The Little things

T Jay tied his own shoes for the first time! He is still working on this, but he did it and was so proud!
My little ham bone is obsessed with his morning Diego! He would be such a couch potato if I would let him.
T Jay did it so I will, too! This is right before she spilled raw egg down the front of her while trying to "help" Daddy make french toast. They still managed to get to school on time somehow.

16 Weeks

I figure since this is my last pregnancy that I would try and document it a little. This is a 16 week belly. Well at least a 16 week and I've had three kids already belly. I have my "what are we having" ultra sound on next Thursday. Any guesses? I don't have any- well, I've got two, but it doesn't help me any!

Matthew took the picture of me above! What a little Cutie, huh?! I just sat him on the bar and said, "Take Mommy's picture." Let's hope he keeps listening so well when he's bigger!

Birthday Party

T Jay and Summer took charge of decorating Matthew's cake. I did the chocolate part and the Diego faces, then they went to town with the sparkle gel frosting! They had a blast and Matthew loved it!
See, loved it!
I'm not sure what they are doing in this picture, aside from just plain being silly. Summer and I (but mostly Summer- she's obsessed with coloring) colored these Diego pictures and hung them on the walls. Matthew liked this as well. He went around the room and told us what each picture was.
Matthew in his new Diego jammies playing with his new Diego toys. Can you tell he likes Diego? He had a great birthday. I sang Happy Birthday to him a lot through out the day. He would sit there and listen and grin and then when I was done, he would blow as if to blow out the candle. By the way, he blew out his own candle without any help! Now I just wonder what he wished for.

All About Matthew!

Two years ago (Oct. 3), my little monkey Matthew came screaming into the world. When I say screaming, I'm referring to speed! He arrived after 2 hours of labor and 14 minutes at the hospital! He has been a ball of energy and excitement since! I am so thankful this little angel joined us! This post is filled with pictures celebrating what a special (& mischievous) little man he is. I had a ton of fun looking at the past two years of Matthew and it was hard "narrowing" it down to the 50 billion pictures I included in this post!! Enjoy!
T Jay and Summer meeting Matthew for the first time. Their biggest concern, his umbilical cord!

Grandma and grand baby # 10 (I believe)! Now she has 12 and two more coming!!
Grammy and Grand baby # 6! (Now she has 10 and one more coming!)
His birth announcement picture.
Story time is getting more crowded.
First Halloween!

T Jay showing Matthew the ropes of boyhood. Little did we know that he would need no encouragement in all things adventure!
My three little duckies all in a row! T Jay and Summer taking over Matthew's crib.
Me and my baby.
No such thing as personal space for Matthew!
Characteristic smile from our happy guy.

Adrenaline junkie getting an early start. It has just gotten worse. Matthew's 1st Birthday!
Just a hint...
Typical camera ham.
My sweet baby boy ready to be two!

A piece of our life...

Jess and I went on a date last night! It was awesome! After all these years he is still the hottest guy on the planet. We haven't gone out, just the two of us since June! Sad I know, but we usually do family dates. We've even decided that we are going to go out at least once a month from now on. I can't wait!! We went to Benihana for dinner. It was really good, and pretty fun to watch the chef slice and dice food right before us. I didn't get to see much of the chef actually since I couldn't take my eyes off of my incredible hunk of a man. I was half expecting a piece of rice or something to hit me in the eye, but I made it through with out incident! We hit Cold Stone afterwards and I got the largest size to stash away for the week. Mmmm, I love mint, brownie and hot fudge! But of course not nearly as much as I love my super studly hunkalicious guy.

While we were driving, we started talking about a book on CD that compared Dunkin Dounuts to Krispy Kreme donuts. This led to me talking about how my Dad used to make donuts for us when we were kids. He had this big bowl full of frosting and would put the doughnuts on a stick and pour the glaze over them and then we would watch as the excess glaze dripped back into the bowl. It seemed like forever before they would dry enough that we could dive into the yummy goodness. To this day I prefer warm doughnuts. But what I really prefer is my crazily cute husband's kisses. You can bet I am always tempted by the "hot" sign that Krispy Kreme posts through out the day! I'm not sure who all reads this so I will refrain from making the connection to the "hot" sign sentence. That would have been way too easy.

My point in telling you this is that it led us to talk about what our kids were going to remember about their childhood. We decided that it probably wasn't going to be the trip to Disney World, although fun and memorable, it would be the little things that defined their silly childhood. And their memories of the hottest mom on the planet who couldn't get enough of the coolest dad ever. Since I use this blog as somewhat of a family journal, I wanted to write about some of the things that our kids love right now.
First, welcome to our breakfast table. Each morning as the children are doled out their morning gummy vitamines, they chant, "Do the silly! Do the Silly!" The silly is where Jess leads them on a dialogue. Here is how it goes:
Jess speaking for vitamin bear: "Oh, I think I'll go into this nice cave over here."
Cue kids to put the vitamin in their mouths.
Gummy vitamin bear: "wow my back itches, maybe these back scratchers will scratch my back."
Cue kids to start chewing.
Vitamin: "Oh, my back feels much better. Oh look a slide. That looks fun! Weeee!"
Cue Swallowing.
Vitamin: "Man, I hope it doesn't rain on me. Oh look clouds, no wait ahhh, eggs!!"
And that would be something that T Jay insists on every day. It gets hard to squeeze in on the mornings that we are running late, but there are abbreviated versions. See, I married a clown, but the kids love it. At least he is a super sexy clown.

*Note from Jess - Kelli typed this up and asked me to proofread it. I noticed that she left out a few of her thoughts that I'm sure she would have wanted to share with you, so I just added them for her. We'll see how long it takes her to notice!!

A Minute to dwell

I was thinking about my kids this morning. I am so lucky to get to spend my time shaping these little people. It's a HUGE job, but they just make me so darn happy! A little cheesy I know, but every time I see Matthew hopping his way somewhere or watch Summer meticulously draw something and when T Jay tells me about something he tried that was new it makes me beam. I'm so thankful that God trusted me to take care of them. Sometimes I can't hug and kiss them enough!
After T Jay got out of school, we played at the nearby park. I overheard T Jay ask some other boys, who were a little older, if he could play with them. They declined his offer, telling him that they weren't playing anything. I was so proud of him for doing that because he can be very timid and shy, especially with new people. As we were walking home, he was telling me about this encounter and I was telling him that I was so proud of him for making the effort and that kids don't always play with each other and that it was okay- that maybe next time he could play with them. He turned to me and said, "Did that make you feel good inside when you heard me say that?" Cue melting heart. This is a question that I had just asked him because his teacher displayed some of his work. It is so amazing to watch them as they learn and grow. I can't imagine any other way to spend my time. I feel sorry for Jess sometimes because, being the lucky family bread winner, he misses out on a lot of the cute things that they do and say. I console myself by telling him as much as I can remember and with the knowledge that he is also missing a good portion of the dirty diapers, ref-ing and maintenance that also goes on around here! Their cuteness is like little random Mom gifts!
I like to really focus on these thoughts because it helps me remember why we have so many children and how much I really enjoy "showing them the ropes" in life when I am not quite so pleased with their choices. (I know, wait until I'm not pleased with the choices of their older selves- argh!) I feel bad when I forget how great they are, so I just wanted to dwell on it for a bit...

Summer Dancerella

Summer Dancerella from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.
Here are two videos of Summer practicing ballet along with her Bella Dancerella DVD. We haven't gotten around to enrolling her in dance classes here yet, partially because she used to spend the bulk of her dance class time examining herself in her cute little leotard in the very large mirrors! Matthew was having a great time doing "ballet", too!


Untitled from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.