Practicing Letters - B, M

Today for the first time Tenley did Q-tip painting. It seemed to be a little tricky for her but she did enjoy it! She practiced on the two letters that her preschool has covered so far, B and M.

Happenings on Sept 30, 2013

Tenny always asks where Daddy is even just after he leaves for work in the morning. This is her saying she misses daddy "THIS MUCH!"

Right after that adorable picture of her missing Daddy, she decided to add some "sugar" to her waffle..Only it wasn't sugar, it was SALT! So I told her she needed to take a bite and see how it tasted! Needless to say she didn't eat much more of her salty waffle.

This is my handsome *almost* 4 year old right after his haircut. What a handsome guy he is! I just love him to pieces!

Old Friends, Catching Up!

We've been trying to plan a get together with our friends The Gordy's for months and our schedules have just clashed. They are wonderful people who we met through a mutual friend before we even had kids! Through this time we've stayed in touch even with our busy lives. They have 2 adorable and totally sweet kids! Well recently we reconnected at Awana and that spurred us on to a dinner get together. They came to our house and we had a blast. The kids played so well together and the night was so enjoyable and relaxing! I just LOVED seeing Tenley and Savannah play together. It showed me how much Tenley will love having a sister! Here are a few photos from the end of the evening when Tenley asked Savannah to braid her hair! Soo sweet. And look at handsome Isaac sneaking in the picture too. We will definitely plan another get together soon and not let months go by before doing it! Thanks Juli and Chris for being such sweet, caring, thoughtful friends!

Craft of the week!

I've been giving Tenley more arts and crafts projects lately for fun and learning. She lights up when I ask her if she wants to make a craft! I like to have special things for her to do especially when Jackson has many "special" things he has to do!

Here she is showing off her letter of the week coloring sheet, for letter B! I'm using the Songs for Saplings cd.

Notice her doll sitting in Jackson's chair. She said she was teaching her doll and was singing her songs from the iPad!

Summer Flew By!

Wow my last post was from June! The summer has really flown by this year! Although I didn't get to put up weekly posts, I am posting a shutterfly book that I just made that encapsulates our summer months!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

Our beach vacation

Our annual beach vacation to Corolla was a great time. Of course I'm the wrong person to ask really how it went because I feel like I need a 2nd vacation afterwards. It's just not easy with a very special child with very special needs. I took lots of pictures and captured many of the fun moments! Click on the link below!

2013 Vacation Pictures

One of our last sunsets

The kids sleeping together on our last night

Summer is here!

Carl is out of town for hopefully the last time in the series that started in November 2012. He's been gone every month since and it's made for some challenges for our family. Although this last trip came up rather unexpected, he was able to come home soon than scheduled. Yay for that!!
Knowing that I like to be busy, I had made plans for the whole time he was gone so when he surprised me and said he was coming home early, I still kept my plans (with his ok of course!)

Saturday morning we had planned to go to our friend Ethan's tee ball game and then I told the kids we could get donuts since we had to be up early for the game. Tenley and Ethan will marry eachother one day... She just loves him and he is very sweet to her!

Mr. Cool in his shades (for the 2 seconds that he'd leave them on!)

And this is how she ate her donut...who leaves sprinkles??

Afternoon Jackson Snuggles

Many of my afternoons included at least a few minutes of snuggle time with Jackson in the rocking chair and I love this! Sometimes it takes awhile for him to get settled but he often gives in to my strong hold! It relaxes him to get a big squeeze! Here are some photos of our snuggle sessions...

Tenley visits Build A Bear Workshop

Aunt Laura and Uncle BJ got Tenley a gift card to Build A Bear Workship for her birthday. But because the closest one isn't exactly convenient to get to, it's taken awhile to get there. I finally decided to take the kids on a weeknight while Carl was away for work. Tenley was floored! She had a blast there and her little giggles and smiles were amazing. She thought she was so cool for what she got to do to bring her puppy to life. These photos are adorable. They say so much more than I can describe in words.

 

She was adorable dragging her box through the mall like this and I enjoyed all the smiles and stares that she got.

Jackson and the Light Bulb

I decided I'm going to start documenting the things I encounter with Jackson that, at the time, are not funny (and often very serious) so that I can tell him these stories when he gets older!

The light bulb incident happened when both Carl and I were home, thank goodness! I was getting ready and Carl was downstairs. Jackson was upstairs wandering around near me but I had closed the door to get changed. I heard Carl call up to me and ask me if I fed Jackson something. To which I yelled down "No! why?" As I walked out of my bedroom I saw pieces of a light bulb on the ground and down the steps. Jackson had gotten Tenley's princess night light and chewed up the small bulb. We both couldn't believe it and tried to get any remaining pieces out of his mouth but he had already swallowed them. There was really nothing that could be done at that point, we just had to wait and see if he would pass them. I did check his diapers the next couple days but never saw anything odd looking...No more princess night light in Tenley's
room!

End of February

These pictures are from Tenny's birthday friend Jacob Frangipane's 2nd birthday party. Jacob and Tenny are only 4 days apart. He had a train birthday party. She was so excited about the blue lollipop that she got.

 She loves to play with Elle, her 2nd cousin. They are best buds!! In the next picture she was showing off her fish sugar cookie. She actually didn't even eat it, just ate the frosting!

Snuggling her new cousin Lexi! She just loves babies! She'll be a good mommy some day!

Tenny's 2nd Birthday

Can't believe our little princess is 2 years old already! She's obsessed with Strawberry Shortcake so we decided to throw her a Strawberry or "Bawberry" as Tenny calls it, Shortcake birthday party. We were so happy Julie, Jon, Jacob, Emily and Lexi could come down for a long weekend visit and be there for her birthday. The only bad thing was that Jackson hardly slept during any of the nights they were here and even on one night stayed up all 24 hours AND had over 100 seizures. It was bad. But back to the party... It was a girls only party, the girls played, planted strawberry plants, played pin the Strawberry and ate lots of strawberry treats. Tenley had a lot of fun! Then on Monday (Tenley's actual birthday) we held our neighborhood playgroup at our house in honor of Tenny. She enjoyed having all her neighborhood friends over!

Neighborhood Playgroup pics

presents from Mommy and Daddy

Nana, Pap and Uncle Timmy