Josh turned 4 - about a month ago or so

On March 2, Josh turned 4. Wow! I can't believe I've been a mom for 4 years. Time just really flies. He is very excited about being 4. He talks about it all the time. Most of the time, he asks to get 4 of anything... because he's 4, so he gets 4. Makes sense, doesn't it? Here are some of the pictures from the day.

Josh has gotten the opening of presents down pat. Here he is opening his Hungry Hungry Hippos game. This is certainly a fun one. Both of the kids love it.

Can you see the huge grin on that face? This is the game he consistently asked for. He has a friend who has it and has shared it with him. It's basically a glorified Jenga game. But the important difference? It has a motorized jack hammer. What could be cooler than that?

The kids with the cake I made. It's supposed to look like a space shuttle. I suppose it's fitting since this is the last year they have any launches planned for the shuttles. Josh loved this cake. And for a fun birthday activity... though not on his birthday, since it was mid-week... we went and shot rockets at the park.

Blowing out all 4 of his candles.

"I Emily"

I've always known that Emily is very strong willed and has opinions of her own. The other day, she showed me just how true this is. I like to call her things like "Em," or "Emilily," or "Emililia" just for the fun of it. I actually really like "Emilily." It combines two names I love. Emily and Lily. Anyhow, the other day, like I said, I called her "Emilily" just for the fun of it. She turned to me and said, very sternly, mind you, "I not Emilily. I Emily." It's funny because since then, she has correct us several times. Oh well. I guess my Emily likes her name, so there's no more Emilily.I guess that's a good thing. We should all be able to like our names.

Forgotten Pacifiers

Every pacifier package I have seen instructs the parents to boil the pacifiers for 2 minutes to sanitize prior to use. Ever wonder what happens to said pacifiers when they are forgotten?

They catch fire! And not a small one at that. Josh didn't stop talking about the fire for days on end. He was pretty concerned. I try to be more careful now. Now, I try to only boil pacifiers when I am cooking other things so I will be in the kitchen and not as likely to forget.

They look interesting when melted, don't you think? If you look closely, you can see that the plastic part of the pink pacifier actually went into the nipple when it melted. Isn't it amazing that those silicone nipples survived? Needless to say, we don't use these pacifiers. They had an immediate burial in the trash can along with that pot.

Just Because

Since I did that post with all those pictures of Jessica, I wanted to make sure I put some up of the other two from February. Here are a couple more pictures from February, just because.

On Valentine's Day, we decided to make sugar cookies. They are my favorite valentine's day treat. The kids love to help. First they help make the dough. Then after waiting for the dough to chill, rolling them out and cutting the cookies with the cookie cutters isn't half bad either. Their favorite part to help with? Making sure we don't have too much dough left to re-roll by eating the little pieces on the outside of the cookie cutter. Those things would just be trouble in the new ball of dough, so they must be eaten. What would I do without their help? ;)

They found Daddy's safety goggles. Emily put them on all by herself. Good job, Emily!

Josh couldn't be cuter if he tried.

Jessica in February

I can't seem to get caught up here, but I'll make a really good effort. Maybe it'll happen. I realized that I hadn't posted many pictures of just Jessica to show how she has been growing. There is no doubt, whatsoever that this girl does not go hungry.... EVER. At this point, April 10, she is 5 1/2 months old, and she weighs nearly 19 lbs! Big girl. In fact, I'm considering taking a picture of her thighs, just so we can all remember just how cuddly she really was as a baby.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of her from February. Don't worry, I'll get around to the ones from right now... of course, that may be in July. We shall see. :)

She is such a cutie. Always ready with a smile.

This was back when she was barely starting to get really good at holding her head up. She may have been starting to roll a little, too. I was trying to get a picture like this one of Emily to show how much they look alike at this point... however, the pictures will not convince you. They look nothing alike in these photos. But I assure you, in real life, they look a lot alike.

Jessica really likes her exersaucer. In February, she thought it was great being upright. Now she actually plays with all those toys.

This was just such a fun picture of Jessica, I just had to share.

Pretty in Pink

All three of my kids have had to have breathing treatments for wheezing now. Jessica had to use this thing so regularly she just became an old pro. I thought it was a bit amusing though. Most babies learn to hold their bottle and feed themselves. My little baby learned to hold her nebulizer (sp?) mask to help herself get better. How special is that? I'd like to report that she has not had to use this thing in several weeks now. She is all better.

Who's that?

A while back... maybe a month ago?... I was sitting in the kids room, trying to put Jessie down for a nap. It was nice and quiet, so I could hear everything the other kids were doing outside the room. They were just hanging out in the hall, looking at the family pictures. As I started to pay attention to their conversation, I could tell they were looking at the most recent picture of Peter's family that we had taken at Christmas. Josh was saying, "Daddy is next to Mommy. He's next to Doug. He's next to her. She's next to him. She's next to her..." and so on.

So, the point of this story? I think Josh has a favorite. Uncle Doug. It's the only name he knew. I thought it was cute.