I *heart* Spring

Okay, I'll admit it. I feel a little jipped by this year's Winter weather. We had very little snow fall, and I did not get my Winter fix. And I know I am in the minority when I say that I'm not ready for Summer. At all. Although I can't be too unhappy with the changing seasons because of what is taking place in my yard right now. The flowers and plants are SO HAPPY. It's one of the reasons I love living in a place that has 4 seasons. Because If I was surrounded by blooming flowers all year round would I really appreciate them? Well, maybe I would. But there's something extremely satisfying about watching my plants come to life again after sleeping all Winter long. That's why, I LOVE Spring.

just one of the boys

Jacob feels like he's one of the boys now. He asks to sit at the counter a lot of the time, and even though he can barely reach his food, he is perfectly happy there.

TWINS!!!!!

That's right. My sister Holly is having twins. Two babies. Two heartbeats. Two spirits. It's a miracle as all babies are, but this is a double miracle. A HUGE blessing. AND it's two boys!! Two sweet baby boys. I can't wait for them to be here!

Back at the beginning of the year when I knew Holly was pregnant but no one else did, I wrote down my goals/things to look foward to for the year. Number 3 on the list was:

3. Snuggle Holly's Babe

That night (after we found out she was expecting twins) and I was washing my face I looked up and read my goals. "Snuggle Holly's Babe". I grabbed a Sharpie from the drawer and added an "s" to the end of the word. My heart felt warm and a huge smile came to my face. I love them already.

Words

Up until 3 weeks ago Jacob hasn't been a hugely verbal child. Most of his requests/demands would be expressed through frustrated screams that would often turn into melt downs. Pretty common for a toddler. But then one day he realized that he could use words to get what he wanted and everyone was MUCH happier. I started making a list of words he had learned to say, and then overnight the list kept growing and growing. Literally overnight. So here is the list I made. I'm sure he can say more than this but this is a pretty good summary.

1. Popcorn

2. Sippy

3. Down

4.Unbuckle

5. Please (this is one of my favorites)

6. Help (also a favorite)

7. Millie

8. Catch

9. Kick

10. Mine (doesn't use this very often for which I am grateful)

11. Yes

12. No (also doesn't use this very often)

13. Gramma

14. Holly

15. Papa

16. Kitty

17. Dog

18. Woah

19. Heart

20 Head

21. Eyes

22. Cow

23. Cheese

24. Ink (this translates to drink)

25. Cracker

26. Ball

27. Poop

28. Amen

29. Hot

30. Shower

31. Baf (bath)

32. Mint

33. Here

34. Go

35. "Cars"

36. "Buzz"

37. Picable Me ("Despicable Me") Can you tell what his 3 favorite movies are?

38. House

39. Ummmm

40. Talk

41. Tom

42. Happy

43. Baby

44. Jacob

45. Go

46. Utes

47. Cue me (excuse me)

48. Hike

49. Show

50. Come

51. Back

52. Here

53. Yee Haw

54. Mommy

55. Vannah (Savannah)

56. Bubbles

57. George (the Curious kind)

58. More

59. Couch

60. Ouch

61. Yay

I am grateful when children start to learn to communicate in a way that I can understand. It's so much more pleasant to help meet their needs immediately rather than trial and error pointing to objects saying, "do you want this? do you want this?" Now if we could just keep Benjamin from torturing Jacob so that the screaming would cease altogether.

The above pictures have nothing to do with words but they do speak for themselves. They love each other. Most of the time.

bonding over High School Musical

So, Savannah was sick this past week. She asked for lots of snuggle time and I was happy to oblige. One of my favorite things to do with my kids is to get cozy under the covers of our bed and watch a show on Netflix. The first show she chose to watch was High School Musical and I love Zach Efron so it was a win win for both of us. As we were watching the opening scene where Troy and Gabriela are singing karaoke together Savannah turns to me and says,

"Is this when they first met?"
"Yep."
"Uh...this is kind of weird."

I laughed because yes, it is very weird for people who have never met to sing cheesy songs to each other and act like they've known each other forever. And she, at 6 years old picked up on that. And even though it was "kind of weird" we ended up watching High School Musical about three times in a row. We bonded and it was nice.

Millie the Dog

So, we did it. We got a dog. Her name is Millie, she's a shih-tzu, and she's pretty cute. We had many people that tried to discourage us from getting a dog, some who encouraged it, and others who probably did not care at all if we became a "dog family". But in the end, we felt like it was good timing for us to add another member to our family. And Savannah was especially pleased that she was a girl.

Here are the Pros:

1. She is incredibly sweet

2. The kids LOVE her

3. She is good company

4. She's a great snuggler

5. She plays with Jacob

6. She sleeps through the night

7. She's a girl. Now the score is three to three

Here are the Cons:

1. She hasn't picked up on house training very quickly, so I'm picking up poop in the house a couple times a day

2. She is teething so she chews on everything. Luckily she's pretty tiny so she hasn't destroyed anything yet

3. She's not cheap

Basically for us, the pros outweighed the cons. Selfishly, I wanted a dog to satisfy a bit of my desire to have something tiny to love and cuddle, but I think the kids are benefiting more from having Millie than I ever imagined. She's been a little blessing to us. To end, I will leave you with some wise words given by Savannah to Benjamin as Millie was licking him incessantly.

"She's giving you kisses because she loves you. Try not to let her kiss you too much because she licks her privates." After Benjamin jerked his hand away in disgust she continued, "It's okay that she licks you. It's only kinda gross."

You are so right Savannah.