Josh's Special Day

Today was J's 3rd Birthday!!! On the night before my kids' birthdays I love to talk about what I was doing (___________) years before RIGHT at this moment. Now that Maya is old enough to understand, she likes to hear about the details too. She knows that Josh came so fast that mommy didn't get any pain medication and that I told J he was a little stinker when they handed him to me. (Yeah, I'm a little bitter about that still!) I can remember what it felt like to become a mom to a little boy. My heart was so full of gratitude and excitement and LOVE, and my love for this little guy continues to grow and grow.

For the first 2 years of his life, Josh was always our "go with the flow" kid. He never cried or threw fits and was just a sweet little angel. He is still this way a lot of the time, but about 6 months ago he started to become more defiant and now he definitely has an opinion and voices it. I love seeing this side of him and watching as he has started to stand up for himself, especially because Maya can be so controlling and bossy! He doesn't let her get away with much anymore.

We had a great and BUSY day celebrating. After Maya got home from school we opened presents and had lunch. Then Josh and I had a lovely 1 hour nap while Maya and Nick played for awhile. (Nick took the day off.) Later in the afternoon we went to see The Lorax. Josh loves to go see movies so I wasn't too surprised when he chose that activity for his special day. We rushed home afterwards and had a quick dinner then headed off for gymnastics class. (Or "Nicknastics" as Josh calls it.) Maya was so cute telling just about anyone that would listen that it was her little brother's birthday. After that we came home and finally had cake and ice cream. It was such a busy day, but while we were eating cake Josh said, "that was a fun Birthday". So I'm glad he had fun...but I need to go to bed and relax now!

Thanks everyone for sending cards and gifts for Josh. He was so happy to have some things to open and play with. We ended up getting him some walkie-talkies which, as we've discovered, are too complicated for a 3 year old. Our 3 year old anyway! So Nick and Maya had a blast playing with those all day. At one point I heard Nick saying, "10-4 little buddy, I'm just spying on mom while she uses the bathroom...I think it was a #1. Over and Out." Then Maya responded, "Roger that, over and out." They crack me up! I'm used to not having any privacy in our house, so no worries.

Here are some photos.


We let Maya 'stay up late' (like, 15 minutes) to decorate with balloons and crepe paper. She felt so special she got to help and was extremely excited to show all of the decorations off to J in the morning.




Of course Grandma Debbie had to send a little something for Maya. Here she is with her new Minnie Mouse earrings. Only a few more weeks and she can start wearing new ones!!


Josh was good to let Maya help him open some presents.


My whole life right there! Love these three weirdos!!






Josh and his REALLY creative Birthday cake. I saw all of these super amazing cakes on Pinterest that I wanted to dulpicate, but I'm just not good at that kind of stuff. So here is what he got! A number 3 road with some tiny cars driving on it.


He was pretty satisfied with the cake, as you can see!

We love you Josh!

V-Day Recap

Valentine's Day was good this year. We stayed up late the night before putting together Maya's butterfly/sucker valentines. Nick got home from work just in time to help us with the assembling process. (Thanks to Pinterest for this cute idea!)




After we dropped Maya off at school we came home and Josh made some special Valentines for her. They turned out pretty cute and he was so proud of himself.


I also saw this idea on Pinterest to put little notes on the kids' doors that say what you love about them. Nick and I took a few hearts each and wrote some things on them. They really liked hearing what we wrote the next morning. Of course they got a little bit of candy too.

Josh's door


When we got home from picking up Maya we opened packages from Grandma Pat and Papa Scott. Thanks guys! They got a few outfits, a jacket, and a couple other things.


Here is M with all of her goodies from her class party. She gave a couple of the boy Valentine's to Joshy. I love her! She can be so sweet.

That night Maya's eye starting getting really red and she just looked sick. We gave it a day to see if she'd get better but I then took her in the following day to see the doctor. Turns out she had double ear infections and pink eye. Poor girl was pretty sick for a few days but she got better quickly. Luckily Josh has been fairly healthy all winter! Whoo hoo! Hardly any breathing treatments and NO trips to Urgent Care or the ER.

Thinking PINK

Last Thursday was the day we have been waiting for! I had my 18 week ultrasound and the baby looks perfect. The technician was super friendly and made the whole experience very enjoyable, even though I was so uncomfortable with a full bladder.

Anyway, we are having another baby girl! Poor Josh will have "book-end sisters" as the ultrasound tech. put it, but maybe he will be extra sensitive...? Now we can start the fun part of organizing Maya's old baby clothes, blankets, etc., and thinking about baby girl names!

I can't wait to hold her and see if she looks more like Josh or Maya. I also can't wait to see what her personality is like. As much as we love our Princess Maya, it would be nice if this little girl was less dramatic and emotional!

The kids were cute when I told them they were getting a new sister. Maya wanted a little brother so I thought she'd be disappointed, but she got used to the idea pretty quickly. She has been carrying around the ultrasound picture showing everyone and proudly announcing, "This is my baby sister!"

I went to Target last night to get a few things and to look at gift ideas for Josh's upcoming THIRD Birthday and decided to check out the spring/summer newborn clothes for baby girls. That's when it really hit me that, wow...we are having another baby girl! I ended up buying one little newborn dress because it was just too cute, and I also bought a package of NB diapers so we can get a good supply before she comes. We are so excited!

So here she is - if you can make out the ultrasound picture.

Keeping busy!

I had heard that Pinterest was extremely addicting so I tried to stay away from it as long as I could. :) But, really, I have found some awesome ways to entertain and teach our kids. A lot of ideas on that site are just obvious things that make we think, "Hmmmm, that is so simple. I can definitely do that!" But I would never think of it on my own. Like this day - I found a posting on how to make homemade bath paint with Dollar Tree shave cream and food coloring. The kids had fun mixing colors and Maya was even teaching Josh about what colors make new ones. Then they spent about an hour in the tub painting on the walls. I have found in the past that the store bought paint stains very easily and so I was pleasantly surprised when the tinted shave cream washed right off.











All of my pictures of M turned out blurry. Bummer.

I'm so happy that I have a little more energy now! There are still days where I feel so exhausted, but for the most part I am feeling a lot better. I have been trying to organize the house as much as possible so that when the baby comes we know where everything is. We have a list of things we want to do around the house as well so that we won't have as much to do this summer. Life is good!!

Here are the kids having fun with pipe cleaners....







We've been attempting to potty train J. He is so stubborn! Hates to use the potty and laughs when he goes in his diaper. I haven't been very consistent and am not ready to fully commit so part of it is my fault, but what a butthead! The poop smell is one smell that still bothers me so I usually end up gagging while I change him, but he just laughs about it. I told him all of his friends like to use the potty and his response was, "Not me mom, I like to go in my diapa'." What a weirdo, at least he's cute!



This picture is especially for my mom. She loves Josh's chubby bum and legs, put him in undies and, oh boy! What a cutie.

Chores

We have really been struggling to get Maya to complete her chores each week. She did well with her chore chart a few months back when we'd pay her an allowance on Friday, but that wore off after awhile. We decided to let her work for something she's been wanting for a long time instead. She worked for two weeks and did awesome! She cleaned toilets, sinks, her room, helped with dinner, and did a good deed every day. Here is what she earned....




Her ears are pierced! She chose Hello Kitty earrings of course. I was surprised by how well she did when they did the piercing. My mom told me I screamed for a really long time and they had to carry me out of the mall. Maya didn't shed ONE tear! She just said, "Owwwwie" - then it was done. She's a tough girl.


We went to Coldstone Creamery after to continue our mother-daughter date. Maya chose cotton candy ice cream with chocolate chips. (Yuck!) We had so much fun! It's nice to get out and spend one on one time together. We were so proud of her to work so hard for 2 weeks. Now she is working for a date with dad.


My gorgeous girl!

Sledding

This winter hasn't been so bad this far. There have been a few days that were really cold, but we haven't had very much snow. It's funny because Nick decided to finally splurge and purchase a snow blower. After nearly 7 years of living in this house and shoveling our long driveway, he decided it was time. Then December and January barely bring in a snowflake! Oh well. I'm definitely not complaining, I hate winters here. However, we did get a few inches on Friday night last week so Nick got to try his new 'toy' out and the kids played outside. I stayed in the house and got caught up on cleaning. About an hour later Nick stuck his head in the back door and excitedly said, "Let's blow up the kids' new tubes and go sledding!" I swear, he is like a little kid sometimes. His nose and cheeks were all red from being outside, too cute. I was less than thrilled thinking about being out in the cold, but decided to be a good sport and go see the kids have fun.

We went to a hill behind the recreation center that was just perfect. At first we put Josh down the smaller hill and he looked at us like, "Seriously? That's it?" So Nick pushed him down the bigger hill and he had so much fun! Our little dare devil!

Maya is at an age now where she can get on the tube by herself, go down, and bring it back to the top. It was an awesome! After the kids had their fun for about 45 minutes I decided to try it out. I forgot how exhilarating it is to go speeding down a hill really fast. (Yeah, I know, I need to get out more.) It was a really, really fun day and I'm so glad I went. By the end of the day we were all going down the hill on these tiny kid tubes - thankfully they didn't pop. We'll have to buy an adult one soon. Maya and Josh kept talking about it all day after we got home. Fun times with my cute family!

Big boy bed and Dinosaurs

We have a big boy on our hands! A couple of weeks ago Nick and I were talking about how we needed to move Josh to a big boy bed. Luckily his crib turns into a toddler bed pretty easily so we decided to do that on Saturday morning. We woke up, I took Josh to get some new sheets ("seats"), which he was extremely excited about, and Nick and Maya stayed home to put the bed together. We really don't have a plan for his room since it's kind of just going to be a temporary set up until we decide where everyone is going when the new baby gets here, but we still wanted to get him some sheets and a blanket that he could be excited about. So we went to Babies "R" Us and, of course, he found the cheesiest Cars 2 sheet set with a comforter....ugh. Oh well, we can decorate his room another time. After the bed was all set up we decided to go check out a mueseum in Ann Arbor, so J missed his nap that day. We thought maybe it would be better anyway because then he'd be exhausted for bed that night. So far, he is sleeping great in his new bed! He is even napping better than before and loves to be able to get in and out of his bed "all by maself!" He doesn't like to be rocked in the rocking chair as much which is hard for me, he is growing up so fast.



The museum we went to was really cool. Maya is very interested in dinosaurs right now so she was stoked to see real bones and learn more about them. We had a good time!







These pictures didn't turn out very well. I'm saving my pennies for a new SLR camera. This trip ended up landing perfectly with the school's schedule to have a dinosaur week, Maya has spent all of this past week talking about them in her class. On Tuesday she decided to create her very own dinosaur museum at home. She assembled all of her pamphlets, papers, crafts, Dinosaur egg/fossil craft they did at school, a flashlight to see the fossils, and a homemade dinosaur memory game on the coffee table. At only 1 penny per person, addmission was extremely affordable! And isn't our expert adorable?



On a side note, I love listening to my kids talk to each other. There have been a few times this week where I will be in the kitchen doing something and can hear them playing in the living room. Yesterday Maya was being mean to Josh and wouldn't let him see some videos she took on her camera. Finally he walked away and said, "you rude a me, Maya..." About 5 minutes later she comes back over to him and says, "JOSH! You have to see this video on my camera, it's so hilarious." He looked at her, shocked, and said, "Maya? You nice-a me now? You not rude now?" It was so funny. Then, we were driving in the car yesterday and he said, "OH. MY. HECK! A 'cool bus, mom!" (School bus) Yeah, he was pretty amazed by that! I just love this age when they are starting to talk and have conversations, it's so exciting.