Countdown to Christmas!

6 days till christmas and the elf on our shelf is still causing mischief. In the meantime...we had Ethan's birthday party last weekend at ChuckieCheese!! He had an awesome time with all of his "buddies", as he calls them. I made him a Wall-e /Eve cake that he has been asking for for the past 6 months. He loved all of his presents and is now ready for round two at Christmas!
Miss Emelia has been missing out on the blog action a bit so a morsel about her.....she told Mommy to "shut up", "get out my way", and "get out my room". I AM NOT KIDDING!!!!! WHAT THE .... My two year old has a serious problem of thinking that she is 13, I mean 31 and that she can talk to her mother like that. Until Mommy explained otherwise. Unfortunately then big brother pitched in(refer to previous blog on 4 things I love about Ethan) and yelled at Mommy not to spank Emelia! :) Please believe that the spanking did NOT come before the "naughty spot" which no longer works for her because she screams at a peircing loud pitch the entire two minutes she is there! In otherwords she is naughtier in the naughty spot than in the crawl space (I AM KIDDING!) :)
Once Daddy uploads all the pictures on the camera I will post them!

And now he is 4!

Ethan turned 4!!! He is such an awesome little dude and 1/3 of the special light of my life! He was soooo excited yesterday that it was his birthday! He jumped out of bed and put on his new birthday shirt that Mommy bought him! He opened one present in the morning (a pirate ship) and happily played with that all day until Mommy got home. We met Grandma and Grandpa at Red Robin for dinner then returned ho0me to open presents!
He was sooo excited abput his bike! He was not expecting it but jumped on right away! And the 20" bike fit him just right!

Four things I love about you Ethan:
1.) you already know how to make people feel special...you say I love you, thank you, and I missed you!
2.) you are a great BIG brother to your little sister... you wont let her cry too long if she is upset about anything! ... other than when YOU beat her up for taking your toys
3.) you make me smile every morning when you say "where are you mommy" over the monitor and every night when you try to get me to lay down with you by moving over in the bed, pushing the covers aside and saying "room right here mommy"
4.) you are a real cool kid to be around, play with and love...even though Mommy has had to leave you everyday since you were 6 weeks old to go to work! You know that I think of you all the time I am gone and that I will always "BE BACK"! :)

I can't wait to see what you grow to do this year!

Once Last night, Twice tonight!!

Last night Emelia looked at me and said "I have to potty mommy", I kinda ignored her as she has been doing that a lot lately. She went into the bathroom, grabbed her potty, pulled it into her room, sat down and did it! Just like that! Then much to my surprize she tried throughout the day and then did it twice tonight! I think this is it!!! WHAOOOOOO!!! Of course I just bought 4 boxes of diapers and three boxes of wipes at BJ's but o'well! ALMOST 2/2 out of diapers!!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend!!! and RAIN

Thanksgiving was great! We had an awesome dinner at Maggiano's...when there are so many people, anything where cooking and cleaning is cut out of the eat and be turkey tired equation is good by me. Actually our family style turkey dinner was fantastic. I do not like turkey but it was the best turkey I have ever had...sorry Mike...even better than the deep fried turkey you make!
Aunt Jana and Uncle Mark were here with cousin Joshie. Joshie stayed with us both nights and the kids really had fun! Emelia drove Josh so nuts with her non stop talking that he decided he had a headache and held his hands over his ears everytime we entered the car! :)

We are gearing up for Ethan's big 4 birthday and of course Christmas. The house is decorated and ready for our Christmas guests! Our family elf even showed up early this year. He has been spotted in the tree, on the mantel, in the lamp and on the entertainment center. For those of you who havent heard of "the elf on the shelf", check out the book kit at Learning Express at Stonecrest. I had never heard of it until I moved down South. We started the tradition 2 years ago and it works like mommy and daddy MAGIC! Ethan is getting a bike for his birthday that Daddy and Grandpa Grey picked out on Sunday. Unbelievably, his first bike is a 20" bike, the others were too small! Yikes!

The rain has finally stopped. To give you an idea of how much we got, the kids small plastic pool was filled 1/2 way up. All it did was rain and rain! Yuk!

FINALLY!!

For those of you who know how tought it has been to get Ethan to eat (almost ANYTHING), you are not going to believe this! ETHAN ATE A TUNAFISH SANDWHICH AND A WHOLE CHEESE STICK!!!! Ok, almost a whole half of a tuna sandwhich. Let me back up. Garret and I went away last weekend and when we got back, Mommy decided to take on two challenges. (1) Ethan will eat a variety of food and (2) Emelia will be potty trained. OH..and all by Christmas. Anyways, I institued the new everyone eats the same food for dinner no matter what and everyone has to at least try the food they are given. And for lunch...no more nuggets, fish sticks, hot dogs and corn dogs. It is really working. I know this does not sound like a breakthrough of moden day nutritional science but I dont know if it is his age or the fact that he knows Mommy means business but it is working. I am letting the kids pick out 1 dinner meal a week. But everyone has to eat it! So tomorrow is chicken dinosaurs with corn and apples.?!. Yuh..Garret and I can not wait!
And Emmme, well she eats everything on her plate..usually. So now if I can just get her not to put half the toliet paper roll into her training potty we would be all set!

Playin'with MOM

THe Whole Family

I Love this picture! And my Family!

Picture Time!!

Halloween!!!

Son of a %$&$%%(

YEP, emelia said it. Ethan wouldn't listen to mommy... and mommy said eeerrr... so Emelia said with a big sigh "son of a b....". Holy cow did she get that from me....?????? Yes, unfortunately that did come from me. Guess I need to watch myself even more than I do :)

Emelia loves to play with her hair clippees. So Mommy decided to put them all in her hair. I know the picture doesn't show it but she thought it was really funny!

Grandpa Grey

Well Grandpa has come through his surgery very well...let me back up. 2 weeks ago my grandfather was taken to the hospital and was having trouble with blood clots on his brain, as well as blood on the brain, causing pressure. He had surgery last Thursday to relieve the pressure and place a shunt. So far he is doing good! We are very happy that he is continuing to progress!

A Little Bit of Everything...

Wow, has it really been 3 weeks. Well, it has been a CRAZY 3 weeks. Halloween, Birthday Parties and me REALLY busy at work. Halloween was really fun. Ethan and Emme really got into everything! Ethan was a dragon and Emelia was a butterfly. They went out with Daddy and our neighbor friends and mommy caught up half way through! It was really fun to see how excited they both were when they got home! They each got a bowl to put thier treats in and carried the bowls around for days! They really didn't eat that many treats but sure did enjoy looking at all the candy. Daddy got a brand new camera so here are some pictures from Halloween.

Out of the mouths...

Last Monday we took E&E to get ice cream. When we got there we discovered that neither Garret or I remembered our purse or wallet. Needless to say there were several explicatives and much bickering erupted. We went home, got some money and drove back again.

Fast forward to the next night...we drove to do some errands... we got to BJ's and before we got out of the car, there was this little voice (ethans) that said..."Mom, do you have you purse?... SMMMAARRTTYY PANTS! Then "Dad, you got you wallet? Garret and I erupted into laughter! THEY pay attention to everything!

Makin' Progress

Okay, so for the first time ever I sat in chick-fil-a on Friday and watched my Ethan interact and actually talk with the other kids playing there! And I cried! :) (Seriously, why is this dorky woman sitting in the kids play gym and crying!) I am so happy that he is becoming more able to say what he thinks and that it is helping him begin to play with others, not just next to others! HOWEVER, that also means that he now feels that he can say exactly what he feels all the time! I have, in the past week asked him three times to "just stop talking for two minutes!"! And I am paying for this! Needless to say, we are making great progress!
Oh, and to whomever thaught him to sing "Where is Thumbkin", thanks A LOT! :)

Transformers Are Amoung Us!

Grandma and Grandpa Grey went to Florida last weekend for the Auburn game and Grandma went shopping! We have inherited not one, not two but three transformers. Ethan has been waiting all week to "get" them and tonight was the night! Spoiled? Nahh...thats what grandparents are for. Here are a few pictures! PS...Mommy is better at putting them together than Daddy but Granpa is the best!

Abigail (Abbie) Mae

Hurray!
We just found out the Aunt Jana is having a new babygirl cousin for us! She won't be here till February but we can't wait to meet her!

2 year olds!

Emelia had her 2 year old check up and shots today! I was not able to go but Daddy took her and she did great with her shots. She is one healthy little chick! She is 28.8 pounds and 35 1/4" long! Still in the 90%!
Some things that she is doing now:
*Turning the channel on the remote so Ethan gets mad!
*Telling Mommy to "relax" (at the appropriate times I might add)!
*Flirting with any male that will look in her direction...and staring them down until they do look in her direction!
* Carrying her purse(s) Grandma Joan bought her..oh and her keys and pink cars and sunglasses and baby and anything else she can get into her hands and still try to get into bed with!
*Telling me she has to "change" her baby 10-15x on every car drive
*Smiling all the time
*Wanting to be tickled
*Always looking for Daddy
*Saying Mrs Hines (her new teacher at Pre-school)
*Saying 7 word sentences
*Making my day...with all the things she does!

Daddy, I go Pee-pee potty!!

Yep! She did it! Miss Emelia told me she had to go potty, which she has been doing for weeks in hopes of a mini m&m reward BUT this morning she DID IT! We called Daddy, who was out golfing, to tell him right away and the above is what she said! We did the peepee on the potty dance and cheered and I hope this means we are on our way! I AM SO EXCITED! Mommy danced and cheered for her sanity, no more dirty diapers, money back in my pocket, no more trips to buy diapers at BJ's, NO MORE DIAPER BAG and then...wouldn't you know it, TWO poopy diapers while we were out this morning. Okay, I guess I can't get too excited YET!

Test test

I LUFV YOU!

Ethan had his speech evaluation today and it was determined that he has an expressive language delay. This is not really a big surprize to us as he is not much of a "talker" outside of the house. His therapist said not to worry and that with some therapy (of course, completely out of pocket) he will be just fine! Whewwww!!! :) We are hoping that school will help and I think it already has. He is already trying to say a lot more "real" info and is actually having conversations when he is on the phone! He did however fail the hearing screen, so we will be having his hearing checked very soon. The other component to all this is his teeth/pallet, another thing that we will be getting a second opinion about. Regardless of all of this he is really "growing up"!!
Now the other grasshopper, she is one sassy lassy! I do not think we will need a speech therapist for her, maybe a set of earmuffs for Daddy and I because she does not stop talking! The other day, she told Ethan to "RELAX" with the correct hand expressions and everything! The best part is that she is saying I LUVF you now!

Summer Vacation 2008

I wanted to share some pictures from our summer vacation with everyone. We took our first "just the four of us" vacation to Litchfield by the Sea this summer and we absolutely loved it! We swam and played in the sand and Ethan learned how to swim by himself with a swimmy on and rode on the golf cart! A LOT! We really enjoyed just spending family time together! We will be going back!

TODAY"S THE DAY!!!

After several weeks of wanting to start a Blog, I am finally doing it! And even more impressive is that so far I have done it myself because I am technologically insufficient! ...okay okay, I have to give credit to my "girls" next door(s)because I have been listening very carfeully to them about how to do this!! We'll see how I do. I chose today because it was the first day of PRE-SCHOOL! Emelia and Ethan started a new school today and they really enjoyed it! Emelia-my ready to do anything and go anywhere as long as I have my purse- just walked away without even a backwards glance! Ethan- not always so ready to GO- was a bit hesitant but did just fine! Okay I have to see if I can figure out how to put pictures on here...wish me luck, if I do we will see preschool day one pictures!