Meeska-Mooska Birthday Party

Between my mom, my dad, and I, we took almost 400 pictures of this birthday party!!! Totally ridiculous, I know!!! I will not subject you to all of that but here are the highlights from Saturday....

Here they are wearing their mouse gear (can you tell Jillian dressed herself??) and ready to go!!!


My mom completely outdid herself this weekend by not doing one but two cakes!!! Perfection as always!!!

A good gymnast always warms up!!!

Jillian working hard at the crab walk....

Ryan and Rocco warmed up slowly. They weren't exactly interested at first....

Who wants a ride on a "space ship"????

Seriously, who does not love a parachute???

Sometimes, they are so darn cute together.....

Then they pulled out the jump run and Rocco went nuts!!!

This is "nap time."

Catching bubbles with their feet!!!

Now let's eat!!!!

He was more thrilled with the juice (I do not let mine have juice so this is a real treat for him.)

Miss strawberry freak...
We had such a nice time. 14 little mickey and minnies with no fighting or crying! BUT I can honestly say, "Hallelujah! It's over! and I do not have to worry with birthdays for another year!!"

Surrounded by Kindness

When we moved back from Lubbock in Summer '02, we joined the "young couples" group at our church. Well 9 years later, we have evolved to the "young families" group. Every month, the girls from my church group try to get together for dinner. I love these ladies and treasure these evenings when I get a kid-free night to enjoy some girl talk and good food. This month was no different than any other and we had a great time!!!!

What I didn't know was that my sweet girlfriends went behind my back and organized a diaper shower for B3. So after we ate dinner, the girls pulled out gift after gift filled with diapers and wipes and other necessities. I am sooooooooo lucky to have a group of friends like this.

Look at all the loot.....

This morning was COLD!!!!!!! Both kids wanted to ride their new stuff before school (don't I have plenty of time before school drop-off for that??)

Here's Jillian on her new bike....

Here's Roc on his new truck....

Then Jillian got upset that I took a picture of Rocco in his hat and not her sooooooo

here is Jillian in her hat.....

C'mon Thursday and Friday!!!!! I am ready to end this week!!

Friday is a half-day and Monday is a holiday!! I am ready for that!!!

Cousins Galore

On Saturday night, we invited our families over to celebrate Jillian's and Rocco's birthdays. Jillian has been talking about having her cousins over for WEEKS!!!!!! Alas, this is how she spent most of the night.

That's her in Aunt Kelly's lap suffering from a fever. I gave her M0trin and she pepped up a little later.

Here is everybody wearing their Mickey M0use ears. We had 10 cousins show up. Isn't that fun?? (Since my mom is 1 of 6 children, my dad 1 of 4, I have a HUGE extended family. Since Bryan is 1 of 4, he has a HUGE immediate family. What does that mean for our children?? About 100 cousins!!!!! j/k there are not 100 but close to that ;-)

Rocco LOVED playing with his boy cousins. They played in the sand and water table and drove lots of trucks!!

My mom rocked it on the cake!!! She really did a spendid job on the cake (as usual)!!!! It looked better before Mel-Mel the dog got a hold of Mickey's mouth but I thought Mom did a good job repairing it. Maybe a career in plastic surgery??

Jillian had several costume changes over the night. This is her princess look with her cousin Allison.

Then she changed to Disco girl and posed with the Mueller children!!!

Even though Jillian suffered with the fever for most of the evening, she told me as we were putting her to bed, "Mommy, this was the best day!"

Awesome!!!!

She has officially made it to 4!!!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Jillian!!!!! I CANNOT believe she is 4!!!! It does not seem possible that 4 years have gone by!!! I need time to stand still!!

On this birthday morning, she wanted pancakes!!! Here they are "helping me make pancakes."

AKA eating the batter!!!

I wanted a pretty smile and this is what I got....

Close enough....

She got to open ONE present this morning....

Can you guess which new leotard she is going to wear to the Little Gym today???

That wasn't tough, was it??? Pink is her favorite color. (Oh yea, this is her silly face.)

At 4 years old, Jillian is a spitfire. She is as smart as a whip, acts like me, talks like me, bosses like me and calls herself the "little mommy." Yet, as much as she sounds like me, she has a lot of Bryan too. She is very athletic and as we saw at the Great Wolf, she has Bryan's competitive edge and no-fear attitude.

She is still a very good eater. She loves fruit (especially apples and strawberries) and vegtables (corn and green beans are the favs) and will eat a variety of meat. Poppy has brain-washed both of my kids and her favorite snack is CheezeIts!

She is still a champion napper (really, she is better than Rocco) however, for the past several months, she has been a mess at night time. Lots of tantrums and tears BUT we may have turned a corner in the last couple of days. Bryan has convinced Jillian the 4 year olds sleep ALL night in their beds and for the past two nights, she has done it without any tears or tantrums. Will it last????

She loves anything to do with Bible stories. We have several Veggie Tales movies and she watches them obsessively. We also have several CDs that we listen to in the car and currently she is OBSESSED with a CD on the story of Daniel and the Lions. The entire 45 minute CD has songs and stories telling about Daniel. She thinks it is awesome.

Her favorite thing to do with Mommy is watch episodes of Glee. Mommy has to tape Glee and only lets Jillian watch the singing and dancing parts so this is a lot of work for Mommy. BUT watching JP sing her favorite song - the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is the HIGHLIGHT of my day!!!! She sings the song using her Dolly Parton accent and it is awesome!!!!

Although she talks a big game, I am not sure how B3's arrival will affect her. My girl likes the spotlight on her, you know what I'm saying. But she is very excited to wear clothes that the baby is going to wear too. It's all about the clothes people!!!

I am so blessed to have her!! I enjoy watching her grow every moment. The next year should be very exciting.

A Lesson Well Learned

Last week, our family took a mini-vacay to the town of Grapevine, TX. In Grapevine, you can find a really cool place called.......my friend Jamie K. told me about it and it sounded like the perfect resort for our family. Basically it has a water park inside the resort. My two have their bathing suits on....ready to go.....



Let me tell you....putting on your bathing suits in the middle of December (and 8 months preggo) is realllllllllly weird!!!!! This picture is realllllllllly weird b/c yes, that is snow in the picture with us in our bathing suits. The lodge has several fake snow machines and we were standing right in the middle which is why I am also wearing a sweater!!! Can I stress the weirdness???

But it is fun at the same time!!!! Here we go!!!!!

My family loved the lazy river!!!! You get very wet!!!


Rocco loved pulling the rope and turning over the buckets and trying to "get" people. Daddy was so sweet and let Rocco "get" him. He thought it was hilarious!!!


Finally, the person who loved the water park the MOST was Miss Jillian. That girl may look like me but she was her daddy's adventurous and dare-devil personality!!! She went on rides and slides that made my heart weak and she did it all by herself. She is a wild one!!! Even though Poppy was NOT feeling good on our trip, she used her powers of persuasion to convince him to go down the slides with her.


My friend Shanna lives about 5 minutes from this resort and brought Payton over to meet us!!! Payton was an instant hit with Jillian and Rocco.



Rocco would not sit by his Mommy!!!!! He only wanted to sit next to Payton!!! That boy is trouble, I tell you!!!



The lodge also had a super fun Harry Potter -type quest!!! Jillian was AWESOME!!! She conquered two of the easy level games with very little help from us adults!!!! Of course, she had to have the pink magic wand!!


Of course, R had to have the blue one.

They found magic crystals!!!

They found magic treasure chests!!!!

They worked up quite an appetite so we had to stop for ice cream and GO BACK TO THE WATERPARK!!!! Couldn't get enough of the waterpark!!!!

Finally every night, the Lodge has story time. All the kids come down in the pajamas and listen to a singing show with animals and then listen to a story. So cute!!! They listened to a story about "Rowdy the reindeer" and then as if by magic, Rowdy showed up!! Both were very enchanted with Rowdy.

We had a GREAT time and I would recommend this to anyone with kids!!! The most kid-friendly hotel/resort I have ever been to. BUT I will have to say. Do ya'll remember my original dream?? YOu know, the Disney one??? The trip we should have been on??? The trip that I have been dreaming of since having Jillian????

This trip was a great in-my-face illustration that my family is NOT ready for Disney!!!! The kids are too little. I am still pregnant. We all still nap. There are a lot of reasons that this trip was just perfect for us. So I am willingly putting on my patience pants......I have learned a valuable lesson........ and we will be ready for Disney several years from now!!!!!