Calling for Help!!!

Caitlin has fallen in love with a little bear that a family member gave us. She won't sleep with out it and I'm hoping that someone can locate another one for me. Unfortunately the family member doesn't remember where they purchased it and we only have a few stores in our little town, none of which carry this bear. I remember the tag saying something about it being made of recycled plastic or bottles.

Caitlin loves her little bear and we would love to have a replacement in case we lose it.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today is a beautiful day. But even if the weather wasn't beautiful it would still be beautiful because I'm with the best family in the world.

I am thankful for my husband, Jon. He loves me unconditionally and with his whole heart and I feel it every day. God blessed me with an amazing husband and I'm so very, very thankful.

I am thankful for my kids. I have two of the cutest, sweetest kids in the world. Dominic fills our days with light and laughter. He's always saying cute things and he warms our hearts. He's already learning that honey attracts more bees than vinegar. Help us all when he totally grasps this concept. =)

Caitlin's sweet smiles and little kisses melt us into little puddles. She, like her brother, is a little charmer. She's a great baby and I'm thankful for this 1st year of her life that has gone by so fast.

I'm thankful for being their mommy.

I'm thankful for my extended family whose hospitality is the best. Thankful that even though we are so far apart we can enjoy each other a few times a year.

I'm thankful for my friends. Especially the ones who call me from far away even when I am not as good at calling them. (I'm thankful for you Laura!)

But most of all I'm thankful for my Savior who gives us all of this love and loves me more than I can imagine.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and love to you all!!!

More pictures

We asked Dominic to wink!

Caitlin being a sweetheart.

The weather is beautiful so we went for a walk.

Caitlin LOVES riding on Daddy's shoulders.

Zoo

We got into the zoo here in Chattanooga for free using our aquarium passes. Since it was during a typical school day and a bit chilly we had the zoo almost to ourselves. It was a cute little zoo. My favorite were the two little red pandas. I finally got this little one to look at me for a picture.

Caitlin really enjoyed looking at everything from her stroller.

There was a petting zoo, but Dominic refused to pet anything there.

This little deer ate leaves from my hands until Jon got the camera out and then she lost interest in the leaves so we didn't get a picture.

What a cute monkey I have!

Farmer Hats

Dominic found these two bean bags and wanted to play pillow fights. I came into the living room to find him like this. "Look Mom, I'm wearing a farmer's hat. Here's one for you too." He then put it into his mouth and said "Here's my beard." No picture of that, unfortunately.

I'll take care of you forever!

My grandparents are here visiting as well and Dominic loves them.

My grandma walked into the room and Dominic said

"Grandma, you're so beautiful."

Today we were all eating lunch and Dominic announces out of the blue to my grandparents -

"I'll take care of you forever!"

"Dominic, you are so sweet."

"Thanks, so are you."

More Climbing

Caitlin did a little climbing this morning herself. We are staying downstairs at my uncle's house and Caitlin headed to the stairs. Since we were ready to come up and eat breakfast I let her start climbing up. She came up both sets of stairs all by herself. Jon and Dominic were her cheering team.

When she got to the top she looked pretty proud of herself even before we started clapping.

Rock Climbing

My brother, Zeb, had promised to take Dominic rock climbing when we came for Thanksgiving. We met him and Jason and Kim for lunch and after wards everyone except Caitlin and I went rock climbing. It was raining so they went to the indoor climbing gym (I think that's what it's called). Caitlin had had about 20 minutes nap time this morning so we went home to take a nap. I guess Dominic got a hold of the chalk. Watching Daddy with Uncle Jason

Yearly Family Photo

We went a few weeks ago to get our annual family photos done. The family photo is a good one, but this one of the kids is the best. I put the new photo into the same frame every year and retire the previous year. I had thought about keeping last years out instead because it was so good, but this one is even better. Don't I have the cutest kids?!

Brown People/Skateboard Park

Dominic has refused to call African Americans anything but "brown people". AA is too long and they certainly aren't black.

"Mommy, why are some people brown?"

"Because God made them that way."

"Oh, can I be brown too sometime?"

We went to the park for a mom's group today. I hadn't ever been to this park, but had heard that there was a skate board park somewhere near. Dominic takes his skate board everywhere with him so he was pretty excited when we pulled up and saw the park. This park is the cutest little thing I've ever seen. The "half pipe" comes to about my waist. They have a set of stairs and a couple of other things -all pint size. Dominic stood at the top of the pipe and pushed his board down. Then he ran down laughing. =) Not quite what it was intended for, but he had fun. I didn't even think about my camera until after he'd taken all of his gear off. I'll have to remember to get pictures next time.

The kids were all leaning over the edge feeding the turtles.

Disturbing

At Taco Bell eating lunch-

"Daddy, this music is disturving me."

"Why is it disturbing you, Dominic?"

"It's just too loud."

New Tooth

This morning I checked Caitlin's 2nd tooth that has been working on coming in for the past week or two. The corner has a tip poking through. She bit me and I realized that she has a tooth on the bottom also. So now she has two teeth, one almost through and another one getting ready to start coming in. No wonder the poor little girl has been fussy and drooling a lot.

I love you this much!

"I love you, Dominic."

"I love you too, Mom."

"How much do you love me, Dominic?"

"I love you lots more than much. I love you 5, no 10 times more than much."

The kids were giggling and I went to investigate. Then ran to get my camera. Dominic had been jumping on his bed and Caitlin didn't want to miss out on the action. So she was watching from the end of the bed. When Dominic saw her he started making faces at her. This ALWAYS makes her laugh.

Dominic had been bribed with sugar-free pudding if he would finish his peas. He finished the pudding and was told to wash his hands. I heard him in the bathroom muttering to himself. I went in to see what was wrong.

"Mom, I'm having a hard time obeying you."

"Ok, why is that?"

"Because I had sugar. Don't EVER do that again!"

I just smiled since the pudding had been sugar free.

"MOM, did you hear me what I said?! I can't have any more sugar!"

So I dutifully promised not to give him any more sugar.

Just a cute picture of Caitlin. I love this outfit. She found a hair clip and was chewing on it.

I am so proud of my little babies.

Caitlin is doing really well with "cruising." She can walk along anything as long as she has a little something to hold onto.

Also today she fell and busted her lip open, probably when she bumped it with her tooth. There was a lot of blood. She hadn't had a morning nap and it was late in the morning. She certainly cried, but started eating lunch right after wards and hasn't complained about it since. She's a tough little cookie.

Dominic is doing so well with school. I started working with him in about August, I think. He couldn't write or draw anything and got frustrated very easily. He now knows almost all of his ABCs and yesterday showed me that he can write most of them as well. I hadn't been working directly on penmanship because he's only 3 yrs old. We weren't even going to start until much later, but he kept asking me for more scrap paper and when I asked to see his pictures he informed me that they were letters, not pictures. Sure enough the pages were filled with letters and numbers. I could recognize 95% of them. My buttons almost came off my shirt I was so proud! =)

N is for Nose

Caitlin really needed a nap today so we (Dominic and I) decided to stay home and have school. His assignment today was working on the sounds of letters. I have flash cards that the object of the game is to tell me what the picture on the card is and what the beginning sound is. Then he matches cards with the same sound. I laid down a card with a nose on it. He got the sound and letter correct. Then I laid down a card with a pig on it. He got this one correct as well. Then he got distracted and started saying other P words.

"Play, pony, pick." "Oh, Mom! Pick and nose. They go together. Pick nose!" Lots of giggles.

Oh, he's such a boy!

Watching the game

Dominic sat down in a chair, leaned back and said -

"Mom, can you fix me a sandwich while I finish watching this game."

Jon doesn't make demands while watching games, so where in the world did Dominic learn this?

Talking to Jesus

This morning right before we left the house Dominic brought me a book to read. It was a series book geared towards older kids and has some detailed pictures in it. This one was on the crucifixion and Dominic was asking me why that man had nails on his head. He has a very vivid imagination that crosses over into his dreams (like Daddy and Grammy). So I try to avoid visuals that will upset him. So I told him that since we were getting ready to leave that I would just tell him the story while we were driving. Thankfully he was ok with this.

But my dilemma was how to explain something that can be complicated to a 3 yr old. I did my best and at the end Dominic was quiet for a few minutes. Then he said

"Mommy, can you ask Jesus into your heart?"

So I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart. Then he asked if I could pray for him. So I told him that this was a very special thing to ask and if he wanted Jesus in his heart he would have to pray.

So he did.

"Dear Jesus, come in my heart and make me nice and a sweet boy and all those things. Amen."

Proud moment

I am so proud of my little munchkins. I had to get my hair done yesterday and was intending to take Dominic to Play Date and was keeping my fingers crossed that Caitlin would behave for the 1 1/2 hrs it took to get my hair done. But Dominic begged to go with me instead of Play Date so I brought him with me.

My kids were angels. Dominic watched a movie on his dvd player and Caitlin sat in her little stroller and "talked" to us the whole time. Everyone commented on how well behaved my kids were. Since Caitlin tends to be noisy and Dominic energetic and noisy I wasn't expecting such quiet and stillness from them. So I'm very, very proud of my angels!!!

CRASH

Today was a bit interesting. The kids and I met Jon for lunch. While we were eating I noticed that Jon was staring out the window in the direction of the car. I thought he was staring at a strange individual and was about to ask him about it when a guy came up to our table and informed us that our car had been hit in the parking lot.

Turns out that Jon saw it happen as well. The guy was an ex-police officer and had watched it happen. The woman paused and then drove off. When she started to drive off he wrote down her license plate number.

I called the police and he came out and got all of the information and talked to the witnesses. He left us to go give the lady a ticket.

The sad thing is that she left after knowing she'd hit our car. So we will have a new bumper on our car and she will be out a ton of money that she wouldn't have been had she simply stopped and told us what had happened.

We had been sitting in the car earlier waiting on Jon to get there. I'm just thankful we'd already gone inside the restaurant when it happened.

Eating your head

We were on the way to town and Dominic kept putting things into his mouth. We are trying to break him of this habit so would confiscate the item every time it happened. Dominic was getting frustrated with the situation, but not enough to quit putting things into his mouth. He asked Jon why we kept taking his things.

"Dominic, every time you put something into your mouth I'm going to take it away from you."

"Even my head, Daddy?"

There was a slight pause as, I'm sure, Jon tried to picture how this would even work.

"Yes, Dominic, even your head."

"But Daddy, it won't come off."

We heard grunts from the back seat.

"See! I tried to take it off and it just won't come off."

"Then don't put things into your mouth and you won't lose them, Dominic."

"Would you take my hand?"

"Yes!"

"But you can't take my hand. It's stuck too and if you tried it would hurt. And I'm special so you can't hurt me!"

Jon and I were trying very hard not to laugh by this point. And Jon muttered. "It's too bad he's so smart."

Ah, yes! Just not smart enough to quit putting things into his mouth. Sigh!

Random pictures

This is on Dominic's Christmas wish list. =) Jon took a friend to pick up his motorcycle and Dominic had to check them out.Caitlin is cruising. Not very much and certainly not very fast, but she is starting to enjoy her little push toy.Dominic is still wearing his helmet and carrying his skateboard everywhere with him. Jon is reading Dominic a story and he has his helmet on again. I think he'd sleep with it if we'd let him.

Trick-or-Treat

I had Halloween shirts that I put the kids in and took their pictures. When we got ready to take them to a party at one of the local churches it was still in the 80s. Caitlin's 2nd costume was very warm and I knew she would get hot in it. So I left her in the shirt and Dominic put his skate board outfit on again.While we were there Caitlin rode around on Jon's shoulders. I think his ears were sore by the end of the evening.Dominic is playing a game to get some candy for his bag. It was the mesh bag that had held all of his safety gear.Dominic asked the balloon guy for a sword. Not sure what this had to do with his outfit, but he really enjoyed it. It popped as we were leaving because he was dragging it on the concrete. He was pretty upset. Later we went to a friend's house and stopped at a few houses in her neighborhood before we stopped at her house. It was cooler by then and I put Caitlin's costume on. She didn't seem to mind the hat part which I had been worried about.