My baby is THREE

This past Sunday we celebrated Brennan's third birthday with friends and family. On October 18th, 2007 our family was finally complete when God blessed up with our sweet, precious, baby boy, Brennan Gage. I am so sad that my baby is now a toddler, I try not to think about it too much because it makes me sad. What a year, my first born will be graduating and going to college and my baby is now a toddler. I am just thankful that I am blessed with three amazing children whom I love more than anything in this world!








Okay back to the Birthday boy! He is a mommy's boy for sure and he loves to be loved on, lol. He is the only one out of three that will just sit on your lap and let you cuddle and love on him. He still sucks his thumb and carries his "wankie"( aka his blue blankie) everywhere. He sleeps all night and takes naps occasionally. We have not made the switch from his crib to a big boy bed but we need to do that soon. He loves food, books, music, cars, trains,computers and his Iphone! He loves the Disney movie "Cars" and knows all of the character car names. Of course he has most of them :) He also has the talent of learning a song only after hearing it a couple of times. He can belt out Amazing Grace like nobody's business...lol. I will have to try to post a video of that, it is too cute! Every night before he goes to bed he asks to say his prayers and sing Amazing grace. He is really NOT into sharing these days, and his favorite word at the moment is "mine". This is a daily problem at our house because he basically wants everything his sister has even if she had it first. Hopefully this phase will pass soon! Oh I forgot to mention how smart this kid is..lol not to brag or anything but he is a little genius!!

(These pictures are soo funny, when we told Brennan to blow his candles out, he wasn't sure how to do it so he was making the "f" sound, it was hilarious!)

Brennan, you have a heart of gold, you are always concerned if you think someone is hurt or not feeling well. There are not enough words to describe my love for you. I am so excited to see your big, beautiful blue eyes every morning. You always greet me with a huge smile on your face. I am so sad that you are growing up but at the same time excited to see what the future holds for you. I KNOW that you will do great things! Please always remember that even though Mommy loves you so much, Jesus loves you even more!!





Best Friends

Here is the dance portion of the party with Ayla and her friends. They were dancing to Justin Beiber.lol!!

Thank you to our friends and family who helped to make this day so special!

Today is World Arthritis Day, Show Me Your BLUE!

ARE YOU WEARING YOUR BLUE TODAY?? WE ARE!!





Arthritis is a painful disease that affects over 46 million Americans, including about 300,000 children. Can we count on you to "Do Blue"? Please remember to wear blue to raise awareness so that someday we can find a cure for this disease!

Brennan knows the Presidents!!

Brennan is like a sponge, he soaks up everything, lol. Seriously, I am not just saying this because he is mine, (well maybe a little) but this boy is smart!! He learned all 44 Presidents in three weeks. I am so proud of him. He is still two, almost three! Remember he knew and could recognize every letter of the Alphabet at 22 months :) He has known all of his shapes including, hexagon, pentagon, octagon etc since he was a tiny thing!! We are doing the "My baby can read" program right now and I am looking for State flash cards so I can teach him the states next! So here ya go, my little genius saying the Presidents. This is truly hilarious to watch because of how he pronounces some of them!!

Four and Sassy

These pictures were taken on her actual birthday (August 31st). We got up that morning and she wanted to wear her cupcake dress. I thought it was fitting especially since I took her to the bakery and let her pick something out! Daddy of course brought home a few presents for her to open as well.





I wanted to note a few things that I forgot to write about on my last post. Ayla loves to help me with household chores. She makes her bed just about everyday and she loves to help me fold and put up clothes. She has to get them just right when she folds them or she will start all over. Speaking of clothes, everything has to match including her socks and underwear. She once cried after we put her to bed because her panties did not match her night gown! She likes to get dressed up and wants me to take pictures, she will say, "take my picture like this" and she will continue to do all sorts of hilarious poses. She calls me "girl" a lot and the way she says it cracks me up. She says, "get over here girl" or "come and help me girl". She just started calling Kaleb "boy" too. Today she said, "My boy is home", I need to go see my boy" too cute! Oh and I will NOT correct her when she pronounces her favorite cereal as "yucky yarms", of course it is "lucky charms" but the way she says it is much cuter..lol!



She is such a blessing, I just wanted to share a few thoughts while I still had them. I have so many posts that I am working on including what my sweet precious Brennan has been up to and trust me you will be very surprised!! Ayla also had a visit to her Rheumatologist a few weeks ago so I will be updating on her JRA soon.

I have been missing blogging and all of my blogger friends, I hope to get back into the swing of things very soon.. soooo much to talk about!

Happy Birthday Princess!

Today is my sweet Ayla's 4th Birthday!!!! We actually had an early birthday party for Ayla over the weekend. Her birthday is August 31st, but she wanted to have a pool party so we had it a little early. She requested a princess birthday party with a princess cake, so of course that is what she got!! It is rare that a day passes where she does not have a princess dress on with a tiara on her head and a "magic wand" in her hand, lol, so a princess party was a perfect choice..lol. The only thing she has been asking for lately is a scooter, so we bought her one (with a helmet and all necessary padding of course!). The really neat thing is that she started swimming under water for the first time at her party. She has been on the verge of swimming all summer and after watching a couple of her friends swim at her party, she finally did it. I was so proud of her, she basically taught herself since she has not had lessons, etc.

At four years old Ayla is such a sweet, caring and loving little girl. If she thinks you are hurt or not feeling well, she will just rub your face and ask you over and over if you are okay. She still loves anything to do with babies and animals. She plays Dr. with all of her animals and babies and says that she wants to be a Dr. when she grows up and take care of the sick babies. She loves to sing and dance and can learn a song just by listening to it a couple of times. She loves taking care of her little brother and is constantly trying to teach him new things.





She loves to learn and has been doing "school work" everyday and working on reading. She has a larger than life imagination and can make images out of anything. We have a marble tiled floor and she will always find images in it and point them out to me. She does this with her food alot too! She loves that she is a big sister and ALWAYS says, " I can do this but Brennan can't because I am BIG and he is little", we hear this no less than ten times a day,lol. Of course she loves her big brother too but sometimes she thinks she is his momma and tells him to "get off of his game and clean his room", hehe, not sure where she got that from :) Did I mention that she has a great sense of humor!! She is definitely a girly girl and loves to wear dresses, makeup, jewelry, perfume, high heels, etc and I love it! She is so much fun and I am so glad that I have a manicure and pedicure partner for life!!

Last but not least, she is BRAVE, COURAGEOUS and STRONG and doesn't even know it! She has been through alot over these past four years but her spirit remains unbroken. I love you more than you will ever know my sweet, beautiful little angel. I thank God every day for letting me be your mommy!




Happy 4th Ayla,

Mommy and Daddy love you mostest :)

Summer Days

Wow, I can not believe that August is almost here and that the Summer will soon be over. We have had a blast this Summer and I hate to see it end. We have been doing the typical Summer activities, going to the pool (everyday), cooking out, spending time with our friends, traveling etc. Basically staying busy and not sitting down until 9 or 10 at night. Hence, the lack of blogging on my part! Actually the only reason I am blogging now is because the kids are taking a nap which NEVER happens anymore!

Oh, the last post I was talking about losing weight, I am proud to announce that I have lost 15 pounds!! I feel so much better already and I still have 15 more pounds to go! John, Kaleb and I have also started working out together everyday. We found a program like cross-fit that combines cardio and weights and we have been doing that for 3 weeks now. Our friends who are also our neighbors, are going with us as well. It is a nice break from our every day routines and we actually look forward to it!

Kaleb's birthday was yesterday. He is 17 now and will be a senior in High school. I am so sad that my baby will be graduating. I honestly can not think about it for long or I will start to feel depressed. He is such a great son, I am so very blessed to be his Mom. The only problem that we do not see eye to eye on is him keeping his room cleaned. I guess if that is our ONLY problem, I should not complain :)

Ayla and Brennan are doing great! They both are growing up so fast! Ayla has almost taught herself how to swim. She can do it in the baby pool but is afraid to try in the big pool. Brennan thinks he is as big as everyone else and will only go in the big pool. He has all the little girls taking care of him and holding him at the pool and I have to say he enjoys the attention..lol. He is as smart as ever, no one believes me when I tell them he is two!

I will leave you with some pictures from the 4th of July. We had a cookout at our pool, it was a day full of food, friends, family, games and FINALLY fireworks!!




























and before the fireworks!









I apologize for all of the pictures, but I am sure Grandma and Grandpa are happy :)

A little break

I know I have been MIA lately but I felt that I needed a little break from the computer. Every once in a while I go through periods where I get a little burnt out. I was getting to the point to where all of my spare time was spent in front of the computer and I just felt that I needed a change! Since summer is here, we plan to spend more time outside and at the pool so it looks like my poor blog will suffer even more.

Last week was spent getting ready for our subdivision garage sale. Ayla had a ton of fun. She was my little helper, she wanted to take and give out the money! We also baked cookies and sold them, so she was in charge of that. She had plenty of toys to keep her occupied, I was pleasantly surprised that she did not get upset when we sold her toys! Of course I did tell her that we would take the money and buy her "bigger" toys, so that may have had something to do with it!





We have also spent many days doing this. The weather has been beautiful lately so we take advantage of it as much as we can!





My mom just retired from her job of 20 years (maybe more) so I am very happy for her! She has worked hard all her life raising her children as a single mother and she deserves to relax now and not worry about working. She only lives a few minutes from us, so I am sure we will be seeing a lot of her this Summer! Her work had a retirement lunch for her a couple of weeks ago so my sister and I were able to go and be there with her. We love you and are so proud of you! Of course Ayla had to open all of her gifts!















I guess that's it for now. Oh and I started a diet, it will be two weeks on Tuesday. I lost four pounds last week but have not weighed myself for several days. I was weighing myself everyday and getting upset because it was not changing so I just decided to put the scale away..lol. I am on a 1200 calorie a day diet and I have been going to kickboxing 2-3 nights a week as well as walking 2-3 miles every night. I am really determined this time and I hope I can lose at least 25 pounds by the end of August when we go to the beach. I put on an extra 20 pounds since Ayla and Brennan and It has been very depressing for me. I am hardly in any pictures with the kids because I hate seeing how terrible I look. Anyway, hopefully this will all change....SOON!! I hope everyone is having a great weekend!