THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

We have been watching a lot of family movies lately and reminiscing about the kids being young. The kids have taken the liberty of put the DVD's back in the cases and replacing them with a new one. When Sofia was born, we recorded her birth.... THE WHOLE THING! we did not know the sex, so it was all very exciting. this video was quite an eye opening experience, especially for Nico. as i walked in the room and saw what they were watching, it was too late to stop it. i sat back and waited for their reaction, not knowing what to expect.... Jakob was amazed, but Nico was DEVASTATED! he was staring in disbelief.... as soon as Sofia was born, he started balling and collapsed in my arms. i took him down to Rob and we talked him through it a little. the poor guy thought babies just happened to come out of the tummy once it was too big. his closing statement was, I AM REALLY GLAD I'M NOT A GIRL!

CHANGES

                     first family picture

after Sofia was born i felt like we were definitely done. she was the perfect baby; hardly cried or fussed, easy going, sweet..... perfect. nine months after her birth i found out that i was pregnant with Oliver. my whole world was about to change. i knew i could handle my four, i was happy, still somewhat patient and under control, but what was FIVE going to do to me? UGH!! i was in a panic. 

it has definitely been more challenging having five. my patience has been tested a lot more. Oliver was not the perfect baby. he cried ALL THE TIME, i was sleep deprived and could feel myself slowly losing my mind. i can now tell you after two and a half years of having five children i have survived. i am even beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and i am grateful that i had my number 5. he is such a sweet little guy! now that we are finished having babies, which now makes me a little sad, i am beginning to see lots of changes in our house. Nico is almost 10 and in need of some privacy. he just got moved to his own bedroom where he can get some peace and quiet. i took the crib down for the final time. (it survived 10 years of abuse!) Ollie is now in a big boy bed!!! i have successfully potty trained all five children. NO MORE DIAPERS!! i can not even tell you what a relief that is!! i thought the day would never come. 

while all of these changes are happening, i am coming to realize how blessed i am. my family is complete and it feels good. next year 4 out of 5 of my children will be in school. i am playing tennis again. i am starting to make plans to get my degree in sign language interpreting. it feels good to be me right now!

              our most recent family picture

OUR LITTLE SWEETIE

four years ago today a little bundle of joy was born to our family. With the pregnancy of Sofia, we did not find out her gender. needless to say the anticipation of her birth was very high. i so wanted a sister for annelies and rob was hoping for a boy. rob's mind was changed instantly the second he saw her. she was beautiful, tiny, and elegant. She was born almost the minute that my grandmother passed away. i am convinced that their souls met somewhere in between, because sofia reminds me so much of my g'ma cook. she is spunky, small, full of personality, hilarious, unpredictable, and full of energy. i love this girl. she brings so much laughter and brightness to our family. i am constantly laughing at something she says, even if it does require her mouth being washed out with soap! sofia loves her brothers and sisters and LOVES her friends. she is such a sweet little girl and is always trying to make everyone happy.

for her fourth birthday she wanted to have a birthday party at her favorite restaurant ~ Chick-fil-A. so lucky for me, they have parties and all i had to do was buy the lunches. Chick-fil-A did everything else from balloons and decorations and FOOD and ice cream. it was perfect for her and the kids had a great time. too bad it was raining, so the kids couldn't play outside on the playground. 

on sunday we had all of the local family over. Nanny, Poppy, Aunt Rissa, Uncle Scott, Beckham, Uncle Ben, Grammy and Wyndell all came to celebrate with us. Sofia got so many great presents including a bike, helmet, princess ball, ballet clothes, garden set, book bag, barbies, tinker bell movie, coloring books, lotions and lip glosses, a hoolahoop (that nico has mastered), and our first family webkin! 

*************HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET SOFIA!!!***************

OTHER NEWS

A friend of ours has a wild and crazy son named Zack who my kids think is hilarious. he is almost two and has a TON of energy. he LOVES fish and all things aquatic, so his mom invited me, Sofia and Oliver to the GA aquarium. we have never gone as a family, so i thought this would be perfect to take the little ones to. Luckily my friend had a guest pass so i didn't have to pay a thing! it was so much fun. the aquarium is beautiful and we even got to watch one of the divers clean the tank and feed the fish. 

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

so now that i have shown you all how my hair looks, i will move on to more important things....... like what my kids have been up to. hey~ sometimes us moms need a little attention too! so we had a couple of surprises in the past few weeks. first of all Nico and Rob were playing football IN THE HOUSE which is never a good idea! Nico dove for the ball and caught his KNEE in the eye. needless to say it was black and he was mad! i got his spirits up by taking he and Annelies to their school president's day dance. we had a blast until sofia got caught in the 'mosh pit' of 3rd graders and got trampled. she came home with a free gift from the D.J.! that cheered her up a bit. 

We got a wonderful visit from some friends of mine (Maureen and Brett) from Michigan. it was so great to see them and Nico had a blast with their 11 year old son.

 

Annelies, Sofia and I had a fun time getting mad makeovers. annelies and sofia glammed me up with beautiful purple eyeshadow and some RED lips. Annelies had amazing blue eyeshadow and some awesome, groovy nail polish. sofia went oh~ natural with little make-up and multi-colored nail polish. we had so much fun.

the best thing of all was our snow day! the snow came down hard while we were at church on sunday and the kids had a blast playing in the slush when we got home. they were all SO excited when school was cancelled on Monday. we had a yummy breakfast and snuggled up and watched movies most of the day. it was nice to have a long weekend to just relax and not be able to go anywhere. 

it has been an eventful few weeks and a lot has happened. i am so happy to report that Nico is doing SO good at school. he has really had a hard time this year and we made a few adjustments and thankfully he is doing AMAZING! 

BETTER PICS OF THE NEW DO

i realized shortly after my post that my new do did not say at all that it was the beautiful new hair cut that i wanted it to be. i am posting new pictures to show you how i style my hair and show you how it REALLY looks. hope this says more about my taste in hair style!!

NEW DO

                                             (this is not the best pic, i have been sick and i 

                                              do not have make-up on! be nice.)

i know my looks do not compare to this american idol contestant, but as soon as i saw her hair i fell in love with it! i am hoping that i can pull it off like she can....i have been so bored with my hair and my appearance lately that i finally found the hair cut i wanted and i called my friend to come cut it. i think i like it, but i can't wait until it grows out long to the haircut that i really want. for now it will do and it is definitely something different. what do you think about my new do?