In Review

We have had a busy week. Last Sunday (not yesterday, but the one before that) we packed up the kids and went to the pool. They have started heating it on the weekends and since it was such a beautiful day we thought we would enjoy it. Shelby and JP had a blast. Watching them playing with Pratt and their little buddies really got me excited about this summer and all the fun times we will have. The water was perfect, but you had to make sure that your towel was ready for when you got out because the breeze coming off the lake was a little chilly. We enjoyed lunch with grandmother, grandpa and Uncle Matt that day.

Monday we had a guest come in to stay with us for the week. His name was Reed and at first Shelby and JP were a little unsure of him, but after about a day Shelby was totally smitten and couldn't wait to see him every morning and every evening. All day she would ask, "Where is Mr. Reed? When is coming home? When can I see him? What is he doing?" etc, etc. When I put her to bed on Thursday night she asked me if he could live with us. It was so funny to see her become so attached to him and bless him for going along with it and letting her hang on him, cuddle with him, and just be in his face everytime he was around. I thought for sure that we would have some tears when he left today, but Shelby just gave him a great big leg hug and waved good bye. Of course, she has already asked a couple of times when we would see him again:)

Tuesday Shelby started swim lessons with three of her little friends. Surprisingly to me, she was so excited and really did a wonderful job of listening and participating. When it wasn't her turn she sat patiently on the edge of the pool with her little hands in her lap (I like to think this was a little glimpse into how she would look sitting around the ellipse at school). It was a very precious site for me. When they were getting started she did make sure to tell the swim teacher that she didn't want to get her head wet. JP and I hung around to watch. Since I didn't bring his suit because I didn't want to get in knowing full well that the water would be freezing (which it was), we sat at the edge and he went to town kicking and splashing water all over the place. After about 15 minutes I wised up and took his clothes off and let him sit there in his diaper. Of course, that was a little late as his clothes were already pretty wet. Lesson learned and tomorrow we will make sure that he starts out with no clothes on.

Here are the girls getting instruction at the side of the pool.

This is a picture of the girls practicing "big arms" before getting in the water and doing it. It was so funny because once they got in for their turn to swim, they all did little arms and kicked just to splash water every where.

First Trip to the Salon

After Pratt asked me for about 2 months to get JP's hair cut, I finally gave in and set an appointment at the salon for him and for Shelby. This would be our first ever. Pratt had cut Shelby's hair twice in the past and since it took her so long to grow enough hair to cut it and since she is a girl, it wasn't that huge of a deal if her hair didn't get cut. But JP on the other hand will need to have his hair cut more frequently. Pratt wants it to stay shorter and I love his curls so I knew that it would need to be done by a professional to give both of us what we want. After playing phone tag for about 2 weeks with the salon the appointment was set. Even though I never mentioned Shelby by name or used the word girl in setting up the appointment for both girls, she somehow knew that she was going to be in on this too and before I could even put the phone back on the receiver she chimed in, "No mommy, I don't want to get my hair cut. Please, no mommy." I mean seriously!!! How did she even know?!?!?!?!

Anyway, haircut day came last Tuesday and thankfully Pratt was able to go with me. We tried JP first and he was definitely not having it so Pratt took him for a bit and Shelby sat on my lap and let them cut her hair. After all her protest it was amazing to see her just sitting there very still and very calm. She did great and her hair looks so cute!!!

JP on the other hand was quite the opposite. He kicked and screamed and fought us through the whole process. At one point he scaled so high up on Pratt that he looked like a cat trying to find higher ground to get away from rising water. It was kind of funny....is that bad??? Anyway, we made it through and his hair got trimmed and we also got to keep the curls. I am glad that experience is over with and hope that the next one goes better.

P-A-R-T-Y Because we like to!!

This Saturday was Shelby's birthday party. I have to admit, as much as I tried to change her mind about what she wanted to do for her party, it ended up being so much fun having it where she wanted. She was so insistent that she have her party at Island Playground, "the place where Neely had her party", is what she would say. The children ran around like crazy and completely wore themselves out. Plus, all I had to get was a cake and the Island Playground took care of everything else. It doesn't get any easier than that. It is amazing to see how different Shelby is around her friends then when she is with just me. Normally she isn't so independent or into trying things that she would perceive as dangerous, but at her party she just followed all her little friends around and went on some of the bouncy things that she wouldn't even look at before. The best thing was that I got to get in on some of the action...bounce, slide, climb, etc. It was so much fun and I got the biggest joy out of watching the children laugh and play together. Ahhhhh, fun times!!!! Here are some pictures......

Can you tell that we had to wake her up from her nap for her party? She was a little craby about that and it took her a few minutes to get into the party mood. At this point, I don't think I am looking to forward to the teenage years with this one;-)

JP and Rob diggin up some dinosaurs. JP was a little wild monkey, he ran all around and had a great time, but generally avoided the bouncy houses....not something I expect to last too long.


Shelby and Emily going down the big slide together. This is one of the bouncy houses that Shelby normally wouldn't even go close to, but here she is and look how much fun she is having...


Happy Birthday Shelby!! I hope you enjoyed your party and your pretty Ariel birthday cake!! I love you!

Shelby's 4 Year Check-Up

Last Friday we had Shelby's 4 year well visit with the doctor. This will definitely go down in the books as one of the most difficult trips we have ever made to see the doctor. It all started when I told Shelby earlier in the day that we were going to get to go tee-tee in a cup at the doctor's office. My sweet girl who isn't too thrilled about new experiences determined that was too much to handle and well, that was the beginning. Thanks to advice from Leslie, I took Shelby alone and left JP with her.

On the way there I loaded Shelby up with fluid. She got to drink a juice box in the car and once we got there I made her drink water every chance I could. It was successful because when it came time to go tee-tee in the cup she really had to go and despite all her protests she nearly filled the whole cup up. Amongst other new experiences for her at this appointment was getting her blood pressure taken. She really did a great job with having that cuff around her arm. They also had to do a finger prick. This isn't the first time she has had that done, but she was just a baby for the first one so as far as she was concerned this was her first. She freaked out more when the nurse tried to put a band-aid on her finger than she did when they pricked it. I don't know what it is about her, but she really, really, really doesn't like to wear band-aids!! After all that we saw the doctor. He checked her all out and she did great. She is growing and doing everything she should be and all her lab work came back good. As the doctor was leaving he gave me that look as he said, "We only have one more thing to do." I gave him that look that says "I know, I know." Anyway, Shelby thought since the doctor was gone that we should leave too at which point I knew I couldn't put off the secret any longer. The time had come that I had to tell her about the shots. The word hardly came out of my mouth and she started screaming and crying and carrying on like you wouldn't believe. As we waited for the nurses to come back it seemed like hours had passed when it was probably not even 5 minutes. They both came in and gave me instruction that I would hold her arms and one nurse would sit on her legs while the other nurse would give her the shots. Really, I think that the anticipation of the shots was the worst for Shelby because she put up a fight, but as soon as they were done that was the end and she really didn't continue to carry on. She survived and I survived and I am glad that is behind us now.

Here are her stats:
weight: 36lbs (50%)
height: 40 1/2 in (75%)
blood pressure: 107/63

My Children Make Me Smile

I think that every parent loves their child, but sometimes I think that there is absolutely no parent out there who loves their child more or gets more joy and laughter from their child as I get from my two sweet blessings. They are just always doing something so undeniably cute or funny that I find myself laughing nearly all day. For instance, JP has really taken to giving the blessing at meal time. It is the cutest thing in the world to hear him try to sing the song that we do and he always throws Shelby's name in there. One day I am going to have to get a little video of it and post it for you to see what I mean. Also, check out this picture of him from this morning. JP loves sunglasses. He wears them all around the house, out of the house, during the day and at night and he just looks so cute and it makes me laugh.

My friend Erin and I have weekly lunch dates at Moe's with the kids because both of our older children love it so much. Everyday I pick Shelby up from school the very first thing she asks me is if we can go to Moe's for lunch. She would eat there everyday if we let her. Anyway, today Erin brought some cupcakes for Shelby's birthday and here is the end result. I have never seen 4 kids get such enjoyment out of eating cupcakes as these 4 got today. It was hilarious, especially sweet Finn. He had his whole face in that cupcake and loved every minute of it!!!

Happy Birthday Shelby!

I can't belive that when Shelby woke up this morning she was 4!!!! I mean, when in the world did that happen? My sweet baby girl is 4. It is almost to hard to bear when I think about it too much. So in effort to prevent a total melt down into depression over the rapid growth of my baby girl I am just going to post some pictures and tell you this quick story....

Monday night as Pratt was leaving the house to go visit Suzy, Patricio and their new baby at the hospital he went to tell Shelby and JP good night. They ran up to him and he hugged them and said good night and told them that he was going to see their new cousin Sebastian and when he got home he would peek in on them. Of course as busy as they are as soon as they got their hugs they were off to play and as Shelby was running, she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around to Pratt and said, "Tell Sebastian that I love him." Oh my gosh!!! My heart just melted!!! It was so sweet and so natural.

Okay, now some pictures from these last four wonderful years....

February 18th, 2005

February 2006

February 2007

February 2008

February 2009

One more thing...Shelby was so impressed with my Nemo cake for JP that she thought that I would be able to make her a princess cake, I told her that we would get a special princess cake from the bakery for her party since I am not that good when it comes to things like that. Then she asked me for a princess castle cake to which I said....how about a pink princess heart cake? She gladly agreed and here it is...

Boca Raton

Last week Pratt got a phone call from a friend in Boca asking him to come down to play golf with him so on Sunday we decided we would go and Tuesday we packed up the kids and the car and made our way down to the Sunshine state. Let me tell you...this was a huge God thing. We really needed to get away, but didn't realize it until the opportunity had come for us to have a little family vacation. He always knows just what we need when we need it!!!

The trip down was great. We left about 8:30am and it took us about 8 hours to get there. Shelby and JP did wonderfully!!! I really wasn't sure what we would get with those two, but they were so patient and good!!! It was great.

(Shelby and JP at the Miami Seaquarium outside the area where the original Flipper show was filmed)

Boca was beautiful. The weather was 80s and sunny the whole time we were there...sure did make coming home to 50s and cloudy hard:) On Wednesday we drove down to Miami and took Shelby and JP to the Miami Seaquarium. It was awesome. We saw a dolphin show, a killer whale show and all kinds of animals. Shelby and JP had a great time. The only time it was questionable was at the killer whale show. We thought that we sat high enough to avoid the splash, but we were just on the edge. I mean hardly any water got on us, but the little bit that did was enough for Shelby to decided that she was done. For the rest of the show she kept asking me, "In one minute, can we go home? I am ready to go home." Of course, at the end she really had a wonderful time. Thursday Cheri and I took her children and mine to Chuck E. Cheese. And oh wow!!! They had the best time!!! Shelby can't wait to go back...except she does express that she doesn't want to see that mouse again. Friday we got up and came home. On the way home we stopped at Daytona for lunch and ate at Cracker Barrel right out side the race track. It is amazing to me how much Shelby remembers and processes these days because when the race came on on Sunday we flipped it on for a minute to see what was happening and Shelby totally got into it. She said that was where we had lunch and when Pratt tried to change the channel she asked us to put it back and continued asking questions about why they were doing whatever they were doing. It was hilarious. I only hope that this isn't some new fascination with her as I don't particularly care to watch NASCAR too much.

Pratt, Shelby and JP waiting for the killer whale show to start...we should have sat one more row back.

JP, Christian, Shelby and Savannah

Shelby, JP, Gabby and Christian