The Adventures of SuperNInjaJediPirate

This is another day for our SuperNinjaJediPirate.  He started his morning as usual; with two bowls of cereal and watching the Polar Express.  

Then he was call on duty when Dad made a bad move and ate some of the candy from his secret stash. SuperNinjaJediPirate to the rescue!

Oh no! Mom has discovered the SuperNinjaJediPirate weakness…pictures!  I’ll have to take that camera down.

You may have won the battle today mom, but let’s see who wins tomorrow, probably you again

As our Super Hero goes away to fight crime he gets involved on more important business. He discovers his sister’s evil plans on picking and watching a movie.

After being brain washed, he finally gives in and is forced to watch Tarzan for the rest of the evening

Father's Day

My dear Spencer,

We just wanted to let you know how special and beloved you are.

You are our hero, the man that we look up to everyday and are always there to pick us up and love us.

Your kids adore you; from the second they wake up and you spend that special morning time with them so that I can have some rest. They love your pancakes, especially Julia who has to have you Minnie mouse specialty pancakes. I don’t know how to make them apparently, she has told me so.

Josh loves telling you he wants to watch the Polar Express the second he opens his eyes and even though you have seen that movie a million times you put it on because you know he loves it.

You can imagine how sad we all get when it’s time for you to go to work. The kids love to give you their goodbye kisses and hug and wave to you as you drive out of the driveway.

The second you leave they start asking me when you are going to come home. They ask all day long and you have no idea how excited they get when they hear your car pull into the garage.

Their faces have this big smile and they can’t wait to tell you all the adventures they had.

My favorite time is bedtime. You take the time to read stories and sing songs to them and I am always jealous that Josh just wants you. You are his hero indeed.

Spencer every day I wake smiling knowing that I couldn’t have done a better job on picking a dad for my children. They love you, idolize you, adore you, look up to you, and respect you.

And again I have no idea what to get you for father’s day. You are so content with life and never want anything for yourself. You always put me and the kids ahead of everything.

I hope we can make this day special for you, just as you make our lives special every day.

Love:

Julia, Joshua, Andrew and your wife Gaby

11 months

 Andrew’s last month-birthday has come and gone. I don’t like it a bit. Josh was this little just yesterday and now is my other boy who is about to turn 1.


What can I say about this boy that I haven’t said before? He is a sweetie pie. He is a snugly as they come, he is my snugly bear.

I love that when he is tired he lays his head on my chest grasps on my hand and falls asleep with no fights, tantrums or cries. He knows he is safe with me and that just makes me feel so darn special.

He is a very inquisitive boy. If he sees something he likes, he has to look at it first and touch it, but like any other kid after the item passes inspection it has to undergo the taste test. He puts everything in his mouth.
Who needs one of those robot vacuums that go all the time when you have a baby in the house.

A.D. can crawl everywhere and he even stands and walks by holding onto things.

I have trimmed his hair twice since he was born and have to cut his fingernails every other day.

He loves his bottle but not as much as he loves finger food.

He is a mamma’s boy. If he wakes up in the middle of the night (as it has been happening often) the only thing that can calm him down is his mama. He falls asleep on my arms 5 seconds after I pick him up. Crazy I know. Julia is even starting to call him “Llama Llama red pajama” this is a character from a book that always needs his mama llama.

He has discovered how to give big smiles. I adore his face it is just so cute and innocent. He makes us smile every time he does this. The funny thing is that the smile only pops when he is doing something he shouldn't do or when daddy gets home from work.

He can wave hi.. He makes a high 5 and just moves it upwards.

He has 7 teeth, 4 on the top and 3 on the bottom. He loves to bite his forefinger. Sometimes he bites too hard and gets hurt

Andrew loves to read. This sounds really silly but he sits on the floor, grabs a book, flips on the pages and makes noises as if he is reading.

His favorite toy is the magnetic farm I have on the fridge. He loves to play with that thing. Way to go Santa, finally a toy that this kid is actually interested on.

His favorite time of the day is bath time with Josh. Those two have a blast every time, poor Julia does not like being left out of the fun but that is what happens when you grow up.

He is wearing the summer cloths that Josh wore just last year; yeah he is a big kid although he has tiny feet. He still wears a size 3. By this time Julia was a size 5 and Josh was a size 4

He loves to watch the kids play in the back yard. He stands by the glass door and jumps up and down whenever he gets a glance of his siblings.

His favorite roaming place is under the computer. If he finds a treasure on the floor he crawls right under the computer desk and starts examining it until he realizes that the computer cables make a better toy and snack.

He doesn’t like noodles but he is still a big fan of all vegetables specially carrots and peas.

His favorite snacks are animal crackers and of course cheerios.

He loves car rides but he doesn’t like shoes or socks on while in the car.

He loves the cat but the cat doesn’t feel the same way about him. Our poor Dasher runs away and hides under Julia’s bed every time Andrew is loose on the floor.

He claps when is truly happy

Andrew loves water including the cat’s water. He doesn’t drink it, he just likes to spill it all over the floor, sit  in the middle of the puddle and splash it all over which is followed by some hard core clapping to himself

He is not a climber, but he can climb upstairs and up the couch.

He is mellow but he would also stand up for a fight with Josh if he annoys him enough.

He loves prayer time but the second you are not looking he goes straight for the hair, which most of the time happens to be Julia's

He grawls when he gets mad, when he is not getting his way or when he gets his floor food taken away

This is my baby boy at 11 months, full of live and love and laughter. I am, for the fourth time, deeply in love. I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for the memories I have with my family.

Love you chunky bruster!

Your mama llama

 

   

The fun part of spring

Besides our extra curriculum activities and spring cleaning we found some time to enjoy ourselves.

Feeding the ducks:

We went to the Layton Park with some friends to feed the ducks or shall I say seagulls. Those birds really loved josh who was throwing bread up and down his head, literally.

I’ve never seen ducks so lazy in my life. They were just seating there and had not intended of getting the bread unless it landed right near them.

Andrew even tried to role play and started eating some of the bread...still it didn’t work.

After feeding the ducks we went over to the park nearby where the merry go around was a big hit with the kids. We ended up with bruised legs and scrapped knees but with two highly satisfied kids.

Playing in our backyard:

I really love my backyard, even though Spencer complaint of the hard work it is to keep up with it, it is just so relaxing. My favorite spot so far is this hammock. I love, love, love it. We have the perfect tree that it sits under for perfect shady naps.

The kids love the swing set. This is the best $50 we had ever spent. Even Andrew loves to go get some swings every now and then.

My Andrew has learn how to crawl up the stairs and up of pretty much every thing and any thing 

Pool party:

There was such a nice swimming weather a couple of days ago. I brought out our swimming pool. I swear this thing shrunk since last year, oh wait it didn’t shrink, my kids just grew. What appeared to be a perfect pool last year looks like a kid pool this year, yikes I guess I am going to have to hunt for a good pool sale again, after all I only paid $6 for this one.

What a better way to finish a swimming day than with a churro. I had Spencer pick some up for us, one of the advantages of having your hubby work at Costco.

   

 

Front Yard fun:

Have I mentioned that I have an artist at home? Julia is so great when it comes to coloring, drawing and painting. Here she is demonstrating her abilities with the chalk.

The only thing I don’t like about this is the extra chalk they get on themselves which spreads everywhere. Oh, well

The kids are loving being able to ride their bikes, scooters and their big monster truck down the street almost every day. Every now and then we even go for a walk around our neighborhood.

I think is so cute that they want to take their little brother along. They take turns; as one of them rides their toy the other one pushes Andrew on his stroller and vice versa. Andrew loves the attention and really likes the stroll. The other day they put little A.D. to sleep.

spring recap

Spring is gone and somehow it feels that it was never really here. We had too many rainy days for my like this year.

I decided I could be Super Mom this spring and signed Julia up for Soccer and swimming lessons on the same month, not to mention that she is still going to tumbling lessons every Monday and has preschool.

Let’s just say that April and May were extremely busy for us, but between the rain and driving Julia everywhere we managed to have some fun too.

Swimming Lessons:

Julia successfully completed her preschool level III aquatics class. I am so proud of this girl. She can accomplish anything that she puts her mind into. Although she is not as stubborn as Josh, she is one determined little girl. She always wanted to go first in her class so that she could have more time to practice on her own as the other kids were getting their turns with the teacher.

She can dive, swim 3 laps with no help and swim backwards. Out of these three swimming backwards is her favorite (it’s my favorite also) She would just lounge on the water until it was her turn with the teacher. She learned how to do cannon balls; this is also one of her favorites.

This goof ball wouldn’t stay still while her sister was in the water. Oh Josh, you have such a lively spirit. We will be starting his swimming lessons later this summer. Andrew, on the other hand, was content as he could be as long as he had something to eat.

 Soccer Games:

Julia really enjoyed playing soccer this season. Her team was blue lightening. She had the same coach as in last season and most of her teammates were friends for church. I loved listening to the little boys cheer for her and I know she loved that too.
Julia had some very special aficionados on the bench cheering for her...Thanks grandma and grandpa Smith for coming to cheer her up, she loved seeing you at her games

At the end of the season she got a certificate of achievement. I’ve never seen this girl be so proud.

I am so glad they didn’t put her name on this group picture. This is when I was having a hard time with my thyroid and I could barely hold a pen to write. They though her name was Jolia Snith, oh well!

Tumbling:

We keep on going on this department. Julia really enjoys her tumbling lessons. She is so close on being able to do a back hand spring on her own. She can do the splits, cart wheels, and some nice tricks on the trampoline.

Preschool:


Well preschool has come to an end for Julia. She had one last field trip before her graduation. We went to the Discovery Gateway. What a trip! But not in the way you are imagining it. I had to drive with close to zero visibility on the road that day because it was pouring raining.

After that I parked at the wrong end of the parking lot so I had to come out into the rain. Luckily I had brought umbrellas for the kids and Andrew was in the stroller, but I forgot about myself, I was really wet. When we finally made it into the place we realized that teachers from 5 other schools had decided to make this the place for their field trip as well.

We fought through the crowd of kids and after telling a couple of 10 year old how to be nice to little kids and don’t steal the toys that they are playing with, we finally call it quits. Josh confronted a 12 year old boy about waiting for his turn. That was great, wonder where he gets his personality from?

I am proud of my kids though; they made the best out of it and actually enjoyed themselves.

One week after our little adventure, it was graduation time. This was a very emotional day for me. It seemed like it was just yesterday when I was doing Joy school with her and she was starting to learn her letters. Now she is all grown up and knows her alphabet so well. Did I mention we had assessments with the kindergarten teachers a month ago and Julia did perfect. Didn’t miss a number or a letter and was even able to sound some words by herself.

Julia enjoyed everything about her preschool, but her most precious times were when she got to bring “cookie” the class pretend pet home. This cute little frog made it to all of our errands during the week. I loved how Julia would talk to it like a real pet. She said things like: “now cookie you sit right here, while I eat my dinner you don’t want to get all dirty”

I loved this picture of cookie watching Julia in one of her soccer games. He was there for swimming lessons and tumbling. Every time Julia did something good he would clap and that just put a BIG smile on that girl’s face.

Anyways, she had Grandma Smith her daddy and proud brothers cheering her up during the ceremony. Wouldn’t you say Spencer’s mission shirt made a great graduation gown, who knew!

The kids sang some songs that they had been practicing all year long. My favorite part was when the teacher called each kid individually and said something personal about them. Teacher Brittney had a scrapbook made of the best class times of the year. This is Julia’s most precious treasure right now, she loves reading it, as she thinks is a book about her.

I am going to miss volunteering and being part of that day to day growing that kids have. I loved seeing her play with her friends; I loved being pulled aside and whispered on my ear: “mommy I am so happy you are here” right before circle time. I am really going to miss her excitement when I would tell her that I was going to help that day.

Oh, my cute little girl you are growing so fast and I know is my fault because every day I remind you to be a big girl and make good big girl choices and that’s what you get for asking. I got myself a big girl who makes good choices, just slow down a bit and let me enjoy your little self more.