too long...

I can't believe I couldn't get a post in before now.

I am not in the "mood" to post for some reason, but I have the time so I will try to get some recent stuff down for the history books.
First off, a very belated Happy Birthday to TJ! My first born is now 8 years old! It was a fun time celebrating with him on his actual birthday November 9th and then having some family by to celebrate both Owen and TJ's birthdays on the 10th. The emotion I feel thinking back to the births of my children-wow...I could bawl for a while on that one.


TJ on his birthday morning with his traditional breakfast of choice, french toast;-)

My, how big he's gotten! (sniffle, sniffle...).

The boys and I took a birthday treat into school for him since his birthday fell on a school day.

And we finished out the day together at chuck-E-cheese. I let TJ take his friend Austin and have a sleep over. They had a blast!

And now onto the birthday party...

Wow, this is fun...no one told me there would be presents here!!!

Owen had plenty of help opening up his goodies.

He cheered his way through!
And my favorite present...this awesome soft, but sturdy cube that is PERFECT for Owen's height. It is interactive and has lots of nursery rhymes. My description doesn't come close to doing it justice but it is phenomenal. Thanks Grandma Debbie!

My birthday boys....how fun, how great! Owen's one and TJ's eight!!!

One would think an eight year old eating cake would be a bit more civilized...

Maybe more like this smart baby with a fork???

Naaa, we were given hands by the good Lord to eat cake!

Got Milk?

I had all three boys check-ups done with our great pedi, Dr Ho. All of them are great! As in my obsession with growth charts, TJ is our medium size box in the 50% percentiles for height and weight, Jake is our small box, in the 25% for height and weight, and rounding out our packages is our smallest gift "box"-Owen is steadily trucking along on his own growth curve. He weighed 16 pounds and was around 26 inches (I think it was 25 3/4-but it was REALLY crazy having all three boys at the same appt!!!). His head circumference did jump up quite a bit-the MD even remeasured it himself. He confirmed the finding and said it would be something to watch closely;-) Nonetheless, he's not on the growth charts, but hat's no surprise. Owen is cruising along and doing so well. We are even dropping our threrapies to every other week. So now we will see OT this week and PT next week and so on and so forth. He babbles and babbles and babbles too!

***Milestone alert*** He is cutting his first tooth! I don't know much about tooth names but it's his lower left-and it's so cute to see the pearly white nudging thru!

Call CPS! (again)...Today, Tim woke me up from an afternoon nap saying, Owen is out of his bed. Me in my sleepy stuper jump up and ask what he is talking about. He said, I found Owen crawling around his room. Hmmmm....that's not how I left him 2 hours ago-I left him safely in his crib-so we dash back into his room to find him smiling and crawling around-unscathed. The crib latch on the lower left is busted out-so my Owen is now on his 3rd or 4th of his cat-like nine lives. Because the crib is broken, and we don't have a spare lying around, we had to turn it around and wedge against the wall. Yea, safe huh? So, my little light weight is really a brute and busted outta his baby bed already!

TJ is really into his "webkinz". For those of you who don't know, in our house a webkinz is the closest thing our kids will EVER have to a REAL pet. They are little stuffed animals that you log in to the web to care for each day. You feed them, play with them, put them to bed, and of course buy them things-there's even a clinic. They are really great to teach about time and money mgmt. TJ has to earn "online webkinz money" (doesn't cost anything but effort) to pay for things for his pup-he even gives him vitamins;-) I don't have any stock in webkinz or anything, I just think they are a worthwhile gift idea this year. Oh, and the cutest thing about his webkinz experience so far is his beach themed room he has made (online) for his pet, Rasky. I was complimenting it and praising his work when I noticed a gingerbread house-like TV in the room. I inquired about it and TJ said with the CUTEST expressiveness, "yea, it was on sale!" (embarrasses that it didn't match the sunny beach theme;-) Ahhhh...mommy's good and frugal boy!

Jacob is our little problem solver. Simple things that TJ grumps about Jake solves. For instance, we asked TJ to put a little science kit away and gave him a baggie to put his stuff in. Everything wouldn't fit and TJ began to grump. Jake quickly said, just ask for a bigger baggie;-) Genius! Jake's also into team work right now. He's also REALLY excited about our church's living nativity that is being set up all around the building right now. It recounts the events of Jesus' birth, life and Resurrection all in a convenient walk-thru &/or drive thru path. We have it every year and on 2 weekends to make sure you have an opportunity to stop by. It opens December 7th, and is also open on the 8th, 9th and 14th, 15th, and 16th from 6:30 to 8:30pm and it's FREE!!!!. It is so neat to hear Jacob with his excitement about the extravagant sets that are being constructed.

Jake is cutting a few teeth too;-)

Speaking of call CPS....my latest new bad habit:

Note the 3 different outfits=3 different days IN A ROW!!! Yes, bad mommy. I would put him in his seat for lunch and before I knew it he'd fall into his narcoleptic state. I guess maybe he's not ready to give up his morning nap quite yet?

More tangents...We have also decorated for Christmas and watched our traditional movie Christmas Vacation while getting out our decor from storage, etc. We laugh and learn new lines each year, this year Tim is stuck on "Whatever Russ". So, we say that to each other frequently to cut tension, etc in our daily ongoings.

Anyway, my sister Heather and I, plus our gazillion kids are traveling this week (Weds.) to Wisconsin to our mom's for Thanksgiving. We have tried to go up there every year for sometime now, since Tim's busy in retail bliss and such. So, please pray for our safe and blessed travels and also for our spouses while we are away. Tim plans to make a delicious meal for his cowokers and employees who have to work on Thanksgiving (so sweet!). I'm not sure what Lee will do at the fire dept-but I'm sure there will be food involved;-)

Happy Happy Happy and BLESSED Thanksgiving to everyone!!!