A Letter for Nayeli Belly Boo

Dear Booboo,
You are a beautiful, amazing princess!  I love watching you develop your sweet, silly personality.  I think it's great that you can play rough with your big brother, and soft and gentle with your little brother.  You are incredibly smart!  I can't believe you can count to 20 and say the seven continents and your just over two and a half!!


I love your high pitched voice and how you sing and dance all the time.  I love the faces you make all the time.


I love our time together now, but I also look forward to the future.  I hope I can always let you know how sweet and smart and special you are to me.  I know we'll have our conflicts, but I hope that we can always come to an understanding.


Your so little and already such an incredible little person, I can only imagine that you'll get better with time.

I love YOU Nayeli!♥

Once Upon A Time...

There was a beautiful princess...

Such a beautiful princess was she!

♥

Another busy day ahead, but there's always time for pictures...  right?

:)

A Comedian in the Making

The only thing I did to "enhance" this photo was lighten my princess' eyes, and I used Picnik's mascara feature to define her lashes and lips a little more.

~Brotherly/Sisterly Love~

Grab This Button

While having a special needs sib presents challenges, it also comes with opportunities. Kids who grow up with a sibling with special health or developmental needs may have more of a chance to develop many good qualities, including:

• patience
• kindness and supportiveness
• acceptance of differences
• compassion and helpfulness
• empathy for others and insight into coping with challenges
• dependability and loyalty that may come from standing up for their brother or sister.

The above info was taken from The University of Michigan Health System Website.

Let Freedom Ring!

HAPPY

INDEPENCE

DAY

Top to Bottom: Austin (7mo), Nayeli (15mo), Kheaven (9mo)

♥God Bless the U.S.A.!!!♥

Are they for real?!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm raising a baby, a toddler and a pre-schooler or if somehow I've been relocated to an alternate universe where my children are all of a sudden pre-teens.  Austin wasn't really a sassy toddler.  It was just him and me,(no siblings to compete with for attention) and he, as far as I can remember, seemed to listen wonderfully.  Nayeli has been a little more demanding.  I expect this from her, because she's my little princess.  The fact that she now defies me using complete sentences is a little disheartening.  I wonder why she's so reluctant to just come when I call her name... When I call for her a second time she yells back, "Why?"  I call her again and she says in a snobby tone, "What mama?!"  I don't think I talk to her, or anyone else like that.  Does she get it from Disney movies?  TV?  Or is this just how she is?

(She hasn't put her "cell phone" down in three days!!!)

Austin has become more of a free thinker than he was in his toddler days.  He too now questions my authority.  For anything I ask or say it seems I must have an explanation.  My least favorite thing is when I tell him not to do, or to stop doing, something he asks, "What will happen if I don't?"  It's not an unacceptable question, but I feel like he should know the answer...  a time out, or grounding from a game or toy, depending on the situation.  When he asks it feels like I can tell that he's weighing what he wants to do with the consequence.  This is probably a good skill for him to develop, but inside I'm thinking, "Do what I say because I say it.  I'm your mother and that's how it should be!"  

(Is he telling me to talk to his hand?!)

Kheaven got upset today because I wouldn't let him have a plastic bag.  He LoVeS crinkly things.  There's no way I'm letting him play with a plastic bag though.  I replaced the bag with a crinkly toy.  He was very upset and proceeded to start crawling toward the bag.  (It had the supplies I needed for cleaning out the hamster's cage in it.)  I moved it again and it was the end of him.  He pushed himself up on his arms as far as he could and threw himself over.  It was a fit.  Nine months old and throwing his first fit isn't too bad I suppose.

(Time for music lessons, already?!)

:-)  I "complain" but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I guess I didn't expect my children to be this way so early in life, but I'll just use practice for when they're this way and their older...  I pray by then they understand respect and have enough for me to not do some (if not all) of these things.  And of course, the wonderful things that fill my heart with enormous amounts of love and joy occur more than the "teenagey" things.

Where We've Been and What We've Been Up To

Spring/Summer has brought many adventures this year so far.  We have enjoyed rock/fossil hunting near Wilson Lake, several trips to Wichita for various reasons, including the NDSSW Annual picnic, and we've also been to Kanopolis Lake and Mushroom State Park as the picture collages in the previous post show.

Wilson Lake

Gramma Glora's Porch (During visit for NDSSW)

Sleeping on the way home from one of our excursions.

Kheaven is crawling now!  He mostly does the army crawl, but he is starting to alternate his legs when he moves.  He can also stand while holding on to furniture and/or fingers.  He loves to give kisses, sing and play pat-a-cake.  The coolest thing he's done as far as motor skills go recently is pop open a flip top on a water bottle!

Nayeli keeps learning new words and using them in sentences.  She is starting to have real conversations and she loves talking on her toy cell phone!  At the park she compliments other little girls, saying how much she likes their shoes or hair.  She is quite the entertaining sprite!  This past week she decided she wanted to try and sit on her baby brother twice.  He didn't seem to mind, but I wasn't ecstatic about it.  She climbs on him like she wants him to crawl around with her on his back.  Silly girl!

Austin is having fun running around outside, kicking the soccer ball around, and playing basketball.  We had a couple of storms last week and they didn't knock the basketball hoop down, but instead bent and snapped.  We may need to work on getting a new one.

Austin with some of his best friends.

I have been going through all of our things getting ready for my very first rummage sale.  I can't say I'm excited because I have NO IDEA what I'm doing!  I am far too much of a perfectionist to just have things outside for people to buy... and working in retail for ten years isn't helping.  I want everything to look like it would in a store to optimize selling, and that's just too much work!

Some things we're looking forward to doing in the near future are visiting our local water park and possibly visiting WI in August just before school starts!  We've been busy and had so many fun times during that busy-ness!  Hope all of you have been having a great spring/summer as well!!!

WW: She'll be Two in Two Weeks

In the Midst of Autumn

It's been a little more difficult for me to blog as much lately.  Kheaven doesn't sleep all the time anymore and even though he probably only sees a doctor/specialist twice a month it seems like we're going to an appointment every week...  And actually everyone, but Kheaven and Jeremy, still have been sick.  So we really have been going to the doctor that much!

The pretty little welcome sign and candle above are my present for being Julie @Foursons 100th follower!  She also sent this cute little pumpkin. 

Nayeli is inlove with it for reasons beyond me, but she's cute about it... Any time she's gotten her hands on it she shouts "Punk! Punk!" :-)

Even through all the sickness Austin hasn't missed any preschool.  The last letter he brought home was "G," and his last class he got to go on a fieldtrip to the library.  They watched a puppet show with a spider and a flower.  The spider loved the flower, or so Austin says.

When my family was visiting my grandparents gave Austin some presents in advance for his b-day.  That is actually coming up not this week but next week.  He's going to be FIVE already!  ..tear..  :-)  I'm so proud of the little person he is growing into though. 

The picture below is him with his Crayola Color Explosion Glow Board!

I L♥ve It!!

Nayeli is over her double eye/double ear infection.  Because of the antibiotics she was on she also got a fungal infection, but that's almost gone too now.  We helped support the economy by filling all her perscriptions though!  She continues to talk more, and more, and more, every day!  She's so fun to listen to and to watch!  The following picture was her dressed in her brothers shoes and my hat.  She was just playing dressup, or she ReaLLy wanted to go outside.  Either way she was adorable.

Kheaven has been his wonderful self.  He has had a little bit of a stuffy nose, but nothing saline drops and a boogy sucker haven't helped.  He has rolled over a total of eight times now and he will be eight weeks old tomorrow.  (I think I can stop counting when he rolls over now.) 

He has been doing this thing lately during tummy time where it looks like he is trying to crawl for things we lay out in front of him.  Mostly it's just a lot of kicking of the alternating feet, but he does manage to scoot a little.

I was at Old Navy the other day and I found the cutest shirt on clearance for him...

:-)

The other night I went out for my friend Julia's birthday.  This was my first time going out with friends, without the kids, since April of 2008.  I really end up missing them when I'm without them, but it was great to have a night out and meet some new friends.

All that being said I will leave you with my friendly neighborhood squirrel.

WW: DO NOT leave children unattended!

...one of the many reasons you cannot leave children unattended when there is water in the tub... I answered my phone, two feet away from the bathroom door, said, "I'm giving the kids a bath." and then heard Austin, "MOM, Nayeli's in the bathtub!"... I was ready to give her a piece of my mind, but I couldn't stop laughing.

I'm gonna miss this...

I'm going to miss getting away with wearing a hoodie to keep warm for the next three/four months.

I think she might miss it too.  Those big, bulky winter jackets are so restricting.

:)

Hope everyone is enjoying this lovely autumn!

The Bell: Peanut Butter Jelly Time & More!

 

A couple of nights ago Nayeli was snacking on a pb&j sandwich.  I was making Austin's only to turn around and see this!

Normally I may scold such an action, as Nayeli is 20 months old and really does know that food does NOT go in hair.

Instead though I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures.

It calmed me down, and I don't think she minded the reaction either.

Right afterward she was placed in the shower and hosed down.

What a girl!!

SOME NEW THINGS

Nayeli

-says new words...  new sentences really, they include

dance, up, down, hungy, food, walk, walking

-repeats one through ten crystal clear and sometimes even jumps the gun by saying the number that comes next before we can

-is learning the parts of her body quite well, the newest part she learned is her elbows

-calls all stuffed animals, and most real ones monkies or doggies... she knows what ducks are too
-when she passes by strangers stops and tilts her head to the side and smiles with her lips closed, then tilts her head to the other side and smiles with her teeth showing
-says down when she's down eating and wants to get out of the high chair, but she says it when she wants you to lift her up too

-says hungry when she's hungry and food when you put her in her high chair.

-says "bite" when she wants your food.
-calls herself lalehla

every time she sees herself in the mirror or a pic of herself on the wall or anywhere else she says it repeatedly

-when asked how she was doing the other day by our neighbor said, "doin' good!"

-when I put Austin's dinner plate in front of him last night said, "gimme some of that!"

Below is Nayeli with her Great Grandma Glora.
We enjoyed some IHOP a few days after Kheaven was born.
Nayeli enjoyed the extra attention and I enjoyed the company and help!

Pic#1 Nayeli ALL wet after a fun walk in the rain!

Pic#2 A BIG smile from the little princess while I was trying to get some shots of all three kids.  My finger was covering the flash on this one, so to recover what I could I cropped the other two out (there were better pix of them) and saved this GREAT smile in a pic of it's own!

Pic#3 While playing out in our backyard Nayeli spotted some birds.  She was so excited!!  She kept pointing to each new one shouting "doggyyyy, doggyyy, hiiiiiii!"

On a little bit of a sad note, Nayeli got her biggest owwy ever the other morning.  :-S

I was feeding Kheaven at 4:00am and heard a big THUMP come from the kid's room.  It was follwed by the most pitaful, painful cry.  :-(

I went in to find Nayeli trying to climb back in her bed, poor thing.

She wasn't so difficult to comfort and in the wee hours of the morning my eyes could not spot where she got hurt...  When we woke up I saw THIS!

I guess it's not so bad considering Austin's first BIG owwy involved stiches!

That was on his 18 month b-day when he ran into a bookshelf at the church daycare!

I can't end on a sad note. 

I find her smile is absolutely amazing! She steals my heart everyday!