Christmas

We had a good Christmas, Joey was expecting Santa and had a good time opening his gifts. We just put teething rings and pacifiers in Christina's stocking, I think next year will be a better year for her. Here is Joey with his Jackhammer (I think the one tool he didn't have)

Here is Joey with his indestructable water proof kids camera, I guess we'll see about that

Here is Joey playing with Christina's toy from her cousins Tyler and Kaitlin, a pink plastic purse with music, lights, etc

and a cute picture of our girl

Here is joe with pj's to match joey's, darn they didn't fit

Joey used the potty !!!!!!!

When I picked up Joey from daycare he had POTTY written in big letters on his sheet, which meant he used the potty ! Of course it would happen first at daycare so I can miss the whole thing, I got him to sit a few minutes last night, he wanted to keep moving from the big potty to the little potty, and then stand in front of Christina in her bouncy chair, with no diaper on. I think somebody is going to get peed on more than once thru this process.

pics of the kids

I was uploading and ordering prints online for my Granny Key and mom who do not have access to this blog and found some cute pictures..

This is Joey over Thanksgiving taste testing our mashed potatoes, he approved.



This is Joey's "cheesy" face, its the awful smile he has when he is posing for a picture, he says "I'm cool" and holds both thumbs up when he has sunglasses on.

Emily and Christina

busy busy busy

no pics this time, it's Thursday night, Joe has been out of town since last Sunday. We've gotten into a nightly routine of Joey asking to talk to Daddy on the phone, so we call about 7 or so. Joey tells Daddy we are making cookies, or whatever we happen to be doing, then blows kisses into the phone and hands the phone back to me.
He is still asking for Lin Lin from Thanksgiving.

I usually am a pretty organized person but this week I forgot Christina's food for daycare one day, the next day I forgot her bottles, then I always forget my keys laying around in her room and have to go back and get them after I drop Joey off. Things are hectic, honey are you out there? I hope you get some local work soon.
I have to look down at myself in the car on the way to work and make sure I got dressed. Today I went to work without any makeup on.

News:
Christina is still not moving around much, she'll roll over from her back to her stomach and kick, but no rolling over and over. She is good at reaching out for things, she wants to put everything in her mouth (she can put her toes in her mouth now). And she has found her voice, she'll fuss and squeal at me sometimes until I look at her, then she'll laugh. She had her 6 month checkup and flu shot, 6 shots, I don't know if that was more painful for her or me. She had mommy-itis tonight so I had to hold her pretty much the entire time after work. she has a red rash on her cheeks from her pacifier and drooling, I put loads of aquaphor on it and am trying to rid her of her pacifier, easier said than done.

Joey is talking a LOT .. he remembers everything. I am constantly telling him "no spit" which he does when he gets frustrated, so he told Christina "no spit baby Tina" when she was blowing rasberries. How do I let one spit but not the other?
He has gotten in the habit of yanking his hand away from me and running which he has done twice in the daycare parking lot and once at Kohl's when I was trying to buy him some pants, talk about scary. So now I have to have a death grip on his arm when he needs to hold my hand. Still not terribly interested in sitting on the potty. He runs into Christina's room in the morning so he can wake her up, he is so cute.

mommy: has deadlines at work and is stressed out without any help at home

daddy: has deadlines and is stressed out from working so much

next time I'll post some pictures, probably after Christmas, we are finally going to have a family portrait made at Picture People this Sunday

Thanksgiving and catch up blog

It's been over a week since I've posted anything, we had PopPop1 and PopPop2 visit over two weekends (grandpop1 is my dad, grandpop2 is Joe's dad, NOT named in order of importance). It's an extremely busy time with work, holidays, my DH is OOT for two weeks, Christina still has an ear infection and is on a stronger antiobiotic, and now Joey has a sinus infection and is on antiobiotics too.

Random things:
Joey has moved up a room at daycare, it's called "Get Set 1". No more sippy cups, just regular cups (which he does at home anyway), and he sits on the potty every couple of hours. When PopPop1 was here (and Grandmom, Aunt Sue, Tyler and Kaitlin) we went to see Madagascar (did I spell that right? leave me alone, it's after midnight). I found the Move it Move it song on You Tube and Joey and I and Christina danced to it tonight, here's the link, there are several different versions. He liked the version with lyrics and kept saying "loud?" (he wanted me to play it louder).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FM5kLuV9YU&feature=related

Here are some pictures from thanksgiving, Joey broke both mine and Joe's camera so we didn't get as many pictures as we would have liked

Emily,Kaitlin,Joey painting

Tyler,Kaitlin,Joey eating breakfast together

Aunt Sue took some pictures of Emily,Joey, and Christina for me, I was hoping to use
these for Xmas cards but as you can see someone looks unhappy in each picture, and Joey insisted on having his milk with him in the picture







Joey is still asking "Where PopPop go?" and "Where LinLin go?" (Kaitlin)...so cute, he had a lot of fun with his big sissy and cousins.

Joey's Hat

These are some pics of Joey finger painting today. He really gets into it as you can see, he was using paintbrushes, his hands, and some sponges. He dipped one of the sponges in paint and waited until I was looking and said "HAT" and smashed the sponge on his forehead.


Here he is playing the drums (the drum is a pretty cardboard box, the drumsticks are the cardboard pieces you get off the wire hangers from the dry cleaners). I had to hold Christina and clap her hands together or he wouldn't play because he was playing for her.

Christina at Daycare

My neighbor Beverly works at the daycare that Christina attends and emailed these pictures to me, here is Christina with her 'peeps'

Christina has Teeth !!

Christina has been a little cranky lately, when I walked into daycare yesterday to pick her up one of the ladies told me she had two teeth on the bottom (that were not there that morning !). My little girl has teeth already at 5 months.

Chick-fil-a Cow Nighty Night

Daddy is OOT (out of town). Actually he has only been out of town a few days a week the last few weeks but that is about to change, he is going to be gone the first two weeks of December and one weekend in November, and probably afraid to let me know much more than that.

Since Joe is gone, I took the kids to Chick-fil-a after daycare today. It amazes me that Joey still has so much energy left. He would eat a few bites, run back to the playground, eat a few bites, back and forth, we were there for almost two hours and his head was all sweaty from playing. The cow was there last week walking around shaking all the kids hands but he wasn't there this week. Joey told me the cow had gone nighty night and wanted to go out in the parking lot to look for him. He kept mooing..it was so cute.

Daddy if you are reading this we miss you !!!

Halloween

Here we are at the neighborhood halloween party at the playground, Christina is dressed up as a cow, Joey and Joe have matching Bob the Builder outfits, only they ended up being known as "Joe the plumber"



Always wear your safety goggles !!


Christina has been sitting in her high chair and eating baby food. I started her off on peas and that didn't go so well, then I gave her what I thought was squash and turned out to be sweet potatoes, no wonder she liked it so much. Here she is wondering why I am taking pictures instead of feeding her more yummy sweet potatoes.

Christina rolled over !!

Last night I put Christina on the bed on her back and turned around (for a second) to get a sleeper out of her closet, when I turned back around she was on her stomach propped up on her elbows .. Yeah!!!

Joey's Birthday Party

Joey is two years old now !! We had his birthday party on the 25th at Chuck E Cheese. We had a good time, he learns fast, we put tokens in his pocket to spend and when he ran out he said "more money dad" .. he's been calling us mom and dad instead of mommy and daddy, isn't that supposed to happen much later? I am definitely not ready for that. Here are some pics of him and his friends.

Joey with Big Sissy Emily


Joey with Bob the Builder


Maybe we should have Joe's next birthday party at Chuck E Cheese too.


Joey and his friend Conner, we had not seen Conner since Christmas, they get big so fast


Here is Brianna, we had Joey's and Brianna's birthday party together since their birthdays are only a day apart. Brianna is 3.


Here are Nate and Wyatt the twins, they got Joey a cool caterpillar with batteries


YUMMY !! Pizza and chocolate cake..the waiter bought out the pizza and cake at the same time and put the cake right in front of Joey...hmmm...which did Joey want to eat first?


and here is Chuck E Cheese himself paying a visit to our table

Level Lots are OverRated

Who needs a level lot? We like our sloped backyard just fine, makes for a good roll down the hill.

What Daddy's Put Up With

Here's Joe the other night after Joey shot him down with his pretend gun, after Joe went down he decided to bury Joe's head in books, toys, and then his wagon.

Uncle Shuck's Corn Maize

We decided yesterday to go to Uncle Shuck's Corn Maize in Dawsonville, Joey, Emily, and Joe did half the corn maize (the un-haunted side), and we did the hayride. The weather was gorgeous. Here are some pics


Here are Emily and Joey playing trumpet, she's blowing and he's pressing the buttons, it sounded GREAT!! (NOT)


Here are Emily and Christina having a gab session, they are such good friends, they talk on the cell phone for hours.

Christina Rolling Over (Almost)

Here is Christina trying to roll over, she's almost there !

Christina's 4 month checkup

Our little girl is very healthy !!

She is:
60th percentile for height (24.5 inches)
82th percentile for weight (15.4 lbs)
59th percentile for head circumference

She's not rolling over completely yet but she does roll over onto her side and cries I think because she wants to roll all the way over. I think some of this is the lack of time I have for her in the evenings with work and Joey. I do try to put her on her tummy once a night and on her back a little while. When she's on her back on in her bath she is always lifting her head up.

Joey is actually starting to listen to me and do what I ask. (ok, the last two nights anyway he has been an angel). when we got out of the car after I picked them up for daycare he ran around the side of the house..I told him to come back, we could come back out after dinner and he actually came back on his own without fussing. Then he had a mini-tantrum when he had the hose and I turned the water off, I explained to him that mommy would water the grass and Joey could shovel dirt, so he handed me the hose and said "mommy do". I still can't believe it.

Something cute he did tonight - he sat on the potty with his backpack on - with all his tools in it, and hammered on the toilet paper holder - he has to always be fixing something - I guess he can't even take a bathroom break (not potty trained yet but we are working on it).

Were we ever busy today. Christina woke up at around 4 for a bottle, Joey woke up at 6 and got in bed with us. He kept kicking me in the head so I gave up and went downstairs to make some very strong coffee. We went over to Joe's old house and put out some for rent flyers, we decided it would be too much to try to sell two houses at one time. Joe put up our banner for our community yard sale next Saturday, I am hoping we get rid of lots and lots of stuff. Joe had to leave in the middle of Sunday to go out of town to work and speak at AFCOM, so after he left we took Joey's tools to the playset in the backyard and pretended like we were building until I couldn't take the mosquitoes anymore (the children's bug repellent is only 4% deet and it doesn't keep our gargantuan sized bugs away), then we took Joey's big wheel outside and he played with the kids across the street (he can't reach the pedals yet so he scooted it around with his feet). Then we had dinner (yogurt, half a banana, and garlic bread...hey, no comments please, sometimes I am just lucky to get him to eat). Same with bathtime, I thought by giving him a choice he would be forced to pick something, I guess he's getting too smart for that. I asked Joey if he wanted the big tub (our tub with the jets) or the little tub (his tub), so he said "no". I repeated the question, throwing the shower in there, and just "no" again. I finally did get him in the bath at 8:30. I had to go looking all over for my phone - he talked to Daddy on the phone tonight and ran away with it, so Joe just had to hang up. Here are some other things we did tonight and over the weekend:

Christina tried rice cereal, she doesn't know what to do with it so she's just spitting it out. I'll keep trying .. she also went into the bouncer for the first time, she enjoyed it for about 10 minutes and then got mad.

Here is Joey, he insisted he got to go into the bouncer too, he is chomping on a teether, see his legs hanging over?..I guess he's still feeling like sometimes he wants to be the baby too.

Emily was over this weekend and she rode the big wheel by herself around the kitchen island and talked about how much fun it was..then she piled on pillows for Joey to sit up on and drove him around...they are so cute together

Here is Joey and his Bob the Builder tool belt, he is such a little worker.

And here is Joey changing the baby's diaper. He gets a wipe , wipes the baby, and then hollers for me to help him because he can't figure out the tabs on the diapers yet...