20 Questions with Jada

Jada's 3rd birthday was just over a month ago.  I've been meaning to ask her these questions ever since but kept forgetting.  I finally got around to it today.  You'll see a theme throughout the answers. :)  

1. What is your favorite color? "Uhhhh.....blue!"

2. What is your favorite toy? "Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse."

3. What is your favorite fruit? "Grapes."

4. What is your favorite tv show? "Mickey Mouse!"

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? "Chicken nuggest."

6. What is your favorite outfit? "Mickey Mouse shirt."

7. What is your favorite game? "Play Mickey Mouse."

8. What is your favorite snack? "Uh, cinnamon toast crunch."

9. What is your favorite animal? "Penguin."

10. What is your favorite song? "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!"

11. What is your favorite book? "Mickey Mouse book."

12. Who is your best friend? "Sam." [the neighbor]

13. What is your favorite cereal? "Cinnamon toast crunch."

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? "Play with snowballs."

15. What is your favorite drink? "Juice."

16. What is your favorite holiday? "Christmas!"

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? "Animals and babies."

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? "Cinnamon toast crunch."

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? "Cake!"

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? "Mommy!"

Graduate

Our family...with the crooked 'Happy Graduation' sign. :)

As if signing Leyton up for kindergarten wasn't enough to make the fact that he is growing up a reality, he had to go and graduate from preschool this week.  Really?!  He's really old enough to be a preschool graduate and moving on to kindergarten?!  I suppose so...which means I'm getting older too!  I couldn't be more proud of my little graduate.  He gets great reviews from his teacher, Ms. McClure.  She says he's more than ready for kindergarten and I couldn't agree more.  I know he'll do great and love every minute of it!  We are so proud of you, Leyton!!

Leyton's class with their diplomas.

Standing next to his cubby.

This is Allyson.  She has a crush on Leyton.  He has come home with pictures that she has drawn for him multiple times.    Some of those pictures have confessed her love for him.  Who knew that 4 and 5 year old girls already like boys?!  Sheesh!

.:Two Months:.

Two months have flown by! Why is that?!

At two months, Lyvia is...

...12lbs 8 oz and 22.5 inches long[as mentioned before. This is for my record.]

...smiling all the time! I love her cute little smile!

...finding her voice. She tells a good story [and Leyton is convinced that I speak baby and understand every little babble. Every time she makes a noise he asks me what she is saying. Too funny.]

...starting to sleep through the night[!!] I think it's safe to say consistently, even! She has slept about 10 hours or more for the past 5 of 6 nights! How did I get so lucky?!

...still has beautiful baby blues. I'm hoping they stay that way, but we'll see. Leyton kept his but Jada's eyes are a mix between hazel and brown. I really can't decide what color they are.

...still a calm-natured little girl. She still seems to have a laid-back personality .

It is so fun watching her start to interact with us. Every month will continue to be so different as she adds to her 'tricks'. 

Lucky number five!

So, the candles say 72, but Leyton really turned 5 on Saturday! [I had to get creative with the candles at the last minute. I couldn't find any in the cabinets besides these so we went with it. 7-2 = 5. It worked and Leyton got a math lesson at the same time! ;)]

At 5 years old, Leyton...

...is 49 pounds! [I think he's been 47-49 pounds since he turned 4.]

...is 49 inches [he's proportinate, right?! ;)]

...is a great big brother! I love hearing him talk to both of his sisters.

...loves sports. Baseball, soccer and football are on the top of his list.

...is finishing up his last year of preschool and will start kindergarten in the fall. Crazy!

...loves racecars and is getting his own taste of "racing" in his new go kart Pa built for him.

...is well loved!

We celebrated dinosaur style with our family and a few of Leyton's friends. I always have such a fun time searching for ideas to fit the theme the kids decide on for their special day. Leyton is loving dinosaurs so naturally, he chose a dinosaur party. Here are a few photos of our 5 year old bash!

When I asked Leyton if he wanted to play any games, he mentioned Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Since donkeys weren't exactly related to dinosaurs I changed the name of the game to Pin the Tail on the Dinosaur and drew a cute little dinosaur and cut out a few tails for the kids to pin. They had fun trying to find the perfect spot for their dinosaur tail, although it seemed the majority of them wanted to feed the dinosaur her tail.

Thanks to Pinterest, I found a lot of cute ideas for decorations. I created this cute little banner that hung from our back porch. It said "ROAR! Roar means Happy Birthday in dinosaur!"

Another idea I stole shamelessly from Pinterest was for the food table. We had food for the herbivores [veggie/fruit tray and cole slaw...not sure where my picture has gone], carnivores [hot dogs and sloppy joes], and...

'sweetivores' [cake pops, cupcakes, and dino eggs]. I snatched up some jelly bean eggs on clearance after Easter and made little bags of dino eggs for the kids. I also found little mini dinosaurs at the Dollar Tree to use as cupcake toppers.

We all had a great time celebrating Leyton! He is such a smart, fun, kind, independent and sweet little guy. He brings such joy to our lives and we couldn't be more proud of the little man he is becoming. It's hard to believe he's 5 already but at the same time, it's like he's always been a part of our lives. I can't wait to see what the next 5 years will bring.

We love you, Leyton!

7 weeks

Lyvia finally had her one month doctor's appointment this week...at 7 weeks.  We've been changing insurances and have had to wait on it all to be finalized before we could take her.  Talk about annoying, although, putting off getting immunizations has been fine with me.  That poor cry after getting poked is about the saddest thing ever.  The poor girl wimpered for quite awhile...broke my heart.  :(  But, she had a great report from the doctor...all is well!  :)  She is growing like a weed!!  She weighs 12lbs 8oz (87th percentile) and is 22.5 inches long (67th percentile).  She seems like she's grown more than an inch, but I guess it's just because she isn't curled up into a little ball anymore.  Since Leyton was a wee one, I have kept a growth chart online.  It is fun to go back and look at how each of the kids compares in size to the others.  At 2 months, Leyton was 14lbs 10oz (95th percentile) and 23.25 inches (64th percentile) and Jada was 12lbs 4oz (85th percentile) and 22 inches (46th percentile), so Lyvia falls right in the middle of the two.  I'll post more about how she's changing on her two month birthday next week. :)

20 questions with Leyton

So I joined Pinterest last night. Maybe it was a bad idea, maybe it was a good idea. Bad idea because I don't want to get sucked in for hours and hours like I've heard from other people. Good idea because I've already found some great things that I want to do with my kids, recipes that sound delicious, and great ideas for Leyton and Jada's birthday parties this year! That being said, I found this idea on Pinterest and since it's pretty close to Leyton's 5th birthday, I thought I'd go ahead and start. The idea is to ask these same questions every year on [or close to] your child's birthday and see how they change over the years. Cute, huh?! Well, here goes!!

1. What is your favorite color? "Uh, blue and green...are you giving me a test??"

2. What is your favorite toy? "Racecars and bouncy balls!"

3. What is your favorite fruit? "Oranges and apples."

4. What is your favorite tv show? "Power Rangers Dino Thunder and The Fairly Odd Parents"

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? "Let's see, enchiladas...no, no, not enchiladas! Cut that out, cut that out!! It's Little Caesar's pizza and breadsticks and the Tomato Place's [Fazoli's for those who might be wondering] white sauce spaghetti."

6. What is your favorite outfit? "My batman pants and shirt."

7. What is your favorite game? "Mario baseball for the Wii and the Cars game."

8. What is your favorite snack? "I'm not gonna tell ya, ya have to guess! Fine, it's animal crackers and jelly beans."

9. What is your favorite animal? "Elephants!"

10. What is your favorite song? "The Power Rangers song at the beginning of the show." [He then attempted to hum the song to me because I have no idea what that song is. :)]

11. What is your favorite book? "Any kind of book, I guess."

12. Who is your best friend? "Micah B. and Micah M. and Cameron"

13. What is your favorite cereal? "Cinnamon toast crunch."

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? "Play baseball. And play soccer. Do all kinds of sports... baseball, soccer, football...all of 'em!""

15. What is your favorite drink? "Juice and milk and water." [This kid is indecisive like his mother!!]

16. What is your favorite holiday? "All of them are my favorite. How can I choose one?! They're all the best!"

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? "Buddy [his teddy bear we made at Build a Bear for his 2nd birthday] and snakey."

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? "Let's see, let's see. Cinnamon toast crunch."

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? "Cake and ice cream. That's it."

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? "A firefighter or a superhero."

I must say, this was quite fun. I hope I remember to ask these questions again next year!!

Easter

We had a great Easter weekend! We started the day off with a great church service, then headed to Greensburg to celebrate with my family. The majority of my family hadn't met Lyvia yet, so it was nice for them to finally get to see her. We had a yummy lunch then headed out to Gpa's for the annual Easter egg hunt.

We attempted to get a cute picture of the kids, but the sun was just too bright for their little eyes. This is the best we could do. I'll take it. :)

Leyton and Jada had a blast running around Gpa's yard "looking" for eggs. The didn't have to look far. The yard was covered in eggs. They could barely take a step without stepping on one. All the kids ended up with overflowing buckets! My sister and I were reminiscing about the eggs we used to hunt as kids. I'm pretty sure they weren't stuff with candy and there might have been a total of three dozen for the ten of us grandkids.

At the end of the day Leyton's comment was, "Mom, I will never forget what Easter is all about...the day Jesus arosed!"