Day to Day Normalness

Ella is growing up so quickly. I know all mothers say that about their kids, but it's really true. Time seems to zoom by at record speed once you have children and life gets busier and more hectic and one day you look at them and they are so big and funny and smart and you realize you're doing just fine, but yearn for those precious moments when they were tiny and new with all the time in the world before them. Sigh. 

And I can hardly believe Nicholas is five! Whew, I feel so grateful to mother this child and the fact that he is five now astounds me. I still remember his newborn, cuddly, self just like it was yesterday. 

This little chickadee loves all things on the iPad. Honestly neither Jeff nor I have shown her how to manipulate it at all and she can navigate it with ease, choosing her favorite apps like Itsy Bitsy Spider, Talking Hippo, or Elmo's world of Color. 

Nicholas loves iPad apps too. He is working with his SLP teacher, Pat, in the photo above playing an aquarium app and naming everything he sees. 

Nicholas' OT, Pam, comes to the house once a week as well and brings all kinds of fun preschool games and art activities for Nicholas. Ella likes to do "school" with mommy at the same time. She especially likes making sticker scenes.

On the days Nicholas's teachers do not visit, Nicholas does preschool lessons on ABC Mouse.com. It's a wonderful learning site to help fill in the gaps of curriculum he has missed since he's not been in the classroom much this year. 

A full fridge makes me happy! I have doing the majority of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's lately and I love their selection of organic foods. I feel like we are all eating more consciously and more healthfully which means I am doing my job as mommy and wife. 

I made a couple of changes to our home last weekend. Our dining and living room space is severely under lighted, and while I enjoy mood lighting, sometimes it just feels too dark. So I picked up this cute lamp at Target on Friday. I needed something to place it on so I took the side table that was in Ella's bedroom to put it on. Then I needed to find a new bedside table for Ella's room so I went to our local antique store and found...

the most perfect table ever! I spotted it right away and fell in love. Originally it had an ugly brass knob, so I found this super cute pink floral one and switched it out when we got home. It's gorgeous and at only $26 total, it's a steal. 

Also, when we were antiquing, Ella spotted this adorable crown. We searched all over for the perfect one and found this one sitting on top of a glass jar. Apparently its actually a topper to the jar, so we bought the jar (which will be a beautiful new flower vase for our patio) and our little princess can wear her crown all over with the help of some bobby pins to secure it. 

Once the crown was in place, Ella begged to wear her "princess dress" so I pulled it out of the closet and she ran happily all over the house feeling like a true princess. 

Memorial Day

A day for remembering those who have served our country as well as those that have gone before us. 

Celebrating Nicholas's 5th Birthday

Can't wait to see this movie when it comes to theatres!

We kicked off Nicholas's 5th birthday on Saturday with a trip to the movie theatre to see The Croods. It was the first visit to the theatre for both kids and they both really enjoyed it. The movie was great: funny (we were all laughing the whole time), sentimental (I got choked up a couple times), with beautiful animation. We all highly recommend it. We also plan to take the kids to the zoo in the next couple of weeks as Nicholas requested to see the animals as well as going to see a movie. We have found that outings to celebrate Nicholas's birthdays are what he enjoys the most because we are often cooped up to avoid cold/flu/germs. Traditional birthday parties are fun, but Nicholas much prefers getting out and trying new things and exploring the world around him. 

Celebrating five years with this sweet boy is simply indescribable. When Nicholas was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy at ten months we didn't know if we would ever get to celebrate his fifth birthday with him. We realize how truly blessed we are and the fact that Nicholas has outlived his original prognosis by three years is simply amazing! Nicholas truly is a living, breathing miracle. He's our own personal Heaven-on-Earth. His constant joyful spirit, happy attitude, and love for everyone is a constant reminder of how lucky we are to call him our son. 

Ella was particularly excited to celebrate with Nicholas on his special day. She said, "It's brother's birthday. Happy birthday, brother," numerous times yesterday. I just love to see the adorable bond between those two. It makes my heart swell with pride and appreciation for these two precious kids.

Around mid-day Nicholas's preschool teacher, Pam, came for a lesson. Nicholas created these beautiful flowers with watercolor paint, and enjoyed making a spring caterpillar with patterning practice. I proudly displayed both art pieces on our fridge and Nicholas beamed when he saw his art hanging for everyone to see. 

Later in the day my parents came over for a pizza dinner and Nicholas enjoyed opening his gifts. Ella really wanted to help Nicholas open his presents and being the eager-to-please child that he is, happily let her do most of the unwrapping. 

Nicholas got cute pajamas, clothes, balls, and a car from Gramme and Grandpa.

And he got a digger, a construction book, a shirt, a DVD, and activity books from us. 

He sat up with daddy for most of the present opening and was happy to rest a little after it was over. 

Then he got to blow out five birthday candles on his yummy cake. Funny story...on Sunday, the day before his birthday, I was at church for the annual Pentecost fair and there was a cake raffle. I put my name in the drawing thinking that if I won a cake we could eat it for Nicholas's birthday. Sure enough, anything I do in the name of Nicholas brings good luck and I won a cake! 

Nicholas blew out all five of his candles (with a little help from daddy & Ella) and he made a wish.

Ella and I went on a mission (when Jeff arrived home from work) and were so excited to surprise Nicholas with the 25 balloons we bought him. We quietly brought the balloons into the house...

and filled up his ceiling with the colorful balloons. 

After blowing out his birthday candles, Jeff carried Nicholas into his room and he was so happy and surprised to see all the balloons!

He laid on his bed and said, "Wow! There are so many balloons!"

Then he asked to hold a few and enjoyed pulling down on them and watching them bounce in the air. 

I love this photo...everyone is looking at the camera...except Nicholas, he couldn't take his eyes off his ceiling of balloons!

Happy 5th birthday, sweet boy. We all love you so much and enjoyed celebrating this milestone birthday, this very special day with you!

Mother's Day Love

I really enjoyed being spoiled by my family this past Mother's Day. It was a fun day! The day before Mother's Day, my mom, Ella, and I went shopping. We visited a local plant nursery and my mom bought me this birdhouse for an early Mother's Day gift. Jeff put hanging hooks in it, and bought the little metal chain and hung in a tree in our backyard. I love being able to see it through the kitchen window. Now we just need to add some bird seed and hope a few little birds will make it their home. 

Mother's Day morning we went to mass as a family, and I enjoyed this yummy breakfast before we left: chicken sausage hash, two poached eggs, and potato pancakes. It was delicious!

I am mommy to these two precious loves and they make me feel like the luckiest mom in all the world!

Jeff surprised me on Mother's Day with ten arborvitae bushes that he planted along our fence line. It makes the not-so-pretty chain link look nicer and helps us have some backyard privacy from our neighbors. Thanks, Jeff!

We had dinner at my folks' house that evening and I loved celebrating such a special day with my mother and my grandmother. They are both such wonderful, beautiful women and I aspire to be the loving, thoughtful mothers that they are. 

This was a bouquet we took to my other Grandmother (not pictured) because all moms (great, grand and the like) deserve to be spoiled on Mother's Day!

Hot Spring Days

 The Pacific Northwest has been blessed with warm, glorious sunshine. It's more reminiscent of summer than spring. We have taken every opportunity to be outdoors as much as possible. We've been dining al fresco in the evenings on the patio, taking long walks around our quiet, peaceful neighborhood, and the kids have been enjoying copious amounts of time in our backyard wading pool. Ella becomes fish-like on warm days and cannot get enough of the water. She asks to put on her "soup" (aka swimSUIT) constantly so she can splash, swim, and play to her hearts content. 

She also has a slight obsession with the garden hose. She likes to drink from it, spray water with it, and pull it all over the backyard to give the blooming plants and flowers a drink. 

 She's teaching herself to doggy paddle and beams with pride when I tell her what a great job she's doing.

Nicholas isn't a water baby, per se, but he's been enjoying the pool with us more often than last year. Yesterday he (with mommy's help) and Ella spent lots of time throwing and catching balls in the pool. Both kids were giggling uncontrollably every time they missed the catch and were splashed with water. 

I celebrated another birthday last Sunday and it was a perfect day...

 Jeff surprised in the morning with Starbucks iced coffee, then he put bark chips in all of our flowerbeds at my request to help keep the weeds (that I have been pulling out for months) at bay.

My lovely friend, Lyndsey, surprised me with three great gifts. She sent the bracelet shown above along with some adorable earrings and she sent the pot of succulents pictured below on the day of my birthday. Thanks so much, Lynds!

The evening of my birthday our wonderful friends joined us for a celebratory dinner at Salty's on the Columbia River. It was a gorgeous spring evening so it was a treat to eat in a restaurant with such a pretty view. 

 Words cannot convey the depth of my love for this man. He works so hard for our family, loves us all an infinite amount, and made my birthday very special. I absolutely love spending time with him, especially when he has been working such long, crazy hours which makes it difficult to see each other at all.

I am one lucky lady!

Mmmm, my dinner was perfection!

I am also so blessed with good friends. These two women are a joy to be around and I really enjoyed spending my birthday with them. 

The kids have been missing their daddy in the evenings, especially at bedtime so Nicholas requested I take his picture the other night and send it to daddy at work. We will all be so happy when Jeff starts working day shift again next week...we thrive on normalcy around here!

Ella doesn't take naps anymore, but I think with all the sunshine, all the time spent outside in the pool, and hours riding her tricycle almost everyday, she just gets tuckered out some afternoons. A few days ago she feel asleep cuddled next to her brother and Nicholas was so sweet, keeping quiet the whole two hours she laid next to him. 

 We have been using Nicholas's bath chair outside in the pool, so Ella decided to use the bottom apparatus that goes with the chair as her own personal fort. She brought all of Nicholas's stuffed animals over and declared it was, "circle time!" When Nicholas heard her squeals and giggles he wanted to join her in the fort. We read books together and the kids were sad when I announced it was time to go to sleep. But don't worry fun-in-the-fort commenced immediately the next morning.

This morning it was overcast until late afternoon when the clouds finally burned off. Instead of swimming, Ella opted to get buckets of water and make mud pies with the mole mounds in the corner of our yard. It's always an adventure with this child! But I will say that I wasn't unhappy to see the mounds of dirt flattened.