Kiddie Kandids!!

Well, we got our ususal christmas/birthday pictures in January again (it is just not worth dealing with the insanity before Christmas!!!) I LOVE the way they came out. Aj just loves his little pets so we brought those with us...he was so excited to have a picture with his pets he wanted to hang it in his room. And Julia was so funny. Can you believe how LONG her hair is..it is crazy. I really need to cut it (just a trim)but i'm so sad to cut the curls because it is not looking like it is going to come in curly!!! And the pictures of them together...Is AJ such the little stud muffin big brother, or what and Julia just loves him so much!!! CUTE!!!

Finally...Christmas pictures!

Christmas Eve my parents, my aunt, uncle, and their 2 girls and one of their boy friends, my sister, her husband and their 2 kids all came to our house. It was busy and crowded to have that many people in our little apartment but still fun. Poor BRandon and Richard (My brother-in-law) were both sick and spent most of the night in their beds! :( We did our tradition of having a birthday cake for jesus and singing happy birthday to him. IT is a fun little traditon but we didn't even cut the cake since we had so much junk food!!! That is a Lantz event for you!!

and more...

Christmas morning....In Tina's family growing up santa always left the stockings on the beds after he filled them so that is what he does at our house. AJ was stressed for a few days before christmas because santa was going to come into his room. Luckily, we were able to reassure him and he went to bed GREAT the night before. (He was convinced he had heard sleigh bells and had to hurry to get to sleep) Julia went to bed fine but in the morning we found her stocking on the floor next to her bed. She had pitched it out when she woke up to find a foreign object in her bed...even if it was full of toys!! :)




After stockings were open we got to check out what santa had brought! Aj's reaction was cute and Julia was just loving the whole thing. Aj's big gifts were his patriots helmet and uniforn and his bike. Julia's big things were a baby doll set (stroller, swing, carrier, etc.) and horse thing (se picture, we have no idea what to call it!)









The first present that AJ wanted to open was this little present from Brandon and I (not even a Santa one) he had been holding it and feeling it the night before and i think he knew it was a little animal of some kind!! He went right for it when we said they could go to it!!

16-0!!!! What a great season!!!, Now hopefully they can win 3 more to make that accomplishment even more meaningful!!!!!! GO PATS!!!!!

Happy Birthday to AJ and Julia!!

So we did a family birthday party for AJ and Julia today. (we were going to just do Julia so they didn't have to share, but AJ is still going to have a "friends party" that will be a transformers party. We figured it would be easier (and cheaper) to just combine them and since this meant he could get some presents early, he was all over it!!

AJ got to pick a cake with strict instuction that it had to be one that Julia would like too...so Shrek it was!! -It was a cute cake and AJ did great blowing out candles. Julia did pretty good but resorted to a raspberry to get the second candle out (with a little help from jen--i'm not sure if it was the wind from jen or the spit from julia that actually did the trick!!)


They had a great time opening presents. Julia got a doll house from us with a bunch of furniture and stuff. WE also gave he a big stuffed Dumbo with the Dumbo movie. My parents gave her doll house people and my sister gave her a Dora color wonder coloring set. With "BA-pa and Mah-ma's money i got her a magnadoodle and an aquadoodle, which she loved and was extra happy that the aquadoodle was elmo! With my grandma's money i got her this cute flapping ears Eeyore thing that sings "do your ears hang low" -so cute and an elmo book with a little stuffed elmo. --She has suddenly gotten into the elmo thing-sophia was influetial on that one! :)


AJ got one of his presents from us-the Fox and the Hound movies with a stuffed hound that happened to be a webkinz-he was ECSTATIC!!! HE will get his other present from us at his "transformers party"-that was part of the early birthday party deal!! My sister gave him a Diego color wonder set like Julia's and my parents gave him an awesome hotwheels carrier case that holds 100 cars...room to grow!! :) With "ba-pa and Mah-ma's money i got him a leap pad and some games for it. and with my GRandma's money i got him this cute animal carrier vet thing with little cages for the little pets. It is super cute and he LOVED it. HE has been so into the little animals and pets and carrying them around and naming them and everything so this was perfect. It is next to his bed right now with "carrot" the parrot, "buddy" the dog, and "tuna" the cat that came with it and 3 other animals that he already had-"cocoa chocolate Jenson" the dog, "Brownie" the dog (that he got when grover and Deann were here this summer)and "stripes" (I think) the tiger...HOLY COW he is soooooo cute!! I just love it!

IT WAS SOOO MUCH FUN and the kids were just sooo cute!!!

CATCHING UP!!

Yikes...I am so sorry that we have pretty much disappeared from the blogging world. Things have just been crazy but here i am to catch up with things so here goes...

Thanksgiving was fun, we went to my parents, it was pretty small since Jen and her family spent most of the day with Richards family (because his cousin, Adam, was back from afganistan on leave). i did get a few pictures of the girls-they just LOVE each other--it is sooooo cute!!!


Julia is in to "upside down" thing lately. She will hold her dolls, stuffed animals, even books upside down and sing "ap-a-down down, up-a-down" so as we were getting ready to leave on thanksgiving, i caught her hanging from the door nob singing "ap-a-down, down, up-a-down" She CRACKS US UP!!!




CUTE STORY... Julia is also very much into getting herself dressed and undressed lately. It is cute that she wants to be independent but when it takes a half-hour to get her dressed because she keeps yelling "MINE" and ripping the clothes out of my hands, OR she grunts at me when i pull the shirt out a little so it actually goes over her head, it gets quite frustrating!!!

ANYWAY, so she is also dressing and undressing her dolls..mostly undressing!! The other day she tells me "pee-pee" as she is taking the pants off of this little doll and then she wanders into the hall near the bathroom. I go to check it out, expecting the baby to be swimming in the toilet, and found this!




LOCKS OF LOVE!!
SO i finally did it... i have been wanting to hack my hair off and donate it to locks of love FOREVER. because of our crazy schedule and my useless brain (i kept forgetting to find a salon/make an appointment) It has taken a while. So i decided during this week that i would finally do it. I cut off 11 inches and was able to go to a salon where they cut it, send the hair, and give me a style for FREE!! I just gave her a little tip and i was set!! So here is before and after...

So, heres a quick update on our crazy lives!!!!!!

Life has been so crazy lately, we've barely had time to breath, let alone think about blogging (not that it isn't important, just life gets crazy ya know!!) So here's what's goin on.

Two weeks ago tomorrow (Friday) my favorite client here at the program Jimmy I know I shouldn't have favorites, but what can I say i'm human) died here at the group home. He choked on a PB sandwich. I got in late that day, so I missed the whole thing (thankfully, I'm not sure I could handle another death on my shift), but it really shook me up. It is such a reminder of how fragile life is. I still can't believe he's gone. His sister was away on vacation and we couldn't reach her for 5 days after his death, so the funeral wasn't until yesterday, a week and a half after his death. It was good to be able to remember him, laugh and cry with those who knew him best. I'm getting pretty emotional even writing about this, so onward to other family news.

Tina will not be nannying for the Dennehey's anymore. She found another nanny job and will be doing that 3 days a week, and looking for other jobs the other days of the week. The Dennehey's unstable life (ugly divorce, psycho father) made her decide to look elsewhere. Tomorrow is her last day with them. She's having a mini celebration!!!!!!!

I had evaluations this week where my field instructor (from school) and my field supervisor (internship) met with me to discuss how I am doing. It was really frustrating for me. I felt that my instructor really focused on my anxiety (which is high) but never mentioned how I plow through the anxiety and get the job done. It really opened me up to a lot of self doubt during the past couple of days. Then today, during supervison with my field supervisor (internship) she stated what a good job I do at hiding my anxiety, she had no Idea how anxious I was while at work. She also told me that the othe clinicians are always happy when I am on, and several of them have commented to her that "he's good" :) That comment felt so good, and removed a lot of the self doubt and insecuriteis I was feeling about myself. Then in class, we had a group presentation (two people) and after class, my teacher came up to us and specifically told us what a great job we had done, and how impressed he was with our work!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!! (OK, I just about broke my shoulder patting myself on the back, but it's worth it :)

We sure miss you guys, especially during the holiday season. But, at least it will be our last one apart!!!!!

A Mom's Day!!!

Ok, this is awesome!!! It sums up my life and just makes me laugh!! ENJOY!!

TRICK OR TREAT!!!

Well here they are, the only pictures that we took on Halloween night!! OOPS-i was so busy carrying Julia up and down each set of stairs(she could do it with the HUGE car on her--the costume is so cute that it was all worth it!!!), i didn't have time to think about pictures!!! Weather-wise i don't think it could have been nicer!! But...we wish we could have been there with you--i over heard brandon talking about the Jenson Halloween traditions YUM!!! We had a lot of fun though. We did a few houses with Richard abnd Sophia and then they went to see other family and we did some more around my parents house.

Julia was so cute she would stick her bag out and say "tr-tri-tree" and then stand there, hoping they would give her more. then i would prompt her with "what do you say" and she would say "tay-too" and turn around to go to the next house. She's all business when it comes to candy collecting--that's our girl.

Aj was soooo tired by the end of the night. Jen took all 4 kids to the neighborhood where she nanny's. They do a little parade down the main street every year and then all the kids start trick-or-treating. It is a pretty good walk, so this year jen parked half-way down the "parade route". So AJ had to walk 1/2 of the route and then do the parade and then was trick-or-treating back to the car. But the neighbor hood is full of HUGE houses and also HUGE yards so it is a lot of work. He was so done he was saying he had enough candy...even though Richard, apparently didn't agree and ran ahead with the little girl, payton, to collect more. Then we did the houses around my parents and then we left their house past his bed time. I don't think we were more than 4 houses from my parents before he was asleep!! When we got home, I woke him up to bring him in and told him "we're home" he said "no were not" as he looked around all confused. I reassured him that we were and then he said "how'd we get home this fast?" I just giggled! He is soooo cute-I love that boy!

So... a fun halloween was had by all. And today wasn't too bad with all the sugar-infested children!! :)

Trunk or Treat!!

We had the "Trunk or Treat" tonight at church. The kids had a blast. We went with Richard, Sophia, and Jen. AJ and Julia were Mater and Sally from Cars. I found the costumes on clearence on disneyoutlet.com!!! SUPER exciting find!!! I must say they looked pretty DANG cute. (P.S.-AJ totally says "dang" now and i am pretty sure that Julia does too- i think that is what she is trying to say, it definately sounds like it!! :)

Halloween Cookie Decorating

Wednesday night (our only night home together during the week) we watched the Transformers movie and decorated halloween cookies. AJ was so excited about the movie, it was adorable!!! He, of course, also enjoyed the cookies!!! Julia was all about decorating the cookies!! She got very into the details a few times which was super cute. I don't think that she actually had any cookies but she had plenty of toppings along the way!!!

GO SOX!!!!!!

So, the whole are is of course THRILLED that the Sox are in the world series, it's impossible not to get swept up in the emotion and excitement of it all. And if the Braves can't win the World Series, I gotta cheer for the Sox!!!

A cute AJ story

So, it's been a little while since posting (sorry about that) it's just so hectic right now!!!! Here's a cute AJ story.

Tina dropped AJ off with me on Thursday. When it came time for lunch, all he wanted to eat was the left over rice and corn from Wednesday's dinner. I told him he had to eat more than that, so I put some left over home made Mac and Cheese (from Tyler and Michelle's cookbook they gave us when we got married) on his plate and warmed them up. While I was warming up his lunch, he asked if he ate all his lunch if he could he have some chips. I told him only if he finished all his lunch. He gobbled down the rice and corn, but wanted nothing to do with the Mac and cheese. He got up from the table and said he was full. I let him go and play, because I knew that eventually he'd want those chips. He went into our room to watch Bob the Builder and after it was over, he came out of our room and STOMPED into the kitchen saying "BUT I DIDN'T WANT MACORONI AND CHEESE!!!!! He marched right into the kitchen and ate all of his luch!!!! He came running into the living room with an empty plate and asked for those chips. And of course, I was only happy to oblige.

If you guys think Will Ferrell is funny, you're gonna love this!!!!