Isaac's b-day party!

Hanging with Mickey the next day

They really loved him. Jonathan had to sneak away.

Isaac's party was so fun! I was really happy with how well it turned out. We did a Mickey mouse theme. We did a hot dog lunch, colored mickey pictures, played with bubbles and had cake and ice cream. We just had 3 little friends over and some parents, grandma.....and...Mickey! Jonathan and I made a Mickey costume (mostly jonathan, i just paper mached and he did all the rest) and Jonathan came to the party as Mickey. It was so fun. Isaac and Allie loved mickey. Isaac was a little hestitant at first, but then loved him and asked for him the rest of the day and then next day. Annaliese was a bit nervous and both Abbie and Billy cried. Abbie was actually pretty terrified. oops! So we put Mickey away and had him come back to play with Isaac and Allie later. They had fun playing with the music set and tennis raquet and balls Isaac got. It was so fun and I think Isaac understood we were celebrating for him. I made some homemade decorations, a free hand mickey cake and we bought a few cheap Mickey things at party city like streamers and crayons. I have the cutest kids, and the best husband. He made the costume, came as mickey and helped with the food, cleaning and decorating. I think one of the most fun things about little kids is little things a big deal. They had so much fun, and so did we.

Julie and Tyson got Isaac a super fun music set. All the kids loved it and I'm excited to use it as a bribe for good behavior.

Allie as messy as ever. She loves cake and ice cream

Isaac loved being sung too and everyone looking at him. He even blew on the candles! You can see some of the decorations I made in the back.

Glad he liked his cake

Abbie didn't like having Mickey come visit. In fact...it took a long time to calm her down. Poor Abbie.

My camera is getting slower and slower so there is a fat chance in catching fast Isaac!

Isaac loved mickey.

Here is the full costume. Its not quite done in the picture, but this way you can see the shoes and everything.

A happy Mickey Family

Allie loved him. She gave him kisses and snuggled with him and followed him around. I thought maybe she knew it was her daddy, but when Jonathan came back she went looking for Mickey, she even checked the bathroom.

My Mickey cake I made all free hand!

I know its hard to believe, but I gave him the ears and he put on the sunglasses (that he found in the closet) and did this pose all by himself. I don't know where he got it from. But its halarious! I love it. He then got a shirt for his birthday of Mickey wearing sunglasses. Perfect.

Annaliese loved her Minni ears. (cried when she thought she couldn't keep them - good thing she could) Its great what a piece of paper and a headband can do. Katie Colton found the how to online for me. Instead of making an intense one with felt i just did paper.

January

I finally moved on to the new blogger so i can put captions on pictures. It works a lot better. Anyway, the point is there may be a few new backgrounds until i settle on one. You get trees for now.
Allie is learning very rapidly. She knows a lot of knew words like "cracker" and "baby" She likes to do what Isaac is doing so shes learning things like "abc....p...t..xyz...yaaaaayyyy!" It is so cute. Right now she walks around saying "one, two" "one, two" Her listening has gotten much better! She went from listening 0% of the time to listening 60% of the time. There is hope for her yet! We're on the last month until Micaela comes. I think it is a blessing that the last month is so awful because otherwise you would be more scared to go into labor. But insted you can't wait. Although having three children will be hard, having 2 toddlers and being nacious tired and hardly able to walk is hard too!
Jonathan tried on the undercloths for the costume and Isaac wanted to be in all black too!

A work in progress. Jonathan did the felt stuff.

Popcorn isn't just for eating, its for playing too. This is Isaac and cousin Annaliese putting popcorn on the castle.

I paper mached that thing night after night. It was a fun project. Jonathan and I would chit-chat or watch a movie while I put on a layer of newspaper to the Mickey head. Jonathan did all the shaping (adding the ears and nose). It seems thats how the projects go. I do the repetitive stuff while Jonathan does what needs to look nice. It works out the best that way.

Allie was real naughty for a few days. She went through a growth spurt and thought that because she could reach onto the counter she should. I went to make oatmeal and Allie reached up and grabbed a bowl of uncooked oatmeal and milk. It dumped all over her and the floor. It was halarious.

Isaac reading to himself

This is from our trip to San anontio in november. On the last day of our vacation we were kicked out of the hotel so i had to take them somewhere. I found a children's play house. It was super super fun. But they were on their last nday of a long vacation. So its funny you can see isaac crying while sliding down the bouncehouse. And Allie's hair is crusted with tears.

Yay for Christmas and lots of fun. Christmas was fantastic. We are so blessed to get to spend time with family. We got lots of great gifts. We got a Kinect and we've been using it to exersize. : ) It seemed 'the holidays were over' as everyone says, but Jonathan had off for MLK day, next week is Isaac's birthday, then comes Valentine's day and then Micaela's birthday and then my birthday! We are full of holidays! I am hoping to make Isaac and awesome Mickey cake amoungst other things. But i don't have the energy to throw him a big party. It is getting harder and harder to keep the house clean and grocery shop. I am soooo tired. My Braxton hicks contractions have started already so my guess for the due date is Feb. 28th. I am still morning sick, my left leg has those crazy veins that hurt, I keep mini-straining my back, and now the contractions. So this third trimester is full of fun.
Allie is a full on trouble maker. Climbing on the table, playing in the ashes in the fireplace, shaking the lamp, running into the street, taring books ect. I'm not sure what will happen when the baby comes. I know she will go Bizerk. I've been babysitting a few children latley and I think it is helpful for her to see me hold someone else or change another child's diaper. She doesn't like it, but she needs to get used to the idea.
We've been having fun taking advantage of the few cold days we've had with fires in the fireplace and hot chocolate. Today it was around 70 so the kids had lots of fun playing outside. I love that about texas. I would rather swim in the summer than bundle the kids up everytime we want to go somewhere for 5 months. Jonathan is working hard on the bathroom. The picture is with all the walls finally up but he's done a ton since then. I am just going to wait to post the final picture for a suprise.
My new baby neice is still in the hospital. They keep finding complicatiions with her having fluid in her lungs. So we are stil trying to help them and praying for little Isabelle. My sister Anna had her little baby recently as well! His name is Andrew and he was 3 wks early at 8 lbs! I guess he was just done early!

San Antonio and Christmas time

Life is so good. We went on our trip to San Antonio and it was fantastic. It was really fun going out to eat and staying somewhere new. The river walk was beautiful! It was all lit up and there were carolers on trolley boats and music playing. We had a great time.
I think Christmas gets better every year. I am excited for Isaac and Allie to open presents. It was so fun to put up our tree and Christmas lights on our house. We made some traditions to help us remember the true meaning of Christmas and that has been great as well. I’ve had quite a few jolts of gratitude as well. I realized how grateful I am to get to be a stay at home mom, and to have such a wonderful amazing husband. It is a big blessing to be able to stay at home with my 2 -soon to be 3- kids a year and a half out of school. My dear friend Marta went to the hospital again. This time she had her gall bladder removed and her lungs had blood clots so now she has to give herself 2 shots a day for 6-9 months that makes her throw up. She throws up the pain meds and the nausea medicine so she is not doing very well. Because of her weakened state she had to give back 2 foster children as well, which broke her heart. She has adopted 3 children already, and she might not have been able to keep the 2 children, but sending them back to the foster home was so hard for her. I am grateful for her friendship and that I am able to help her in her time of need.
Lastly, my sweet little niece Isabelle was born December 8th. After open heart surgery hours after she was born she is still in the hospital. Her heart wasn’t hooked up correctly so they hooked it up right. She has been on life support and drainage tubes ect. They are slowly taking her off of support and putting her back on it when she needs. Ideally she would have gotten to go home by now but they’ve found a few problems they keep needing to fix. Her heart is doing well and from what I understand she should grow up healthy. I am so grateful for modern miracles in medicine. I am so grateful that thus far Isaac and Allie have been healthy and happy. We’ve been visiting the hospital a lot and trying to help out. The hospital is 45 minutes from Jason and Julie’s (the parents) home and they have a 2 year old, and Julie just gave birth so I’m sure its been quite the journey for them.
One day when we went to the hospital to visit, Radio Disney was throwing a Christmas party. That is what some of the pictures are from. Santa came (with stuffed animals), and they had dancing, cookie decorating, prizes, ornament making ect. It was a lot of fun for the little ones and hopefully took Annaliese’s mind off being at the hospital all the time.
Isaac and Allie have been little angels. They were not going to bed well, and Allie was screaming and wanting me to hold her all the time, but all the sudden, Isaac’s been putting himself to bed a lot and Allie is just partying. I got out the play tent they got for Christmas last year and Allie loves it. Isaac does too, but Allie really really loves it. I’ll probably post videos of it next time. Isaac is learning to share with Allie better now that she cares when he takes her stuff. He says sorry and thank you all the time and it melts my heart. Isaac copies me a lot and its so hilarious. He will gasp when he sees something I’m giving him and say “THANK YOU MAMA!” Its so cute. It makes me feel great when someone is crying and he says, “are you alright” “its okay”. He knows all his letters, colors, animals ect. I gave Allie a haircut and it was a success! I’ve gotten lots of compliments and she no longer has tear drown hair in her eyes. She is repeating more words and she is so cute its unbelievable. She gives these snuggly long hugs, and gets so excited when we come home when she has a babysitter. She plays with her stuffed animals and talks gibberish. Its way too cute.
Jonathan’s brother Justin is coming in town tomorrow. He’ll be staying with us for a week and a half so that should be fun. We’ll get to get to know his fiancé better and become better friends. We are so excited for this weekend. The Christmas spirit, lights, eggnog, cookies, it’s just been so great. We are absolutely loving it.

videos

Here are some videos i've taken with my new camera i got for Christmas from my mom! I love it! Isaac and I making pretzels, trick - or treating, playing in the backyard ect. Isaac goes outside and picks me flowers or clovers and comes back in saying "flowers for mama". Its super sweet - so thats one of the videos.

Extremely Happy

Things are so extremely perfect right now. For a while now its been morning sickness, colds, and a strained back and all the sudden there are tons of exciting things! My sister Katie and Jonathan's brother Justin are engaged! My sister in law that lives real close is having a baby in a month! And Jonathan is building me a new side bathroom! Picking out the tile and faucets and vanities is exciting enough, but seeing my hunky husband work on something so hard for us makes it even better. We're going to San Antonio! Jonathan is covering for the branch there and they are paying for hotel, food, gas and even paying him for drive time so we'll have money to see the sights. Its going to be lots of fun! They will have Christmas lights and carolers on the river walk and that will throw us into the Christmas spirit. We've started Christmas shopping already which will help it be fun insted of stressful. My mom gave me a fantastic Christmas present already and it is still giving. An HD video camera 1080p with attached USB. It came with picture computer programs and a gift card for kodak.com and I'm making a photo book. So i should be posting some awesome videos soon! Jonathan has tons of days of work because he was so stingy with his vacation days the whole year. So we have every monday off for the rest of the year and he only works 1.5 days next week. Bruce and Katie are coming in town, and we have the Holidays and all the fun things involved. Family, work and church parties and its all so fun and exciting I can hardly stand it.
The kids have both made huge jumps in there skills. Allie knows a lot more words like "thank you" "go go" and "night night" She's gotten a little bit better at listening and she runs to the door when I say gogo and to the fridge when i ask when she wants a drink. Isaac is halarious because he still chooses to mostly babble dispite his growing talking skills. Although when he feels like it- he's quite the talker. When Grandma Ramos came over he said "Hello Grandma, How are you?" Today he asked me "what shape is this?" And I said "square" and he said, "yay! It is a square. Great Job mama" Similarly he knows his letters and shapes and colors, but if you quiz him he just says something rediculous. But if he finds a group of objects he will count them perfectly. And he will ask for the "green circle" or whatever it may be when i can't tell what he's pointing too. He saw the word SCOUT and he goes, "T-U-O-C-S!" I guess we'll have to teach him to go left to right.
Jonathan is the most wonderful husband and father. Working on the bathroom all the time, and he got us that trip to San Antonio. He plays with the kids and suprizes me and takes us to church and leads us to do the right. Yesterday i told him i needed totes to put the kids old cloths in and he suprized me by going to the store before i even woke up and picking me up some! I love him so much. We know the real reason we are so happy is because of our loving Heavenly Father who has blessed us beyond measure. We love our sweet little babies and are so excited for Micaela to come!