Bye-bye preschool

I seriously can't believe that Emma is done with preschool, I feel like she just started and I was just posting about her first day. She loved going to Snells and made friends, which was what I was always worried about. I was afraid she wouldn't have any friends and would be playing alone. I don't know why I thought that but luckily that didn't happen. Emma has been very sad because she became very close with a little girl named Alexis. They were best friends and were inseparable there. They wont be at the same school, but hopefully we can get a play-date scheduled. The last week of school the kids put on a presentation for the parents. At one point it was Emma's turn to be "on stage" and after a minute or so she announced 'I need to go potty" and was led off. We got that on video and look forward to showing her and whoever she may be dating later on in life. Just kidding..... maybe.

March 27th Nick and Julie's wedding

Our good friends Nick and Julie got married on March 27th in Lake Tahoe. Josh was a groomsmen and Emma was the flower girl. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time. Emma loved being the flowergirl and did an awesome job. She danced the night away, and people would go on the dance floor just to watch her. She asked lots of people to dance during the slow songs, and for the fast ones she showed off her break dancing skills. Jacob borrowed a suit from his good friend Carter and boy did he looked adorable, just melted mommy's heart!

Jacob's 2nd birthday

March has been a busy month so far for our family. The biggest and best thing about March is Jacob's birthday. He turned 2 years old on March 13th and we celebrated with a party. We had a lot of friends come over and the kids seemed to have a good time in the bounce house we rented for the day, which was our big present to Jacob. Unfortunately he doesn't understand the concept of "renting" so when the people came to take it down he was not pleased to the say the least! This birthday was a hard one for me because 2 is not a baby anymore, which means I'm baby-less right now! When Emma turned 2 we were trying for another baby so it was exiting to see our little girl get older and know at the same time we'd have another baby soon. But with Jacob, since we are going to wait awhile before trying for another, I was a little sad. The month before his birthday I would be upset when someone referred to him as being 2. I would say "Not yet, he's only 23 months!" Jacob has been calling himself 4 for awhile because it would upset Emma. He says "Emma's 2, Jacob's 4" just to upset her, and it works. Already he knows how to push her buttons. Well anyways the party went well, the kids ate pizza and cupcakes and played outside with toys and in the bounce house. Jacob received his favorite things, Thomas the Train stuff, cars, and sports stuff. About half way through his gifts he opened a Thomas the train engine given to him by his friend Ayson. He was so thrilled with his "Green Thomas" that he got up and walked away from his gifts leaving me to open the rest without him. He loves his "Green Thomas" and sleeps with it every night and brings it in the car wherever we go. It has now become my goal to give a gift a child loves so much they lose interest in opening the rest of their gifts. I will aim for this at the next birthday party we are at. Thanks Janie for setting the standard! Luckily later on Jacob went back and looked through his gifts and was very happy with what he found. He spent the rest of the day playing with his new stuff, but Green Thomas was with him at all times of course. I know Jacob will never remember this party, but he had fun and I love having kids his age over to play. I was very happy that once again on his birthday the weather was nice, because March can go either way. After the party Jacob's new bed was delivered. With Emma I waited until she was 2 1/2 and needed the crib for Jacob, but since Jacob has crawled in and out of his crib so many times, and nearly broke one side of it, and the fact he's been saying he wanted a bed every time he's in Emma's room, we decided to just go ahead and get him one. We did the same thing that we did for Emma and went straight to a twin bed. We put the guard rail up of course so he doesn't fall out in the middle of the night, and told him that he wasn't allowed to get out of it. He listened and had no problem making the transition. He sleeps through the night and takes naps in it and he loves his new bed, so for him this was a good decision. I still recommend waiting as long as you can before taking a child out of a crib, but when they're ready they're ready. The crib now lays sadly in the spare bedroom all taken apart, and just sits there with all the other outgrown baby toys and clothes. Hopefully one day they will all be used again. Jacob had his 2 year old doctor visit a few days after his birthday. He's 30lbs and 37" tall which put him in the 75th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for height. His estimated height as an adult (which you figure out by timing the 2 year old height by 2) is 6'2". This is not a surprise at all since he is built very much like my brother who is 6'4". I was told to keep him fed well, so to Jacob's delight I have added in another snack during the day for him, which has made him very happy! Melanie, AKA Auntie Melly, nicknamed him "moochers" because he was always mooching food even right he had eaten, so maybe this will help cut down on that. Probably not though :-)

Fun at the cabin

Josh's father has a cabin in Arnold that we dont take advantage of enough. It's only an hour and 15 minutes away, and it's free, so you'd think we go often but we don't, only about 2x a year. Whenever we are there we always say we need to come more often, because it's nice sometimes to just get away. We went with The Rodriguez family in January so the kids could play in the snow. Of course being the city girl that I am, after about 15 minutes of sledding and building a snowman I'd had my fill and was ready to go back to the cabin where it was warm and cozy. Lucky for Melanie and me the guys were fine with it and so we drove to a nice spot where we could look out at the mountains and feed the kids a snack. One of my favorite things about this mini-vacation was putting Jacob in a snowsuit. From the moment he was born he looked older than he was because of how big he was. I have often said I got jipped out of the newborn phase because of his size. But this weekend when Jacob was wearing the snowsuit he looked like a baby and I LOVED it!!! I think all kids look cute in snow clothes actually. I don't know what it is about it, but it's just a cute look.


My goal is to go to the cabin every January. It has always been a depressing month for me, because Christmas is over and it's rainy and cold, but this gave me something to look forward to. So thank you Rodriguez family for encouraging us to go!

Christmas

Christmas as always was really fun, and really exhausting. With 4 separate parents to see we are very very busy, but Emma loves it because she gets to open presents again and again. Every year it gets more fun though when it comes to the magic of Christmas. At 4 1/2 Emma totally understands the true meaning of Christmas and can tell the whole nativity story. She also is into the magic of Santa Claus and on her own this year reminded us to make cookies for him and leave something out for the reindeer. I totally get now why my mom always told us it was more fun for her than it was for us. Emma also knows most Christmas songs, even ones that kids don't usually know, and would sing from the moment she got up until she went to bed. She now carries the nickname I did as a child, "Our little Christmas spirit. I always get a little sad on Christmas though because I love the spirit of Christmas and to know it's come to an end and I have to put all my decorations down that I love so much is a little depressing, but luckily it comes back around so fast. Okay and also I love wrapping presents and making bows for them all and having them arranged just perfectly under the tree and to see them destroyed so quickly is a little hard, but that's just my "OCD" talking. We had a fun day though. We did the traditional Christmas morning with just the 4 of us in our PJ's. Making sure Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk. The kids LOVED their Santa present, a huge train table with a huge track and 3 trains. Good thing because it took 4 1/2 hours for Santa to put it together, just to find out it was too big to get in the house so it was another 90 min of taking some apart to get it in and then re-assembling it. All worth it of course. Then my mom and brother came over for presents. Then we had our annual brunch with a lot of our family. Then we opened presents with my dad. Then we went to Josh's mom's house to open presents, and then stayed for dinner where my mom and brother joined us. See what I mean, it's little crazy, but it's a lot of fun too and I love spending time with the people I love. I wouldn't want to go a Christmas without any of them!. I'm so thankful that we are able to have such a nice Christmas because not everyone can, so I tried to remember how lucky we are anytime I started feeling a little overwhelmed. So goodbye Christmas, but we'll see you next year.

Emma's first tap dance recital

Emma switched from ballet to tap this year and it's a lot harder but she's enjoying it. They had a Christmas recital and it was cute too watch, but since they had only been in class for 3 months there wasn't much to showcase. I'm looking forward to the June recital when she would have had another 6 months of classes. She could just stand on stage and look cute and I'd be proud so I guess it doesn't really matter. Here's the video of the dance though.

Lily

December 2nd I had the honor of witnessing a life enter this world. Lilyanna Christine Rodriguez entered this crazy world so now I have another person in my life that I love so much. My kids love her too and I'm glad they have another friend to play with who lives right down the street.