on the eve of your third birthday...

little one,

i cannot comprehend the fact that in just a few short hours we welcomed you into our lives. i think about that moment i realized you were on your way, and smile because it is so indicative of who you are-always keeping us on our toes! you are so many things at once; thoughtful, loving, stubborn, precocious, imaginative, demanding, playful and you have become my best friend. i am so grateful that i get to spend time with you. you're such a great helper, always wanting to be included. at times it can be exasperating, but then i realize that i am helping to shape who you are and who you may become. such an important job has fallen on my shoulders, and i hope that i live up to your every expectation, never letting you down. although we will falter, i hope you know that i always will have the very best intentions at heart.

with this in mind, i want you to know that i will always be here for you. i love you more than you can possibly imagine, and i cannot wait to watch you grow into a beautiful, amazing person.

love, mama

it's not dinner MOM...

it's breakfast!?

so we had "breakfast" for dinner the other night, requested by two certain little people. i love how literally daley has taken it; every time i say "breakfast for dinner" daley corrects me and says "it's not dinner mom, it's breakfast!" in her most "duh" tone of course! geesh, we're starting this already...

*sidenote: we are only allowed to have said breakfast when mike isn't around because he absolutely abhors breakfast at any other time of day. funnily enough, the kids LOVE this concept! oh the irony....

mama, i'm hungry...

i must hear this at least 10 times a day!? daley is a notorious grazer. forget meals as they are for the birds where she is concerned, but offer a snack and she is all over it!

on another note (pun intended) she has become quite the songstress. she sings all day long and for the most part she knows the words! i am going to plead with her to sing "let it snow" on camera, because it is the cutest thing ever.

speaking of holiday carols, she is so excited for christmas. she must ask me at least once a day if it is christmas yet? when we put up the tree she was so excited she just kept squealing! it is hard not to be in the spirit, when you have two children who are ecstatic for the big guy to come:)

lastly, we had an elf incident on sunday...daley accidentally knocked over connor. she didn't touch him, but she definitely knocked him over. he had to spend the remainder of the day on the floor for fear if we moved him he would lose his magic. never fear connor flew to the infirmary over night and returned the next morning with a band aid on his arm. phew-crisis averted;)

i said...

yeah, so this is certainly not going to win me mother of the year, but alas it is pretty funny...

on friday my patience had all but gone out the window by the end of the day, and by the time i was "breaking" up what felt like the thousandth argument/altercation, i was done. let the record show that i realize i was in the wrong, but i may or may not have;) screamed goddammit. quickly following, jack was sent to his room. daley follows him into his room, and from behind his closed door, it went like this;

jack: daley that is not a nice word, you can't say that.
daley: oh, i know.
jack: daley i think you need to tell mom.
daley: no jackie, don't tell mom.
jack: moooom.....daley said a bad word. (busting out of his room)
daley: mom, i said goddammit.

of course, i immediately had to turn the other way to keep from letting them see me smile. if you could hear the way her little voice sounds when she says it, oh man it is hilarious, but of course i had to reprimand and reiterate that we do not say that word.

*sidenote: jack of course brought up the incident when mike got home that night, and daley immediately replied "yeah dad, i said goddammit!" again, not winning mother of the year!?

here are some really cute pictures taken by her big brother:)

daley, daley doodle...

she has been so cute these days...she has such an active imagination and loves to pretend play, help me bake(there was a lot of that this week;) & do crafts.

she also seems to really be excited about the new baby. she always asks me if the baby is still in there and if it is ok. she often kisses my belly too:) in fact, just the other day we were in the car and she heard this song (candy by iggy pop) and she assumed it was a song about candy(food) not a woman, so when i explained that it was a woman's name and wasn't it kind of a silly name, she replied "mom, we should name the new baby candy boy!" and then she started laughing because she thought it was so hilarious?! i guess you had to be there, but had me literally laughing out loud!

we have done quite a bit of halloween related activities, and so far for each party/excursion, daley has been tinkerbell, a ladybug & "super" daley...the girl likes to dress-up!

ballet!

daley started ballet two weeks ago, and i am amazed at what a difference a year makes. last year i pretty much had to hold her the entire class-literally. i didn't force her to go, but she also didn't want me to put her down!? this year is a whole other story. she is doing so well. she walks right up to her teacher miss louann, and sits down to do her stretches and plies.

i took a quick picture on her first day, but hope to take some more during class as the year progresses...

here are some from apple picking as well. as you can see, daley is in that terrible "cheese" face stage. it is driving me crazy!

of course this one came out blurry, because she has a nice normal smile here!!

shhhh.....

we have a big secret!!!!

*hint: look to the right for a new link!

hilton head!

daley really enjoyed the beach this year. she was all about the water and making sand castles, taking walks to look for crabs and starfish. she chased after a couple birds, which is pretty hilarious to witness because she actually thinks she might catch one!

despite a small trip to urgent care and her first UTI, daley was really well-adjusted. we kept our same routine, and stayed up late a couple nights, which we were graciously greeted by 7:30 & 8 am wake-ups.

here are some of my favorite pictures...

for as slow as she is to warm up to people, she has absolutely no problems with giant life-sized animals-lol!?

i love the determined look on her face! 

they loved the post-high tide "lakes" as they called them!

shout it out...

just like a rock star!! this needs no more introduction or words...

all aboard...

the potty train! i can remember with jack being completely exasperated by this process. so much so, that i really procrastinated with daley, but i've got to hand it to her...she was a breeze. i think we had one bad day in regards to accidents, and then it just clicked. she wakes up from nap dry about 90% of the time as well! nighttime isn't there yet, but i'm not terribly concerned because she is still in a crib. go daley! oh and thanks for making at least something easy for me where you're concerned;)

on another note, we took the kids to the orchestra last week which also featured cirque du soleil. daley was completely mesmerized. i wasn't sure how she would handle being up so late, but she was so excited. she kept asking if she could do what they were doing someday. watching her face was priceless-i hope i always remember that moment.

first time at great escape!

i can remember going to great escape every summer with my amily as a kid. it was always a big surprise, as we never knew which day we were going to go and it was so much fun! i love that i get to take jack and daley to something that i got to do as a kid, and see the same excitement in their eyes.

daley never ceases to amaze me, i thought she would go into this with a bit of trepidation, but instead she went on the rides and never looked back. she showed no fear and made us go on many of them two or three times! lucky for us the crowd wasn't bad at all that day!

another first for her was blueberry picking. it was a hot day, but she was a trooper despite lacking a bit of sleep. she really got into it as long as the bees didn't come near her-she has recently developed a bit of a fear of bees. funnily enough, she was just up close and personal with one this afternoon as she got right in its face to see what it was doing. i guess it has to be on her terms!

lastly, while she isn't swimming from one end to another in the pool, she is getting more and more acclimated to the water and moving a bit more on her own. i think she is finally realizing the sense of freedom she can have.

puss n' boobs...

yup, you read the title right!? this is what daley and i talked about before bed. well, sort of...we were reading a story that included puss n' boots-obviously something got lost in translation, because when we started talking about it daley exclaimed "no, not puss and boobs, mom?!" i could barely keep a straight face when i attempted to correct her...i guess you just had to be there;) of course, when i retold the story to mike, he immediately thought it would make a great adult film name-oy! remind me not to let mike read this story to daley for fear of what kind of conversation these two would have afterward!

on another note, i've decided to take a back seat in our potty training journey, which i didn't even know i was on by the way. it seems daley has taken over the reigns or is driving the proverbial potty bus these days as she has literally just decided to go to the bathroom when she has to, and has woken up dry from nap for the past three days in a row. maybe we've all got it wrong and should just let the kids make all their own decisions (insert sarcastic chuckle);) but in all seriousness, whether or not i was ready to do this is really not up to me and alas, we are potty training!? doesn't it figure that target had 7th generation diapers on clearance the last few weeks and i started stockpiling!! guess i'll be giving those away if this is in fact a potty training success!

soccerrrrrr.....

grrr.....daley has been doing this really funny thing lately when they play soccer. of course, they're not even supposed to be playing soccer in the house, but sometimes there are only so many battle i'm willing to fight in one day!? so she likes to get the ball, grab as many of my hair bands she can grab form the bathroom, and then the game begins. when they yell goal, it sounds exactly like the futbol announcer says it (goalllllllllllllll) and then it is followed by a "grrrrrr" with bicep flexing. i guess i should really get this on video as it is pretty hilarious!

here they are in all of their soccer glory...

*sidenote: i obviously lost the clothes battle that day with her. at least we didn't venture out in public in that lovely ensemble!?

sick:(

jack and daley have been sick for the last 3 weeks. they kept passing it back and forth and then it morphs into something else. they just can't seem to kick it and i feel so bad for them. right now daley is on her first fever free day in two weeks. finally! it's a good thing because it absolutely beautiful here and we have fun plans to go to dinner on the water in hull!!

along with her not feeling well comes a very irritable and hard-to-please little person. to say that i am drained would be an understatement! despite the fact that 5 of those days they were with my parents and i didn't have to deal with it!

all this being said, i have enjoyed a lot of extra snuggling. if there is one thing that daley loves to do, it is to snuggle and be held:)

i'm two!

everything is a competition these days. especially when it comes to arguing with jack...just yesterday they got into a fight over who was older, and daley got so upset that she wasn't older! i tried to reason with her that when she's my age she'll be so happy to be "younger," but i don't think she was really all that interested in my words of wisdom-lol!

 on another note, she is very into pretend play and making up stories. she'll run off and play with the people from her doll house and have them talk to each other, and it is so cute! she can sit and play kitchen or tea party for a long time, and she is really good at going along with it. she is also a very big helper when it comes to making breakfast, lunch or dinner. she pulls her little chair right up next to me and insists on having her own cutting board and such. it is a lot of fun, and alleviates the cranky "witching" hour when she's hungry and dinner can't come fast enough!

 here is my favorite picture from this week...

2 year molars

they have officially gotten the best of me!? i cannot handle how irritable she is these days. i feel like i am constantly doing a dance, more like a jig, to keep her happy! of course, some of this is her being two as everything is "by my big self"-oy vey!? however, i would appreciate it if those two big lumps would finally break through so i can officially blame her lovely demeanor on her age;) of course, it isn't all spice. there are some really sweet moments. she is really into pretend play and i can hear her playing with her dolls and friends, and it is just so cute. of course, when she isn't playing with them, she is either looking through books, singing, or pleading with me to hold her, which the latter seems to be true more often than not these days. as seen in the pictures below, she adores animals. when we were at the rink, she was just talking and watching "cash" the rink's resident golden lab. it was hilarious because cash couldn't even be bothered with her, he just kept on snoozing as she bent down to his level and "talked" to hi him!

easter 2012

daley had so much fun this easter. she really loved coloring the eggs, and had to exhibit some serious patience in order to take turns with her big brother! if you know daley, you know that patience might not be her strong suit.















as you can see in many of the above attempts at getting a nice shot...these two are goofballs!

we started our third session of ballet this week, and each time daley seems to get more comfortable. i think having the same teacher each time helps tremendously. she really loves to go, and it is nice to spend some time just the two of us.

daley is also working on getting her bottom two year molars, and can i just say that they can't break through soon enough. i feel like such a rookie because it took me a while to notice all the tell-tale signs. first and foremost being her extreme irritability, followed closely by her clingy-ness!?

of course, when she is content, she is so sweet. she sings all day long these days. she is still quite insistent on certain songs, but once we figure out which song she means, let the dance party begin!