What's New

So what is new with us? Well James is done with the semester, YEAH! The kids and I have already enjoyed having him around a lot more. He did great too, and he is all set for next semester, and is taking the summer off from school. It will be nice to have a relaxing summer to gear up for the next year to begin. His work is going great too, and is keeping him really busy.

As always I keep busy with the kids. I'm preparing for one last test so that I can renew my license. Not that excited about it, from the study material I've looked over it's going to be hard. But James pointed out that I said that about the math portion of my last test and I did great on that one. We will see how it goes!

Miss Elizabeth is done with preschool. It's bittersweet. I really don't know how I'm going to entertain her all the time. She's too smart for her own good. She has her preschool graduation this week and then a lot of nothing. She got her hair cut this weekend, and it looks SO much better. I think we're going to have to keep it short from now on. I have her signed up for some crafty summer classes to give her something new to do. She is so excited for Kindergarten in the fall, and I know that she will do great even though she will be the youngest in her class.

Clay got a hair cut this weekend too. My kids have such thick hair it's ridiculous! If we can get Clay potty trained he gets to go to preschool in August. But so far he isn't cooperating with that idea. He'll do it when he's ready. We took Clay to an audiologist here in town to check up on his hearing again. When he was born he was diagnosed with a severe hearing loss in one ear and moderate in the other. Well they tested him and the audiologist says that with how he responds and the level of words he knows he can't have a hearing loss. She couldn't explain why they would diagnose him with a hearing loss when he doesn't obviously have one. I asked if he could have grown out of it and she told us no. Her only explanation was that the machines used to test him malfunctioned (although I find that unlikely considering he was tested more than once on different machines with the same outcome). Call it what you will, I'm just ecstatic that my son can hear!

Analyn is growing so much. She's shot up and in clothes from 9 to 12 months right now. She likes to giggle a lot and tease people. She likes to squeal a lot too to get your attention. She's signing more and more words everyday, but she's also learning new words to say everyday too. Elizabeth calls her Annie a lot, and I find myself calling her that from time to time. It's cute, but I'm still not sure if it will be a permanent nickname for her or not.

Silly Girl

I love this stage that Analyn is at. Her personality shows itself more and more everyday. And we've discovered that she is really silly. She loves to giggle, and it has been fun to find thing that make her laugh and then to do them over and over and over again just to get to listen to her cute giggles. Analyn loves Lizzie's princess chair. Honestly it's almost too small for Lizzie, but it's just the right size for Analyn. One night Analyn was being the goofball that she is and wasn't sitting in the chair like most people would.

The funny thing about this was she was actually comfortable and stayed in the chair this way for about 10 minutes before she started to move around a lot.

This was cute, she lost her pacifier and was in the middle of say, "uh oh!".

Puzzle Master

The kids and I love puzzles. Lately that's the activity that they want to do all the time. James' parents sent the kids some money for Easter to get a little something. Lizzie got her first barbie doll (luckily it was on sale for $3 LOL) and Clay picked out a new puzzle. My Mom was with us and started showing him different puzzles, but wasn't paying attention to the number of pieces on the box. So he wanted the Toy Story puzzle that had 100 pieces. My kids have so much energy it is hard to believe that they will sit and work on something like a puzzle. Yesterday Clay was playing with his Toy Story puzzle for probably 20 minutes. Usually I help him, but I had some stuff I was doing at the time. When I checked on him I was surprised how much he had managed to do himself.

I bet he had 2/3 of the puzzle done. It's not that easy of a puzzle either. Ultimately I think he could have finished it himself, but it was getting close to dinner time and he was asking if I would help him so I did. And you can kind of see our lovely May snow storm we got to enjoy yesterday too.

Big Birthday!

Well it's official, James is 30. It was a very low key birthday, but that is us! As a surprise I had Clay and Lizzie make him some birthday cards the day before. When James got home from work though he came and told me something Lizzie had said, "Daddy we made you homemade cards for your birthday, but shhh it's a secret". He said she even whispered it to him. I'm glad I hadn't gotten him a gift from the kids yet, she would have told him that too. Elizabeth and Clay were so excited when they finally got to give them to James.

I let James get a nook a while ago early for his birthday and father's day present. But I had to come up with something for the kids to give him. They get more excited about birthdays than we do. So I put a note in Lizzie's card that said he could have so much to get a book for his nook. He also was able to get some pants for work from my parents. Typical adult birthday, getting stuff you need, but that's what works for us.

I was really good about sticking to no gifts. One day last week I decided to look through the Best Buy add, for fun. Well they had this for way cheap! So I jumped on the deal, because otherwise we would have had to wait years to get Glee season 1. Clay was so excited about the presents, he even started opening one before James could get to it.

I got a break from cake decorating too. I really enjoy it, but with the kids sometimes it's just too much. James wanted a simple oatmeal cake. SO yummy! Elizabeth thought it was hilarious when James stopped to think about a wish before he blew the candles out.

Happy Birthday!!

Parade and Mother's Day

On Saturday (May 7th) they had a Cinco De Mayo parade in downtown. I found out about it that morning and talked James into going with the kids to get them out and for something different. I discovered this week that Analyn is getting some molars so she has been really grumpy. Understandably she's been sleeping a lot too. My Mom was doing some stuff at home and offered to keep an eye on her so she could take a nap. So it was just the four of us to see the parade. The kids were really excited (they already associate parade with candy) and were very impatient for it to start. We always sit at the beginning of the parade route. You get better candy and get to leave sooner before traffic is bad.

It was a really small parade, but the kids got a ton of candy. The next day was Mother's Day. The kids were excited to tell me Happy Mother's Day as much as possible. Elizabeth was being a huge goofball the entire time. She found this hat of James' and put it on. She is SO James' kid. When we were finding pictures for our video montage for our wedding most of the picture we found of James as a kid he has his tongue sticking out. Lizzie is just like that most of the time.

And then Analyn decided a great Mother's day gift for me was to put food in her freshly washed hair. She thought it was hilarious too.

James got me some beautiful flower from him and the kids. I told him it was great timing because I had just gotten rid of the flower he got me for our anniversary. These lilies are a lot prettier than the other arrangement. And of course the house smells great now!

Peanut Butter and Dancing

So one of the really unique things about Clay is how he eats his sandwiches. It been something I've tried to correct with him forever. But when he has a sandwich he always had to pull it apart. So he always turns it into an open faced sandwich. It drives me nuts, and makes a huge mess. The other day I gave the kids one of those uncrustable sandwiches for lunch, and Clay at it the right way. Yes, it's a stupid thing to be excited about, but I was.

And here is a cute picture of Analyn. She got this outfit for her birthday from James' parents and it's now warm enough that she was able to wear it.

And if I'm ever taking a picture of someone else Lizzie has to be involved too. She wanted me to get a picture of her new shirt.

The kids got to play our Just Dance game on the wii recently. The baby is really getting into dancing when music is on. So I got a cute video of the kids dancing before bedtime.