The boys celebrating with birthday hats...Jacob is not too sure about that.
To celebrate Emma Kate's birthday we started the day by going to the doctor for a strep test! She did not have strep, but she had a double ear infection (and Jacob had one too). After the throat culture, through tears, Emma Kate said, "This is NOT a fun way to spend my birthday". Sweet girl! After that we had a good day celebrating even though she did not get to go to school. We had a special lunch at Sonic and she was even allowed to get a slushie for her drink! That night we had spaghetti and meatballs per Emma Kate's request. She enjoyed the day and the constant stream of presents. I can honestly say that each and every present she received was just perfect! She was so thankful for the gifts and was genuinely touched by everyone's thoughtfulness.
Emma Kate at 4 Years Old...
prefers to be called Emma Kate (she gently reminds us when we forget)
LOVES preschool
dances everywhere and is obsessed with Angelina Ballerina and dance class. She is often found teaching dance in her studio, aka her bedroom. She has really improved a lot in the past year.
very interested in drawing and writing. She has exploded with her writing and each day brings a new skill in her drawing. It is exciting to see that skill develop.
Everywhere she goes she has a baby with her. EVERYWHERE. She loves each and every baby and stuffed animal in our house. She feeds them and talks to them and teaches them to crawl and talk and bounces them when they cry. Each morning on the way to school I get a very detailed list of directions for how to care for her baby that day and when I pick her up I am asked for a specific report of what happened while she was gone, including how long naps were and how much the baby ate.
She adores her brothers and loves to play with them
is becoming fashion conscious and has an opinion about her outfits and always is eager to change if she doesn't match or looks "silly"
loves going to the pool and beach. She is just about to move beyond floaties.
she eats a ton...she is a bottomless pit but continues to be a great eater and loves all fruits and vegetables.
she is most definitely a rule follower and experiences such freedom within boundaries.
She is painfully sensitive and thoughtful. She loves and cares for others. She gave me one of her babies for my birthday. So thoughtful and very sweet since she loves them so much.
Emma Kate is very sensitive to noise (how does she survive in our house?!) and smells. We are working to help her learn to overcome these sensitivities as they come.
She is so extroverted and adores talking to whoever will interact with her
has stopped sucking her thumb!!! She made the decision to stop and that was pretty much it. We did have lots of conversations about that and we did find that she is still sucking it in the middle of the night when she is asleep, but she has broken the habit during the day and at bedtime. Along with that, Ducky stays in her room now and she has even given one to Jacob. She is very concerned that she does not want her teeth to look funny.
loves Jesus and sings about Him all day and asks great questions trying to better understand who God is.
she is so helpful and nurturing and the boys essentially have a second mommy...whether they like it or not!
We could not be more blessed by Emma Kate! She is a precious girl that keeps us laughing and wanting to pull our hair out! Here are a few pictures of Emma through the past four years.
Emma Kate (that is what she wants to be called now) started preschool this month. She goes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9-1 and could not love it any more. For the first week she just repeated over and over, "I love school, I love school". Her teachers just laughed at how much she told them she loved school. There are 11 kids in her class and she is the oldest and tallest. She has made friends with a girl named Kate who turns 4 next month. They are in the same Sunday school class and really enjoy playing together - what an answer to prayer. She was just devastated when she missed school on her birthday because she was sick. She was worried the police would come get her because her teachers wouldn't know where she was (not sure where that came from). We are just so thankful that she is enjoying it and blessed that the Lord is affirming our decision to put her in this school and wait until now to do that.
Off to her class. We were not able to get a picture with her teachers that morning but she just danced right into the room and started following directions.
It has been a long time since I have made my way to the computer to post. August into September was quite busy and the past two and a half weeks have been a revolving chain of illness. Here are a few updates and random thoughts I want to hang on to.
At the end of August we had the chance to see the Reitanos again. Mike and I even got to go out alone with Josh and Paige on a date. It was SO much fun!
Grammy and Poppa came on September 1st. We had a great visit and went to the beach and pool and downtown. They were so helpful and such a blessing to us. (of course no pictures...surprise!)
Jonah has been pretending his puppies are baby kitty cats. He tells us they are squealing and has us snuggle them. He nurtures and cares for them so sweetly. Recently I have let them watch the cartoon Martha Speaks and one puppy became Martha and the other Skits. He is such a sweet, sweet boy!
Jonah has started stuttering. While it is mostly a non issue he does have times where it is very frustrating for him. He got stuck at breakfast the other day and finally slammed his head against the chair out of frustration and through tears yelled, "I can't say it". It broke our hearts.
Both kids LOVE their new classes for church. Jonah walks right in and waves to me. It is such a blessing. Now if only I could feel that way... :)
Emma started school - another post to follow
Jonah has been going through a daddy phase and he cries for daddy all day long. Sweet and frustrating at the same time.
Fall is officially here and we are still in full summer weather. The overnight low dipped to 60 and everyone was complaining the next day about how cold it was. I say bring on the 50s and jeans and sweatshirts. Fall is my absolute favorite time of year and also the time I am most homesick. I miss the activities and weather of Cincinnati this time of year but we will again enjoy the Pumpkin farm here and start to look for some new traditions involving shorts and swimming and enjoying flowers and green trees for a few more months. Nothing bad about that...just different.
I know there is more I wanted to share but I am so distracted and overwhelmed with these three sweet babies that I forget just about everything. Just yesterday I closed the garage door before I closed the door to the van and it got caught and made an awful screeching noise and left a pretty good scratch on the door. I was so frustrated but life goes on...our life is full of noise and commotion but is so fun and our kids are such an amazing blessing. It is such a gift to watch them grow and see God's creativity come out as they develop their interests and personality. So fun!
I walked into Emma's room and found her wearing this...the shirt is 18 months. She was "riding" on her pillow pet and it was a riot. She has quite an imagination and loves to dress up.
This picture just does not do any justice to the flooding, but we had unbelievable rain at the end of August. It caused amazing flooding in the city. In one 90 minute window our part of the city got 6.7 inches. It was crazy. We had two days of this rain and it caused a lot of problems.
Bath time escaped the tub a little too much and leaked through to the living room ceiling...ugh!
Emma fell asleep at the top of the steps in her doorway one night as we were battling with her to go to bed. It was just hilarious to come up the steps and see that she fell asleep while making her stand.
For my birthday Jonah got to have a mini Thomas cake like his birthday (since he couldn't eat our cake).
This is the balloon Emma Kate picked out for me for my birthday. Very special!
Football season is here and we are excited!
Emma Kate started back to dance classes. Aren't these tights just special?! I am working on finding places to say yes and I said yes to these and did not shed a tear when they tore the first week of class.
Surprise! Jonah got sick again. He started a virus in our house and then a cold which has cycled through all of us and caused double ear infections for Emma Kate and Jacob. The past two and a half weeks have been full of sickness.
On this morning Jonah was asking for toast with jam. I looked over and he was trying to eat the middle of the toast and had the entire thing plastered against his face.
The cake Emma Kate and Grammy made for my birthday!
Getting big!
Love his smiles!
Jonah has really started building with his blocks. He now builds Sodor (the island Thomas the train lives on). This was complete with football guys. His creativity is coming out and is so much fun.
Pretty good picture of them together
Our only family picture with all of us. Not too bad
Excited for the first Steelers game of the season
The tower at great waterton
Enjoying play time together now that they miss each other during the mornings.
Proud of their creation
The tunnel to Misty Island
They created this all by themselves. They built sheds for their trains. I love that they did this all on their own!
He loves playing with Jonah's blocks and will sit and play with those and watch his brother and sister build for a long time.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
It has been well over a month since I last updated the blog. It has been a crazy few weeks between Jonah's birthday and illness and everyday life. Mike has traveled twice this month and while he was gone the kids had a virus and hand foot and mouth. There was a stretch of 10 days where I did absolutely everything with Mike gone and then had his procedure and couldn't help out and all the while the kids were sick. It was honestly one of the hardest weeks of my life. It is always good to have those stretches to remind me what an amazing and helpful husband I have and remind me of the blessings I have when I go through trials that in the scheme of life are so small. These years of three little ones with just 41 months apart are really challenging. The Lord has been teaching me so much and humbling me in new ways each day. (I am hoping to blog about this and our first year in Charleston - we will see if I make it to that!)
Here are a few clips from the past few weeks. I have found that I take very little video or pictures which I am sure I will regret in the years to come but we have enough to spark some memories!
Emma's ballerina drawing - it is amazing to see her skill develop in such a short time
He loves his feet and hanging out on the porch - sadly he is too big for the swing now in both weight and length
Playing in the Ocean with Daddy - we have been going to the beach at 8:30 on Saturday mornings to avoid the heat and direct sun for Jacob. It is a great time because the beach is still empty but the water is warm and the sun isnt too hot yet. We have really enjoyed these trips to the beach and are looking forward to more beach and pool time now that Jacob can wear sunscreen.
In July we celebrated our 10th anniversary. Mike brought me these gorgeous flowers. We had an awesome date downtown Charleston at High Cotton. It had been since Jacob was born that we had been on a real date and it was such a gift to have time alone together to just have fun!
One night while Grammy was here Mike and I went to the beach and walked for a while. It was a gorgeous night complete with sea turtle nest sightings and dolphins.
We went to the aquarium one Saturday morning with Daddy. It was shark week so we took lots of pictures for Sam who is obsessed with sharks!
Mike especially likes my face in this one...that's what I get for being "fun"
Highlight of the aquarium is always Coretta. That is her shell behind us. She was napping and the kids just sat and talked to her for a while.
Emma checked out a video at the library of ballerinas. This is a small clip of her following along. She would watch and practice for an hour at a time. She dances around the house ALL DAY. She has declared that she is going to be a real ballerina one day. We will see how her classes go this year.
Jonah was actually playing with Jacob and sharing his trains with him - monumental!
Sweet Jonah playing alone the night of his birthday. He is definitely enjoys alone time and was so excited just to play with his new toys without his sister and brother bothering him.
Trying to fill Daddy's shoes. Check out how skinny those legs are.
The "Football Guys" were a present from Aunt Abby, Uncle Andrew, Sam and Leah. Jonah loves to play with them and is learning all of the positions and what they do. The quarterback is his favorite player but he most likes to pretend to be a running back.
This was Jonah's "Football Thomas Cake". He was so excited about this and when he saw the picture he wanted to have it again. He threw quite a fit over the picture. :)
We spent the morning of his birthday at the beach with Grammy. It was an absolutely perfect morning.
Jacob enjoying Jonah's birthday trip to the beach.
Jonah is all boy, but just like his Daddy he is very tender and sensitive and sweet. He is easily upset by loud and upset voices. The older Thomas videos make him quite nervous as the engines are not very nice to one another and he sat on the sofa covering his eyes for most of the episode but did not want me to turn it off. We have since stopped watching any of the old Thomas videos.
I absolutely love his running!
This is one happy boy! He LOVES art projects. He colors about an hour a day and was thrilled to be painting on this day.
Nana and Papaw gave Jonah a real football uniform for his birthday. He could not have been more excited about it.
This kid loves to find pens and color with them. He got a hold of one in our bedroom and decorated our walls for us. This was what I found one morning when he hid behind Mikes clothes in the closet with a pen. He is hilarious but I really have to watch the pens.
Jonah has been cleared by the allergist to begin exploring foods that have egg or milk in them and have been cooked at high temperatures for long periods of time. So far he has been able to tolerate everything we have tried - cornbread, cookies, biscuits, cake minus the icing, breads. He is so excited about having our version of things. What a joy to share those with him and the excitement on his face is priceless.
It has taken me a while to get to this post. We had a great birthday celebration with Jonah. It was just our family and Grammy flew down to celebrate with us. We were all in need of some Grammy time! We spent the morning at the beach and spaced out the eating of the cake and presents all day. He was so thankful for each gift and it was so fun to watch the excitement on his face and see him enjoy those gifts.
At two Jonah is as cute as ever. He is an incredibly sweet and gentle boy and also quite a handful. He is very particular about things and gets very upset when what he thinks should happen is different than what actually happens. There have been multiple mornings when he has an hour temper tantrum over the wrong color bowl. We are figuring out strategies to both prevent and survive his passionate personality.
Jonah has so much fun with his siblings and also enjoys his space from them. He is definitely an instigator and enjoys pushing Emma's buttons. They play together SO well and it is so much fun to listen to the dialogue between them as they play. As for Jacob, Jonah has shown more interest in him recently and has been playing cars with him. That said, every morning Jonah comes downstairs while I am feeding Jacob and tells me not to feed Jacob and announces that he is not part of our family. He has been having a really difficult time sharing Mommy with Jacob. Throughout the day he will come over and tell me to put him in the bouncy seat or swing so I can hold him instead. Just today he told me, while in the car, to pull over. When I asked him why he told me that Jacob could not be in the car and to leave him in the grass. Oh my! He is definitely challenging any parenting strategies that worked for his sister.
Jonah's love for Thomas and trains in general continues to grow strong as well as his love for football and any other sport. He loves to play in the yard and run around like a running back. He now has a tee and is really good at hitting balls off of it. The olympics were so exciting for Jonah and he enjoyed learning about so many new sports.
We are just so in love with Jonah. He is so much fun and so full of life and laughter and joy. He has a smile that lights up a room and conversations with him are always hilarious. We love him so much and are so thankful for how the Lord has created him.
