Erik is 4mo and AJ is 19mo!!!

I can not believe that my boys are getting so big. They both had Dr's appointments today and both got shots:( But they were troopers and did great. So I will update on AJ first.

So he is 26lbs even (45th percentile) 33.5in (70th percentile). We have to take him to an ENT to get his hearing checked because he has had 7 ear infections since he was born and he always has a red ear. He does not say much. So our lives have to change. The Dr wants us to keep the TV off all day. Only on when he is asleep. Which will be hard for me because I have always been one to have t have the TV on for back round noise. But it is for AJ so I will have to suck it up and get over it. The reason for this is because he 1) only says 4 words daddy, bye-bye, ow and cheese (cheese is because I take way to many pictures). 2)He does not know his body parts even though I work with him everyday and he does not react when I ask him to do things like get me your shoes or bring mommy the blocks. Other than these thing he is doing good. He is doing good. He loves playing outside and is a typical boy.

Now for Erik, he is 15 1/2 lbs (50th percentile) and 24 1/4 in (13th percentile). So he is a little short. But all of my kids have been short at his age. So by me he is normal. He is talking all of the time and smiling like crazy. He has even started to laugh. He is getting so big. He does not roll at all. We do tummy time like 10 times a day but for no more than 2min because he buries his face in the ground. which scares me cause of Joslynn. But the Dr was ok with that as long as he does not get a flat spot on his head. Which he does not have. But he is strong. He will lift his head and shoulders off of the ground when on his back. I do not even think he will roll over from belly to back. He will just go straight to back to belly. He also love, love loves his hands. He will chew on them all day long.

Another funny thing that i found out is my kids have HUGE heads. I knew they were big. I just did not realize how big. AJ's is 50cm and above the 97th percentile and Erik's is 43cm and oddly enough above the 97th percentile too.

It is so hard to believe that they are getting big. I do not want them to grow anymore. I want them to stay small forever. I also can not wait for them to get older and see their life grow and them become best friends. I love them so much I can not even put into words. They are the best. AJ always knows how to make me laugh and everytime I see Erik's smile I just melt. I love you both.

Getting better

So AJ is fine. He is his old self once again. Although his face looks worse, but i guess it has to get worse before it gets better right? Arli keeps calling him his poor abused child. Just kidding around of course. Arli always finds little quirky nick names when the kids are hurt or sick. Or just anytime. Right now AJ is poor abused child and crazy hair (because he is not to fond of his haircut). And Erik is butterball and goopie (because of his clogged tear duct). Now I will say he only calls them these things like once a day or once every couple of days. So here is our "poor abused child" and I will go ahead and add one of "butterball".

AJ has had a rough week.

This week has been tough for AJ. It all started out on Monday. I was in a hurry and was not paying attention and accidentally shut his fingers in the car door. I felt horrible. But he did not even get bruised. Thank goodness. Then Wednesday we were at a friends house and he fell and got a bloody nose. It swelled up a little yesterday, but then today it was a pinkish purple and still swollen. Then today he feel off of our kitchen counter. He hit his head pretty hard. I took him to urgent care and he has a mild concussion but will be fine. I just have to watch him to make sure he does not start acting differently or vomiting. It could have been a lot worse. He is also horribly tired because he has been up since 5:30am and has had about 1hr of a nap all day and it is now going on 8:30pm. I think by 9 I will feel safe about putting him to sleep. So I feel horrible once again. Looks like I will have to buy him a toy to make up for it. The good thing is he is acting himself and will be fine.

which one does he look like?

Joslynn at 3mo

AJ at 3mo

Erik at 3mo

So Arli and I have been going back and forth about this for a while. Who does Erik look more like AJ or Joslynn? I think he looks like Joslynn, Arli thinks he does not look like either and my mom thinks he looks like both of them. So what do you think? Here are some pictures of all 3 kids all at the same age.

Impossible task accomplished

So this past Christmas just about everyone came up to my moms. We all missed you Grampy, Grammy and Aunt D. We had a blast though. We ate, ate and ate some more. We went to Ethel M's chocolate factory and the gift of lights at Sunset park. It was so much fun to have the whole gang here. Since we had everyone of the grandkids and great-grandkids here we decided to get a group picture. Now there are 12 plus we had my brothers girlfriend over so 13 kids all under 17 and they are all making a decent face! So here is my impossible task that was accomplished.

Joslynn

I finally feel at peace with Joslynn's passing. I hate saying "finally" but I can not think of any other way of putting it. I will always miss her deeply and wonder how she would do in life and what she would be interested in what she would look like and will always love her. But last night while I was saying my prayers and I love you's to Joslynn I got this over whelming sense of peace and felt the Spirit so strongly that I knew in my heart that she was ok and I could start moving forward in my life. And more importantly I would be ok. Even though lots of things have happened since she passed I have never really moved on. It has almost been like I am standing in the middle of everything while things are just buzzing by. I know that Heavenly Father has things in store for us that we will never know the reasons for. But I also know that He will always be there for us. I am so grateful for the Gospel and everything it offers. I am so happy to know that even though Joslynn is not with us anymore I know that we will be together again as we are an eternal family.

I also wanted to share some special things about her with all of you. She had the biggest brown eyes ever and they would light up the room as soon as she stepped into it. She had the funniest laugh. It was not even a laugh. It was more like a sigh but over and over again. She was so smart. She knew how to do her ring stacker and would get so excited when ever she did. She loved running around naked, well in her diaper. She also was and has been the only 1yr old I have ever seen dunk her head in the bath tub. She would do it and immediately lift her head up, look at me and give me this look like "did you see that mom?". She loved bubble baths and playing with bubbles outside. She loved watching The Doodle Bops on playhouse Disney. She only watched it a couple times as I did not have the tv on much. But when I would have it on and would change the channel (that show drove me NUTS) she would start to cry and come over to me and look at the remote like saying "turn it back mom". She love, love, loved her blankies I can remember one of her very few temper tantrums was because she saw me put one of her blankies (she had 3) into the dryer. She was so upset. The funny part was there was another one 3 feet away from her in our living room. :) She was such an awesome baby from the time she was born. She was sleeping through the night at 6wks old. She never cried, and she was always so happy. Did you know kids can be piggie banks? Well at least Joslynn could be. See, my nephew Malaki came down to spend the week with my mom and us. My mom gave him some change before dropping him off here. Well it must had fallen out of his pocket because the week after he left Joslynn got sick. After an x-ray they said there was a penny and a dime and they would pass, yay me right? Well 1wk later they still had not passed. We went and got another x-ray. Well Mommy or Daddy must had missed them because they had passed but she had 3 new coins 2 more pennies and another dime!! Well needless to say I checked her room thoroughly later that same night and found a stash of change in her "secret compartments" of one of her toys. She had an additional 2quarters, 3dimes, 2nickles and 3pennies. I guess she thought that we were not saving enough money for her. She did pass those last 3 and they are on the wall in her room with her x-ray. Something I think is just to funny is that she would not like me and Arli play hitting, pinching, tickling and all that stuff. Every time she would see us doing this she would stand there and scream. Oh and another thing...she was scarred of Daddy when he would wear sun glasses. It was so funny. She loved her cousins. She loved playing with them and getting all the attention from them. They all treated her so well and miss her so much. She loved her aunts too:) And especially loved their attention. They would ALWAYS hold her and never let her cry. She loved her uncle too. Other than Daddy that was the only man she would smile at. For some reason she did not like men other than her Daddy. And her Nannie, well that is

a
whole nother story. Nannie had her wrapped around her little finger. Every time Nannie would come over she would run to her and not want her to go. She loved her Nannie days. She loved all of us so much. She loved her grandpa when he came out. I have not seen my Dad with to many babies but he was so wonderful with her. She thought he was the best thing ever.

We all miss her so much and love her to pieces. It has been a long and very hard 2yrs for all of us. But I know everyone will get through it and eventually come to peace as I have with her death. Ironically this picture to the right was taken only 6days before she passed away. She was going to be an angel for Halloween. And she was, just not in the way we intended.

1st Day of Nursery

Today was AJ's first day of nursery. He had a blast. He had no problem going in I just opened the door and off he went. Then I checked in on him after Sunday school and he got so up set. I will not do that again. He loved it though. He especially loved the songs. I hate seeing him get so big. I can already tell I am going to be one of those moms who cry when their kids goes to kindergarten because he has no problem going off with out me.

1800

Now I have a number to beat in 2009. Cause that is how many pictures I took with my camera in 2008! I can not believe it. I am sure off to a good start in 2009. 13 so far. But we are only on day 2 of 2009 so I have all year.

Baths!!

The only one I have with both of them looking at me

Splish Splash

I love this boy

Mamma's little chunky monkey

He closed his eyes every time he splashed.

Action Shot...This is my favorite.

AJ & Erik had their 1st bath together. It was so fun AJ had a blast splashing like always and it was funny to see Erik jump every time a little drop got him. He did not cry or anything. He just was startled by it. AJ did a good job too at not getting him in the face, just his belly. We were able to try out AJ's new color fizzies. He loved them. Then the grossest thing happened....Erik pooed! Yes I could not believe it. He is not one of those babies that you can tell when they are going so I did not know it until I saw it floatin. EEEWWWW! But AJ thought it was funny and was excited even more because we were able to use a new color tablet. So my boys had 2baths with in 30min and loved every second of both of them.

Sneaky boy

The other morning AJ was being a little to quite for my taste so I go find him and he has my giant chocolate kiss! Now this was 6:30 am so you can see how my day went. He was hyper, hyper, hyper. I just had to get a pic though. This is the first time he has ever gotten into something messy on his own and being so sneaky. I just had to laugh at him though. He was so cute. How can I yell at him?