Saturday, November 15, 2014

Happy 3rd Birthday Nicholas

Happy Birthday Buddy!

What another great year for you!  This year your birthday was a Planes Fire & Rescue birthday!  Dusty Crop hopper is your favorite!  Oma & Papa came out to Michigan for Halloween and went trick or treating with you and Samantha and then on your birthday we went to Red Robin for dinner and you and daddy shared a vanilla shake together!  You have a great day to celebrate you!
Nicholas Fun Facts
Height: 39 inches
Weight: 39 lbs.
Favorite Movie: Disney Planes Fire & Rescue
Favorite Food: Waffles (if I let you eat these breakfast, lunch and dinner you would!)
Favorite Toy: Cars & Airplanes

You still love being outside, going to the park and swinging.  You love to play with your sister.  Since you have been in school now for 2 months, you are doing really well there too!  You are learning more sounds and starting to communicate a little better.  We still relay on "your" sign language and you showing us a lot. You are completely potty trained during the day, but still struggle at night.  That's ok you are doing awesome!  You are such a sweet little boy and there is nothing I would change about you.  You are kind, sweet, gentle when you need to be, but a rough tough boy when you need to be as well!  God has many things in store for you during this next year!  I see such determination your heart!  Love you my buddy!

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Happy 6th Birthday Samantha

Happy 6th Birthday to my dearest Samantha
I can't believe you are 6 already.  Where has the time gone?  I look back at these last 6 years and we have had so much fun already!  This year you asked to have a Frozen themed birthday party with some of your friends.  We invited 6 of your friends and we had a great party.  Oma surprised us and Auntie JuJu was planning on coming already.  You had a great time with your friends.  You and your friends bounced in the bounced house, ate lunch (hot dogs, blue jigglers like ice blocks, cheese puffs life Olaf's nose, and chex mix for Sven reindeer mix), decorated snowflake cookies, pin the carrot on Olaf, freeze dance and we had a pinata.  You had so much fun, it was fun to see the joy in your eyes!
You are now in full day Kindergarten.  You are at Grant Elementary in Mrs. Sutton class.  You are enjoying it very much.  The first couple weeks were rough.  We both were having separation anxiety from each other, but once you got into the routine things were so much better.  You are doing really well with your reading and writing.  It is so much fun to hear what you have done during your day when you come home. You will be starting gymnastics soon too!
You are a wonderful big sister to your brother.  Although sometimes you get frustrated with him because he can't use all of his words, you are the one that communicates the best with him.  He loves you to pieces and you love him just as much!

Year 6 fun facts
Height: 51 inches
Weight: 49 lbs.
Favorite Show: Sofia the First
Favorite Movie: Frozen

You still love playing dress up and playing with your American Girl Dolls.  You have also become very creative and love doing Rainbow Looms, and drawing pictures of your family and friends.  You love to cook and bake with daddy and I.
God has truly blessed your daddy and I with you Samantha.  We love you so much and continue to want the best for you.  Love you so much!


Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Summer 2014

After we came back from Chicago in May, Samantha had a month left of preschool.  She had a couple of field trips in there that Jim was able to join us.  We had a great time at the Detroit Zoo.  It started off as a beautiful day.  We walked through the zoo, had a nice lunch, a nice ride on the carousel and then it started pouring!  We got drenched.  We had a long way to walk back to the car!  The kids thought it was great, and I will say so did I.  It was fun watching them laugh, dance and stomp in the puddles!  It's not every day you get to do that.  At the end of May, Samantha graduated from Peace Lutheran 4 yr Preschool.  Her teacher, Mrs. G., was wonderful!  She was so good with Samantha this year.  We had a lot of traveling to do this past year and she accommodated very well and help keep Samantha on target.
In the beginning of June we took a quick 24 hour trip to Chicago for Alec's graduation from Paramedic school.  It was a wonderful graduation.  He graduated at the top of his class. So proud of him.  Samantha stayed with my parents for 2 weeks in the beginning of June as well.  She LOVED it and so did my parents.  They spoiled her!  She went shopping, got her nails done, went to a couple of carnivals, spent time with Auntie JuJu and Uncle Matt and then Uncle Awesome took her to Toys R Us, Dave & Busters and then out to lunch.  She loved having just one on one time with all of them.  It was nice for me too, to have some one on one time with Nicholas.  We played a lot, went to speech, and i got a lot done around the house.  Jim had some time off in June so we all traveled to Chicago and spent some time there with family.  Jim golfed and relaxed a bit before getting ready to start his FINAL year of residency.  The kids and I stayed until middle of July.  Samantha was also able to enjoy VBS at Calvary and Nicholas and I spent time in the nursery  with other kids too.  Samantha had a blast and enjoyed learning more about Jesus.  The week ended with a picnic lunch after church on Sunday.  When we got home from church on Sunday, I noticed Nicholas had a bad rash on his butt.  Turns out he got Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease.  This was not fun. I did take him to Urgent Care to make sure that's what it was.  Poor little guy had blisters on his feet and a couple on his hands.  Most of them were on his little butt.  After we got over that he was good!
 In July, Jim was able to come and enjoy the 4 of July weekend with us.  We enjoyed fireworks & ice cream at Tastee Freeze on July 3, the Palos Heights parade and BBQ & fireworks at Jager's on the 4th.  The rest of July was pretty uneventful.  We did have to make a quick trip at the end of July because Jim had an interview for his "forever" job at Ingalls.  I can say that we are in contract talks and hoping to sign something soon!
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April 2014

What a busy, crazy, fun month April was!  At the end of March, the kids and I drove to Chicago for my brother's graduation from the Illinois Police Academy.  What a great experience that was.  He is now a police officer for the Will County Sheriff Department.  I'm so proud of him.  All of the hard work & dedication is finally paying off for him.  It will be great to see where he goes from here!
Jim came a few days later.  He then started his Trauma rotation at Cook County Hospital.  He worked a TON of hours!  We didn't see him too much.  Every 3 days he worked a  30 hour shift.  I was very happy we were in Chicago with family around us.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Potty Training

Back around Nicholas' 2 yr birthday we tried potty training Nicholas.  He was ready for it, but didn't want to take the time to do it. So I decided to wait until the 1st of the year to try it again.  We started in the beginning of February and I'm happy to say we are about 90% there.  He doesn't like pooping in the toilet so this is where our struggle is going to be.  He is doing such a great job.  We went and bought him some big boy underwear yesterday.  He picked out Toy Story & Jake &; The Neverland Pirates.  He was so happy to pick them out this morning and put them on!  I still have to remind him to go potty, but most of the time he tells me when he needs to go.
I'm so proud of my little guy!  We went out for a few hours today to play with some friends and I put him in a pull up just in case and he told me 3 times he had to go and stayed dried the entire time.  He's growing up too fast!

Thursday, January 23, 2014

January 2014

2014 started off with a big snow storm and arctic blast.  After Christmas break schools were still closed for 3 days because it was so cold!  Samantha couldn't wait to get back to school so we played school at home one day.  Nicholas colored some winter pictures and Samantha practiced her cutting, writing & coloring.  We had fun doing it and it broke up the day.  She was so happy to be back at school with her teachers & friends.  Nicholas was also happy getting back to speech as well.  It was nice getting back into a routine.  Jim has been working a ton of hours and just had his In Service exam.  He finishes this month in the ER and then next month he goes into the PICU.  Next month is going to be rough.  He works almost every day.  I think he only has 2 days off the entire month.  UGH!!
Samantha has been busy with school and is doing really well.  She is starting to read and write.  She continues to love draw and do crafts!  Nicholas is starting to find his voice more and more.  He have 4 words that are consistent.  Mom, no, more, please.  He will say other words if he is prompted to say them.  Hoping it will become more consistent and he will start saying more words on his own.  I have started potty training with him as well.  We are on day 2 and so far no accidents since he has been up.  Hopefully it will continue to go easy and we can be done with diapers soon!
Hoping this year will be better than last year.  We had a lot of things financially not go our way last year.  Hoping this year it will be better and that hopefully by the end of 2014 we will know where Jim is be an EM attending at.  Hoping it's close to family & friends.  We can get settled in a house and the kids will be starting school.  It's going to be a fun, interesting & exciting year!

Conversations with Samantha

these are a few conversation that either I have had with Samantha or I have overheard Samantha have with other people.

Me: Samantha what do you want to be when you grow up?
Samantha: I want to be a doctor like my dad.
Me: what type of doctor?
Samantha: a resident.


Girl at park:  What does your dad do for a job?
Samantha: My dad is a famous doctor
Girl at park:  oh wow...my dad is not famous

This was a conversation Samantha had with Jim while taking a bath with Nicholas
Samantha: Daddy was does Nicholas' front butt stick out?
Jim:  That's just how God made boys
Samantha:  Hmmm...it looks funny.

Samantha:  Mommy do you know where milk comes from?
Me:  No...where Samantha?
Samantha:  Mommy it comes from the cow's butt thing that sticks down.
Me:  Oh really
Samantha:  Yeah.  I wish I could get milk out of my butt
Oh this girl cracks me up!