Corbin's Birthday and Goodby Laura

Two weeks ago Corbin turned 3 years old.  The night before Laura gave Corbin her gift, Superman pjs.  Corbin loves Superman and he was so excited.

Laura also gave Jovi Tinkerbell pjs.  They were both very grateful. 

Corbin showing off his super strength.

Laura helping Corbin to fly.

These are now Corbin's all time favorite pjs and he wears them as often as he can.  When he wears them he calls himself Superman and talks in third person.  "Superman needs to brush his teeth."  "Superman wants choose his book."  "Superman flys to bed."  are things he often says in the evenings nowadays.  It is too cute.

The next day, decorating with the Superman party Cricut cartridge, Corbin got a Superman birthday. 

We had a family celebration at Chuck E Cheese.  For some unknown reason, last year Jovi decided she was very scared of Chuck E Cheese.  This quickly went from avoiding him at the restaurant to refusing to even walk in, so we asked her if she would be ok with the party being there and after much discussion she said she would be ok.  This lasted until she actually saw Chuck E Cheese.  She freaked out and refused to move from our booth.  My mom left with her early, but rather than that small snag we all had a great time. (I made the applique for Corbin's shirt with my Cricut and sewing machine :) ).  Corbin got some great presents.  I think his favorite was the Thomas Train trackmaster stuff from my parents.  He loves running those electric trains.











My sister, Laura, has been living with us for just over a year.  It started as a very temporary thing, because she thought she wanted to buy a house and didn't want to be locked into an apartment rent agreement.  After a lot of looking she decided that she didn't want to buy a house right now, then she stayed because her rent was helping our budget.  It was a fun year having her here for dinners and evening game playing, but I think the coolest thing was how my kids got to develope such a wonderful relationship with their aunt.  On Corbin's birthday she packed everything she owned into her car (an amazing feat in and of itself) and left to do a year of service with AmeriCorps in Montana doing statistical analysis of their financial literacy programs.  I think she is in for a fun and exciting adventure and I'm so proud of her for choosing to do something totally out of her comfort zone.  I hope she has a wonderful year.  We love you and miss you Laura!

First Snow Day of the Year

The Sunday before Corbin's birthday we got 4 inches of snow, that stuck!  Unfortunately, Juan had put weed and feed on the lawn before it snowed so we couldn't play there, but our driveway had more than enough snow to play in.  I learned that my snowman making skills are sadly lacking and we really don't own the right clothing for serious snow playing, but we had lots of fun anyway.




Juan gave his car a Mohawk.

Seriously need to catch up

I can't believe it's been two months since I've blogged.  Well, lots of stuff has happened.  To catch up, We had a great time visiting the zoo with some friends. 

We had a nice pre Thanksgiving with my family.

We had Thanksgiving with Juan's family at his mom's house (Unfortunately I forgot my camera.).  We had a really great time with his family, great food and fun and games, but going home was less than ideal.  Corbin cried the whole 2 1/2 hour trip home.  Really, the whole time.  We were considering going to Eagle Pass for Juan's grandparent's 60th anniversary which would have been an 8+ hour drive each way.  We opted for sending a card.  I'm praying he grows out of this because we are driving up to Minnesota this summer whether he does or not.
We are still enjoying going to the DMA's first Tuesday activities.  In fact, we just became DMA members for the free parking perks.  These are the Dr. Seuss hats the kids made during December's first Tuesday.  We also decorated Christmas cookies.



Then my camera battery died and I lost my charger and I wasn't able to take any pictures (or upload the old ones) till I got a new charger right before Christmas.  Honestly, December was pretty boring.  The biggest news was that I started working for my sister who is disabled and has always had serious health issues.  She lives with my parents and we go over and help her with errands and cleaning and stuff every Tuesday and part of Thursday.  I had big plans for making Christmas items, making our family matching Christmas pjs and lots of baked goods to hand out to friends and family.  None of it ended up getting done because two weeks before Christmas Corbin got croup which turned into pneumonia and had me sitting on a couch with him every day watching children's movie after children's movie.  Juan and Jovi also got sick for part of that time.  I got a lot of reading done, but not much else.  Fortunately, everyone felt good enough to enjoy Christmas Eve at my parent's house.







Sickness reigned Christmas Day, but at least not for the kids.  We were supposed to go to Juan mom's house, but Ruben's family was sick so we put that off till New Years Day.   Then we were going to get together with my family for a Christmas lunch, but both my Dad and Mom woke up sick.   We ended up spending a quiet Christmas day at home playing with our new toys.  Corbin got a wooden train set, Jovi got a play laptop, Juan got a bunch of board games and I got a cricut.  I totally wasn't expecting it and it is just as awesome as I thought it would be.  I've been having a lot of fun playing with it.
That week we went to the Frisco Science Center where we have a family membership.  It's small, but a lot of fun and they have a daily story time and craft.  We go 2-3 times a month.


On New Year's Eve my family came over for a pizza dinner.  Everyone hung out till we put the kids to bed and then my sisters left to go to parties.  My parents stayed and played a game with us and then left.  Juan and I rung in the new year on our own.  On New Year's Day day we went to his mom's house celebrate Christmas.  We had a lot of fun and the kids got some very nice presents AND Corbin only cried the last 30 minutes of the drive home (there is hope).





Next time, Corbin's Birthday and Laura leaving...

Kid Update

Jovi has started spelling her name Joviey.  Apparently we did not add enough letters at the end of her name.  I've asked her why she wants to spell it like that and she says it's because she just wants to.  Well, that clears everything up.  I wonder how long she will want to spell her name that way.  It's pretty funny.

Jovi really enjoys playing with legos now.  Juan will build her a castle or car or whatever she asks for and then after it's built she decorates it and then uses the mini figures (which she adores) to play.  It is SO funny watching her.  We have a large collection of mini figures and she has them talk to each other, usually in quiet little mumbles.  Yesterday I overheard her saying, "You're a Jedi?  Jedi are cool.".    

Which leads to the next thing that Jovi likes right now, Star Wars the Clone Wars.  It is a cartoon that is supposed to take place between the 2nd and 3rd episodes (or 5th and 6th movies).  We thought Corbin would really like it.  It turned out that he didn't care much about it, but Jovi thinks it is great.  We rented the movie and then have been getting the cartoon network episodes through Netflix occasionally.  Jovi is a fan.  She has asked for the movie for Christmas.  My poor kids, with Juan and I as their parents they never had a chance to escape nerdiness.

Speaking of nerdiness, Corbin is an iPhone addict.  My mom gave me her old iPhone when she upgraded (yes, I do have an awesome mom).  I didn't want to pay for the phone service so I use it as an ipod touch and let me just say, it is SO much fun.  Not only do I like it, but my kids can't get enough.  I've bought them lots of age appropriate apps and both the kids will play with it for long periods of time.  Corbin though will play with it till the battery runs down.  I used to have it connected to our house wifi, but Corbin figured out how to get into the app store and after he bought one (fortunately only $1) I disconnected the wifi access.  He still brings me the phone and asks me to buy new types of apps like a dinosaur app or a Star Wars app, but now I tell him that the store isn't working.  It is a really fun toy though.

Corbin has actually started sleeping through the night sometimes.  This is a huge, good change and offers me hope for the future.  He has never been a good sleeper.  He has never slept through the night, so even though it is only 2-3 times a week where he sleeps till 7am, it feels like a gift.  Now I am just crossing my fingers that the trend continues.  

Jovi's Soccer Season

Jovi just finished her second soccer season.  She was on the same team as last season, the Ladybugs, but they had a full 8 players this time instead of only 6 last season. Jovi's been doing really good this season. She scores about 2 goals a game. She really seems to enjoy playing too. Her most exciting game was one where she was one of only three other players, so she played the whole game. We were missing some of our strongest players and we were up against a tough team. The score kept going back and forth. They would score, then we would score and back again. It was the last minute of the game and we were loosing by one. Everyone was fighting for the ball in front of the other team's goal. Jovi kicked the final goal in and as it went in the ref blew the whistle and ended the game. It was out first tie ever, but Jovi kept it from being a loss. She is so happy when she makes a goal. It is too cute. Jovi did a great job this season and we are proud of her. Jovi loved it when her cousins were able to come and watch.

Happy Halloween

We celebrated our Halloween a little early since this year Halloween falls on a Sunday. Our kids didn't seem to mind at all. Our celebration started over a week ago with a trip to a small Pumpkin Patch in Coppell. They actually weren't open, but we took pictures anyway and after asking permission in the church who was running the pumpkin patch we got two small pumpkins and left the money under a brick on the check out counter.  I made Jovi's skirt using the very last of one of my favorite fabrics, some very cute orange corduroy with black polkadot fabric.  I used this pattern, one of my go to patterns for cute skirts.





On Monday we got bigger pumpkins and carved them.  The kids helped take out the pumpkin "guts" and got to choose the type of face they wanted on their pumpkins.  I wielded the knife.  That night we set them on our walkway and put candles in them.  The kids loved it.



The rest of the week I frantically sewed together costumes for the kids.  I'm kind of proud about how they turned out since I didn't use a pattern for either of them.  Jovi wanted to be an Egyptian since we have been reading a lot about them in our history book.  I thought it was a great idea and looked up some info on this very helpful site.  Using some cheap linen look fabric from Joann and metallic fabric paint for the collar I feel I made a pretty cute costume.  Jovi's favorite part was the wig.  Corbin wanted to be a bug until his oh so helpful sister said, don't you want to be someone from Star Wars?  Corbin LOVES Star Wars, so of course he wanted to be Luke with the all important blue light saber.  Honestly, his costume took less time than Jovi's.  I used a kid's Chinese robe that we had as my pattern (by the way, those robes are made of all rectangles, super easy) for Luke's shirt, made a little belt and added some tan pants and boots and we had a Luke costume.  Corbin loved it.  On Friday we went to our church Trunk or Treat.  The kids had fun until Corbin saw someone dressed in a scary costume and he freaked out.  He seriously acted like one of his worst nightmares came to life.  He hung out with me and helped pass out candy after that, but we did end up leaving a little earlier than planned.  Jovi had a great time with her friends and got a lot of candy.







Happy Halloween!!!!