Growing Like a Weed

Sissy hit 4 months on Sunday and is definitely competing with Brother for size.  Its crazy to think that she is 1/2 his weight!!!!!!

Her appointment was this morning (see, I'm doing better with my blogging!) and she weighed in at 15lbs. 11oz. (79%) and was 25.25" (81%).  She checked out great, but shots still suck.

She is cooing a ton these days, even trying to mimic sounds.  She loves watching her brother sing and dance.  She is also rolling from tummy to back (which is bringing sleepless nights back).  She is grasping her toys and trying to eat EVERYTHING.  Constantly sucking on her hands.  She is more patient with tummy time and enjoys laying on her back just watching the world around her.  People are constantly commenting about how alert she is.  She is definitely aware of her surroundings.

She is wearing size 6-9mth clothing and is in size 3 diapers.

She is still on reflux medicine however, has been able to keep it down alone.  She even kept down her oral vaccination this morning.  Definite signs of improvement.

She is very "vocal" about wanting to eat.  Vocal as in she will stare at the boobsters.  Literally just sit there and stare until I oblige.  She knows right where her food comes from!!!

She is already starting to become fun to me, which I'm loving.  Its definitely taking me out of the newborn phase and I am totally on board with that.  Her personality shines more and more each day.

You love bath time with your brother.  You'd stay in for hours if he'd let you!!!!

She is in love with her Dada.  She knows the second he walks in to the room and smiles and laughs and starts "jumping" out of my arms for him.  They definitely have a special bond.  One that only a daughter can have with her father.

I love it.

Sissy, you are finally "fun!"  We love you and your spunky personality.  You are definitely your own child, thats for sure.  We look forward to watching you continue to grow.

We love you to the Luna and back.

She knows the shots are coming :(

2 1/2 of the best years of my life.

I can't believe we have a 2 1/2 year old living in this house.  That is just totally crazy to me.

Phoenix,
You are such a joy.  You are calm, loving and best of all, well mannered.  You are wild, rambunctious, and a bit testy too.  You are the perfect combination of all the BESTS.

You LOVE taking a bath with Sissy, trains, machines, your ipad, music, music and more music.  You take your guitar (back scratcher) EVERYWHERE we go.  No ands ifs or buts about it.

You know what you want and won't take no for an answer.  Thankfully, you aren't very demanding; therefore, Mama and Dada give in to you most of the time.  We have also noticed that when you demand something, you play with it for hours, days and weeks at end.  So giving in is usually totally worth it.

You like going to story time with Mrs. Kat and Mrs. Nay Nay and you love the McWane Center and the Zoo.  You also love going to eat at Tata's house (M&M) to see all of your friends and work the drive thru.

You are always on the look out with your binoculars for deer and your bow and arrow is never far from you.  You can't wait for the day Dada takes you hunting.  You also love driving around at night with him looking for deer!!!!

You don't throw many fits.  Unless you're tired, that is.  Lord help us when you've reached your limit.  If we don't get you home and to bed immediately, all hell is likely to break loose.

You want  macaroni and cheese for just about every meal.  You also love green beans.  You could live off of chicken but aren't a big fan of red meat.  Most of the time, we can get you to try something, but if you've decided prior you don't like it-you usually don't!  You also love eggs, cheese and pancakes!  Bacon is a hit or miss with you.

You take such great care of your sister.  Rescuing her every time she wakes up (you and Rusty, that is).  You are always hugging, loving and squeezing her.  Making sure she has a toy to play with or a blanket if she's cold.  I love when she is crying and you go to her and say, "Its okay Sissy, I here."  Or when she's totally throwing a fit and you ask me, "Mama, why Sissy buggin'???" You truly are the BEST big brother in the world.  She knows this too, because whenever you are around, she immediately stops crying.  She loves to just sit and watch you.  She is already learning soo much from you and I couldn't be more proud.

You've 100% mastered the potty (well, we are still working on the aiming aspect) but you prefer to go "hone" to use the bathroom.  Wonder where you get that from!  You can partially spell your name-you know all the letters involved, just not the correct order yet.  You know your age and when your birthday is.  You can count to 15 in English and 10 in Spanish.  You know your alphabet like a champ.  You also use many Spanish phrases.  That totally melts my heart.  You say agua, gracias, de nada, ayudame, and many more.  All in the correct context.  You have also started helping Sissy with her signs.  I just love watching you sign to her!!!!

The number of songs you know totally blows my mind.  You know all the popular nursery rhyme songs, as well as all of Farmer Jason's songs and of course, all of Roger Day's.  You picked up quickly on a ton of Christmas songs as well.  There are soo many more songs that you know as well.

You pay attention to everything.  Sometimes, this is not such a good thing :)!  And I know you are really listening when you say, "hear me" or "understand" after being told something.

Your imagination is running wild these days.  I love watching you play by yourself.  It amazes me where you come up with some of this stuff.

Thankfully, you've been semi-healthy the past 6 months.  We've had 2 battles with strep and a few fevers.  The last being right around the New Year, with a random fever of 104 for a few days.  I love that you can tell me what is hurting you.  It makes figuring out your sickness soo much easier.

You are napping roughly 3-4 hours a day.  However, you aren't sleeping worth a lick at night.  You'll sleep about 4 hours and then get super restless and can't go back to bed.  We tried skipping naps and moving naps earlier.  Nothing seemed to help.  After weeks of this, we finally took you to the doctor.  Well, that and you were complaining of your head hurting.  That was one of the "strep" visits.  She recommended Meletonnin.    It works like a champ for you.

If I could freeze time, now would be the time.  You are a totally joy and you are constantly making our hearts proud.  I love everything about you at this age.  EVERYTHING!!!!!  You make me look forward to Sissy growing big, just like you.  Ha-who am I kidding-we both know that'll never happen!!!!

So, in closing I just want to say Thank You.  Thank you for being more than your Dada and I ever dreamt for you.  Thank you for showing us mannerisms, imagination, and love like we often times get too busy to see ourselves.  Thank you for keeping us grounded and for constantly reminding us what is really important in life.  Thank you for making us better people, but more importantly better parents.

You are our world and we love it.

BEST Christmas EVER

Those were the words straight out of Jason's mouth :).  Let's be honest-I was thinking and feeling the EXACT same thing.  Hearing him say those words was such a relief, as I was a bit afraid of how he'd be feeling without our Dixie this year.

Here's just a few reasons why:

1)  It was our first Christmas as a totally, 100% complete family (other than the pets I'm sure we'll adopt in the future).  Our first Christmas as a family of 4.

2)  Christmas Eve was PERFECT.  Other than me running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to finish buying presents and getting my baking supplies, that is!!!!  We went to church at 5:00, both kids fell asleep on the way home and Jason and I spent good quality time bonding while preparing for Santa!  The same Santa our son wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with.

3) Christmas morning.  Oh what a BLESSING it was.  Luna woke up around 4:30 or 5:00.  We kept her up, thinking Phoenix would be up shortly after!

Poor kid got tired of waiting and ending up going back to bed.  Unfortunately, she missed all the fun :(

Phoenix finally woke up!!!!!!

I'll NEVER forget this face.  NEVER.

Phoenix Got:  bracelets, necklaces and a watch (what he asked Santa for).  A cash register (because 3 isn't enough), a nerf gun, golf clubs, a key board, a bunch of Thomas the trains and tracks, a big boy train, a bow and arrow, clothes, and tons of little stuff.  He also got a really cool light machine!

Luna Got: clothes, an activity block, also the cool light machine and some little toys.

Jason Got:  a nerf gun, a framed pic of him and the governor (which he claims as his favorite gift) (I think thats who it is anyways :)), boots for hunting, jeans, a NorthFace jacket, a camera holder that attaches to his bow, new hunting gloves and some small goodies.

I Got:  a new camera!!!!! Jason even took the initiative to charge it overnight so it would be ready to go Christmas morning!!!! New shoes and a sweatshirt, as well as some other little goodies.  I also got a matching BCS shirt with Jason.  But my biggest and bestest present ever (sorry Jason, not the camera):  Phoenix likes Santa!!!!!!!!!!  He really likes him.  He kept saying over and over Christmas morning how much he likes him.  Then on the way to my sister's house, every time we'd pass a Santa decoration he'd say, "Mama, Dada look its Santa.  I love Santa.  Thank you Santa for (and then he'd name all his new toys)." There truly was no great joy in my day!

I must also include that another one of my favorite gifts this year was vacation.  Not in the form of us going anywhere, but in that Jason actually took some time off.  He hasn't taken any time off (not even when our kids were born-other than the actual day of births) since we started our company over 5 years ago.  It was soo nice to have him around.  

Luna did open a few presents at my sisters house though :).

Once we got back home, Brother helped her open her gifts from Santa.

It isn't often Jason is right.  Not in this house anyways :).  However, I will give him credit for this one.  I couldn't have said it better myself.  This was by far the BEST Christmas EVER.  Thank you Jason, Phoenix and Luna for making it so.  And of course, Happy Birthday to our all time favorite person, Jesus.  

Look, its a GIRL!!!

Luna looks identical to Phoenix.  I mean identical.

Here, take a look for yourself.

1.2.

3.4.

5.6.

7.8.

9.

I mixed up the pictures.  See if you can guess who is who.  I even had a hard time figuring it out!!!!

Answers:  1. P, 2. L, 3. L, 4. P, 5. P, 6. L, 7. P, 8. L, 9. P

Okay, well because of the similarities, people ALWAYS commented on how cute HE is.  He as in LUNA.  I didn't seem to matter how many pink blankets she was covered in or what she was wearing either.  

So, for Luna's 3 month birthday (since no doc appointment meant no shots) and for an early Christmas present we took her to get her ears pierced.  This was on December 14, 2013.

I was super excited about this.  I mean, super!!!! However, once we got to the mall and got closer to Claire's I started getting really nervous.  I didn't want to do it anymore.  However, since I dragged Jason to the mall the weekend before Christmas, there was no way in hell I was going to tell him I changed my mind.  Thankfully, the wait was long, Luna was hungry and Phoenix was over it.  Jason made the executive decision to leave.  Thank you Jesus!

However, he said we'd just reschedule for tomorrow and go up to the Summit.  So we did just that.  December 15, 2013.

Poor girl doesn't know what's coming.

She cried for a quick second....

 

Then got bored with the whole affair....

Until the stupid gun got caught in her ear :(

The finished product!!!

She was a champ! She didn't cry very long at all.  I was super proud of her!!!

However, a little less than a week after I noticed the right one was shooting up (yes, the one where the gun got stuck in her ear).  It looked awful and was obviously wrong.  We called Claire's to see what to do about it.  They said to bring her in.  The girl immediately noticed it.  She said that we can take it out and wait a year to redo or we can just move the hole a bit.  We opted to move the hole.  I didn't like where it was anyways.  She then tried telling me that I would have to repay.  Ha-I was not about to pay another $65.00 for their screw up.  She called her manager who said they would cover the cost.  Of course you will.  

So now, regardless of how much my sweet girl looks like her brother-she'll always have the earrings to prove otherwise!!!!