My little loves

So it is increasingly obvious that I am having a hard time "keeping up" on my blogging. I never even got around to posting Christmas pictures, but when you have three kids and two of them still babies- it's hard to do much of anything "extra." Lately any "extra" energy/adreneline has been used planning parties and crafting, which I love.  Sean actually says I'm a happier person when I have some kind of craft I'm working on.  So I guess it is just part of how I am wired.  I love blogging too because this is my way of chronicling life with my three littles and my guy. I long ago gave up on actual scrapbooking, so between this and my annual My Publisher books that I make- that's pretty much where all of my memories are being stored.  Lord knows my brain doesn't have much room for them :-)    

I took these pictures on Valentine's Day with the intention of posting them and writing about my three little loves.  Clearly I didn't quite make it, but it doesn't really matter.  

Emmalise is 9 months in these pictures! She is such a little doll! She so wants to walk and keep up with the other two kids! She is so observant and loves looking up at the birds or airplanes in the sky. She throws her little hang up as soon as she hears them! She squints her eyes and smiles when she knows she's being cute. She's got such a little personality already!

 

 

 

 

 My little Jacky boy! He's getting to be such a big boy now! He is so smart and he has such a winning way about him. I love all of the funny little things he says these days! For example: after he had been carsick, and threw up, the next time he said," Mommy! I felt all my good yummy things coming back up, but my spit chased it back down!" Or like when Claire told him Dinosaurs scare her, he replied, "Dinosaurs are all gone Claire, they're distinct!" After having several episodes of Emmy finding tiny things to put in her mouth Jack told her, "Emmy- tiny things are off the menu!" He also excitedly exclaimed that, "Emmy is almost getting to be a person now!" Some of my favorite Jacky quotes from lately: 

"Something funny just flew into my mind!"

"I cant understand you anymore Emmy! I speak anguish not baby! Mommy what kind of anguish do I speak?"

To Mia- "I speak English but Emmy speaks animal. She does! She speaks Duck! Say Quack quack Emmy!"

Claire was saying "no" to everything I was offering her for lunch, kind of whining/crying like a very tired 2 year old does, and Jacky quips, "This is like trying to figure out a puzzle!" Sean and I laughed and Sean says, "Yes- yes it is! Get used to it buddy!" 

He is also the sweetest little guy in the world! He recently said, "Mommy, I wish I could marry you!" (1/22/13) {annddd my heart's a puddle}

"I love all the people in my whole, wide family!!"  Seriously love this little fellow!

This little baby is so busy that it is almost impossible to get a picture of her lately! She doesn't want to stop for a moment! I used these pics for her birthday party because I feel like you really get to see her.  She feels deeply, she is compassionate and she loves deeply.  She much more aware of her surroundings and others, than most of the kids her age. She worries about Jacky and Emmy, when someone gets hurt, she wants to make sure they are OK. She is scared of shadows, and tells me in her tiny voice in the middle of the night, "Mommy, shadows scare me too?" I reassure her that shadows are just something blocking the light from her night light. She is so cute and runs after Jacky yelling, "Here comes me!" She is so girly and loves her "pretty dresses" and her make-up (which sounds like naked when she says it :-) We read Pinkalicious over and over and I know I've said it before, but her little sweet singing voice is one of my most favorite sounds in the world!  

  

My little deep thinker

These little people LOVE being outside, and we have made a habit of going for afternoon walks with my Mom.  We feed the ducks or mud hens and go to the secret path and to a big hill that Jack literally will run down over and over again. I love it and so do they.

love.

Hello Claire!!!

We celebrated our little Claire turning two a week after her birthday, with a Hello Kitty party! It was so much fun and we were so blessed to have our family and friends come play and celebrate her birthday! 

The table

 I had so much fun making the decorations and desserts for this party! Pinterest is full of so many cute ideas...I sometimes get in over my head with so many things I want to do! I love to try new things and I love "doing it myself"! Even if I could buy it- I'd rather make it myself! So I watched some Youtube tutorials on pipping and royal icing and made these hello kitty cookies! It was my first time actually pipping and they weren't perfect, but they turned out pretty cute!

These little Hello Kitty cake pops were the hit of the party! My in laws gave me a cake pop machine and recipe book for Christmas, so I new I wanted to make some for her party! I found this tutorial on Bakerella and thought they were so cute that I had to try them! I've seen other Hello Kitty cake pops that really just didn't look like Hello Kitty at all (eyes too small and whiskers not in the right place... I'm a bit of a perfectionist) but these looked just like Miss Kitty! While they were time consuming- they did turn out pretty cute and really tasty too!

the Kitty Pops

"C" is for Claire

The wreath: one of my favorite DIY details!

Cupcake time! I made chocolate and confetti cupcakes and I made cute little cupcake toppers from a free printable I found on the interwebs :-) I  changed the colors and added some text and matted them on the teal and red card stock! Voila! I love free stuff! And I'm actually getting the hang of photoshop! 

She licked her frosting right off her cupcake!

Always dancing!

This party was fun because it was so low key in terms of activities. The kids jumped in the trampoline, played on the swings and slide, and I set out a couple Hello Kitty games they could play whenever they wanted- I didn't have any "structured games," but it was really fun and the kids had a great time! Most of them are four and under so they are still easy to entertain!

bowling and ring toss games

  I made these little Hello Kitty headbands for the girls (also an idea from Pinterest) but I made my own ear template and bow. Maybe I'll get around to posting those tutorials one day :-)

Hello Kitty ears for all the girls!

Of course Claire wanted nothing to do with them! They looked cute on the other girls though :-)

Thank you to our friends and family who came to celebrate with us!

 We had such a fun time celebrating our sweet Claire- Hello Kitty style! 

Claire Marie turns Two!

Today my little Claire Marie turns Two years old! 

She is such an incredible little girl.

She talks in full, perfectly articulated sentences.  She is strong and determined, but also so loving and sweet. She is completely potty trained. She loves Jacky more than anything, and wants to play whatever he is playing whether it is Ninja Turtles, Playmobil Knights, Cars, or Transformers- she wants to play too.  She loves her brother but she is also such a girlie girl.  She loves her three tiny babies, and is almost never without one of them.  She loves pushing her babies in the little umbrella stroller, and she will "bake" for hours in her play kitchen.  She loves books and for awhile, Caps for Sale was her favorite.  She would take it to bed and sit in her crib "reading it."  She'd shake her little finger and say, "You give me back my caps" and then make the monkey sounds.  Now she loves, If I were an Owl. Claire also loves to do art. She loves painting, Dot Art, coloring, and even just writing with a pen and lined paper. She holds her pen perfectly, and carefully writes her "notes" or "lists."  

She is very sensitive and very aware of things that are beyond her age. Whenever either of the other kids is hurt or sad, she is the first one to say, "Are you Ok Jacky" and pat him on the back gently. Or she'll look at me and say, "Emmy's sad" with such concern in her big brown eyes. She is beyond her years in expressing her feelings. She still talks about the "punkins" that scare her or that "shadows scare me too" as she puts it. I'm thankful she is so able to communicate what she is thinking and feeling. 

 One of my favorite things about Claire is that she always has a song in her heart.  All three of my babies all loved music from the early months of their lives, but little Claire especially loves to sing. She is always walking around singing- usually its, "Lets go fly a kite, up to the highest height, and send it soaring" or "I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me.." or one of the Daniel Tiger songs like, "I like you, I like you, I like you, just the way you are" or "Making something is one way to say, I love you!" She loves Daniel Tiger. 

She also loves little "Emmy Doodle Kookoo."  When Emmy was new Claire started calling her Emmy Doodle or Emmy Doo for short, which I thought was the cutest thing ever, and the rest of us kind of picked up the nickname and now she is frequently called Emmy Doo. So we have Jacky Roo, Claire Bear, and Emmy Doo. Claire is such a good "big" sister. When I found out I was pregnant with Emmalise, I was worried about Claire being so little and so in the middle, but she was made to fill that specific roll in our family.  She is still such a baby, but she lovingly kisses and hugs Emmy.  She is a little mommy already, and is teaching Emmalise everyday.  It is a great responsibility to be a big sister and I know she will handle it with confidence and grace. She will teach Emmy more than Sean or I will be able to and she will understand her better.  They will share secrets and giggles and even tears; and I know Claire will be (and already is) a shinning example of the Lord's love to her siblings and to all who know her.

She is strong enough to handle Jack in all his full-speed, non-stop boy energy and she keeps up, and lots of times, she's the one in charge! To say she holds her own is sort of an understatement. It's amazing to see her personality and how perfectly the Lord created her to fill that place in our family.  

  
Claire is funny and silly, so incredibly smart, so passionate and determined, and her eyes twinkle when she smiles. She looks just like her Daddy, but her personality is a lot like her Mommy.  We are so thankful to the Lord for our little Claire Bear! She is such an incredible blessing and we could not imagine our lives without her precious smile, her giggles, her loves and sweet little singing voice. 

Happy 2nd Birthday "Sweet Little Heart" (as Jacky used to call her). 

We love you so much our tiny girl!!
xo