happy new year!

this was a giant year for us - we added milo to our family, and penny started kindergarten!  we have a grade schooler and a baby!  milo is doing his very best to crawl, and he loves to eat food (peas are his current favorite), sit up, and look at penny.  penny is reading, writing and drawing all the time.  she loves to take care of milo, and they are quite a team.  penny's resolution for this year is to get better at the monkey bars.  alex has resolved to not use his phone at all tomorrow, and i am going to try to remember to water the plants.  milo is going to work on crawling, talking, and sleeping through the night in 2015.  those of us who were around last year did a pretty good job of keeping the apartment straighter and cleaning up after ourselves.  hopefully it's enough of a habit now that we won't have to make it a resolution again in 2016.
while this year came with challenges, it had lots of amazingly good moments, too.  i am grateful to have such amazing friends and family surrounding us, and am looking excitedly forward to this new year!

from our super family to yours, happy 2015!

Five months of Milo!

We realize it's Penny's birthday and all....

but someone is trying to hog the spotlight.

five years old!

Dear Penny:

If I showed you this blog entry, you could probably read it by yourself.  You might have a bit of trouble with the word "blog", since that's not something you've heard of before, but I have every confidence that you could even work out the word confidence.
Speaking of, you are such a self assured, funny, caring, wonderful person.  If you weren't my daughter, I would still totally want to hang out with you.  You have an indomitable spirit, fashion sense, and are a fearless crusader for fairness and logic amongst your friends.  I know that you get frustrated with us because you can't have your way all the time.  I know that your will is strong and that you want what you want when you want it.  I am so proud that you are learning to control your frustration and calmly discuss options when the answer is "no".  I am so impressed by your quick wit, by your huge heart and by your awesome dance moves.
I cannot believe that you've been keeping me company for five years.  Five winters.  Five birthday parties.  Five "check ons" each night.  You're my girlfriend.  I love you more than I can say, and I am so proud to be your mom.  Bring it, five.

my heart is full

this morning, milo was playing on his tummy while i got dressed and made lunches.  penny came into the bedroom to grab a pacifier for him because he was getting fussy.  a few minutes later, she came to find me in the kitchen to say - "mommy, please come feed milo, he must be hungry.  i tried giving him his pacifier, i checked his diaper and it's not wet, and i gave him lots of pats and snuggles so he wouldn't be lonely, but he's still crying.  the only thing left is being hungry."  this child.  it's her last day of being four, and she is taking the most amazing care of her brother.  i hope she knows how much i appreciate her - i try to tell her all the time, but it's never enough.

Ready for business

Little does he know there are carrots waiting for him at home.