Ophelia is Seven!

Tonight I was watching a few of the older videos of the kids, when Ophelia was just a tiny four year old, talking so well, being such a sweet big sister, always dancing or moving, never shy of the camera...This past weekend my sweet little girl has turned seven! In her own words, she is a big girl now! Sigh. In everything that she does, she strives to be independent. I don't need to meet her at the school bus stop at the end of the school day any more, she officially can walk herself home (despite it being a tiny short walk, it brought a lot of pride for Ophelia to be able to do it on her own). I can easily delegate responsibilities to her and fully trust that she will do what I asked her to do. She loves to do lists (the apple didn't fall far from tree here), and loves to help me with anything, cooking is one of her faves! Ophelia is very polite, still loves to move and dance, and is an AMAZING big sister. Most of the time the last fact is not as appreciated by Emerson as it should be. I love my "big" girl! And here is how her birthday weekend went.

Ophelia has been waking up lately to her own alarm in the mornings. This was mainly set up because the first week of school she would be so anxious about waking up on time that she would be up waaay before she (or me!!) should've been. So, on her birthday she woke herself up and got dressed for school. PJ, Emerson, and I got Krispy Kreme donuts for her classmates (two dozen of O-shaped goodness), a Happy Birthday balloon, and lunch from Chick-fil-a and came to visit Ophelia during her lunchtime. She sure felt special and loved! This was right before school:

After school Grandma took Ophelia shopping at the mall, AND got her ears pierced! While that was happening PJ took Emerson to the bouncy house. All this was planned out by the birthday girl weeks in advance. She not only included Emerson in her plans, but also got him a toy at the Disney store while shopping with Grandma. So super sweet and thoughtful! After the mall we all ate at Olive Garden, which she says is her favorite restaurant.

Saturday was the big Birthday Party day. I never meant for it to be big, but it turned out that we had 12 kids in total coming over to our house! I stressed out about it, but in the end two hours really flew by and it wasn't so bad after all.

The theme of the party was all about hamsters. For the past few months Ophelia has been saving money in order to buy a pet hamster. A nice lady from Craigslist gave her a cage for free, when she learned that Ophelia was saving money for it. It was a special day to go to the pet store a pick out her new pet, hamster Flurry. This brings our total family count to seven "people": PJ and myself, Ophelia and Emerson, Freddy the betta fish, Melody the robot vacuum cleaner, and Flurry the hamster :)

This cake was huge and delicious! We still have a third of it in our freezer. Yumm! Ophelia came up with a few hamster-related activities for the party: solving mazes, stuffing cheeks with marshmallows, and learning some neat hamster facts.

She also wanted to have a dance party, which we set up in the office, equipped with disco lights, loud music and her favorite songs. The kids had a blast!

The traditional gift opening ceremony:

And my favorite, but most time consuming part was the favor gifts. I found lots of used Zhu zhu pets on Craigslist, cleaned them up, fixed them up, and we gave them to each of the guests. They had such a great time playing with those things the last little bit of the party. It was a huge hit! If you don't know what those toys are, they are a motorized hamster toy that squeaks and goes all over the place. Kids loved them when they first came out about five years ago, but these days none of the stores carry them any longer, so that's why I had to go with Craigslist.

My favorite part of Ophelia's birthday was this: Babushka and Dedushka gave her an Amazon gift card to buy whatever she wanted to. The first thing she wanted to buy with it was a remote control car, but not for herself (because she already has one), but for Emerson because he has none!! So so incredibly thoughtful and sweet. Now we are starting a new family tradition thanks to Ophelia: the birthday girl or boy has to get a gift for the other one for their own birthday. Emerson was so very excited about it:

Even though Ophelia strives to be independent and a big girl at everything, there are lots of moments when she is still my sweet little girl. She tells me she believes in fairies. She has a fairy home set up in her room and keeps waiting for a fairy to move in. She also does not want to be independent when it comes to tucking herself in at night. When one evening I sent her to bed on her own, she came back a few minutes later in tears, telling me how much she misses me and wants me to come tuck her in.... I hope she will continue to feel that way for many more years to come!

Emerson's Fourth Bday Bash

We have arrived at this day! Emerson is 4. I had many doubts this past year (or even ever since he started walking) that this active little boy of mine would survive to be four. His energy combined with some clumsiness, plus the height he is at, put him at a minimum of one head trauma per day. Minimum!  This kid always has a bruise somewhere on his head. Heavenly Father is sure watching over him, he is not only alive and well, but he is smart, clever, curious, adventurous, and funny. I love being this boy's Mama! He makes me laugh every day. He easily gets upset or frustrated, but he just as easily snaps out of it and becomes my snuggly sweetheart. Emerson randomly tells me throughout the day: "Mama!" "What?" "I love you!" On occasional moments I sit down on the coach, he is sure to come and snuggle for a brief moment. He is so generous with his hugs and kisses. When I get down to his level, he often grabs my face in his little hands to say: "You are just so CUTE!", followed by a kiss. I love it! 

The other night he woke up around midnight for some reason. PJ went in to lay him back down. A few minutes later we heard yells from his room, but when we got closer we realized he was belting out the lyrics to Adele's Hello: "Hello from the over SIIIIIDE!!! I musav called a fausand TIIIMES!! To tell you I'm soooorry, for evryfing that I've done....." 

An update on hid thumbsucking...I think he is finally over it, cross my fingers. I suspect he still does it at night when he sleeps, unconsciously. But during the day, even for comfort, or boredom, or TV watching, or riding in the car, or even when hugging and cuddling, he has been really good at not doing it! Hope I will not jinx it, because we have done this before, where for two weeks he was so good at not sucking and then all of the sudden he reverted back to it.. We used the gross Mavala stuff to put on his nails. It lasts for about 4 days and slowly washed away. At this point he knows his thumb is not yucky any more, but consciously chooses not to suck it.

Emerson's bday was a blast this year! We rented a room at the HopnHappy bouncy house place, brought our decoration and food, and the place provided set up and clean up, and entertainment for the kids. I especially loved coming back home to our house with no cleaning to do! It was perfect! All the kids loved it. 

This is Tori, our future daughter-in-law :) Emerson said that he is going to marry Tori. So, now that's settled, we don't have to worry about that any more :) She sure is a cutie:

Emerson invited many people to his party. I kind of had to trim down his list a bit. He says his BFF is Garrett, who is 9, who is Emerson's role model in everything. Garrett was like the guest of honor. It was sweet of Garrett to play with Emerson a lot on all the bouncy things.

The party he wanted was Teenage Ninja turtles, so we had to have cheese pizza, of course. A big hit with the kids!

Besides the bounce things, the place has a huge foam pit. The kids spent the majority of their time swimming in these blocks:

Hailey and Emerson going doing the slide together:

Emerson thinks that the exact moment when your age actually changes is when you get "Happy Birthday" sung to you. So, when on my birthday, Ophelia kept trying to sing Happy Birthday to me, Emerson kept stopping her and getting mad, saying: "Mama is gonna turn if you sing!" So this is the "magical" moment when Emerson turned 4:

For homework this week, Ophelia had to write a paragraph about an important person. It could be someone famous, like Rosa Parks, or somebody she knows. Guess who she chose to write about? I glanced over and the was already on her third sentence writing about Emerson. So sweet! She loves her brother so much. Those two together can be so annoying to each other, but they are the best of friends. They play together all the time, make each other laugh, are silly together. Ophelia is Emerson's biggest protector (from other kids or even when we try to discipline him) or his gentle soother when he gets hurt.

Emerson told me today: "Mama, I am almost going to turn five!" Not quite, buddy! But we will get there, one bruise at a time :)

The Third Decade Is Over

What a depressing post title... I know! It just has been a bit hard for me to break away from the twenties and accept the fact that I am thirty now. There is nothing I can do about it and time will only move forward faster from here on now, but I just such a great third decade of my life that I am going to miss that a lot! It started with me barely being a newlywed, then getting my degree at BYU (while having a great time being a student), moving to Texas, internship, buying our first home together, working my first grownup job, bringing two beautiful babies into this world, moving to Austin and buying our perfect little home... So many firsts and milestones! 

It gives me hope that in the resurrection we are all going to be in our twenties :)

My birthday started in the rec center, on the treadmill. I was never the person who can eat whatever I want and never see it in my waistline. So I started the morning right knowing that the will be some calories eaten today :) The upsetting part was typing in my age on the treadmill: 3 0!!!! Gasp! Unbelievable! Feels just like 29! 

Like poring salt on the wound, when we drove to San Antonio a few weeks ago, I saw a huge billboard ad for weight loss and body surgery, that said: "Wanna feel 29 again???" Ahhhhh! 

Well, at least I did for my 30th something I've never done before, which felt good and exciting - I flew!! Doubling up with Mark and Camille, we went to iFly and enjoyed getting blasted with a massive air flow. It sounded not so cool to me at first, well, not compared to skydiving, but it was actually amazingly fun! It was challenging to keep myself airborn and also to try moving my body in different directions. At one point in time the instructor made us both fly up super high and then descend! It was a blast! For sure made me want to go skydiving! That will be something to look forward to this next life decade :)

Here we are suited up before the flight:

The handles on the suit are for the instructor to direct you or lift you or pull you down. We lovingly named them "the love handles"!

Matchees:

The team is ready for take off! Seriously we laughed so hard throughout the evening that I was close to peeing my pants :) (re-usable earplugs and Mark's reluctant flight exit strategy) these guys are the best to go double-dating with!

Mark with his post-flight beard:

Good times! After flying we went out for Amy's ice cream, which was heavenly delicious (sure was glad for that treadmill start of the morning).

When we got home, I had a sweet surprise waiting for me from my Laurels from church. They heart-attacked our house! The funny part was that PJ was supposed to tell his Mom about the secret plans, so she would be ready for them. Well, PJ worked so hard to keep it a secret from me that he kept it a secret from everybody else too. 

The twenties were wonderful, but I know that we have even better times ahead. Me and the love of my life cruising through life together, raising two beautiful munchkins, having joy in family life! Also, hopefully in a few years I'll be able to put myself back into the work field. Keeping the eternal perspective in mind I know that I am here to grow and learn and I am thankful for the years that I've been given and I'll need many more to learn how to be more Christ-like and how to faithfully deal with life's adversities. 

Here we go, fourth decade! Bring it on!

December Festivities

This month has just flown by it seems. Lots of Christmas parties - school, PJ's work, church. We got to go PJ's work party just the two of us, while Mark and Camille kept the kids for us for a couple of hours. It is just so refreshing and nice to go out as a couple and be able to interact with people and not having cater to the kids' needs and constantly watching over them. We had such a good time!

At church, the Christmas party had a Latino flare to it. With a pinata and everything. Just a few weeks ago, our ward got split and the ward boundaries changed, so there are lots of new to us families at church. It was good to meet a few of them at the party. We ate lots of yummy enchiladas and for dessert we had cupcakes. Om the way home from the party Ophelia noted: "I ate my cupcake like Cookie monster....too fast!" :) Made me and PJ crack up!

Texas winters are kind of dry, lots of static here:

Both the kids are struggling with dry skin throughout the winter months. We use lots of hydrocortisone, which Ophelia calls "hydro-quarters".
My friend Natalie shared some Krispy Kreme joy with us. The kids were in heaven:

Ophelia's school put on a big Christmas concert this month. PJ stayed home with Emerson, since it was kind of later in the evening, but me and Grandma and Grandpa got to enjoy it. Ophelia did so amazingly great. She sang loud, she did the actions, and she truly had fun doing it. They sang 3 songs and on the last one (which I didn't get a good video of) Ophelia pretty much dominated the voices. We had friends whose kids were in the concert too comment to us later about how well and loud Ophelia sang!

Lovely Christmas jingle:

Pretty much the first week that PJ was off work, he got the flu. Not just some little flu, he got THE FLU! He was miserable. The first two days he spent in bed with chills, fever, achiness. He slept awfully. It was rough! I did my best to quarantine him from the kids, but I myself got something too. It wasn't the flu according to the flu test at the doctor's office, but I felt sick for a few days, but not nearly as bad as PJ. We were blessed that the kids did not get any of it!

My friend Candace makes the best gingerbread ever! She gave us a house making kit for Christmas, so decorated one as a family. The kids loved the project. Emerson was more interested in tasting all of the candy though, but Ophelia got into sticking colorful candies all over the house.

We had a quiet family Christmas Eve with just us four. It was neat to do our new tradition as of this year of the 25 days of Christmas with a Christ-centered message and a symbolic ornament to go with it each day. Emerson looked forward especially to videos about Jesus and Ophelia loved opening the gift box with a different ornament each night. On Christmas Eve we drove around as a family and delivered goodies to neighbors and friends in the area.

Just in time for Christmas, everyone was finally well enough to spend time with family in Oatmeal. Whatever germs we had, we shared like this:

Cousy love is powerful and there's no way around it! Here's the beautiful tree. I love that Mom always has a live tree for Christmas! I love its smell, because it reminds me of my childhood and our end-of-year festivities. I also love eating mandarins all December long because that's what I did as a kid. One time I ate so many mandarins that I got a rash all over my body!

Grandma playing with Emerson. This Sesame street house is one of the kids' favorite toys at Grandma's house:

Mark and PJ played some lovely Christmas songs for us:

And then Ophelia played some too :)

She's got the guitar hold down. Now we just need to teach her how to make the right notes on it:

The table is set! Looking good:

Grandma got Ophelia and Emerson a little play kitchen for Christmas, which they love! But they also loved playing in the huge box that the kitchen came in. As a bonus, check out Em's huge mouth :)

A few Ophelia-isms that we've heard lately:
* She told PJ one morning: "Papa, you make the best breakfastes!" I giggle at the grammar that she uses, but then I turn around and speak just like her, because we hang out so much together, I talk like her too :)
* As a proper dietitian Mom, I have been talking to Ophelia about candy and junk food, so she is starting to figure out what's good for our bodies to take in and what isn't. One day she told me: "Candy infects moods and makes us act like a baby and a spoiled rat." Petty much...nailed it :)

We had our annual dumpling night in Oatmeal. Auntie Jane was there too and Emerson developed a special love for her:

We made a few attempts to take a good picture of all three cousins. Here are the best two tries:

Someday we won't have that problem any more, of trying to have all three look at the camera and smile and sit still for just 5 seconds!!!! Here they are playing ring around the rosie:

Emerson has a special place in his heart for Grandpa. It is so sweet! Whenever I tell the kids that we're going to Grandma's house, Emerson always adds "Grandpa's house". Also when Grandma stops by on occasion, on her own, while running errands in town, Emerson asks her "Grampa go?", meaning "Where did Grandpa go?" Emerson is always so excited to see Grandpa, to give him a hug and a kiss, or to have Granpda hold him. Here Emerson is singing with Grandpa:

The kids had fun hanging on Aunt Judy:

On one of our visits to Oatmeal, Auntie Cami did some beautiful shots of the kids. Sure makes me want to get a nicer camera!

I just LOVE this one:

This boy is just so incredibly sweet and polite! He even gets excited for his sister. Like when Ophelia shows her artwork to Emerson, he says :"Awesome, Awa!" Too cute! He is starting to pronounce her name correctly most of the time nowadays. He says "Opheya" or "Opheyaya".

Emerson is getting really good with speaking in sentences too! Here are some dinner time Emerson-isms:
* "I like it strawberries." He's learned from Signing Time to says "I like it" and "Don't like it", so he plugs the "it" in his sentences when he talks about his likes and dislikes.
* When calling Ophelia for dinner to the table one evening: "Awa, eat sushi papa make it!" Blew my mind how he put all those words together. Love that boy!