"Mom, picture"

Jennifer is fairly sure that every time we make something and she is licking the spoon or beaters from the mixer that I need to take her picture. A few days ago we made some cupcakes to take with us to a party and when we were done mixing everything Jennifer says, while pointing the camera, "Mom, take my picture." I told some friends a few weeks ago that the song "Your so Vain" sometimes goes through my head with this child. She truly thinks the world is all about her! Which is my fault I guess so I shouldn't complain too much, after all she is pretty darn cute, most of the time! Mikayla crawled around the kitchen while we made cupcakes, without a care in the world. I can't wait until she can stand on a chair and help too.
This is the girls before bed one night. Usually before bed we all play a game together but on this night Jennifer choose the aqua doodle. Mikayla of course has to get in on all the fun. She is really watching Jennifer in this picture, which is very sweet. I thinks Mikayla really wanted to take Jennifer pen.

Attacking dad is always a fun thing to do too! Mikayla was thinking this was hilarious!

My tired preschooler. Five days a week until after lunch do make her tired at night. "Mom, I tired" or "I sleepy" are two things she is starting to say. Now if she would only rest when she says those things.
Pictures are far and few between at our house right now. I discovered after the camera's little adventure the battery is not working so well. I only have a small window of opportunity to take pictures before the camera dies. I hoping if we get a battery that all will be well again and then hopefully there will be more pictures to share!

best friend

Tonight as I was giving the girls a bath Jennifer said something that melted my heart and probably will not be said too many times so I thought I should document it! Both the girls were in the bath and I was taking Mikayla out. I told Jennifer I would get Mikayla's pj's on and then get her out. Jennifer's response: "Ok, mom, you my best friend." I of course had to clarify: "Did you say mom is your best friend?" Jennifer: "Yes, best friend." Oh, I so love that. I don't she really gets what a best friend is but how very sweet of her to say it! As I was helping her get her pj's on we were talking and when we were done she gave me a hug and again said, "My best friend." So for today J and I were best friends, which kind of makes my day.

saved pictures!

Something tragic happened over the weekend, ok maybe tragic is too strong of a word but it was something that made me a little nervous none the less. I dropped our camera, in some water. Lets just say I had just used the restroom when I heard I loud noise, my camera had been in a pocket and well you can guess the rest. Luckily I had flushed so no worries there! But I cringed, our camera was done for. I quickly took out the battery and the memory card. I wanted to scream at myself. When I told Bill about it later he simply laughed! We decided maybe there was some hope for the camera. A few years ago Jennifer decided that the bottom of a cup filled with water was a great place for my cell phone. After letting it dry for a few days and charging it up it came back. So I was clinging to that, maybe the camera would come back. Really I was just sad because there were pictures on the memory card that could be lost forever. After a few days of drying out and charging the battery, woo-hoo our camera came back!

So here are some of the pictures that I thought were lost...

Last weekend we went to my grandparents to celebrate my dad and brother's birthday. Here is Jennifer "loving" her cousins. She looks like she is being really rough but I promise they were laughing at this!

All the kids blowing out the candles with the birthday boys. It is hard to see but if you look closely at Mikayla she has this face like she is about ready to scream, everyone was being a bit loud and she wasn't digging it so much.This picture followed the one from above. Daddy rescued Mikayla from the crazy big kids.All the great-grand kids with the great-grandparents. Trying to get these four kids to all look at the camera, forget the smiling just them all looking is hard enough!

Once again Mikayla could not make it through lunch time. There is still a pea in her mouth.

This picture may just seem like an ordinary picture of Mikayla. However, it represents all that she can do right now! She has accomplished sitting up on her own, finally! And she is now crawling everywhere in our house, everywhere. Just a month ago Mikayla was only crawling a little bit and she was just figuring out how to push herself back to sitting from laying on the floor. She is now a pro at both, very fun to watch her! We have had lots of people ask us if she is walking and I have to be careful not to laugh out loud. The sweet girl has no interest in standing up, although the past couple of days she has seemed like she wants to pull herself up a couple of different times. Someday, maybe before she is two, she will get there. Her timing, her timing.
School has started, which means football has started too. Here are the girls before we head off to the first home game a few weeks ago. Mikayla is clearly not impressed with this, Jennifer however was very excited. A place where she gets to eat popcorn and suckers and see all her friends, how great is that! She is still however not a big fan of the band. We were hoping this year she would overcome this fear, no such luck yet, maybe the next game will be better.

Ready to cheer on the Comets!

proud of you!

When Jennifer gets home from preschool in the afternoon she sort of needs a little time to just veg out. Usually this means she wants to watch some tv. Yes I admit it I let her come home and veg in front of the tv for a little bit. Lately Jen's big thing has been watching something on the wii. We decided to get netflix a few months ago and one of the features is watching movies on the wii. It really is a great feature, especially for kids stuff! So today when we got home from school I was getting her set up to watch some Barney on the wii, yes I hate to admit she still likes to watch the purple guy! At first it wasn't working because our internet was acting up. So I worked at getting it fixed so Jen could watch something. The whole time I'm trying to get it to work Jen is cheering me on with these words, "Mom, is it working? You fix it? Good job mom. I'm proud of you! I'm proud of you! Give me a hug." She then proceeded to wrap her arms around me and give me a huge hug and told me several times, "I'm proud of you!" I have no idea where this phrase came from but it sure did boost my attitude today. Leave it to my five year old to make me feel like I could do anything!
This is one of those things I just have to write down because it made me laugh and question the choices Jennifer may make in the future. On Wednesday afternoons our friend Jenny comes to hang out with Jen while Mikayla and I go to the church to help Bill get ready for the nights activities. Today Jenny took Jen to the park to play before coming to the church. There was a lady at the park smoking. First of all really? Did she have to be smoking at the park, where kids play? (Sorry if you smoke and I just offended you but I don't like smoking and well its my blog!) Jennifer, of course, notices the lady and goes up to her and says "Me too!" Yes, she was thinking that she needed what this lady had! Jenny of course handles the situation very well and just tells Jen that is not for her and gets her to go play. How does one not offend in this situation because I would have probably said, without thinking, "Oh no, that is gross, we don't ever do that!" Which probably would have gotten me yelled at or slapped. Guess I'm glad Jenny had to handle it and not me! And Bill made a valid point that we may need to watch Jen in the future with the choices she makes!
The things a five year old will come up with, gotta love it!

new month

Today a new month starts. I must admit I am glad that August is over. We are slowly getting in to the routine of school, which is kind of nice. Jennifer is doing great! She is loving lots of things about school, including eating lunch there. Jennifer is a picky eater but her teacher says that she is eating well. She even ate tacos yesterday! I was looking through our pictures and had to share the pictures of Jen as she was recovering from her eye injury. What a trooper that girl was! She is doing amazingly well!

We should have taken a picture of her with her patches on but in the craziness of the night we forgot and even though she wasn't opening her eyes at this point she refused to let us even rest the patches on her eyes for a picture, I can't say I blame her.

This picture is also from Monday, the day after. The above picture is later in the afternoon, still no open eyes. This picture below is where Jennifer spent pretty much the entire morning. Bill had taken her back to see the eye doctor and when they got home this is where she stayed. Broke my heart. If you know Jen you know she does not sit long so this was very not typical.

Tuesday Jen was getting a little better but still needed to rest her eyes every now and then. She wanted to rest in the chair at one point and thought Mikayla needed to rest with her, very sweet to see my sisters snuggling in the chair together.

Had to include this picture. Poor Mikayla could not even stay awake for lunch.