Celebrating a nice day

This year on take your kid to school day, Mira went to school anyway because I had to go in to work for awhile and b can't bring young kids. I got done early and went ahead and picked them up around 1:30. We decided to enjoy one of the only nice days to date. 

We took their bikes to penguin park and they rode while I ran. G did great on his first longer bike ride(1.8 miles)! He has this issue with dragging his feet instead of using his breaks, which I don't notice when we are at home. Hmmmm....

Silly Sully

Love this guy. 

He will color all day. So much of him is just like his sister. 

I was thinking how he doesn't play like griffin did and I suddenly realized it was because he didn't have access to the toys! Whoops! I got the trains out downstairs and he loves loves them!!!

Yay for toys!

The four of them.

Soon, there will be four. After the loss in August, we have been trying again to have the fourth child our hearts desire.  Finally in March, it seemed we had finally gotten there. We held our breath until 7.5 weeks when we could get a scan and see a little heartbeat. And we did. Due on Mira's due date of November 25th, we hope to welcome a new one. At 13 weeks I chose to have a scan done that would tell us the likely hood of genetic or other abnormalities.  Everything checked out just fine so we declined blood genetic testing. The baby looked like a bouncy little baby and the perinatologist was very very nice.  I still respond with, "Fine for now," when asked how things are going, and I still most of the time feel unsure if this pregancy will end up with a baby coming to our house.  Slowly but surely I am becoming excited that perhaps this time, it's for real.

Sully is our silly guy. He is a parrot to everything we say. He will immediately repeat it back. He is so so sweet. He loves for us to read him books and will do that for hours and hours. He is obsessed completely with loaders of all kinds, and he also likes Thomas.  He's becoming quite the boss of the house and we love to call him our "bossy boiler."  He's VERY opinionated about what's happening around him. He's a picky eater, although better than Griffin, and even smaller weight wise than Griffin was. He loves his pediasure (special milk), and he LOVES candy!! He's a great sleeper- he goes to bed way earlier than either of the others ever did. He goes to daycare twice a week at Spectrum station and thrives there. He's so smart! He has a huge vocabulary and speaks pretty clearly, most of the time.  He's definitely Mr. Independent. "MY do it," is one of his favorite sentences.  He's had a very sickly spring and has recently been diagnosed with allergies and asthma. Not fun, but he's becoming a champ at his inhalers.

My Griffy is still quite a cuddlebug as well. He loves to be at home just hanging out.  He started Kindergarten summer school and seems to be enjoying it. I know he'd rather be at home.  He is making friends by the dozen.  He is thriving at Tae Kwon Do, even though he argues about going quite frequently, but has a great time. He has such pride when he gets praised by Master Ju.  He needs lots of positive reinforcement. He is still a really terrible eater, although I do feel like we have come a long way. I frequently just make one of the 5 things he will eat in order to avoid a fight. We have fought him about food for so long, I'd rather just enjoy who he is than be constantly arguing with him. He's very into ninjas and superheros right now, although he'll watch Thomas with Sully any day.  He doesn't love going places or even being outside for long periods. He gets easily overheated and just likes to hang indoors, although has learned to ride his bike this year and really enjoys it.

Mira is miss independent.  I find it hard to relate to her quite a bit because our personalities are so similar. She is incredibly smart, scoring higher than 99% of other kindergartners on the national tests last year. She is a very good reader and writer. I love to read her stories she brings home.  She loves to draw, write and do arts and crafts.  She started 1st grade summer school and is loving that she gets to teach G about his new school.  She says it will be ok to have another brother if that's what God gives us. She is a great big sister. She takes Sully and reads to him and takes him to dance to her ipod.  She's going to be a huge help this winter.  I love that she loves to go to plays and movies and do girly things with me.  I struggle a bit with her need for more more more. Sometimes I feel like nothing is ever good enough, she always expects more, but I know she is still learning.  I definitely don't feel like we get enough one on one time together.  We need to work on that this summer for sure.  Sometimes I am amazed at her beauty. Such delicate and perfect features. She loves to play all sports. Soccer, basketball, and now T-ball this year alone. She's so active, loves to ride her bike and be outside. She loves to sing and listen to music. 

Our family is so very blessed. I know I don't deserve all of the gifts our God has given to me, and I can only hope to show my gratitude with the way that I raise these awesome little ones for him.

Napa

It seems like last year we took our girls trip to San Fran and napa, but it was really only April. We arrived and our plan was to make it to Alcatraz. Well, mom's plane was late so we missed our appointment. :( I was really looking forward to that one. Oh well. It was cold cold cold and windy our first day. we drove across the bridge, decided there was no way we were going to walk around out there, and headed to Napa.

FREEZING!

Napa is gorgeous. Rolling hills all covered with grapes. The weather was pretty cloudy, sometimes sprinkly, but ok in general.  Things were just starting to get growing grape wise. Molly got us into several tours and tastings.  I had just found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks before, so I had to just do a little taste here and there, but that's ok.

We did lots of hiking. Mom thought she might die a few times, but it felt good.  The hikes were STEEP. This one looked like it might get interesting, but we didn't see any wild pigs, unfortunately.

We ate lots of desserts- in true form.

We figured out how to use the iphone camera delay for our picture on the mountain!

There were all different wineries. We saw some that were age old, and some brand new. They all smelled delicious and it was really interesting to see.

Reading outside at the Sutter Home guest house. I eventually decided it was too freezing, but before this we were served a huge fruit, nut and cheese plate for free! Awesome!

It was a super fun trip, but I missed the kiddos a lot. Good to get away. 

Couple of weeks

Things are happening! The basement is finally finished besides the bathroom. You can't imagine in your wildest dreams how happy this girl is. It is the most awesome space ever! Those pics in another post.

Mira and griffin love to wear his costumes that he got for his birthday. They are the simplest slip over your head things you've ever seen. Worth every penny!!

I took Griffy to get his eyes checked this spring to prove that his frequent headaches aren't due to a vision disturbance. Of course I was right and he is fine. So now her excuse for doing nothing is that I need to keep a diary of his headaches and the circumstances for a few months. Sigh. Ill just keep ibuprofen in my purse....

Since I posted this he is still getting headaches. I have still proven to be too lazy to keep track of when and how and their severity. He has started summer school kindergarten and we have made it through the first week headache free!!! 

Mira left me a funny on the toilet paper this morning!! Silly girl!!

Easterish....

Here are just a couple of pictures from Easter. I worked the night before, but got up to go eat some lunch and participate in festivities afterward.  Not sure where all the pictures went! I did stay up for church before bed.

Ready for church!

Sully LOVES chocolate and candy. He's not shy about asking for it....

The blogger iphone app has improved. Perhaps I'll catch up on some blogging, or perhaps not. Having had this blog since 2007, it would feel pretty awful to just abandon it. We'll see. 

Basketball!

In early winter Mira played upward Basketball. She LOVED it. She really likes any sport that is fast moving.  No action shots, but here she is with her friend on the bench.

Me and my Sully. During Basketball Season I started my weekend nights. This day was her last game and it was early, so I was able to go before I went home to bed. It's not too bad to stay up when you have something to do. You don't really think about not having slept.