cute kids, cute video!

This past weekend was OSU's first game, and having grown up in Ohio, I bleed scarlet and gray. And of course, I live vicariously through my children. :) Enjoy my little football player and cheerleader. You'll have to turn your head to the left for some of them - not quite sure how to rotate them!







And next up, for your viewing pleasure, Savanna LOVES the song 'Old Mcdonald' and picked up on the E I E I O part! So cute! (or at least I think so....) :) Enjoy! You get to hear me sing, too, which is even better, right??

Another Joey Chatter

I just had to do it - Joey's said some more funny stuff over the past few days...

When watching Bob the Builder, they were advertizing that you can now watch Bob the Builder in Spanish, and so they played a part of the theme song in spanish. Of course Joey didn't understand it and he looked at me and said

J: Did they just call Bob the Builder 'Bob the poopy' ???

LOL
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Yesterday while driving - out of nowhere...

J: Girls live with mommys and boys live with daddys and when daddys go to work, mommys watch the boys.

S: What??

J: Savanna lives with you and I live with Daddy, but when Daddy goes to work, you have to watch me.

S: Really?

Hmmm.... where did he get that?? Kris said he didn't understand it, because when ever I leave Joey with Kris, Joey whines about wanting his Mommy the whole time. Goofy boy.

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After seeing a commercial for the program 'Your baby can read',

J: Mom, can our baby read?

S: No

J: Why not? We need to buy that! She needs to read.

(keep in mind he can't even read yet except for words like car and zoo)

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Another commercial

J: Mom, we need Oxy clean. Our shirts have colors on them.

Maybe I let him watch too much TV???? LOL

Joey Chatter

While in the bath:

J: "Mommy, if I pour water in my ear, will it come out the other side?"

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While playing:

J: "Mommy, did you marry me and daddy?"
S: "No, honey. I married Daddy, and we had you!"
J: "When you're married, do you get cars?"
S: "Sometimes, I guess."
J: "When I get married, I'm gonna get race cars!"
S: " O really? Well who are you going to marry?"
J: "Savanna - and we'll get race cars!"
S: "You can't marry Savanna - she's your sister"
J: "Well I still wanna get race cars"

What marriage and race cars have to do with each other? I'm not sure....

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While eating:

J: "My teeth chomps food up and my tounge makes food go down my drain and then it goes down the slide and out in my poop!"

I just love hearing him reason things out... and yes, he calls his throat a drain.

Pataskala Street Fair Parade!

This past week was the annual pataskala street fair - so fun! Saturday was the parade and I took my horse in it - even though there is lots of waiting around, I love taking my horse in parades. I just think it's fun to get her all shined up and pretty and to listen to the kids say 'O look at that beautiful horse!!' It's just fun. This year the plan was for Joey and Kara (my little sister-in-law) to ride Olivia and I would lead her. Well, at the last minute Joey decided he wanted to watch the parade - not ride in it. So it was Just Kara! She had a blast I think. It was a nice day - mid 70s so it wasn't super hot, and there was a nice breeze, so a perfect day for a parade. Kara controlled Olivia most of the time, I only had to grab her a couple times. That's pretty good because Kara hasn't ridden that much. The theme of the parade was "All fired up about Pataskala" so that's why all the flames. :) Here is my beautiful horsey and sister-in-law!!

Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio

For the past 6 months, I have donated alot of my breast milk to the "Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio." Over all, I donated 728 oz!! Many people have asked me what the milk bank is, what they do, and why I donate, so I figured I would post it on here.

The following info is from their pamphlet:
"Nothing can protect and nourish an infant like human milk. Human milk is even more important for premature and ill infants because it provides nutrition unmatched by formula. Often, the mothers of these fragile infants are unable to produce enough of this critical nourishment. Pasturized donor human milk allows these babies to benefit from the active growth hormones, developmental enzymes and immunological factors found in a mother's own milk.

The Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio provides human donor milk to babies, older children, or adults. Indications for human donor milk include: Prematurity, Malabsorption, Formula intolerance, Immunological deficiencies, congenital anomalies, Post-operative nutrition, and Biological mothers' milk unavailable" to name a few.

The milk is given to babies by a doctor's prescription only. One of the success stories I was told was a 2 year old girl who was only 15 lbs and was failing to thrive, because she would no longer tolerate ANYTHING put in her g-tube. So the dr prescribed human milk. In ONE YEAR she went from 2 years old and 15 pounds to 3 years old and 30 lbs! Doubled her weight! The drs said that without the human milk, she probably would have starved to death since her body wouldn't tolerate anything else.

I found the milk bank online when Savanna was 6 months old because I already had lots of milk stored for her and I had heard of milk banks, but didn't really know what they were all about. I am so glad I found them! I really feel I was able to help at least a few babies in need! I know not every mother can breastfeed, and I know that many of the sickest babies cannot get their mother's milk, because many times their mothers are sick as well, or it takes them a few days for their milk to come in.

If you would like more information, or are interested in becoming a donor mother, you can contact them at milkbank@ohiohealth.com or at 614-544-0810. This bank has drop off points in Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton, Athens, and even Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. They do offer for you to ship it to them if you don't live close enough to drop off. If you are a nursing mother but don't live in or around Ohio, I would encourage you to research milk banks in your area. I'm sure there's a need everywhere! I also have a few of their pamphlets here at my house if anyone is interested.

This is a picture ofthe scrapbook page that I made for the milk bank. They keep a scrapbook of all their donors. I went to my friend, Brandy's, house yesterday and made it (Thank you Brandy!!!) - I think it turned out sooo cute, I'm kind of sad to see it go! but I know at the milk bank it will be enjoyed by many!

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Here are just a few of my little stinker recently - she is so cute!!

I cannot keep this kid out of the dog's water... ugh!!!

And this is the poor girl after her Uncle Garrett and Aunt Kara put her shorts on her head. Poor baby! She thought it was funny though and walked around proudly like this for a while!

Joey and Savanna's birthday pictures 2009

One disadvantage to having my kid's birthday's so close together: having to do parties and such so close together.


One advantage to having my kid's birthday's so close together: I can do birthday pictures at the same time! We had some gift cards to Sears so I took my kids in today for Savanna's 1 year pictures and for Joey's 4 year pictures. They were pretty cooperative, even though Savanna was tired and Joey had a hard time with the 'smile' part. It seemed we would either get a smile that looked like we were killing him, or a frown. But the photographer got a couple of good smile pictures of him!


Behold the cuteness!!

525,600 minutes

525,600 minutes
525,000 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
how do you measure, measure a year?

I cannot believe it has been a year since little Savanna came into our lives:

Here she is moments after birth getting cleaned up. Poor baby very mad! (yes - the time and date stamp is off....)

First picture with Mommy and Daddy. I remember them giving her to me all swaddled up and I was just amazed! Yes, I did this with Joey, but I was shocked how new all the feelings felt the second time! It's a love so immediate and deep it just cannot be explained.

I just love this picture... Joey loves his little sister and has since he first met her. He still calls her 'our baby'. And before she could crawl he would always say 'can I hold our baby?' Of course now she's a little too big and wiggly and he has no intrest in holding her any more but he still loves her just the same!

How did that little baby turn into this gorgeous little girl in just one short year??

Isn't she beautiful??

Here are some fun facts about my baby girl:

• She can walk now, and quite well, but still prefers to crawl because it's a much faster mode of transportation if there's something she sees that she wants
• She had 4 teeth when she turned one, her 2 front bottom ones, and her top L front one, and her top L eye tooth. A side note that the day AFTER she turned one her other top front one came in along with her other top eye tooth.
• She loves to mimic words you say, though she doesn't realize really that she's saying words - she's mimiced piggy, grandma, thank you just to name a few
• The words she says regularly right now are Dog (she says Do for dog), Uh Oh, Da da, Baby and no
  
• She will walk around the room singing 'Happy happy happy happy happy' I'm certain she doesn't know she's actually saying a word, or it's meaning - she's just babbling, but it's still SUPER cute!
• She dances and squeals whenever she hears any music, including the organ at church!
• She loves to clap clap clap her hands! She knows some baby signs (all done, more, bye bye) but usually resorts to clapping instead of signing.
• She gets a very cheesy grin every time she sees a camera (see picture above!)
• She finally has enough hair for pig tails and I do them as often as possible because I think they're super cute!
• She LOVES animals, especially our dog and horse. She sits on our dog like he's a horse all the time - good thing he's a good dog!!
• She is a major stinker and gets into everything and when we are telling her not to do something, she'll look at us, smile and say NO and do it anyway.
• She's really gotten into climbing, which scares me to death
• She loves water - quite a water baby!
• She sleeps all night long, but is usually up by 6 or 6:30 a.m. - I'm hoping she learns to sleep in some time soon.
• She eats just about anything we do - it amazes me at what a good eater she is. Joey was never and still is not a good eater but Savanna will seem to shovel in anything we put in front of her.

We had a party for her on Saturday - it went well! Here are some pictures from the party:

I had to include this picture of Joey - he's such a sweet little boy!

Here is Savanna and her friend, Maggie enjoying the balloons!

One of the cakes - Ladybug!

I was super sad I took this one apart before getting a picture of it. Imagine the red 5" cake we gave savanna in the middle with the cupcakes around it. It was so cute!!

Here is Savanna wondering what this squishy thing is I put in front of her

Hm... it tastes decently, but what is it?

It's kinda squishy...

Look mom - my hand is red!!

Now she's getting into it...

Oooo! Fingerpainting!

My little devil girl... she got red icing EVERYWHERE. Why did I decide to give her a large cake with bright red icing? O yea... makes fun pictures... :)

In the bath with clothes on... figured it was the best place to undress her! Notice how red the water is even before I washed her face/hair

Getting clean and getting pigtails out so we could wash her hair. Here you can see her 2 teeth up top, which are hard to get a picture of!!

She says... o darn. I'm clean. poo. Where's that icing again?

Present time! She got lots of clothes, which is so what she needed! This little girl is growing sooo fast i can't keep clothes on her! I told everyone we have enough toys between our 2 kids to give toys to every child in china so I said we needed clothes. She got basically a second wardrobe and only 3 small toys.

I was very happy with how the day turned out and I think it was so fun to get together with everyone!

Happy first birthday little girl! I hope the next 17 years don't go as fast as this first one has gone! I love you!!