Wrap it up.

Yes it is Friday again.

Yes I still haven't blogged about Easter.
(something to look forward to next week)

Yes it was Spring break for kids.

Yes my husband was out of town all week
You don't understand I mean all week.

So....

Yes I only have a few pictures but here they go:






On Saturday we had a group of friends over! The kids had so much fun playing together. But this moment cracked me up because Matteo instead on sitting by himself!






And of course as the evening went on everyone had to pile on the bed for the movie Tangled!





Who can resist a little cowboy.


Now you should go link up too!

Garage Update

Don't lie.

You have been wondering about my garage project.

I told you I would update you on Thursdays.

I just never told you what Thursdays.  Or did I?  

Well things are moving right along with the garage!!  YEAH.

The shelving on one side has been completely emptied and then restocked with only the things we truly need. Also I made sure to store them in away that thing won't get yucky sitting in the garage (ie plastic tubs with lids).

 The only thing left is to put the labels on each box.  (I wanted to wait to make sure we didn't change anything up at the last minute.)

 The tools have all been straightened up.  Before they looked like the leaning tower of Pisa.

The other side of the garage still needs some help but after contemplating and discussing with the rest of the compound we cannot proceed without a dump run.  Basically there is a huge cabinet that was left from the previous owner that needs to go along with all it's contents..  So the garage is waiting for a free Saturday with lots of boys around to help.  But I am very excited about the progress that has been made.

Oh and one last picture.  Remember the huge pile in the middle of the garage well...

It's gone!

Twin Baby Shower

I cannot believe I haven't blog about this shower yet!!

A few weeks ago (almost a month) we had Jen's baby shower.  And it was fabulous.

My good friend Jeannett co-host with my Mom and I.  It was perfect, she was in charge of decor while Mom and I were in charge of food. 

We went with a woodland theme, since we had to be sensitive to both genders (she is having a boy and a girl).

Jeannett also took the job as resident photographer so I am linking to her blog post about the shower because she has all the pretty pictures and great descriptions of the party.  You must go see!!  Click Here: Woodland Theme {twin!} Baby Shower


Ok and then can I brag a minute?!? 

Yes I can.

Well you can also read about the shower here: Baby Lifestyles, Celebrating Baby's World.

Yes we were featured on a pretty cool lifestyle, party blog.

Thanks to Jen for letting us throw her shower, it was allot of fun and we can't wait to squish those babies!

One-Year-Ago...

today.. Antonio James enter the world. 

Our sweet little boy who came home from the hospital asleep:

 and then never slept again (for months):

turned one-month.  

He spent most of his time in the moby wrap.  It was a rare occasion he sat alone without screaming.

Two-months-old....Daddy slept in another room...because he had to function at work!

Three-months-old...AJ starts to smile all the time (when you are holding him and giving him your complete attention)  Still spends most of his time in the moby wrap...but Dad is back in the same room!

   

Four Months - getting stronger and enjoying more time on his own, because he can roll over in all directions!

Five months old....sweet as pie...loves his siblings...still loves his moby...still hates sleep!

Six-months-old...now he can army man crawl....its a whole new world!

 

Our boy can sit all by himself at 7 months old.

 

Eight months...we are finally sleeping through the night!

   

Nine-months-old.

Ten-Months-Old and we love to play on our own!!   Yeah for mommy.

Eleven-months-old...crazy man.

One-Years-Old

In no means has AJ been my easy baby.  

But as I look back at the last year, even with all the late nights, no sleep, screaming, colicky baby..

I wouldn't trade it for the world.  

Because I all ready miss his littleness. 

Looking at his baby pictures just makes me savory those babies days

Oh how fast the time flies.  

And every minute of lost sleep, and aching back, and spit stained shirt:

is worth it.  

AJ is sweet and lovable.  

He is strong willed and sensitive.

He made Matteo a big brother.

He made our family stronger.  

He is a gift from God and I can not wait to see what is in store for him over the next year. 

Happy Birthday Little Man

We love you.

AJ's First Birthday

On Monday AJ will turn one. 

I have realized over the years that all I really want from a first birthday is cute pictures of the birthday boy or girl.

So I called up our favorite photographer (Jamie Foster Photography) and we headed out to a local park for a picnic and cupcakes.  I made him a special quilt for birthday picnic and Jamie took tons of picture.  He was happy and smiley the whole time.

In one word it was perfect.

Here are a few pictures from the day.


Click here to see the rest

 

Cuteness.

 

Cuteness x 4

  

Standing {Joy}

Now head on over to see the rest: Click here

Week Wrap Up. {instagram Friday}

Last week I noticed the pictures were lacking in Matteo and AJ. This week they are the only two featured. Guess life can't always be fair.

Any who.....now it is time for our week in cell phone pictures.




We were so excited this week because Poppop arrived. Matteo was the most excited. He and Poppop have been spending lots of time working on the railroad.

Who doesn't love a rock table runner with fresh roses from the garden.

Our weekly trip to Costco include lunch! Yummy pizza.

Matteo got to have his buddy over to play. 

(which meant Mom didn't have to entertain him for a few hours, YEAH!)

The little boys earned their diplomas for swimming! Yeah..you can read more about their swim class here - baby seals and baby seals part 2.

REALLY? You live in Santa Maria.

Giddy Up Papa!

All tuckered out!

What did you do this week?
Link up

Family moments

This was the first weekend in a long strand of weekends where Matt was in town, there were no parties or plans, and no one was sick.

We spent the weekend as a family.

We cleaned out cars.

We sat around and read books.

We had friends over for dinner, and topped it off with chocolate cake.

We went to Church and listen to an awesome speaker on missions.

We spent the afternoon at the pool swimming and laughing.

We did art projects and crafts.

We spent the weekend with our little family, no sickness, no plans, no one missing.


Just our family.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Instagram Friday

I am so excited.

My friend Jeannette has been doing Instagram Fridays on her blog for the past few weeks and asking other blogs to link up.

I really wanted to join in the fun but atlas I do not have an iPhone therefore no instagram for me.

Tear.

But then I realized I do have an iPad. If I take a picture with my cell phone and send it to my iPad then tada....I can instagram!!!

So with no further ado...my week as seen through my cell phone camera!









On Saturday I had an opportunity to visit my favorite stroller company.  Six years ago when we had our first baby we bought one of these bad boys and 6yr later it is still my favorite stroller.

Oh yes...our weekly outing, I am consider just having our paycheck deposited here, why mess with it sitting in our bank account for a few days!! 

Don't you think a big fat A on your spelling deserves a photo!!  We do.

Serafina learning to multi-task.  This was her walking in from the car after gymnastics!! Crazy girl put your clothes in the bag.

School Friends.

On Wednesday it was track and field day at school.  There is Sam pulling up second.

And Serafina pulling into the lead!

Have to add the cute kid art work.  Done by Serafina.  Funny enough it is Jeannette and her girlies in a flower garden.

I don't know who's crazy kid this is.

Link up, its fun!

Car Seats

Today I would like to discuss car seats.  In light of the the new AAP recommendations, I am interested in what other parents are doing in terms of car seat use.

Basically the new recommendations are:

1. Children should be rear facing until 2yr old or until the child hits the maximum weight limit for rear facing on their car seat (some seats that is as high as 35lbs).

2.  Children need to be in  booster until at least 8yr old and reached the height of 4'9".

I completely recognize the fact that these are recommendations not laws and you can choose to follow them or not, but at the same time they are making the recommendations because lives have been saved.

Which leads me to my questions.   As a parent how do you make the right choices regarding car safety?  Do you follow the recommendations with out bending a bit?  Do you follow your state laws?  Do you do a little of both following your gut a bit and following the recommendations a bit.  And what you do for example when my 8yr old has been out of a booster for 2 years now, however has not reach the new height recommendation, do I put him back in a booster?  What if you have a 6.5 yr old you took out of the booster do you now fight to put them back in?  How about your 1.5 year old who has been forward facing for 6 months now, do you turn them back around?

I am telling you, parenting is not easy.

Then there are state laws which have so much variation it is really unbelievable.


For example:

In WY if you are 8 or younger you have to be in a car seat.  No questions asked period.

In FL if you are under 3 you must be in a car seat and other than that their is no other specifications.

(That's a five year age difference, what are you to do if you move from FL to WY with your 6yr old?  You have to put them back in a car seat?!?  And if you move from WY to FL with your 5yr old? Now he is safe without a car seat because he is in FL?!?)

Then there is states like CA where they govern weather or not the child is rear facing, or in  convertible seat or in a booster.  They also have laws governing at what age you can ride in the front seat.

Oh and can I mention it is really hard to find these laws on-line and when you do it is almost impossible to decipher them, as to weather they are laws or suggestions.  The site I linked to seemed to be the best.

Then you have the fine associated with not having your child properly restrained and again the variance is amazing.  All the way from Michigan where the fine is $10 dollars to Nevada where the fine is $500 plus you will get a point on your driving record!

As a parent, especially with multiple children it seems very over whelming.   If I was in WY all four of my children would still be in some form of car seat.  In other states I would have to have 3 huge Britax size car seats and a booster.  Then if I was in FL only AJ would have to be in a car seat?!?

Seriously as a parent it is a lot of information to process.  Obviously I want to follow my state law, and I want my kids to be safe but where do I draw the line.  Serafina, I know will not hit 4'9" by age 8.  So do I make her sit in a booster seat until she is an early teens?!?  It is so hard to imagine dropping her off in 6th grade and her climbing out of a booster seat!?  And when she goes home with a friend, does she have to carry her booster seat into school with her?   Really it seems weird.

With all this I would like to end with a little survey.  Not for any other reason then I am just curious what really world parents are doing regarding car seat safety.

Moment in Time

The other day I was busy switching laundry, picking up, starting dinner, etc.  In general ignoring letting the kids play by themselves.  When I walked in the room to make sure the baby was still alive check on what was going on I found this.

Huge tent all the kids inside trying desperately to get their littlest brother to join them inside.  AJ was crawling around poking his head in and out of the tent laughing hysterical at the antics of his siblings.

Those are the moments that get you from one load of laundry to the next.  Those are the moments I want to remember forever.

Still here

Don't worry everyone, I have not given up on updating the blog more regularly it has just been a crazy week. I promise next week we will be up and running with moments on Monday, garage updates, and a new Friday fun link up with my friends blog! And of course just the random thoughts that run through my head during the week.

So everyone have an awesome weekend. Rest up and be ready to hit the ground running on Monday.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Smell the Roses

Even amongst all our sickness this weekend we did manage to  

stop and smell the roses.

 You have to click over to my dad's site for all the cute photos!! 

My children had been on antibiotics for 24hr and the really gross one (AJ) never left my tummy pack.  Yes I am that mom.

Hystrical Moments

 I was not sure what I was going to post about today.  After a long weekend with sick kiddos my brain was just not interested in coming up with anything to write.  Then after laying the kids down for a nap I started looking through random pictures while "cleaning up" my files and I came across this: 

 

 

Which made my heart heart so happy; I started laughing out loud remembering the night Matt attempted to make his normally awesome ribs but instead lost track of time and burnt them to a crisp.

I am talking crisp....oh I am laughing right now...look at those pictures again.
Those bones are white.
Laughing still...can't type.....
We tried picking them up and they would just crumble it was awesome...awe...some.

Oh and the best part.

Did I mention we remembered the rib when flames started shooting up from the BBQ.

Laughing..

I mean shooting..like..3 feet high.....again....laughing... total awesomeness

oh yeah and the heat from the flames did this:

The three read arrows are pointing out the cracks in the window.

Those crispy ribs where the most expensive piece of meat Matt ever cooked.

But we definitely got entertainment value out of them..

Heck this is months later and I am still laughing...


still laughing!!

Under the Weather

Plans for the weekend:

Head out camping with an agricultural group Matt works with.

Spend fun family time roasting marshmallows, fishing, eating, hiking, learning about bugs and meeting new friends.

Instead:

AJ gets a fever.

Matteo gets a fever.

Tylenol does no good to stop the rising fever.

End up at the doctors.

AJ - ear infection
Matteo - sinus infection
Plans - canceled.

So Matt took Sam and headed up to the camp and I stayed behind to nurse the little ones back to health.

The best laid plans....never work in large-ish families.

Ready or not

One thing I am good at:   keeping others secrets.

One thing I am not good at:   keeping my own secrets.

Especially from my hubby. I get way to excited and end up blabbing whatever exciting news, surprise, etc..I have planned.

Until this week. I managed to plan and execute and awesome surprise for Matt.

This morning Matt woke up and after his shower found this note sitting by his sink:







I sat in bed waiting with baited breath and excitement to see his reaction. After what seemed like forever, the bathroom door opened and Matt stood there.

"What does this mean?"

"What do you think?"

"Where going to have another little one."

"Yup."

The look on his face was total shock but I better be excited. He walked over to the bed and said "Congratulations" in his the best excited voice he could muster up, then kissed me on the check.

As he kissed me on the check I quietly whispered:



"April fools"


To which I just started cracking up and rolling around on the bed in a fit of laughter.  

My husbands face is now registering relief and disbelief  that I could pull off suck a prank.  And wait how do you fake a prego test?!?   Well I might just happen to have a sister-in-law who is all filled up with hCG right now, who was fully willing to participate in such a prank!

The best part was the way he continued to walk around the room in silence mumbling to himself,  "Yeah that was a good one."  I loved seeing him go from oh...my..gosh..this...is..waytosoon...how-are-we-going-to-manage... I...better...be..excited...because she loves babies...to...
complete relief!


It was pretty much awesomeness.

Did you pull off any April Fools jokes today?