by myself because I was completely afraid of monsters and knew they were around somewhere. She is currently having the same terrors. She loves to sing and can remember any tune. The other day we were driving in Daddy's car and she said, "Hey Dad, how about some tunes?!! How about the one that goes.........................................................oh wait.............................................................okay I got it.....DA da da Da da, Da da da DA Da DAA DAAA DAA Da, Da Da." She correctly sang Tears For Fears, "Head Over Heals." Both Jason and I were blown away. I guess singing lessons or piano lessons are just around the corner!

She is a perfectionist. She's learing how to correctly write all the letters right now and she loves to erase her letters and start all over if they aren't quite right. Most nights when doing homework we have to break out the vacuum to suck up all the erasor turds.

She is very determined to get things right. She gets frustrated if it doesn't work right the first time. And she likes to win. She cries if she doesn't win. Also a trait she inherited from me. I think I only got over that when I became a mom. I just figured out how to win and stuck with that. I'm sure she will be the same way. Just not with gymnastics....probably with swimming.

We love our firstborn with all our hearts. There has never been a dull moment starting when she shot out of the womb so fast that the doc barely caught her. She then proceeded to grab the suction bulb away from the nurses that were trying to clean her up. To this day she still enters a room with a presence. It's like okay, I'm here, life can happen now. She just walks right into any situation with her little hips swaying back and forth, hands on her hips. Most of the time a pretty confident kid, ready for whatever comes her way. Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Calamity Jane

My youngest daughter is very cute. She is energetic, fun, and compassionate. But somehow she always ends up getting hurt. Last summer we had a five week streek of massive booboos. I swear people must have thought that we beat her in a different area for 5 weeks straight. She fell off a slide, got a gouge on her face. She got bit by a dog just under her eye. She fell while running and got a huge scrape and bruise on her leg. Her finger got slammed in a door. And I can't remember calamity #5 at the moment. ????? Hhhmmmmm......

A few months after that she got pushed down the stairs during a blackout and broke her arm.

A few months after that brings us to the present.

On Saturday we were supposed to go swimming between Conference sessions....however, she got her finger slammed in a door again (thanks to her big sister) The blood, swelling, and screaming led us to believe it was broken. After the drama died down we realized that it was okay, although severely bruised....nothing that a little shopping trip and McDonald's dinner couldn't fix. We were totally bummed that we didn't get to go swimming with our friends. Sorry Cannon and Annie!

Then on Sunday she was playing on a trampoline in between Conference sessions and hurt her knee. It was pitiful. She couldn't put weight on it and she just cried. So on Monday when she still wouldn't put pressure on it I took her to the doctor and then for x-rays. (By this time she was a pro at icing and elavating). We talked her into getting a flu shot while we were there and she didn't even cry! The Doc seemed to think that her knee injury was just soft tissue damage but sent us for x-rays to be sure. We went for the x-rays and she was, "the best 2 year old they'd ever had". Before going in she said, "Mommy, I'm gonna be sooo still." She's become a pro at getting x-rays, or "pictures" as she calls them. She was so proud of herself by the time we left. She was so good and had five stickers on her shirt to prove it!

On Tuesday she went to school and managed to fall off of her chair while coloring. She now has a nice scrape on her face.

What else can I say? Her middle name suits her just fine!

Happy Birthday Carolyn!

Our dear friend Carolyn just turned 29 this past Friday so we decided to host her b-day party. I took a lot of pictures and so did Chloe. For the most part, I liked hers better than mine. Here are some of my favorites!

We had a blast playing Rock Band, eating pizza from Tony's, (so far the best pizza in Buffalo) and watching the kids run around as fast as they could, dressed up as fairies, frogs, and anything else princess related. Most of Carolyns (and our) friends in attendance could put you to sleep for any surgery or fill your cavities... Which by the way, all of the kids had surgery that night. They all practiced turning on the gas, getting cut open, and waking up all better thanks to Derek ...aka: Ed! Each surgery must have used laughing gas because half of these pictures were blurry due to too much jittery movement!

Happy Birthday Carolyn!