Flashback

Omigosh... his voice!! I totally forgot he used to call phones 'moms'! His speech has changed so much since this, his last day of being one ... I already forgot what his little voice used to sound like!

This Girl!!

The cuteness just kills me!

I am completely obsessed.  I can admit it. And I am totally more than okay with it.

She is just the happiest, loveliest little girl.... we all know who wins the boys' award ;o).

I'm gonna get you Mommy! ... And she did.  She's really good at the sneak attack right now.

And as if on cue, because this girl knows how to eek herself a little more into her Mommy's heart every day, Gracie learned to clap today .. right when I had my camera on her!

"Perfeck!", as Joey would say!

Check out this concentration.  

I think I am throwing in the towel right along with Joe.

I've fought the good fight and it's pretty much over ....

.....we're going to have a million ponies and they'll all belong to Grace.

I can see it now. 

Joeyisms

Just little things I don't want to forget ....

Joey: Are you Maymee's Mommy?
Me: No. Maymee is my Mommy.  She used to have me in her tummy like I had you in my tummy.  That is what makes her my Mommy.
Joey: And I couldn't see you?
Me: No, you couldn't see me then.
Joey: Maybe Maymee could put some windows on her tummy to help me so I can see you.

Joey is really into sharing right now.  He has such a generous heart.  He has some special treats he gets to pick out at different times for going to the potty and he always tries to give some to me and Joe.  We'll tell him, "No, baby .. that's just for you" and he'll always respond, "You can have it.  You can share.  I yetting you."  The other day he got to his last one and said, "Here, Mommy, want my last bite? You can have it. I yetting you."

I asked Joey why it is that Sissy can't talk. He looked at me like I'm nuts and said, "Her not have teeth, Mommy!" Oh, I don't know why I didn't think of that.  Yesterday he was pretending to be a baby and was saying "Goo Goo Gah Gah Gah..." and then he starting rubbing his gums. I said, "What's wrong, Joey? Does you're mouth hurt?" He goes, "No ... I'm it's-okay. I just checking if I have baby teeth..." Ha!

Joey was really into Christmas songs this year and is still singing some of them. He likes to sing, "Fwosty the snowman is a jolly, happy soul. It's a corn cob pipe. It's a but-ton nose. And made it out of coal....."

He is into figuring out what letters words start with and other elementary phonics concepts and will often bring up questions regarding this out of the blue.  The other day we were driving and he said "What's 'A' start with, Mommy?", which is his way of saying "What starts with 'A'?" and so we were naming things.  I said "What starts with 'L'?", which is always a hard one for him because he can't pronounce that letter yet.  He said, "I don't know. What's 'UL' start with?" I waited to see if he could think of anything and as I started to give him a hint he yells "Yo-ya!" which is how he pronounces Lola.  I was so proud of him especially since we never use people's name as examples so he came up with that all on his own.

Joey likes to ask questions about our wedding and engagement.  He knows the story of both but confuses them.  He was looking at our wedding picture on the wall and said to Joe, "That's a picture a' you, Daddy. An' that's a picture a', Mommy too! That's when you were in the hot air balloon, but I couldn't come...... I couldn't come, Daddy cause I only just frinkled (sprinkled) in your eye!" Joe almost died and looked at me like what!?!.   I had to interpret: Joey couldn't come on the hot air balloon with us when we got engaged because he was only a "twinkle in Daddy's eye."   :o)

Big Boy Bed

Joey has always loved his crib.  So much so that he calls it 'Cribby' and has a terrible time sleeping anywhere else.  We've never had to worry about how we were going to get him to stop sleeping in our bed and start sleeping in his own, that's for sure.  When he was tiny we were very conscious to not let the habit start of him sleeping in our bed and it apparently worked well because he will not sleep with us.  There have been times when he was sick and I really wanted to keep him with me, but he couldn't fall asleep until I finally gave in and put him in his crib.  He'd wake up in the middle of the night, I'd bring him into our bed, he'd snuggle in and settle himself down and then ask to go back to his Cribby.  He loves his crib.

This, combined with the fact that he normally sings, and plays, and flops around for quite some time before he actually falls asleep had us totally spooked about letting him out of the confines of his crib.  Ultimately, we decided to make the switch and did so on New Year's Eve.  We talked up the idea of his bed, he helped his dad build it for a bit, and then played over my mom's so we could rearrange their room.  We planned to take the rocker and night stand out but in the end decided to keep it for now.  Eventually, we'll switch things around a bit more once Grace is older.

 We let Joey skip his nap in hopes of totally tuckering him out that day.  It was New Year's Eve, so we went to Joe's sister's house as we normally do and then came home around 8:30.  We talked up the bed and how he was big now and got to sleep in big boy bed like mommy and daddy's and Sissy would be sleeping in the crib because she is a baby. I tried to make it more special by emphasizing how his bed is just for big boys and Grace couldn't go on it because she is too tiny and it was just special for him but he corrected me with a quick, "Sissy can come on it. Her can share it. I will share it with her.  I will yet her."  And, of course, he did.   

 We read a story that night, The Cat in the Hat, a new tradition in his big boy bed.  The major reason we went with a twin instead of a toddler bed is that I have long been dreaming of being able to snuggle up and lay with him in his room as we read a story before bed.  And now we're there and it's going unbelievably splendidly.

And, truth be told, we shouldn't have expected anything else.  He's two and a boy and all things that come along with that, but he is really just one fantastic child.  He more than rises to every occasion and just makes us feel like the luckiest parents.

So far he has yet to get out of his bed at all. He rolls right over after we finish our bed time story, I turn out the light and come back to him and say, "Love you to the .." and he fills in "moon."  I say, "Goodnight, sleep ..." and he fills in "tight". And then we each say "I love you" and give a kiss.  We've done the same thing ever since I can remember, even before he was old enough to fill anything in.  I will never forget his little baby voice trying to say moon and it coming out as "noon" for the longest time.  I will also never forget the exact same smile he gave me for months every time he said "noon."  On the day before he turned two, his last day of being one, I took pictures of everything all day long to document his last day of him being one.

In his crib, on his last day of being one, telling me "noon."

And so, this has so far been a wonderful change.  He still is taking his naps in his crib. When I bring him up at nap time he says, "Where's I going? Cribby Crib or Beddy Bed?" Ha! So I'm thinking 'Beddy Bed' is starting to rank right up there with 'Cribby Crib' and all is well.    

 A little bit of a funny story -

On the morning of Joey's second night in his bed I went in to get him, turned to face the bed as I walked into the room and couldn't find him.  I'm not lying when I tell you I'm pretty sure my heart literally stopped beating for a second and I totally felt the panic you would expect to feel when you can't spot your two-year-old. I have this crazy fear of someone coming into our house and stealing our kids so of course this was my first completely rational thought, then I flashed to where he must be hiding as I walked toward his bed.  And then I saw him, sleeping with his but up in the air like a six-month-old does, totally scrunched up where his pillow should be, with his body in the complete opposite direction that it should have been. He basically had lined himself up exactly how you would place your pillow, scrunched into a ball, and fell asleep like that.  If you scroll up you can see the bookcase that is by his bed.  It protrudes from the wall just enough that it completely hid his body at the top of his bed. Let me tell you, in that moment he looked sooo tiny in that bed .. he in fit in the pillow spot with room to spare.

We're so proud of our big boy and how adaptable he's been.

We're also so proud of how unaware he seems that he can actually get himself out of the bed. Ha!

Hopefully it's a looong time before that changes.

She's Talking! :o)

Grace said her first word on Sunday night.

We were unsure whether or not it was a fluke and if we should 'count' it but she was "talking" all day yesterday.

I was hoping her first word would be MaMa and we could even the score but it didn't work out for me ;o).

This makes two for Joe and zero for me.

We'll just have to have more babies so we can even things out ...

........juuuussst kidding :o)

Stand Strong Little Grace

I have a pretty strong will.

So does our daughter.

She looks sooo sad.

And after dabling in the delectable world of pears, she decided

she would not be eating peas anymore.

And so she put down her proverbial foot and made her will known in the best way she knew how. 

And it was loud. And it was pitiful.

I sang her songs and pet her head .. to no avail.

Eventually I sent the boys upstairs to play.  It didn't seem right for Joey to have to cover his ears during dinner while his sister protested hers, so he got some playtime with Daddy.  I didn't have to tell him twice that he could leave the table.

In the end, distraction worked best.

The lid to her baby food was enough to distract her from her fight.

And no, that's not baby acne, she gave herself hives by getting so upset ... over peas. Oh my goodness.

Should I start fearing her teenage years?

In the end, we worked it out and she finished those terrible terrible peas.

And then ate only peas for the next four days.

It's going much better now.

And don't worry, as soon as Grace was finished her mean Mommy whisked her up, gave her a good snuggle, a warm bath, and pea-free jammies and all was forgiven.

See.

There's Gracie Pie.

No more hives.  I think they washed away in the bath.  ;o)

I was even so kind as to let her get away with no blow-dry which leaves you with a few glimpses of the rarely seen curly headed Grace.

Her little fluffy tufts curl right up if you don't do something to stop them.  I love this about her but when we let her hair dry curly and then brush it it just gets super crazy and there is nothing that can be done to tame it until she gets her next dip in the tub.

Reunited after her fiasco and he's helping her feel better.

Joe calls her natural look the Grace Hawk.  

It's not hard to tell why when you see her from the front.

According to my husband, she gets it done at the salon, of course, and it takes at least ten hours .. in case you were wondering or wanted to adopt the look for yourself.

The have this adorable Daddy & daughter thing blooming.  She gets sooo happy when he comes home from work.  I love watching them.