8 Months Old

I LOVE TO EAT!!

Ty is 8 months old and busy as ever. He LOVES to eat anything and everything ... table scraps, dirty socks, vacuum cords, picture frames, toys, etc..  He can make his way throughout the entire house now by crawling and he is really quick.  He looks adorable when he's crawling. It melts my heart.  Especially when he's playing with toys in the play room while I'm doing dishes and then all the sudden he's rounded the corner, finds me, gives me a big grin, then proceeds to make his way over to the dishwasher, pulls himself up and helps me unload everything I've ust loaded onto the bottom shelf.  I can't get mad at him because he's so darn cute and so darn happy. :)  Other than cruising around the house and eating everything in site he has become a spit up king.  It is super disgusting.  He's never been one of those babies that constantly needs a bib on because they are spitting up and have reflux ... until now. Pretty much after every time he eats he tags Craig or I pretty good with some rancid spit up.  He loves to be tickled and laughs hysterically.  He likes splashing in the tub, seeing new places, his sippy cup, patta cake, singing songs and playing with big brother and sister.  They like playing with him too but get frustrated occasionally because he has gotten into their stuff and messed it up.  He ripped up and ate part of Jace's lego instructions the other day.  They have to keep their things up and put away or destructo Ty WILL find it.  Yesterday we filled the entertainment center baskets with baby toys so he stops chomping on dvds and cords.  He says Dada and Momma now as well as the other usual gibberish.  He loves life and we love him!

Making his way into the kitchen.

Chillaxing while watching Nemo.

Diamond Backs Game

Yay for summer reading programs!!  Jace and Brooke worked really hard this summer filling out their summer reading cards at the local library so they could earn tickets to a D-backs game.  Friday August 24th was the big day.  Diamondbacks vs. Padres. We piled into the car and headed into downtown Phoenix.  The stadium was AMAZING!!  It was enormous and had a retractable roof that was closed so the whole place was air conditioned.  I guess they couldn't have it any other way with the heat here.  The kids were so excited ... okay, we were ALL so excited.  We got hot dogs, sodas, nachos and even popcorn in a d-backs helmet. There was energy and excitement in the air.  We had planned on leaving after the 7th inning since our team wasn't playing that well and it was way past Ty's bedtime.  He was in awe at first but was so tired and has a hard time sleeping in places other than his own bed.  Jace begged us to stay though.  He was having such a good time he wanted to stay for the entire game.  We were a little shocked and wanted to encourage him to like watching sports so we stayed the whole time.

Brooke's favorite part was the entertaining lemonade concessions guy walking up and down the isles in the nose bleed section. (Our seats)  Picture this:  An enormously overweight black man with a BOOMING voice belting out "LEMONADE, LEMONADE, JUST LIKE YOUR NA NA MADE." in a southern drawl.  Then he would do a little dance until someone bought one.  When he sold out his entire box he totally rocked it out.  It was hilarious.  Everyone was dying laughing.  Brooke laughed and laughed and repeated him the whole way home.

We had an AWESOME time at the D-backs game!

My super cool sports fan, Jace. :)

Colors of the Rainbow

I thought this was cute.  The Kindergarten teachers passed out a color chart the first day of school to have all the kids wearing the same colors each day for the first 2 weeks.  It was a fun way to teach colors.  Brooke came home singing songs about each color and it was funny to walk into the Kindergarten playground and see a sea of red, green, blue, yellow, purple, black, orange,white or brown each day. They opted out of pink since it wouldn't be fair for the boys so Brooke did a pink day on her own.  The last day was rainbow center day.  She wore her colorful rainbow dress that Nani got her from school shopping and she also picked out a rainbow necklace from Claire's with her birthday money from GiGi.  We took a picture each morning.

Brooke LOVES school!  She especially loves school breakfast.  She was really disappointed about not being able to have school lunch this year so I go early with them both every morning so she can get school breakfast.... and she thinks it is the coolest thing ever.  If I'm ever having a hard time getting her out of bed I just have to say "You better hurry or we'll miss out on school breakfast." and she's up in a flash.  We also like checking what she's going to be having every day. Her favorite is french toast sticks and cinnamon rolls. We're out the door by 7:20am so we make it on time. The kids like having some extra time with Ty in the morning since we bring him along.  He misses them while they are at school.  

Of course Jace usually only takes about 2 bites and then throws his plate away. He fills up on toast or banana bread as soon as he wakes up.  The rest of the time he plays with Ty and tries to convince Brooke to hurry up so they can get outside for morning recess.  He is becoming much more independent as of late.  I'm so excited about his teacher this year.  Ms. Austin has been great for him.  SO much better than last year.  She's really focused on helping him be successful and happy in the classroom and he likes school this year.  He plays tag every day at recess and chases the girls.  He told me he made the chase the girls game up so he gets to be the leader but he friend Sebastian is a leader in training. lol He does 30 minutes of homework every day at home and hasn't put up too much of a fuss because if it doesn't get done he misses out on fun friday time.  His teacher has been working with them a lot on getting them to be more independent and that they are in charge of getting their homework done.  She does the 6 pillars of character: Trust, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship.  They did a big project so everyone knows the meaning of those words and she incorporates them into lessons every day.  I didn't realize what an enormous difference having a good teacher for your child makes.  He is so much more pleasant this year!

Brooke Turns 5!!

 My sweet little Brookster Bean is 5!!  She was hilariously happy the entire day.  She took doughnut holes to school to share with her class and she got to be line leader and wear a special birthday girl hat the whole morning.  After I picked her up from school we met daddy at Pita Jungle for a special birthday lunch and Brooke got fresh pita bread and hummus. Yum!  Then she got some birthday baklava.  I love Pita Jungle.  I think I could eat there everyday. We picked up Mirror Mirror on the way home for her movie party.

 She was surprised to come home to crepe paper, balloons, and a finished School House cake.  She danced around the whole house as excited as could be and kept telling me she just couldn't wait for her party to start.  She has a friend party last year so it was just mom, dad, and brothers this time around.

She picked spaghetti for dinner and helped me make individual popcorn bags and cotton candies for everyone.  We watched Mirror Mirror together, she opened her presents, and then we dished up the school house cake. It was a perfect day for Brooke.  She got her own set of Unicorn Stompeez.  She's been wanting those for months and tells me every time she sees the commercial on PBS.  She got Photography Barbie, a kid barbie, a little kitten toy, a new princess lunch box, a rainbow maker nightlight with book, and a Butterfly Garden.  She was so excited the whole night.  She stomp stomp stompeed all around the house and would not even take them off her feet to go to bed.  She made beds for all her new toys and is excited for when it's not too hot here so she can order the butterfly larvae for her butterfly garden.

She was such a princess the whole day.  I don't think I've seen her that happy and excited since her last birthday.  I was very proud of her cake and that I made the whole thing by hand.  We do special Kindergarten school house cakes for each child as they enter Kindergarten but I wanted hers to be extra special since she wanted it as her birthday cake too.  She helped me lots and lots ... mostly with tasting.  She's my best helper when it comes to baking and always asks to be the taste tester.  I love her more than words can express.  She is absolutely hilarious.  She makes me laugh every day and has this amazing energy and zest for life. She is so positive and easily excited. She lights up my life!  I'm so glad I get to be her mom.

First Day of School

Jace will be in Ms. Austin's Awesome Achiever's 2nd grade class and Brooke is in Mrs. Sullivan's Safari Kindergarten class.

The okay, mom, quit taking pictures you're embarressing me look.

I asked Brooke how her day was.  She said she had a great time.  She thought some kids might call her names but they didn't.  She was a little worried about making friends (That's the last thing I worry about with her.) because she didn't know anyone in her class that well.  They sang songs and got to eat a snack at recess.  She officially loves being a Kindgergartner.  When I went through her bag I found a hand she had colored with "Brooke

 came to school on the first day and felt ... fill in the blank .. she  put dissapointed." lol  Because guess what!?!  No chocolate milk at snack time - that's what!  :)  I always thought she might be teacher's pet but ... now I'm starting to wonder. lol  Her poor teacher. I just had to laugh.

If I didn't have kids ...

If I didn't have kids ...

The little kitchen set would stay organized ...

Brooke and I had just finished putting all the play food and dishes away

and organized them.  Ty quickly crawled over and emptied all

the drawers in about 5 minutes.  He had a great time!

I would go through a lot less band-aids ...

Not only because every single kid owie needs a band-aid - bleeding or not,

but sometimes it takes like 15 tries to get one to stick on right. :)

I wouldn't find pieces of rotten fruit in my running shoes ...

I guess I'll count my blessings because usually the pieces of fruit I find around the house

only have 1 - 3 mini bites in them. (Like in the picture below.)

  This one looks like it actually got eaten.



I wouldn't get to witness sweet quiet time movie snuggles...

Brooke made this little bed for Ty while they watched the first part of Finding Nemo.

Ty only likes the first part.  Once it gets to the shark part ... forget about it. :)

I wouldn't have my own personal band beating away while I make dinner ...

Ty loves to watch me make dinner while drumming kitchen utensils on anything

in his vicinity.

I wouldn't have a human vacuum cleaner...

Uhh Ohh .. Jace left cake crumbles on the floor.  Here comes Ty the food inspector.

He checks the floor where Jace and Brooke eat daily to see if they left anything behind.

We do lots of sweeping and vacuuming at our house lately. :)

I love being a mom!

Brookieness

Brooke's family prayer last night went like this ...

Dear Heavenly Father,  thank you for our blessings.  Please bless Ty to not be a biter baby.  Please bless Jace to learn to be nicer .. BECAUSE he only has one more year until he is 8 and then he has to be nice.  Please bless mommy to not lose her temper and bless daddy about the same thing.  and please, please, please, bless me to not have any accidents at school because I'm going to be a kindergarten girl.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Another quote by Brooke:

He STOLED IT!!  and stealing is worser then bad breath.  lol

This girl cracks me up.

Jace:

"When I was 6 I would attack Brooke for no reason but now that I'm 7 I just get her when she's taunting me." Mmm Hmm ... "I'm pretty sure by the time I'm 8 I just won't attack her anymore cause then I'll be more responsible."  I hope ... :)

Jace had 2 awesome days in a row where he helped out without being asked and was so sweet to Brooke.  He helped calm her down on the first day of school.  He helped her get drinks of water and unbuckle the bottom buckle of her seat belt.  He played games with her and made sure to games she wanted to play too.  It was AMAZING and it helps me know that he CAN be responsible and well behaved.  He told me "Days like this usually only come like ... every 100 days or so." lol  I hope we see more of them.