Happy, Happy Baby

I just had to share this picture of Ella. We get to see this adorable smile on a pretty regular basis now. Isn't she the sweetest thing?!!! :)

Fire Truck Fun!

Garrett wanted a talking fireman's helmet for his birthday, and his wish was granted. Today, he got to take his helmet and spend some time down at the station with Daddy. Thank goodness Daddy was thinking ahead and took the camera ;)

I can't believe how much my little man has grown up, yet I love to see that gleam in his eye when he is so excited about doing something...and this was one of those things.

Our little man turns 5!

Five years ago today our lives were changed forever...we became parents! We had waited what seemed like an eternity for that day to come, and here we are five years and three kids later. :) It's flown by unbelievably fast. Garrett has brought so much personality to our home. He talks what seems like non-stop, which is hard for most people to believe since he is SO SHY around people he doesn't know very well. He is VERY excited that he is finally five and that he'll be able to start playing little guy sports when it's time. He is constantly saying things like,"Mom, when I was little..." His Spiderman toys are his favorite thing EVER, with Transformers running a close second. He is such a good big brother (when he wants to be) and tells me all the time how he's going to take care of his sisters when he gets bigger. He loves to help me cook and today he said he was my "little cooker". I love this kid!

My new name :)

I reminded Garrett to do something tonight, his reply, "OK, Mr. Bossy Mom". How do you not laugh at that????

My favorite Christmas gift...

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while now, and decided I better hurry up and get it done or it just wouldn't happen. The problem is, I just don't even know where to begin. I'll start by saying I'm the luckiest girl in the world. My parents came from two amazing families. Very large families by today's standards. My dad was the oldest of 11 children, my mom the 3rd of 6. Most of the family stuck around, rather than moving off to opposite ends of the country. I grew up surrounded by cousins, which I loved. Since I had no sisters of my own, my cousins became my sisters and best friends. My aunts were like second moms, and my grandpa's were my second dads, especially after my dad died. We always headed to grandma and grandpa's house on Sunday nights. It was like a party every Sunday night. Mishelle, Heather and I would lock ourselves in Uncle Tom's old room and talk about friends, boys, and catch up on any gossip or even make up some of our own :) At some point in the day all the grandkids would go outside and play capture the flag or no bears are out tonight. Even once I'd graduated from high school, if I didn't show up at their house on Sunday night, I got a phone call from Grandpa, he just wanted to make sure I was doing OK. I don't have very many childhood memories that don't have something to do with cousins or grandparents.

Leading up to Christmas, my aunt Lorrie's blog contained hints from Grandma as to what this year's gift to the grandkids would be. For weeks we were all trying to guess what in the world Grandma was up to. Here is one of the clues...

Clue #7 "Keep thinking Memories."In his little brown bag he always carried an extra shirt, his medicine, black licorice & Duct Tape. There wasn't anything he couldn't fix with duct tape!Love, Grandma Cox

On Christmas night, we all gathered at my mom's for our usual party and white elephant gift exchange. My mom has a pretty large home, and it was bursting at the seams. I love every minute of it. Good food, good people. Good times. After the highly entertaining gift exchange, Grandma gathered all of the grandkids in a circle, and gave an explanation of our gift. She had been going through that little brown bag (in the clue) recently, cleaning it out, and came across several of these.

Bicentennial silver dollars. Grandpa had collected them, and now it was time to pass them on to his grandchildren. Most of us were in tears as she spoke of him and how important his granchildren were to him. He had a way of making each of us feel special, and there were 30 grandkids! This was my favorite Christmas gift this year, it's something I will keep for the rest of my life. It will not only remind me of my Grandpa, but also the things he stood for, the kind of person he was. All of my grandparents have set amazing examples for me. They are/were hard working, honest people, and I strive to be even a fraction of the person each of them are. I love each of them so very much and feel so blessed to be a part of the family that I have.

It's donut makin' time!

I've had two cans of biscuits in my fridge and I've been trying to figure out what to make with them, the recipe I originally used them for didn't impress me. So as I was blog hopping this morning, I came across a post where they had made donuts with them. Duh! My mom use to do that all the time for her daycare kids. So...the kids and I made donuts this morning and dipped them in cinnamon and sugar. Yum!

3 weeks old (plus a few days...so I'm a little late)

They change so much in those first weeks and months, I wanted to make sure I got some pictures at 3 weeks. It's amazing to see how quickly they grow at this age. I LOVE that she's finally fitting into some of her 0-3 month clothes. She's been sick this week though, we all got a nasty cold, so we just try to keep her propped up as much as possible so she can breathe. We figured out she loves the swing and will generally sleep twice as long when she's in it. She's starting to smile a little more too....ya know, those non-gassy ones. Pretty darn cute.

Lauren now calls her "Ewah", instead of just baby all the time. She's always trying to give her a kiss on the head (probably why Ella is now sick). Garrett still can't just leave her alone, especially when she's sleeping. He wants to be touching her ALL. THE. TIME. It drives me crazy but at least I know he loves his "baby sister". :)

Lesson Learned

So Todd comes home from work today and finds Garrett downstairs playing with a watch. Only problem is...neither of us have ever seen it before. :( It's not an expensive watch or anything, but we couldn't figure out where in the world it might have come from. Garrett just kept saying he'd found it on the floor. I finally thought to ask if he'd taken it from preschool today. The look on his face told me that was it. I do a co-op with a couple of other moms, and he'd taken the watch from the house they were at today. We explained to him that you DO NOT take something that belongs to someone else, that's stealing, unless you've asked to borrow it or they give it to you. We decided that even though it probably wasn't a huge deal to them, he needed to take it back and apologize right away. So....we hop in the car and drive over there. He told me as we pulled up that he didn't want me to go with him, I needed to stay in the car. That's a huge deal for him because he is soooo shy. He walked right up to the door and knocked. I don't think he said a word, just handed it to my friend and walked away. I gave a quick explanation (from the car) and she thanked him for bringing it back. As we drove away Garrett said, "Mom, I'm never gonna steal again!" Hopefully that's the truth :)