This is going to be a quick update because JoJo is almost 1 and I will hopefully have time to do a big post about her birthday celebrations!
Right now Jocelyn is just as cute as ever and definitely growing like a weed. She is still in love with her lil' munchies, but has expanded her love of food in a lot of different ways this month. She has tried just about every vegetable pureed and we are starting her in on food in small pieces now. We still have to watch her pretty closely though because she gets overly excited and will choke sometimes. Her favorite toy is her Leap Frog standing table and she will stand next to it and punch all the buttons and then dance as soon as the music comes on! She loves to laugh and smile and throw her hands out and turn from side to side as she "dances" to music. Jocelyn still has her classic nose scrunch when she smiles and I absolutely adore it. Jocelyn's current dislikes are riding in the car and being mauled by her older siblings.
Her brother and sister took a short trip to Lake Tahoe with Grandma, Elaine, and Auntie Brooke. While they were gone, we decided it was the perfect time to sleep train her and move her into the kids' room. It has been like a dream! Right now, she is sleeping the whole night through (which stopped happening when I went back to work full time!!!), most of the nights. If she does wake up, it is only once and I can live with that.
JoJo is crawling as quickly as ever, and because of this it is much more efficient than walking. Although, she is still working on that too! We will see how long it takes her to decide that walking is worth her time and effort.
JoJo the Pirate practices walking on Halloween
Well Hello Kitty
Completely worn out from an unexciting trip to IKEA
But now happy again because she is in Daddy's arms
We decided to try IKEA's food area on a whim
Don't let these faces fool you - they hated everything they ordered!
Happy 11 months JoJo! It has flown by and we can't image our family without you!
Life with three kids is pretty intense, I am not gonna lie. There is no time for basically anything other than just the absolute bare minimum. We are constantly tired, but I would by lying if I said that every day is not full of tons of fun and lots of laughter! Having three kids is like having my own little circus. There are acrobatics and jokes and death defying acts on the daily. lol
But let's get to the good stuff. Jocelyn is 10 months and growing like crazy. She is SUPER heavy and enjoying all the baby food a girl can eat. Her absolute favorites are the Garden Tomato flavor of these wanna be cheetos by Gerber. Girlfriend would eat the whole can if I let her. She is still crawling like crazy and balancing as she stands up. She was very sick for about 10 days, and during that period she re-discovered her love of being held and carried everywhere. BOOOOOOO I think that has actually been a huge setback in her progress of walking and we are working on helping her be more independent again now that she is feeling better.
Christian is doing exceptionally well in kindergarten. He has tons of fun, and every time I ask him what he did at school that day, he tells me what he ate ;) CJ has a big heart, but he has also discovered his spunk and terrorizes his sisters regularly. My favorite Christian story as of late happened one night when we were getting the kids ready for bed. Christian was practicing writing his name on a magnadoodle. Then he started to draw pictures. All of a sudden, he comes in with a picture for Jocelyn. He had drawn a picture of a giraffe, a baby and a big heart. He said, "Look Mom, I drew this for JoJo! I made myself the big giraffe, and her as the baby, and a big heart. Since she can't read, I wanted her to see in pictures that I love her." *insert mom's heart melting*
Leila. Oh man, Leila. I don't even know how to describe this girl other than LOUD and FUN and FRUSTRATING and TENACIOUS. I definitely have a love-hate relationship with her, and always have. She does not accept me as an authority figure which leads to lots of clashes, but she is cute and hilarious which offsets a lot of the frustration. Her speech is still pretty delayed, but it is constantly improving. You can now regularly understand what she is saying about 50-75% of the time. It has led to remarkable improvements in her happiness. Leila cracks me up because she is so sweet and doe-eyed, and in the next second she is a complete instigator. Needless to say, she keeps us all on our toes. My favorite Leila story is actually three separate funny happenings- because she is just too dynamic. Lately she has started turning everyday items into wands and then instead of casting spells, she will just spin and flick her wand yelling, "Magic! Magic!" lol! The next is her new favorite word which is "Dross" translated from gross. "Ew Mommy! Dat smells dross!" or "Ew Mommy! Black tar (Car) smells dross!". Basically anything we cook smells dross too. Punk! The last shows how much she is learning. We are practicing counting and her ABC's. The other day she was singing, "ABCDE. ABCDE. 8, 9, 10 NOPWXYZ". Hilarious and cute and yet I am SO PROUD of how hard she works to learn, even though she is coming from behind. This girl is a rock star.
And now for the pictures!
Bath Night!
Blowing Raspberries
They have fallen for each other. Hard!
Look at that stinker.
On the top is Leila at about 14 months, and on the bottom, JoJo at 10 months in the same dress.
Leila is turning into SUCH a big girl. Her hands on her hips is a recurring theme these days...
JoJo and Aby!
As long as you have a phone to share, JoJo will be your friend!
This was taken in the midst of Jocelyn's 10 days sickness. Daddy took such good care of her.
A rare moment of sharing
Melt my heart. Leila snuggling with Grandpa as he reads her a book.
And last, but not least, JoJo saying "Dada" for the first time.
I am so grateful for this chance to be a mom. They keep me on my toes and teach me so much, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. <3 br="">
Wow. I am sort of in shock to the fact that JoJo is 9 months as of yesterday. How did this happen? One minute she was my sweet newborn and infant - now she is a full time baby and I don't know how I feel about it!
Jocelyn is..feisty. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. With someone as determined as her, having a content and happy baby was kind of a pipe dream. I guess I should say that she is a super happy and content baby as long as she is allowed to do whatever she wants, reach and touch everything she desires, and wants to do something her physicality doesn't limit. The rest of the time though? Girlfriend screams in frustration. Not my favorite. Once her body and skills catch up to what she wants to do, I am hoping she will be a lot happier. But let's get to the fun stuff!
Jocelyn is smart, cute and funny. She is getting faaaaast with crawling. She is quick with her hands and loves to bounce and jump. She is already pulling herself up and trying to balance - you should see her face when she stands (holding onto something) and balances - she is so dang proud of herself. I am not ready to have her walk though! So I push her over whenever she does that ;) Okay, not really, but I consider it every time. lol
Her favorites are the meltable yogurt bites, rice crackers, sweet potato and applesauce and any time of snack. She will tolerate most other fruits and veggies, but sometimes she will only take a few bites and then gives me this look of,"Nope, not gonna happen.". She is not nursing as much as she was, and does this really awful thing of latching on, and then pushing her arm against my body to distance herself as much as possible. I guess she doesn't understand I don't stretch like a rubber band. Also, not my favorite! JoJo loves CJ and Leila - well mostly CJ, Leila is kind of rough on her still. Christian can pick her up now, and so they have been having a lot of fun with that.
Since going back to work, I don't get to spend as much time with her, so the bond between she and Jared has really grown, which is SUPER sweet to see. All the pictures I have of her are basically at dinner time because that's when I get to see her, so enjoy some cute candid eating shots!!
She is getting more and more mobile - which includes sitting on Christian's face
This picture is from daycare - she seems to really be enjoying all the kids and new toys she gets to play with twice a week.
Okay, these next pictures just absolutely melt my heart. There is just something about a little girl with pigtails. I am in love with her bright eyes and crooked smile.
Happy 9 months JoJo! You are the perfect addition of sweet and sassy to our family. God knew you would need to be tough, sturdy, and full of fire to make it in this circus. Love you!
Happy 8 Months to Jocelyn! This month has brought a lot of growth and changes for JoJo, and for our entire family. We went to the beach and the CA State Fair, JoJo got another echo and started to crawl, and I got a full time job!
Let's begin with the JoJo. Her nickname is The Destroyer, and there is good reason. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING within her reach is completely decimated within seconds. She is fast and strong and ooooweeee is she determined. When she sees something she wants...I now fully understand the expression, "A Gleam in her Eye". I can see her face actually change, and her eyes light up as she sets her focus on her prey. It is so cool, and slightly terrifying! I have had toddlers before and this does NOT bode well for us! lol
She is growing up quickly and currently growing out of size 12 month clothes. She has 6 teeth broken through, and as I said, started to crawl! She is my earliest crawler yet..and I am not surprised at all. It is partly her personality, and partly being the third child I am sure! She wants to catch up with her siblings!
Her current favorites are sweet potatoes, rice cereal with mama's milk, sweet and carrot puffs, and she is still nursing quite a bit. Since I went back to work this month, it has definitely been an adjustment, for all of us! It has actually only been the last week or so that she was willing to give any solids a good effort, and she is refusing to use a bottle, so we are working on eliminating her mid-day feeding.
Her current dislikes are being alone, watching Mommy or Daddy cook, not being held, and bottles. In other words, she is a spoiled little brat and doesn't seem to understand that she is the third child and can't make those types of demands ;)
Seriously though, she is cute and fun, and being away from her and the other kids all day is awesome and awful at the same time. Something only a full time SAHM turned full time employee can understand, I think.
And now, here are the highlights through pictures!
We took a much needed family day and headed to the beach!
Daddy is such a trooper to ride the wanna-be Dumbo ride at the fair
CJ was big enough to ride by himself! How did this happen??
My big girl
There is absolutely nothing better than watching this girl eat carrots. lol
Getting JoJo to sit still for an echo took just about all of my effort - I was hot and sweaty by the end!
This spinning light kept her distracted for part of, what turned out to be, a very long process.
For the 4th of July this year, we tried something new. Raley's Field with a bunch of strangers and our friends the Collette's. It was a lot of fun!
And now, her big crawling debut! She is definitely wiggly and working on her speed every day, but I am just gaga over this little monkey. One of my favorite parts is that you can hear Leila being a little brat in the background - it is a true glimpse into our daily life!
Happy 7 months to JoJo! She is getting strong and fast. She can roll from belly to back, and pull herself to a standing position. She loves to do this and then start jumping like crazy. Her core has gotten stronger also, and she spends a lot of her time straining to sit up if she falls over while sitting. She had a little accident about two weeks ago where she was sitting and fell forward onto her face. Her bottom teeth (which are as sharp as knives! Just ask my fingers!) cut right through the top gums and she was bleeding a TON. This "helped" get her two top teeth to break through. The drooling has finally lessened a bit, and she is MUCH happier.
I am still trying to get her excited about solid foods, but it just isn't happening. She tolerates a few bites of rice cereal or pureed veggies, but I usually can't get more than four or five bites in there before she clamps her mouth closed and refuses to continue! I got so spoiled with CJ. He LOVED to eat (still does!), and took one bite of rice cereal and never looked back. *sigh*
Jocelyn is also suffering from separation anxiety, which has not been my favorite. Since I worked full time with the other two, they never really had the luxury of separation anxiety - it was just part of life! Now we are navigating the intense screaming and crying whenever I leave her...or even walk out of the room! No thank you Miss JoJo!
The best thing that has come out of this past month is her newest nickname. Just like Leila she has impeccable aim. Whatever she comes within reach of, immediately finds its way into her hands. I can be lifting her into her bath and she will reach out with one finger and manage to knock over all the soaps and create a chain reaction of chaos. Lifting her up to carry her on my hip, and with one fell swoop my glasses are off my face and in her mouth. It's amazing really. The difference between her and Leila is that she is so strong and has such FORCE. We were sitting on the ground playing with the kids. Jocelyn was in my lap, and she reaches back, and with two fingers through the laundry basket holes, she pulls the entire thing over. A full laundry basket! She has been christened "The Destroyer". I have a feeling she is going to be my most destructive toddler yet! Yippee! lol
Nothing but smiles for mommy!
Trying carrots for the first time. She was not impressed
But I did manage to get a few smiles out of her!
Can we just talk about the difference a headband makes???
Jocelyn is strong and beautiful and oh so fun. She is working hard to crawl, and currently growing out of size 12 month clothes. She is bright and full of lots of smiles and I can't wait to see what this month brings!
Wow. I just cannot believe that my little Miss Cheekies is 3 years old! This is just crazy to me. It seems like just yesterday that she was acting like a crazy psycho who wouldn't eat anything, or do as I ask, and screamed, "No!" all the time...oh wait...that was yesterday. ;)
Her speech has made leaps and bounds, and even though she still struggles, I can see a more true sense of her personality peeking through now that she isn't as frustrated anymore. Hallelujah! The doctor is very happy with her progress and we will continue to work on her speech and nutrition (eating would be a happy experience in our house as long as it was always sweets or chips..or goldfish crackers!). She did say that Leila is the size of an average 4 1/2 year old. Oh, and when we were talking about her hearing/speech, the doctor said, "She is two parts strong willed and one part stubborn!" hahahahah *sob* hahahhaahha *sob*
Right now she loves My Little Pony, Lalaloopsie, dressing up as a princess, and basically anything Elaine likes. Her favorite thing to eat is pizza (or spaghetti), and anything with no nutritional value. Her best friend is her cousin Adalena. At the doctor she was put in the 76th percentile for weight and the 98th percentile for height.
Here are some of my favorite things:
-I asked her to pick up her toys one day and she turned to me with no hesitation and said, with hand in a proper salute, "Yes, sir!" and ran off to do it. I could NOT stop laughing and still have no idea where she picked it up!
-Whenever I ask her to do something, her answer is almost always no, and to run away. BUT when she does decide to listen she will look right at me and say, "Okay mommy, I DO IT!" with such enthusiasm and gusto that it makes me giggle and gives me a glimpse of the future.
-Whenever she is unhappy now, she will stick out her lips in a pout, hands on hips and stomp around. Such sass! There are pictures capturing this below.
My current favorite mispronunciations:
-"Dooning here?" - What are you doing here?
-"Chixsen" - Chicken
-"Daddy mankeen ot dogs" - Daddy Making hot dogs
-"Sungle you" - Snuggle you
-"Gokie Gokie" - Okie Dokie
-"Nah Nah - ahgimme" - Nah nah, you can't get me! She does this with her hands up and teasing every time she wants to be chased.
She and her Daddy are two peas in a pod.
Oh you know, just wearing goggles.
She loves this dress! And I love her in it!
Playing with Snapchat ended up giving me a glimpse of her as a teenager. Let's hope we get that tooth fixed though! lol
Be still my heart
Here is the pouting I was talking about!
Look at that furrowed brow!
If looks could kill! lol
Jared is her BFF and they are so cute together.
Here are some pictures of her dance class.
Cousin Elaine
What can I say about this girl? She is strong and
beautiful, sweet and charming, frustrating and determined, cuddly and a
force to be reckoned with. I have never done anything so hard as being
her mom, but holy crap am I lucky to have her.
