Gymnastics, Growth spurts, Giggles, and Grins

Gymnastics- Jordan has been bugging me forever to try gymnastics. Mostly because when she grows up she wants to be a "good chearleader girl." (her words, not mine) I finally gave in and we are letting her try it. She is totally in love with it. Even on her second day everyone was amazed how good she was for someone just starting. I'm not sure if she'll be a chearleader, but for now, we'll let her do gymnastics. She loves her workout wear for gymnastics.
If you can't tell, the leggings are sparkly (sparkley?).
Growth spurts- It amazes me the difference in kids. I know, everyone says each kid is completely different, despite the similarities. But honestly, I never knew how different they could be. Another thing Liam and Jordan have taught me. Lately, it's been their growth spurts. When Jordan is growing, she is CRANKY!!!! She hardly ever sleeps, won't eat, hurts everywhere, and is just in general, cranky. There is no consoling her. Liam on the other hand, gobbles down food, sleeps a lot, and wants to be held. Sure, he has his cranky moments too, but that is usually the cue to put him down for a nap. It just amazes me how different the two kids are!
Giggles and Grins- Liam has started laughing a lot! He laughs at everything. Lately, you can see his laugh build up in him, then it comes out this high pitched squeal. It's hilarious!! I wish I could catch it on camera for you, but as soon as a camera comes out, he's too enthralled with it to laugh anymore. Same with his huge smiles. As soon as the red target light comes on (not the red eye flash), his smile turns to a stare. I've tried and tried to catch the smile. Here is the best I've done.


Lastly, and this has nothing to do with the letter G, Friday, Ty had a dr. appt in Lancaster (that's about 1.5 hours away). Being that we only have one car, we all went down with him. Knowing most doctors offices, I expected his appointment to be late and long, so I figured I'd take the kids to a park to play. I asked the lady's at the doctors office, where the nearest park was. Of course, the one they directed me to was closed due to some carnival going on. So I asked one of the workers of the carnival where the nearest playground was. And then I went hunting for it. It was definately not where he told me. I ended up driving around for almost 15 minutes before I found a huge soccer complex (WAY far away from where we originally started) that had some play ground equipment for the kids. I was glad I finally found something because I promised Jordan we'd go, and she doesn't forget promises. Thankfully, Ty's appointment went even longer than I expected, so we still had ample time to play. This was Liam's first experience at the park, and he loved it. His favorite part was to distract me, so he could try to get more dirt in his mouth. Once or twice he got a little in.

Finally, something for F

If you can't tell, I've decided to blog using the letters of the alphabet. It makes me think more about what is going on in my life that someone might care about. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what is going on starting with that letter. F is a perfect example. I could blog about my family, my extended family, my in-laws, you know, the normal things, but I really didn't want to. Then I realized on Friday, Liam finally turned five months old. Here is a little about Liam at 5 months old. On Monday, April 12th (Holy Moly... how did it become mid April???), Liam weighed 17 lbs 9 oz. He was 26.25 inches long. He is currently around the 75th percentile for both height and weight. Honestly, I was a little surprised because my arms could have sworn he was bigger than that. I guess it just means I need to lift weights more. Anyway, back to Liam. He can almost sit up on his own. He does really well until he gets excited about something, and kicks his legs and falls backwards. He loves carrots and tolerates green beans. He loves to jump in his jumperoo. He can spend an hour+ just jumping. He shoves just about anything and everything in his mouth. Today during church, it was a book he spent several minutes eating. Thankfully, it was a book he was allowed to eat. He can almost sleep through the night. He goes down between 8 and 9 and wakes up around 5. When you get Liam laughing, he throws his head back and gets his whole body into the laugh. His hair sticks straight up in the middle of his head kinda like a mohawk. We can't do anything about it, so it's a good thing Ty and I like it. He loves the outdoors. If he can't get outside, he just stares outside and watches the trees move in the wind. All around, Liam is a very happy baby and we feel so blessed to have him in our lives.

Jordan is Four and a half. She cannot wait until she turns Five. I think she says something about her birthday daily. She is enrolled for Kindergarten already. Where has the time gone?? How can she be old enough for school??? She is such a good big sister. If Liam is crying and I don't stop it quick enough, she comes up to me and says, "Hand him here. He needs his big sister now." She loves to act crazy to make Liam laugh. She enjoys being outside on her bike. She has an unnatural love of Rollie Pollies (aka Potatoe bugs). When she is out riding, if she sees one on the path, she stops her bike, gets off, and moves the rollie pollie off the path before she rides again. It's hilarious. Anytime she sees them on the side walk, she picks them up and throws them in the grass. She also loves to play in the dirt. It doesn't matter what she is doing outside, she has to get her hands in the sand at least once. But on the other hand, she is a total girly-girl and loves it. She always wants to dress up in her princess dresses. She wants to grow up and be a "good cheerleader girl" (her words, not mine). She wants her nails painted and curly things in her hair. She sure is our Joey, and we wouldn't trade her for the world.

These are their Easter outfits.

The E's of our Life

Easter- Easter this year seemed to come out of no where. I had all these plans and was going to be so prepared for Easter. Infact, I was determined to have everything for it done early. I was going to buy all these decorations... all kinds of things. Then, before I knew it, it was a few days before Easter. I'm still not sure how that happened. However, we still did our annual egg dying and rolling on Saturday. We did add some new friends to our group this year though, so that was fun. The big bummer part is that it was starting to get windy. We squeezed the egg dying and rolling in between conference sessions because the wind was due to pick up to winds of 25-35 mph sustained winds. I'm pretty sure it was towards the higher end of that. Anyway, Jordan woke up Easter morning to find that the Easter bunny had indeed come. She was thrilled. She comes running in... "Mom, can I open my Easter basket?" "Sure," I say. She comes running back a few minutes later, "Mom, can I have my Easter candy for breakfast?" Oh, what would it be like to be 4 again? Between conference sessions we went over to my parents to dye eggs with my nephew. My brother, his wife their son had come to town late the night before from San Jose (though, they only moved there very recently), and "J" had never dyed eggs before, so Joey went to show him how to do it. I'm not sure "J" was all that interested, but he's only 2, so next year I bet he'll like it more. Then they went out front and had several Easter egg hunts. Then we had a delicious ham dinner and sat around and talked and laughed. I don't think you could have asked for a better, more relaxed Easter.

Ellie- Jordan has had Ellie since she was born. Actually, Ellie was given to me by Ty while we were dating and I was really sick once. But I passed Ellie on to Jordan when she was born. I will never get Ellie back. Ellie is irreplacable, and I have looked on Ebay many times looking for one like it. Nope, there is no other Ellie. Even if I could find one though, Jordan would recognize it as not hers because hers has some very distinct marks from all it's been through. Jordan has eaten the tail off of her Ellie. She used to love to put the pink fuzzy tail in her mouth, and now there is no longer a pink fuzzy tail. It's just a few strings. Our dog, Max, almost ate Ellie once. He ripped the stuffing out of Ellie, removed a tooth (which was handy as she had knocked her tooth out a couple days before that, so that way they matched), tore out the eyes, and put many many holes in Ellie. Good thing my mom is an excelent surgeon and could fix him. Jordan even got to pick out the new eyes for Ellie. Anyway, the moral is that Ellie is completely irreplaceable, and completely Jordan's. She still sleeps with her Ellie.

Joey and Ellie at 3 months old


Ellie as he is now.
Even Liam has an Elephant. Thankfully his isn't as permanent as Ellie, nor is he as attached to his Elephant at all, but he's starting to enjoy it now.

This is the only thing that will get Liam quiet in his car seat if he's awake. He doesn't like his car seat, but this way he at least has something to play with.