We have big news!!!

Luke is WALKING!!! Yes, that's right...finally at 14 months, 1 week and 2 days old, Luke has taken lots of consecutive steps today! He started out just doing a couple and then this evening I caught him walking back and forth in his crib--practicing! :) He's very proud of himself and wanted Jeremy and I to keep him going back and forth between the two of us indefinitely! We finally had to stop because I had to get dinner done. With both of the girls, once they started taking a couple of consecutive steps, they were walking quite proficiently by the end of the week. I'm pretty excited to have a little walker...

New Stuff....

Lukes newest word is "MORE". I said before that he started signing "more", but now he's actually saying it...unfortunately, I think he thinks "more" means "Cookie Crisp". Bad Mommy!

A Visit with Aunt Lynne....

My aunt Lynne came for a visit this past weekend. She is the wife of my moms brother who passed away about a year and a half ago from melanoma. She is from Florida (along with my 4 cousins, her three children) so I haven't spent a lot of time with them in my life. I was pleasantly surprised when not only my parents and aunt Lynne showed up on Saturday as scheduled, but also my brother, Erik and my niece, Brittany and her boyfriend, Nick arrived! How FUN! I'm a big one for entertaining, and thankfully I had plenty of food. We had a wonderful time...I made a feast and we had lots of good laughs. Sunday Lynne, my mom and I got up and met Erik in Vallejo and took the Ferry to San Francisco. I'm not normally a big fan of the city--I've lived in the Bay Area for over 6 years now and have only gone THROUGH the city on my way to the airport. So this was all new for me. We walked along Market Street...and since it was a Sunday, it was QUIET! It was nice. We got to see where Erik goes to school (Golden Gate University) and even got to use CLEAN bathrooms there! :) If you know San Francisco, that's a big deal! We basically just strolled aimlessly for quite a while, had a nice lunch at a sandwich shop, got some coffee at Peets and then walked to Pier 39 and took the Ferry back home. It was just such a nice time...especially since I got a nice break from responsibility and just got to relax. What a wonderful visit with my aunt and what a fabulous birthday gift for me!
Speaking of birthday gifts, I think I mentioned that Jeremy got me wii fit for my birthday. At first I was a tad bit disappointed...well, not so much disappointed, but it wasn't what I really WANTED, but I didn't really expect to get what I wanted anyway, so it's no biggie. I have to tell ya...I'm in LOVE with the wii fit. How in the world can a video game get you in shape, you ask?? I have no idea, but I'm SO incredibly SORE--in a good way. I've been boxing, doing step aerobics and hula hooping myself silly. Ever tried hula hooping for 6 minutes at a time?? Oh man...it's some serious WORK!! I'm feeling muscles I didn't know I had and I'm very pleased. Not to mention the fact that it's SO much fun and the kids get in on the action (especially Savannah...she LOVES it). It keeps track of how long you've exercised that day...and logs your weight and BMI and all that good stuff. Today I was hula hooping and Luke decided to attach himself to my leg while I was doing it...it kills me without a child attached to me, so you can imagine how difficult it was with him on me...not to mention trying to keep reasonable form while laughing because he was laughing at me. We have very limited space in our living room, but I'm able to do it even with the girls building a foam block city next to me and still have plenty of space. I've been doing it for 3 days now and although I haven't lost any weight, I feel a lot stronger...especially since I could do the plank for 30 seconds today...yesterday and the day before I couldn't make it more than 10, so I'm pretty excited about that. My balance is also improving and as of this moment, my wii fit age is 27!! YAY!! Not bad for an old 30 year old, eh?

Back to Aunt Lynne...our visit was great, it was such a pleasure having her here. She is a ton of fun and it was so nice getting to know her. One of these days soon, probably when Luke is around 3 or so, we're going to plan a trip to Florida...maybe then I'll actually get the chance to meet my long lost cousins! See Photos on Eriks Facebook album (let me know if this doesn't work, I'm not sure if he's public or not and I'm too lazy to upload them myself!)

I'm 30!

It's official, I'm no longer in my twenties! It's kinda weird, but I'm totally okay with it (maybe if I keep repeating that it'll sink in! Hahaha...kidding, totally kidding)!
So I woke up this morning around 7:30...that was beautiful. Jeremy was still home so he got to give me a birthday hug and kiss before work. I snuggled with Abby for a while. Savannah woke up at almost 9!! Of course last night she was telling me not to wake up because she was going to get up and make breakfast. Good thing I didn't wait on her! :) Savannah painted me a beautiful picture (a heart shape I cut out for her all prettied up by her) and Abby picked me 3 poppies and 2 daisies. So sweet. Jeremy took us out to dinner to the Cheesecake Factory and they gave me a little ice cream sundae and sang happy birthday to me. Hehehe...that was fun. Then we came home and made hot fudge sundaes--my choice over cake any day! Now the girls are bathing and getting ready for bed. Once everyone is in bed, I'm going to try to get Jeremy to watch The Jane Austen Book Club with me...if that doesn't work, I'll be more than happy to settle for the last 2 episodes from this season of LOST. All in all it was a WONDERFUL birthday. I'm happy to be 30...I'm looking forward to a new chapter of my life.
**Today when I told Abby and Savannah how proud of them I was that they were being so nice to eachother, Abby replied, "Well we don't want to spoil your birthday!" Awwwhhhh...if only my birthday could be every day!

Sad news alert: I just read that Steven Curtis Chapman has lost his youngest daughter. Here's an article. What a tragedy. Please keep all of this family in your prayers.

daddykissedme.com

Every night when we tuck the girls in bed, Jeremy gives them a kiss and then has them sign his hand to confirm that they received their kiss from daddy. They started out just "signing" their names...but then Abby started "writing"...daddy kissed me (as she sounds out each sound of each word) and then for good measure, she added .com to the end. We checked, the domain is available, but it just sounds kinda weird! :) Speaking of dot com, yesterday Savannah found a "jackpot" of snails, as she put it. I guess there was a huge colony of snails in the woods. I told her that if she wanted to keep some of them for observation, she'd have to draw a detailed picture of a snail, and learn some facts about snails. She was all excited, so she said, "Okay can you log on to the dot com?" Hahaha....she did end up drawing a wonderful picture and we learned some things about snails. Did you know that they have 2 sets of antennae and the long pair is where their eyes are and the shorter pair are their feelers?? They are also hermaphrodites, but they need the sperm of another snail to reproduce...and here's the weirdest thing I didn't know...they usually live for 5-10 years, sometimes as long as 15 years!! WOW...I had no idea!

Luke news: Luke now has 2 top teeth and two more coming in. YAY! They're so cute too...I'll try to get a picture of them soon. He's still not walking either. If he starts AFTER the 25th, he'll be my latest walker! He's consistently saying Mama now, Hi Kitty, Hi and he barks when he sees a dog. Luke also started SIGNING! I was totally surprised, but he's started using the sign for "More". We've taught it to him, but not consistently...but now he uses it when he wants more food. It's pretty cool! I guess I should bone up on my sign language so I can teach him more. He does blow kisses when you tell him to say Thank You, and that's basically the sign for Thank You, so I guess I can count that too.

2 more days until I'm 30--EEK!!
Well I'm off, I'm reading Passionate Housewives Desperate for God: Fresh Vision for the Hopeful Homemaker, so far it's a great book, I'd recommend it!

Some photos from Savannah's birthday party.

Here are just a couple...there will be more to come, but I figured I had better get these on here now as we're leaving for the weekend tomorrow and I won't have the time to get to this until later...so here we are: Princess Birthday Girl!

How our reward system is working....

Things are not perfect, but I have noticed I'm doing less yelling and less disciplining, which is always a good thing. The girls generally do what I ask after I warn them that they're going to lose a nickel. They're always excited to earn a gem, and they both earned something from the treasure box.

Our next mission: They always run around with no shoes on and it's been driving me nuts because they're always missing shoes. I'm tired of buying shoes because they lose the ones I've just bought. So here's the new deal. They lose a nickel if I catch them without shoes...and they pay me a nickel for every pair of shoes I see lying around somewhere they don't belong (usually at the playground). Today Savannah lost 4 nickels...but the rest of the day she had her shoes on...and all of them were in the closet at the end of the day. Abby lost 3 nickels (one for having shoes off, one for not putting them ON after I told her to and one for a pair of shoes at the playground) and then she lost another later for not having her shoes on once again...but they ended up back in the house at the end of the day. We'll see how this works. Of course, the biggest part of this system is consistency on MY part...that's always the hardest part!