Cheese!

I've been taking tons of pictures of Sophie the past couple days, she is just too cute! So I've inlcuded another Sophie collage. She is into sticking out her tongue now, which is hilarious. I pretty much have to put a bow in her hair now because her bangs are so long! I want to avoid cutting her hair as long as I can.

Joshua got a new mini-wind-up Thomas train set yesterday. It's really small, you can fold it up and take it with you. He loves it and requested that I take a picture of him with it, so I'm including it. Look at that crazy cheesy smile!

Today we went to the mall because it was rainy and muddy, so Joshua could play at the play place there. I guess everyone else had the same idea, because it was sooo crowded, Joshua didn't even want to stay! That's a first. We'll try again another day. We did get to see, by chance, Bobby's sister Ruthie and 5 of her kids! So it was fun to visit for a few minutes with cousins. Sophie's close cousin, Isabel, is too cute and also getting very big! We'll look forward to seeing more of them at the lake next week.

More fun at Wegerzyn Gardens

Today we went back to Wegerzyn Gardens, much to Joshua's delight. We had a playdate with Mitchell Madewell (and Andrea!) and it was really fun. It was HOTTT though and we all got very toasty. Sophie decided to finally learn how to drink from a straw and drank most of my water! She would NOT give up that cup. It was so cute. You might notice she is drinking out of a McDonald's iced coffee cup. I PROMISE I just re-use the cups! It was ice water!

Cherry & Benji Fullam joined us at Wegerzyn also, and I ran into a friend from high school and her 3 kids. We had last seen each other at our 10 year reunion in September, when we were both HUGELY pregnant! Her baby Esther is only 10 days older than Sophie. It was great to see them!

Tomorrow my friend Krisha, one of the teens at church, is coming over to help me with the kids so I can get some more projects done around the house. She helped me out Monday and I got our upstairs hallway cleaned and vacuumed and Sophie's carpet cleaned. Tomorrow I hope to get the stairs vacuumed and the bathroom cleaned upstairs, and the living and dining room floors mopped downstairs. SHEW! My life is so exciting. But at least their aren't any BEARS in my driveway. Like in SOME PEOPLE'S. You know who you are!

Sacked Out! - Part 2

Here is a picture of Joshua to match the one of Sophie from the other day. We babysat Joshua's cousins Drew, Clinton, & Alan Brads on Saturday and this is Joshua passed out on the way home! He was all cousined-out. Bobby took Joshua and Alan to the Miami Valley Rail Festival at Carillon Park. They really liked seeing all the model trains. But, as usual, Joshua was too afraid to ride the little trains. So poor Alan had to miss out as well! I hope Joshua toughens up soon.

Yesterday we got to spend some more cousin time at The Dudes house. Joshua was very excited to see them since they'd been in Virginia for TWO WEEKS! I had a very interesting time there because between my two children, I had to do THREE clothes changes. And I got peed on. But sadly, I did not have a change of clothes for ME!

Today we are returning to Wegerzyn Gardens and I am definitely taking the camera this time so hopefully I'll have some good pics to post tomorrow!

Busy, Busy

Ok - the picture above is from the luau we went to at the lake a couple weeks ago. My friend Mel sent it to me and I couldn't resist sharing! I am wearing a rain slicker and Bobby an afro cause it was raining cats & dogs and we needed to stay dry! (I raided Bob's closet to get the rain slicker and the afro came from a youth activity at church.)

The past few days I have been reaaalllly busy getting Mommin' It Up! set up with Emily, so i haven't had much time to post. Our first week has gone really well! We are excited! Please keep remembering to check back and tell your friends to tell their friends about it!

The most exciting thing that has happened in the past few days is that my parents came home to Ohio yesterday! They are here just for a short visit for my dad's 45th high school reunion tonight. It has been so good to spend time with them. Last night, Bobby locked his keys in his car at a concert in Columbus, so mom kept the kids for me and Dad went with me to rescue Bobby. It was a good thing they were home! It was nice to spend some quality time with my dad, and I know the kids were glad to be with "Muck" (and vice versa I'm sure!) Bobby showed his appreciation by leaving a Cafe Mocha, Iced Cappucino, 6 donuts, and a Yogurt&Berries from Tim Horton's by my bed this morning. Yum! I shared the donuts with Joshua of course.

Well, that's about all I have for now!

Sacked Out!

Here is a picture of Sophie sacked out at the Greene today (new fancy outdoor mall we have here for those of you who live out of town!) We met there today with Cherry & Benji Fullam so the boys could play on the choo-choo table at the Books&Co. and Cherry and I could catch up. Even though we went early, it got very hot by the time we left at 11:30! Joshua would NOT go in the water fountains they have for kids to play in (with complimentary towel service, might I add), so my Super-Mom preparations went to waste. I had taken him already dressed in water shoes, swim trunks, and even a swim diaper and of course brought extra clothes but it was all for naught. Oh well! Cherry and I had a great time and even bumped into another mom friend of hers & her little boy.

Later this afternoon Joshua met a new babysitter, Lilly. She is the daughter of a friend of mine and is going to start watching him while Bobby, Sophie, and I go to church on Wednesday evening. Joshua really liked her and was very sad when we dropped her off at home.

In other news, this drought we're having and Joshua's and my irresponsibility have about killed his little plants...oops! Fortunately he doesn't seem that upset about it! Hey, at least I'm keeping the children alive and well!

Mommin' It Up!

Today I am proud to announce the launch of a new venture for me! My cousin Emily and I have started a blog to chronicle our Adventures in Motherhood. We'll be blogging about our kids, reviewing our favorite baby products, and rehashing some of our "Greatest Moments" in pregnancy and postpartum history! Please check in every day for new posts and tell all your mom friends about us!! We eventually hope to generate some income from this site to support my iced coffee habit and Emily's Vera Bradley habit. HA!!
So, on your mark, get set, GO check out http://momminitup.com and BOOKMARK it!

You'll also find a link to it on this blog, down on the right of the page.

Playdates Galore!

We've had alot of fun playdates these past few days so I'm including lots of pics today! Thursday we went to Grandma Burns' and hit the park with cousin Kate. Friday Sophie got to hang out with Owen Presher, who is 6 weeks younger than her and the son of my friends from Asbury, Bryan and Beth. Beth and I have decided that the kids should be betrothed, so we like to get them together so they can start getting to know each other! (We also like to call them "O & So". It's the perfect couple nickname, huh? :) ) Then today we went to the park with Megan and Conner, and I got a great picture of Conner and Joshua at the end of their race down the slide! Again I took this with my phone (finally figured out how to email the pics to myself) so it's not the greatest quality but I thought it was so cute! This morning Sophie also decided to snuggle with Molly the Cat so I got a photo of that as well. Notice that she is wearing another fabulous clip in her hair! A flower this time. I can't stop!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to a great Father's Day with Bobby. Both my dad and Bobby's dad are out of town so we are spending the day with "just us".

Is there a Cute Baby Contest I can enter her in??

I know I'm hopelessly biased, but I think this is possibly the cutest picture that has ever been taken. I took it with my camera phone when we were at Wegerzyn Gardens the other day. Since I can't seem to figure out how to email it to myself from my phone, I picture messaged it to my friend Lucy and she emailed it to me! Thanks Lucy! The quality doesn't seem to bad for a camera phone, and I just had to share it with everyone!

So in a Bow!

Today I received 4 hair bows that I had ordered for Sophie from a website I found, http://www.bows2cute.com/. I am sooo happy with them! They were only $2 each so the risk was minimal, but I was a little skeptical. Would they stay in? Would SoSo mess with them? Would they really be as cute as the pictures? So far she has had one in for about 6 hours, and she doesn't seem to know it's there! And they are all adorable! I went a little crazy taking pictures since this is her first hair bow. So I made a collage of the pictures for you all to enjoy. You can click on it if you want a larger view. Shortly after I took the pictures, Sophie, who had been sitting up for 15 minutes or so, tumbled over and face planted in the grass. Those of you who have been to our house know we have 3 large evergreen trees so there are tons of needles in our yard. Well, So fell just right on one of them and it pierced her little cheek, so when I set her up there was a dot of blood. I was horrified but she was generally unscathed and never even fussed a bit! Shew!

Today we took a trip to Target (please pronounce it Tar-ZHAY everyone!) I had not been there since I quit work, which shows a huge amount of self control on my part. We got Sophie some Pampers bibsters and a digital clock for Joshua's room. I am hoping he will think the clock is cool and listen to me when I tell him he cannot get up in the morning until the clock says 7. He has been getting up between 6:30 and 7 and it is killing me because SoSo usually wants to be fed around 5, so by the time I get back to sleep it's 5:15, 5:20....and I'm TIRED! Although, I noted happily last night, I haven't heard my alarm clock go off since June 1 which is awesome!!!

Time to get the kiddos ready for Wednesday night church....So will of course be wearing a bow, for the first time in public. I don't know how we'll get past all the paparazzi!

Wegerzyn Gardens

This morning Joshua, Sophie and I checked out Wegerzyn Gardens Metropark's Children's Garden. It was awesome! It FAR exceeded my expectations! There were fountains, a waterfall, a man-made creek and cave, a little house, a sand table, a dirt dig area, and a maze where you could find different musical instruments, a little pond, and of course lots of beautiful flowers and plants! Joshua had a great time and Sophie was so good, she just hung out in her stroller and enjoyed being outside. Unfortunately, although I DID remember the camera, I forgot the camera's memory card so I was unable to take any pictures! I did have my camera phone, but I have no idea how to get those pics off my phone and onto a computer, so who knows if they will see the light of day? Oh well! We plan to go back next week for a playdate with Mitchy and Andrea Madewell, so I will make sure and bring the camera and ALL its parts then. So, for your viewing enjoyment I have posted a couple of pics of the kids that I took yesterday outside in our yard.

Joshua is still on a "I don't want to sleep in my bed" kick. Last night he threw a big fit at bedtime, and after about 40 minutes of going in to check on him off and on, he finally said he wanted to sleep on the floor, so I put his pillow and blankets and all his things that he sleeps with on the floor and he went to sleep. He confounds me! Today I told him if he starts going to bed without a fuss, we will get him a car from the Cars movie, which he recently has renewed his interest in. I think we'll also get out the old sticker chart we used last summer and start with that again and see if that helps. At LEAST he's been doing great on the potty! He seems to alternate doing well at either sleep or potty, but not both. He is still the sweetest boy in the world though, and I am so proud of him! Yesterday we had our first reading lesson and we talked about the words "At" "Hat" "Bat" and "Cat". He did really well but he said he was done after about 7 or 8 minutes so we quit. I am going to let him take the lead for now.

My whole family is now in Virginia without me. Both my brothers and their families are there with mom & dad this week. I am sad! Bobby was unable to get this week off because 2 other guys at work already have it off. So if you are reading this family, have lots of fun without us! We miss you!

Weekend Fun

Saturday morning I took Joshua (and Sophie got to tag along) to the city of Kettering's "Touch a Truck" day. It was at the middle school parking lot and there were tons of fire trucks, tow trucks, cement mixers, etc. The kids were allowed to get inside the trucks and climb around, there were firemen there - it was really neat! Joshua's friends Conner and Sean were going to attend as well. So I thought Joshua would really love it. But...I...was...WRONG. You see, in addition to climbing in the trucks, the kids were also allowed to honk the horns. So from the minute we got there, there were loud fire truck horns going off about every 20 seconds. Joshua totally freaked out! He is a but timid (some might say wimpy! I hope this doesn't send him to therapy one day!) He was crying and flipping out so much he made Conner cry too. So we stayed all of five minutes. We totally missed Sean because he hadn't even gotten there yet. So, we skee-daddled over to Tim Horton's so I could make it up to Joshua a donut. Megan and Conner joined us and that's what the above photos are of. I've also included a photo of Joshua holding his little sis. He is such a good brother!

Yesterday was "Youth Sunday" at our church and since Bobby is the youth leader, he was running the show. And he did a great job of course! He organized the worship, played bass and gave the message, talking about what we've been doing with the youth and where we want to go from here. I was very proud of him, since he doesn't exactly LOVE public speaking! All the kids did a great job too. Our friend Daniel wrote a video for them which we filmed a couple Wednesdays ago and it was hilarious! The whole church seemed to really enjoy it.

Today Joshua and I are going to start his reading lessons. We'll see what happens! He is also looking forward to one last visit from the Dudes before they leave for Virginia tomorrow. They'll be here soon so I'll finish up for now.

I don't know what day it is!

Since I have been not working all week, I can never remember what day it is! Yesterday I was talking on the phone to a friend and I kept thinking it was Friday...but TODAY is Friday...and when talking to another friend about my week with the kids I kept forgetting what day I had done what. It was embarrassing! Hopefully I'll get myself straightened out soon!

The pictures above are a Sophie collage including some of her adventures in eating solid foods, and a couple of her baby buddies are included too - Brooklynn Saul and Jared McKiernan. (You can click on the collage for a larger view if you need to.) She loves playdates! I also included the pictures of Joshua the Gardener and his plants.

We have had a great couple of days...very busy! Yesterday SoSo and I hit a garage sale and got some good bargains and Joshua went to the choo-choo store with his cousins (a.k.a "The Dudes") Charles & James. Today the kids went to see The Dudes and Uncle Charles & Aunt Bethie so I could finish cleaning my bedroom, which was a giant task. I am glad it is done!

Last night we had a really fun visit with our friends Jon & Nikki McKiernan and their little guy Jared (aka Bug). Bug is only 3 weeks older than Sophie and they had a great time playing together.

Well that's all for now. The kids are asleep so I am going to try to catch a nap! Sophie didn't sleep so well last night so neither did I.

Fine Art

Joshua is really into drawing and painting these days! He wants to paint just about every day. So, I have a LOT of Joshua original works of art and I thought I'd share a couple with you! The one on top is watercolor paints and the 2nd one is marker. Isn't he an artistic genius? He also wants to learn how to read. He asks me every day, "How do you read the words?" when he is looking at his books. So I am going to try to get some phonics lessons together for him. I have no idea what I'm doing, but he's smart and I am sure I can't possibly do any permanent damage to his IQ.

Right now the kids and I are on the porch. It is a really lovely day. It's about 70 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze...perfect! Sophie is swinging and hiccupping and having a great time. Joshua is playing with his sand table, and we just watered the plants we planted last week. We have little potted plants of marigolds, tomatoes, chives, and radishes. I need to re-pot them into or bigger planters, but as I am generally a plant-killer, I am nervous about doing so. I will take some pictures as soon as I remember to get the camera out of Bobby's car where it has been for several days!

Today I hired a babysitter to watch the kids so I could clean my bedroom. It is a HUGE (or as Joshua would say FUGE) mess! I only hired her for 2 hours and I should've hired her for 2 days! Nevertheless, I would say I'm about 3/4 of the way done, although the laundry will take me quite awhile! Hopefully I can finish the rest tomorrow. I am really going to try and be less of a slob now that I am home every day. So far this week I have cleaned the trunk of my car (also a FUGE mess) and Sophie's room. If I get my room done this week I will be very happy!

Last night we were very sad to say goodbye to my mom, aka "Muck" (that's Joshua calls her) as she left to join my dad at their mountaintop reatreat in Virginia for the WHOLE SUMMER! I am having abandonment issues....just kidding! But I will miss them so much. We are planning to spend a week with them near the end of July and I can't wait!

Well, I need to finagle Joshua into getting inside for naptime. More later this week with pictures I promise!

First day "off"

Today is my official first weekday as a stay-at-homer. I wish there was another term for that but I can' t think of a good one. This morning when Joshua was sitting on the potty after just waking up, I said, "Joshua did you know Mommy's going to stay home with you all the time? I'm not going to go to work anymore. What do you think of that?" He said, "I did a great job sleeping in my bed last night." So....I don't think he QUITE gets it yet....

So far it's 9:38 a.m. and I have fed the children, done the dishes, and done my pilates workout. Last night before I went to bed I made myself a nice "to do" list, because I have so many things I want to do to get organized! I also told Joshua we would go to the park today, so I'd better get a move on! Even though it's still early, it's already time for Sophie's morning nap, and I am going to take that time to do the vacuuming....let the excitement begin!

Welcome Friends and Family!

I decided to create this blog to keep you all posted on what we are up to as a family. So I'll start with a quick update on each of us. Bobby and I celebrated our 7th anniversary in March. Hard to believe! I for one am feeling really old...I only have 3 months left of my twenties! As of Friday June 1, I am a full-time stay-at-home mom. I was working part-time, 20 hours a week, and although I had a great work situation, Bobby and I felt like it was finally time for me to be home with the kiddos every day. I am REALLY excited about it! I've truly always wanted to be at home. So we are thankful to God for making this possible and providing for us!

Bobby is still at Lexus of Dayton where he has been working for 8 years. He is also the youth leader at our church and is very involved with his dad in Kiser Lake Sailing Club. He is a great daddy and husband and is also perhaps the busiest person I know!

Joshua turned 3 at the end of February. He is still as sweet as he can be! He loves trains, animals, music, being outside, and playing on the computer. He is FINALLY potty trained which we are very excited about! He loves his little sister very much and is so sweet to her. He loves to sing and I always tell him he's my favorite singer!

Sophia is six and a half months old. She is a very happy, smiley baby. She smiles so big, Bobby and I call it her "full body smile". She FINALLY started sleeping thru the night about a month ago. She still loves to nurse and is now eating solid foods as well. So far she really likes oatmeal, carrots, and sweet potatoes. She is fascinated by her big brother and our cats.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy! Check back often for updates!