Jace and "School"

At the beginning of October I started doing what Jace and I like to call "school." However, it's not too much like real school yet. We mostly just do a craft or 2 and then he colors for a little while after. But I have found that it really helps on the days that it's cold out and being outside only lasts for about 10 mins. I have thought a lot about things I want to do for "school" this winter and hope Jace enjoys it as much as me.

Some of the things we did in Oct. We made. . .
A colorful fall tree out of torn pieces of construction paper (where he learned how to use a glue stick).
A pumpkin.
A spider made from part of an Egg Carton
Little Ghosts made from tissues
He also learned how to use "stamps" (just little foam shapes I found at the dollar store) and a stamp pad. A basic skill that's easy for a 2 year old to learn and have A Ton of fun with. The first time jace did it for over an hour.

If any of you have fun craft ideas for a 2 year old as well, I would love to hear what they are! I will also continue to post what we have done so if you want to do any of my ideas with your toddlers you can too. Not that they are that great, I just know it's hard to come up with things to do with them sometimes ;)

To make it feel more special, we get out his mickey mouse table and chair and he wears his "ART shirt" I just got a shirt that would fit an older child and wrote art shirt on it. It covers his clothes so I dont have to change his clothes after, or strip him down to his diaper before. Then I just throw the shirt in the wash every few times. So yeah, that's our "school" :P

Drum Roll Please. . .

JOE GOT INTO PA SCHOOL!!! A lot of you probably already know this because I posted my excitement about it on facebook when we found out, but I am just so excited for my husband. He has worked very hard and I am so glad a school saw what he has to offer. He got accepted into Touro University. It's the one in Las Vegas. It's starts the beginning of July, which means we will probably be moving sometime in June. We haven't heard back yet from the one in New Mexico, but I don't know that Joe really cares because Touro was his first choice. He just really thought highly of their facility and the staff that works there. So I am pretty sure we are headed there. :) Yay Joe! So proud :)

Halloween

Last year we went to this sweet pumpkin patch and chose our pumpkins. We loved it! It was so much more fun than just going to a store and getting some. So we looked forward to doing it again this year, and we had just as much fun! (This is a long post of pictures and stuff from the pumpkin patch and halloween day, again more for the record of my family) :)








I love this picture of Jace and Joe. One of my favorites I have of them, because Jace rarely looks at the camera and smiles, and Joe rarely gives me a normal smile. lol. Love my boys!


Carving the pumpkins

Jace and his pumpkin. He loved carving pumpkins! Mostly pulling all the goopy stuff out and then admiring his pumpkin outside afterwards.


Now these pictures are from Halloween day.

Cienna being festive

So I don't know why these are sideways, because they aren't sideways in my file. Anyway, I just wanted to post them because it's the first time I have caught her chunky grin on camera :)


Jace as Steve on Blues Clues. He loves Blues Clues. And was ecstatic when I showed him that I made him shovel and pale and a Handy Dandy Notebook.





Trick or Treating


So this last pic with the guy looking at me while I am taking the picture. Didn't like it too much that I was taking a picture. He kept staring at me and even kept watching us as we went to the next house. So he may be one of america's most wanted and doesn't want his picture being posted. lol. I dont know, but it was weird.


Great Halloween :)

Cornbelly's

This past Tuesday we went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving point. If you haven't been there or heard of it, it's like a month long ultimate halloween carnival and it's a blast for kids. They have tons of fun things there. We didn't do everything we wanted to and we were there for 2 hours.

This was a huge hay stack. They had multiple slides and ways to get up on to it. They had a few of these huge haystacks there.
Jace coming down the slide.

Wooden vehicles that had few different wasy to get in and usually a slide to come out. They also had an airplane one. So fun for a 2 year old boy.

These were these huge rubber pillows! That you could jump and bounce on. These were Jace's favorite by far. He really loved the huge one that's in the far back of this picture.


Bounce House. It was hard to get him out of here, literally, because we couldn't go in and get him. lol
And the last thing we did was go on the hay ride.
Glad we went. It was a really fun family evening and Cienna slept through the whole thing. :)

1 month old

Cienna is one month old as of yesterday! I can't believe how fast time flies. She is changing everyday before our very eyes. It seems like it is going a lot faster than it did with Jace. A little about Cienna. . .

1. She is a very calm baby. She is easy to console and rarely cries loud. You pick her up and she's already cuddling into you and about to fall asleep.
2. She is cuddly! Which I LOVE! Jace wasn't that cuddly of a baby, so I am loving that she is! She will just lay her head into my shoulder or chest wide awake and just enjoy being close to me. Love love love it.
3. However, with all this cuddliness and easy to console she doesn't sleep well during the night (which jace did better at). She'll do 1-2 hour stretches (sometimes a 3 hour but it's rare) and be awake for an hour or two at some point during the night. Oh well, I still love her. I don't mind waking up with her. However, I am starting to miss a good nights sleep, but I know it will come soon enough so I am trying to enjoy her while she is so little because I know she won't be for much longer. :(
4. She is a really good eater now. No worries there.
5. She loves to be talked to. She looks you right in the eyes and it seriously feels like she can read you and see your soul. It sounds weird but it really is quite a tender thing about her. It's almost like you become best friends with her instantly just by talking to her and looking into her eyes.
6. She actually likes tummy time. Jace didn't hate it, but he wasn't a huge fan. She likes it. She'll bobble her head for a little while and then just lay there on her belly awake until she goes to sleep. This could change.
7. And today she smiled at me, a few real smiles, for the first time :)

So there's a little info on our sweet 1 month old Cienna :)

Cienna's Birth Story

So this post is mostly for me because this blog is also my journal/scrapbook but anyone is welcome to read it. :) It will most likely be pretty long.

So sweet little cienna's birth started at 33 weeks. . . Aug, 13th, this is when I went into a false labor for the first time. I had consistant smaller contractions all of sat and bigger ones through sat night. I told myself that if they continued through Sunday we would go to the hospital, well they ended on sun evening, so we didn't go. I had a doctors apt the next day, told him what happened, he was surprised and said I should have gone to the hospital. He also was concerned and warned me that another episode like this could and most likely would happen again in the near future, but we would hope that it wouldn't. Well he was right. The next week, on our way home from our trip to Las Vegas I started having consistent contractions again. ( I know what you're thinking. . I shouldn't have gone to Las Vegas. But I didn't do anything strenuous. Jace and I stayed at the hotel the whole time, except for when we went out to eat, but maybe I still shouldn't have gone, who knows) We arrived home and the contractions continued through the night, so early the next morning, Aug 24th, we went to the hospital. They gave me a shot to stop the contractions, but the contractions did not stop, so the doctor on call decided to keep me until they could get the contractions under control. They then gave me another shot, which didn't help and finally some medication started to help but they still watched me through the night, cause they wanted the contractions to subside before they sent me home. So I was able to go home the next morning on bed rest, and taking the medication they gave me. My lovely sister and mom came to help during this time. Through out the next 2 weeks I went to the hospital 4 or 5 more times to have the contractions stopped. I had a ton of different shots, medication doses bumped up and changed from scary side affects I was having. The Sunday before she was born they even gave me Morphine. HORRIBLE stuff! I was so sick and out of it for like 24 hours. Of course though, the contractions started up again. By this time too, I was having quite of bit of soreness where my incision was, and they were concerned about thin uterus. So after all the different treatments and doctors I saw while coming and going to the hospital. . . My doctor finally decided to deliver her on Tues Sept 6th, at 36 weeks and 2 days. She was delivered by C-section at 12:30 Pm. Weighing, 6 lbs 9 Ounces, 20 inches long. She was beautiful! With lots of dark hair. And of course I couldn't hold back the tears once I saw her. She was healthy and strong. The only thing that was not okay, was that she wasn't sucking/eating so they had to keep her in the hospital until she could do all that on her own. I was discharged that Sat, but had a room rented out to me so I could nurse her when she wanted to nurse. I would also travel back and forth with my sister, to go see Jace, who my mom was taking care of. And Joe at this time was at a PA school interview in New Mexico, so it was definitely crazy times. But in the end it was all worth it, to bring home our little girl that following Monday and she has done great with eating since she has been home. :) So that's Miss Cienna's birth story. We love you Cienna! We are so glad you are part of our family now. And that you made it to us safe and sound :)

Newborn Pics

Yesterday I took Cienna's newborn pics. I wanted to do it before she doesn't look like a newborn anymore and time is a flying past me. So here they are. Ps. I am really starting to love this photography stuff. It really is a lot of fun! I learn a little more every time :) And some are obviously better than others. I just felt like posting them all.