Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

So Saturday was Jimmy's birthday.....43! We had a great weekend. The boys and I made sure we had ourselves organized so that the weekend could be spent hanging out together. Groceries were knocked out Thursday even! We had our usual FNP (Friday Night Pizza night) and Jimmy and I hung out after the boys were down. Saturday morning we were all up early and YAHOO!!! it was finally a bright sunshiny day! Happy Birthday Daddy! When the boys got up we gave Jimmy his presents and cards. He loved the flower pots, the birdhouse and his new Braves shirt!

Normally on Saturday (and Sunday) morning Jimmy makes us all pancakes but earlier in the week we bought tickets for the Richmond Hill High School marching band's pancake breakfast. I shot out the door at 8 and was one of the first to get to Beef O'Bradys. I got our hot pancakes and sausage and was back home with birthday breakfast in 20 minutes! That's my kinda cookin' in the morning!

After breakfast we all headed out for the morning. We planted and played and even ran through the sprinkler. We all had a blast and the boys were dirty and tired by lunchtime. J and Willie quickly ate pizza at the picnic table attached to the pool house and then they napped. Jimmy and I wii'd and hung out. Dinner was steak and asparagus followed by a yummy yellow cake with chocolate icing. Yummy. The boys and I sang happy birthday to Jimmy and he wished and blew the candles out. The boys stayed up late enough to see the moon and then were off to bed. The rest of the night is lost in beer and wii.......

Good day had by all. Happy 43rd birthday to my love. You are an awesome daddy and husband and we cherish every moment we spend with you. Thanks for all the fun!

Happy Birthday baby J!

Today J is 3! I cannot believe it! Happy Birthday to my sweet baby J. We had a wonderful birthday weekend. His party was yesterday (Sunday) and he had an absolute blast. He and William were so exhausted from all the excitement they were in bed by 6:30! He got lots and lots of awesome gifts, he was really getting the hang of tearing open the paper. so cute. He calls the playhouse his pool house. They were right beside the plastic pools at Wal Mart so he figures it's a pool house. How cute is that!?! And the guitar playing and singing last night were amazing. J does a mean Old McDonald....his gobble gobble here, gobble gobble there is untouchable.

It rained all day today so we didn't get to spend the day outside like we planned but we got to play with all the outside toys inside today and he was completely happy with that and a bit of Little Einsteins. J and Willie both had pizza for breakfast. Hey, you only turn 3 one time. If you want pizza for breakfast, you can have it! So we played all day, ran up to Harvey's for another cake mix. J and Willie rode the car two times since it was J's birthday and we got a new ball out of the candy machine. Double score! After dinner J opened up the rest of his gifts from us and was thrilled with the baseball glove. Willie got him some kids cds for the car and for dancing too so that should be fun.

It was a wonderful day. The party was awesome. My boy wanted a choo choo cake and a baseball cake so that's what he got. We had a choo choo cake yesterday and tonight was the baseball cake. They both turned out pretty well, he thought they were awesome. He said "wow mommy, cool!". He blew the candles out tonight without any trouble and was so pleased with himself. He didn't touch the cake though, just every last bit of icing he could find.

He just woke up and had to "pee so bad mommy". He asked about his baseball cake so I let him come and have a lick of icing. How cool is that when you are 3!?

Life with J the last 3 years sure has been amazing, he has brought an unimaginable amount of love and joy into our lives. We are thankful for him. Happy Birthday son!

Dear J,

Today is your 3rd birthday. We had a great day. It was kind of rainy so we only played outside for a little while but we had fun. I know you won't read this for a long long time but I wanted you to know how you were on your 3rd birthday. Your eyes sparkled all day. You wanted pizza for breakfast, lunch and as soon as you woke up from your nap. You loved your baseball cake, well actually you just ate the icing. You and William played with every single one of your new outside toys inside. You, at 3 years old, are a sweet and loving little boy. Daddy and I are completely amazed by your compassion and tenderness to us, to William and to everyone. You love to listen and sing music, and play every instrument you can get your hands on. You love to golf and were thrilled with your new velcro baseball glove. Your brother looks to you with wonder in his eyes and tries to keep up with you as best he can. And, although sometimes he makes you crazy, you never leave him out. You always rush to get him out of bed. Your favorite movies are Curious George, Clifford's Big Red Movie and Little Einsteins. You love black olives on your pizza, any ice cream, any fruit. You don't like crust and you pick a shape for your sandwich. Lately it's been baseballs. You love to feed the ducks and were so excited when they came to our house today. You said they came to say Happy birthday to Me!

You have brought so much love and laughter into my life. I am so very grateful for the blessing of you and William. Your smile lights up my heart. Daddy and I love you very very much and can't wait to watch you grow and grow........Happy 3rd Birthday my sweet baby J.

Love,
Mommy

Happy New Year!

Well, I know it's not really New Years but it's a new year for us crazy sports fanatics in this house.

Super Bowl is over and was it awesome or what?!? Yahoo Eli and the Giants. I'm not a Giants fan per se but I am a really big Eli fan. I love the Mannings. To make it even more exciting Jimmy and I bet coffee for the year!!! That's right, I will not be making coffee for the year!

So, to us Super Bowl is the finale of our sports season. We are now officially in a lull. I guess we'll resort to reruns of the Andy Griffeth show and the odd movie rental.

Like any new year we are totally stoked!!!! It's going to be a great, exciting year! We are going to plant a garden, play outside day and night, ride bikes. The Braves are going to be awesome and the Falcons, well. It just can't get any worse can it? No way!

sigh, we need a wii

What a LOSER!! How embarassing!

Boy. I'm not really sure anyone will ever check this thing again it's been so long since I've updated. No excuse I guess. It's just been madness!!!! The boys were sick back in early December, we went to Canada for Christmas, got back and got busy and well....been trying to hit the hay early and that's truly the only time I get to post here.

In a nutshell, Canada was amazing. Christmas was awesome....completely awesome. The boys were great on the plane rides, the drive from Minneapolis to Thunder Bay......the trip was awesome. We got back and Jimmy still had some time off work and we all just hung out around the house. Eating and playing and we even got some cleaning in.

Since the New Year, we have continued to be busy. I started a little cleaning job with the boys so that's getting us out a few mornings a week. We were still going to the gym pretty regularly but now I have this hernia. That's kind of put a damper on a lot of things these days. I am not supposed to be lifting or doing a whole lot.....sucks big time because I'm super motivated to get this house organized and decluttered and looking awesome! I have many, many visions in my head but I'm so limited. I hate having restraints on physical stuff. It makes me crazy. Gosh darn it (wow, can't believe I actually wrote that!) I can handle a 50# case of wings!!!! Whatever. I do have an appt. with a surgeon on February 12 and hopefully i can get the hernia repaired and get back in the swing of things quickly.

In Willie health news.....he was tested for celiac. The results were, and I quote our nurse, "not bad but still abnormal". They were wanting to get him in last week for a scope procedure which would be done under anesthetic. I was feeling really icky about it and prayed really hard and wouldn't you know, the next morning Dr. R called and said that after he'd thought about it some more he decided he'd rather us monitor Willie another month and re-evaluate in February. Sweet, right? He is doing really well though. In fact, I'm almost shocked at the progress he has made the past month or two. He is eating a ton! He, like J, loves fruit and veggies mostly. He seems to react really badly to hard core wheat products. So, we are obviously avoiding those. He is tolerating a little more dairy though. Remember back in the fall I tried some chocolate without any trouble? Well, when we got back from Canada I had some leftover baking that was screaming my name. I gave in one night and much to my surprise, no reaction. So, I tried a few more pieces until I ate it all......no bad reaction. How cool is that? Another awesome thing is that we are now closer to getting some actual diagnosis!!! We will do allergy testing for sure at 18 months which in now only 5 short months away.

I cannot believe how quickly the time is passing. It is making me crazy. I was anxious as all heck for January to be over though, I have to admit.

I look to tomorrow, Feb. 1 to be the start of a great year for us. Things are going to get better, be awesome, great things will happen.....I can feel it in my bones.

Oh, one more totally awesome and important thing!!!! Jimmy and I celebrated 4 years of wedded bliss on January 17. I love that man. I love the life we have created together and I am grateful for the journey we share.

I hope this link will work http://www.armandostudios.com/longislandhomevideowedding1.htm

Yabba Dabba Doo

Don't really know what else to say.

Happy Turkey day to everyone! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, our first in our new home. We baked and cooked and hung out and chilled and enjoyed every second of it. We are thankful for many many things this year and finally living in our own home is a biggie.

It took a day or so to recover from the super long weekend but we got right back into the swing of things, the gym and all. Wednesday night Willie started coughing but I didn't really think anything of it. By Friday it was bad enough that it was nagging at me so we went off to the dr. She thought it was reflux related since he sounded clear and had no other symptoms. By Saturday I was counting his breaths, listening to him wheeze and no one was sleeping a wink. We called the nurse line and they said to watch him and run steam showers with him and see if it helps. It did a little but by Sunday morning he was sounding terrible and when I called in they said to come on in to the ER. Yuck. That was not fun for Willie. They sucked a bunch of stuff out and gave him steroids and breathing treatments and within a couple of hours we were home on breathing treatments with a follow up the next day. We even caught part of the 4th quarter!


He's already doing much much better. He's making himself puke to get all that gunk out. Poor babe.

We had Billy and Jacob this weekend too and we all had fun. We all went to the parade SAturday morning which was awesome. J was in heaven when those marching bands went by. WE were lucky enough to get a really good look too when they had to stop the parade for the trains to go by. What a trip. 3 different times they stopped the parade and wow, J was shaking with excitement. As soon as he heard the bell go off he was vibrating, "mommeeee, choo choo. mommeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Jimmy had J on his shoulders so they could get a closer look. It was great. After the parade we went to get our tree which is still waiting patiently outside. The excitement is building. Since I need to have the tree down before we leave we got a small mystery tree this year. Normally I spend days thinking about what tree I'll pick and then hours pondering which one is "the one" when we go to get it. Not this year. We picked a tree that is still wrapped. No clue what she looks like and it's killing me! But, Willie is feeling much better so we'll get her in tomorrow.

That's about it. We're all totally excited it's the holidays. J is amazed with all the 'mismas lights every where and keeps asking for his 'mismas Santa tree. Tomorrow.

I'm walkin'!

He is on the move.

How big is Willie?

Look out, this kid is a riot......loves the attention. Wonder where he could get that from!?!