Sisters

"A sister shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams."

Today my dearest little sister Dani asked why I had not written anything about her in my blog. I can assure you that it is only because to write about how much I love my little sister would take up the entire blog, because I love her so very much. However for my sisters sake I will condense it and write a blog just for her.
I remember when we were little and she would tattle on me for EVERYTHING I did (not that I ever did anything wrong) it used to make me so mad when she would tattle on me. I think we both got banned from calling each other "idiots" because that seemed to be the word of choice for each other. Her and I used to sit in her room for hours and play barbies, and on Christmas Eve we would lay in bed and try to listen for Santa and his reindeer on the roof. I think one year I convinced her to go in to our mom and dads room and ask if it was time for us to wake up, even though I knew it was still waaay too early. I thought that if I convinced her to ask them that when they said "no" I could just blame the whole thing on her. I think I even acted like I was still half asleep and had no idea what was going on when she pulled me in to their room.
I remember when she was first learning to drive. She was horrible (no offense Dani, but you were) I was afraid everytime I got into a car with her! Now she is all grown up and she is a mommy, a very good mommy I might add. She takes such good care of my nephew and I love to watch her with him. So for all the times that she tattled on me, or all of the times that her and I were in a screaming match hitting and kicking each other, I still love her to death and I am so happy to have a sister like her! Love you Dani!

Checkup

Today was Ella's one year checkup, she is 19lbs. and 30 inches. She is in the 14% for weight and 84% for length, tall and skinny! Lucky Girl!
I told Jax that it was time for him and Ella to go have baths because sister has a Dr. appointment today and we need to get ready. Jax instantly got a concerned look on his face...
Jax: "Sister has to go to the doctor today?"
Me: "Yes she has to go and have a checkup."
Jax: "Mom, what is a checkup?"
Me: "It's when you go to the doctor and he makes sure that you are healthy and big and strong."
Jax: "Does sissy have to have a shot?"
Me: "Yes, she does have to have a shot today, but she will be ok because she will have brother there to take care of her."
Jax: "I don't want my sissy to have a shot!"
Me: "It's ok buddy, it is just to keep her healthy."
Jax: "It's ok sissy brother will make you feel all better. You will be ok because brother will be right there."
After he assured his sister that she would be ok, we went upstairs to get ready for the doctor. On the way to the doctor I noticed that Jax was being very quiet in the backseat. He had a concerned look on his face and I could tell that he was really thinking hard about something. After a few minutes Jax said "Mom, will you make sure to tell the doctor that I don't need a shot today?" I told him that the doctor knows that he doesn't need a shot, just sister. That seemed to make him feel better for about a half a second. Then he said "mom, make SURE that you say to the doctor that Jaxy does NOT need a shot today." I told him that I would make sure and tell the doctor that he was not the one having a shot. He seemed to forget all about the shot while the doctor was in the room, he wanted to listen to his sisters heartbeat just like the doctor was and look in her mouth and ears. When the doctor was done he said that the nurse would be in in just a few minutes to give Ella her shots. As soon as the doctor left Jax looked at me with wide eyes and said "MOM, you forgot to tell him that I don't need a shot!!" I told him that I would be sure and tell the nurse when she came in. However there was no need for me to inform the nurse of this because the second she walked into the room Jax blurted out "I don't need a shot today!" This made the nurse laugh. She assured Jaxson that he was NOT getting a shot. This made him feel a little bit better until he realized that his sissy was about to get 4 shots! He wanted to sit with Ella on the table so that he could be sure to make her feel all better. When the nurse was getting everything ready Jax was holding Ella's hand telling her that he was right there and everything would be ok. Of course poor little Ella had NO idea what was about to happen! She just sat there grinning and jabbering. When the nurse gave Ella the first shot it took her a minute to realize that it hurt! Then she looked at me and puckered her little lip and started crying. This made Jax cry because he does not like to see anyone hurting, it really upsets him. Jaxson laid his head on me and cried and said "I don't want sissy to get anymore shots!" I assured him that it was almost over and she would be ok. Of course this was torture for me because Ella was just looking at me the whole time crying, and Jax was upset that his sister was crying. As if sitting there while your child gets a shot isn't bad enough, it was heartbreaking to watch Jax cry because his sissy was hurting. Fortunately it was all over in just a minute. I think Ella quit crying before her brother did! Jaxson had to make sure that Ella was ok before we left. He is such a good big brother!! He got a sticker from the nurse for helping Ella to be so brave, which he lost. Of course losing the sticker was almost as bad as watching his sister get a shot. You would have thought it was the end of the world!

Best Friend

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway."

My friend Janelle Smith is the best! I told her to update her blog so that I could have something to read because it had been far too long since she had last done it. She sent me a text a while later telling me that she had blogged. It took me a while to be able to read it because it's like the Hogle Zoo here today. My darling nephew Gabe is here today and him and Jax are on a mission to drive me crazy! When they aren't running around the house like monkeys, they are at each others throats because they are fighting over the same toy. It doesn't matter that there are at least a hundred other toys laying around, they have to fight over the same toy just because the other one has it. Then Lil miss Ella is getting into everything she can, including the toilet!!! Disgusting! After thoroughly sanitizing her hands and the floor, I looked around at my house and wanted to lay down in the middle of the one hundred toys and scream! Instead of doing that I thought I would take a minute of ME time to read Janelle's latest blog entry. Instead of writing about something that she had done recently she wrote about "The top 10 reasons why I love Carlie Martin" that instantly made me smile because knowing Janelle I knew it would be funny. Not only was it funny, it was also very sweet and it made my day!! I was able to take a deep breath and resist the urge to throw a temper tantrum like my beautiful daughter. So thank you Janelle for making me smile!! Thank you for always listening to me complain about how fat I am when I have just consumed an entire bag of powdered sugar donettes, and instead of telling me that I am a disgusting pig you tell me that I will do better tomorrow. Thank you for always being there, and for just being you!!
Love ya!
http://acoupleofnuts.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-10-reasons-why-i-love-carlie-martin.html

Miss Independent

Ella has discovered that she loves cottage cheese. I was feeding it to her and she kept getting mad and trying to take the spoon. Since she turned one she has become VERY good at throwing temper tantrums! When I didn't immediately give her the spoon she threw her head back and hit the spoon out of my hand. When she finally calmed down and realized that I had put the spoon in her flailing hands she just grinned at me. Then this is what happened........
Need I say more?

Picture day

I took the kids to Kiddie Kandids today to have their pictures taken. They were perfect little angels while they were actually getting them taken. They held still and smiled perfect, I was so proud of them. However this was NOT the case when it was time for me to pick out the pictures. Little miss princess decided this was a good time to start hitting me and biting me! She figured out that hitting is fun a couple of weeks ago but the biting thing is a new trick that she has learned. NOT FUNNY!! Jax kept getting into my purse and taking everything out of my wallet and eating my gum as fast as he could. Meanwhile the couple with the brand new baby that just layed there in their arms and slept kept looking at me like I was crazy. Wonder how they are going to feel in the middle of the night when the baby is up all night and mine are sound asleep (hopefully) I was ready to tear my hair out when we finally left, but the pictures are adorable!

Birthday Princess!!

I cannot believe that my little girl is already a year old! It seems like just yesterday that I looked like "Shamu" and I couldn't wait to be done being pregnant, and now she has already been here for a year!
The day before Ella's actual birthday we had a party with family and a few of our close friends. As you can imagine Ella was absolutely spoiled by everyone!! She was the princess for the day (not that she isn't always the princess) and she even had a little dress and tiara! Nick's parents were able to be here for her birthday which was so nice because they live in Chicago and we don't get to see them nearly as often as we would like to. I like to blame this inconvenience on my father in law (just kidding George!) It was nice for them to come and spend time with the kids. When it was time for Ella to play in her cake, she wasn't quite sure what to do, she kept looking at all of us like "guys are you sure I should be doing this?" after a few minutes she put one of her fingers in the cake and then grinned! But she still didn't dive in. Finally big brother decided that he needed to help sister with this. Jax had NO problem leaning down and taking a HUGE bite out of the cake! He thought this was quite hilarious. Ella still didn't dive into the cake and make a huge mess like most kids do, but Ella likes to be quite dainty and diving into a birthday cake is apparently not her cup of tea. We finally gave her a spoon with some cake on it, and she licked it clean!! All of the kids at the party got a chance to take a bite out of Ella's cake to show her how it's done!

Happy Birthday Princess!! We love you so much!

Lava

Every year in August we go to Lava hot springs Idaho with my mom's side of the family. While it might not be the most "high class" place to visit, we have an absolute blast! All of the kids love that they all get to play together. Jaxson's favorite thing is the river, he loved getting in and throwing rocks! Even if we told him numerous times not to throw them.

We all love to go down the river on tubes, we all hold on to each others tubes and make a big line (and I mean BIG, we have a very large family) then we go down the river together and it is a blast! Sometimes it is difficult to hold on to the other tubes when you are laughing your head off. Somehow my hubby always manages to fall off his tube when he goes down the mini waterfall. Since he is so tall he has to have a double tube just to fit, it's hilarious! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him on it. You are lucky if your behind doesn't get several bruises on it from the rocks in the river, fortunately you don't notice how bad they hurt until later because you are too busy laughing at the time! As usual I didn't take as many pictures in Lava as I would have liked to. But I did manage to snap a few of the kids.