The way it should be

Conversation heard between Keith and Amya last night after Keith told Amya something she didn't like:

Amya: "I can't wait till I'm 16. I'm going to make my drivers licenses right away"
Keith: "Why?"
Amya: "So I can drive out withoff you"
Keith: laughing
Amya: "But not you, Mom. I'm only going to drive out withoff Dad."

That's the way it should be, no?

Loose Tooth

Amya has a loose tooth! I can't believe it. She's getting way too old, way too fast. I noticed it 2 days ago. I was talking to her and looked at her mouth and noticed that one of her front bottom teeth was crooked. Her teeth are pretty good and straight, so it freaked me out a bit. I thought she had knocked it hard or something. So I told her to let me look at her teeth, she opened her mouth and sure enough, that tooth wiggled. You can even see the new one coming in behind it. She's really excited to get to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy when it comes out. It makes me a little sad though, it just seems like she's growing up too fast. I told her that I was sad, and asked if I could glue-stick her tooth back in. She said that doing that wouldn't stop her from growing. She's so smart.

Here's a scrapbook page I did for Elena yesterday when I was supposed to be doing homework. We just can't get over how much she is like Keith - personality wise and her looks. I don't know what I'm going to do with that girl. The journaling says talks about how we've been calling her "jr" because she's always trying to make her sisters laugh. She'll say and do things she shouldn't, just to get laughs out of them, and then keep doing it over and over. She's so crazy.

"Amya's eating my food!!!"

I keep thinking, I really need to update the blog, I'll do it today. And then I don't. So this will probably turn into a long post, or else I'll split it up into 2 and post tomorrow, cause I'm sure I'll forget some stuff today.

Elena said the funniest thing the other day. I had gotten Amya up for school and she had just left on the bus when I heard Elena crying. I went into the room to ask her what was wrong. She was having a bad dream and I had to ask her a few times what was wrong before she woke up enough to answer me. When she did, she said "Amya's eating my food!" That crazy girl was having a bad dream about Amya eating her food. Keith and I couldn't stop laughing.

Amya is getting too smart for us. The other day, she was going under my bed to get the kittens out. Dory had hidden them under there. Here's a picture of 2 of them, by the way...

Anyway, she was under the bed and found a bag from Barnes & Noble that had books in it that I'd bought for the girls for Easter. She got one out and was waving it around, saying, "When did you get this, Mom? Is this for me?" (It was a Dora book that was for Elena.) I told her that it wasn't for her and not to get into my stuff. So then she got all upset that it wasn't for her and wanted to know if I had gotten something for her, and if so, what was it, etc. (I need to find a better hiding place.) Fast forward to yesterday, and the girls get their Easter baskets. She sees the book for Elena and says "Hey, the Easter Bunny got Elena the same book that you got her". I said "Oh yeah, I guess I'll have to return the one I got". She tells me no, I can just give it to her, then asks where is the book that I got for her when I got that book for Elena. Um, you're holding it in your hands and you think it's from the Easter Bunny. Do you see what happens when you lie?? Anyway, here they are with their Easter baskets.

Téa is the one the most into the candy this time. Usually Elena can't get enough of it (proof of this is in the statement - "Mom, I want candy in my mouth") and don't get me wrong, she's eating plenty of it, but Téa is on the constant look-out for candy. And the bad part is, when she finds it, she eats it right away, wrapper and all. Then we find her with wrappers in her mouth, and pieces of candy scattered throughout the house, with bites taken out of them. Crazy girls. Here they are in their Easter dresses, ready to go to church.

Well, Amya's calling me to come help her with a snack, so I guess I'll do more updating tomorrow.

New Tooth

So...we had our ultrasound a week ago today. I haven't written about it cause it's not that exciting. The baby was breach, and sitting with its legs crossed, indian-style. So the u/s technician couldn't give us a confirmation on what it is, since he couldn't really tell. He said it could be a girl, because he couldn't see any boy parts, but then again, he couldn't see any girl parts either, so he can't be sure. So I'm a little bummed. Keith is telling everyone it's a girl, but I don't want to do that in case it's not. Hopefully the doc will check again for me in a couple weeks and maybe they'll be able to tell for sure then.

Téa got a new tooth - her right canine on top. We've been calling her sharp tooth, cause the left one came in about a week ago and it looks so funny - just the little point poking through. I think I have a picture....hold on, let me check. Yep - there it is.


I can't think of anything else right now. If I do, I guess I can always come back!!

We have kittens!!!

Dory had kittens today!! The girls are so excited. She had 5 - two brownish/black ones, one white, one orange, and one gray. It took about 2 hours. I'm already having a hard time keeping the girls away from them. Here's a quick picture I took. I'll try to take a better one later.

A few more things I forgot

• Keith turned 32. He's really getting old!
• I got a new camera - a Nikon D50!!! I've finally gone digital and I love it. Actually, I think Keith might love it even more than me. He's taken close to 200 pictures in the last 2 days.
• Téa still hasn't had her 12 month pictures taken yet. And she'll be 15 months on Friday. Every single time I schedule an appointment for her pictures, she falls and gets a bruise on her head. Then just as that one is starting to heal, she gets another one. I thought she was finally ready and then last Sunday she got a black eye. It's finally going away, so hopefully I can get some pictures taken of her in the next few days.
• Elena finally goes to nursery by herself. She was having a really hard time with me leaving her there. I'd have to wait at least 5 minutes for her to stop hiding behind my skirt and start playing before I could sneak out. The past couple weeks she's started to run in and start playing without me having to coax her into it. Yeah!
• Yesterday Elena told me "Mom, Nena REALLY love candy. Nena love candy in my mouth". When I was telling my mom about it, she said that when I was younger, it was my turn to say the prayer, and I said "Heavenly Father, please help me get ice cream in my mouth". So apparently, we both had/have sweets on our minds.
• Amya made a paper today that says "I miss Joe". I asked her how she knew how to spell Joe and she said she learned on Blue's Clue's (which Elena calls 'coo-coo'). I told her we'd put a picture of her and Joe at the bottom and she could put it up in her room.

It's been a long time.....

I didn't realize it had been over a month since I updated. We've had a lot of things happen, so be prepared for a long one.

• I already talked about when Téa took her first steps, but she hasn't really used walking as her primary means of transportation until this past week. She would take a few steps, but as soon as she fell, or got to another couch/wall to hold onto, she was either crawling, or holding onto something to walk. Then, finally, in this past week, if she falls, she gets up and continues walking. She doesn't hold onto the couch/wall, even if she's right next to it. She's so cute - she looks like this tiny midget person walking around. We love it!
• Elena is still not potty-trained. We're not being that vigilant about it. I put und*es on her, but then after a few accidents I get frustrated and put the diaper back on. I don't know, maybe she's just not ready. She definitely wants the candy reward, but she just doesn't tell us when she needs to go.
• On the subject of candy - she's HOOKED. I can't get her to not think about the stuff. She's constantly talking about how she loves candy. One day she came to me and said, "Mom, Nena sick. Nena doctor office. Nena shot. Nena Band-Aid. Nena candy." (The final sentence said with a huge grin.) What a manipulater!! Then when we had to take Téa to the doctor's, we were waiting for him to come into the room and Elena got all upset and said "Mom, Nena no need shot. Just candy".
• On the talking subject, she has really started talking a lot lately. It's weird. She was talking before, but just basic things, you know? Now all of a sudden she's talking in sentences and using big words, and just sounding so grown up. It's just going so fast.
• Oh, and today, she started singing a new Eminem song that Keith likes and sings all the time. She was walking around the house saying "Shakin that butt on the floor" over and over. Thanks, Keith. Really.
• Amya is reading!!! Kind of. Well, yeah, she is. We got some 1st reader Dora books from the library and have been going over and over them, and she's really reading a lot of the words. She already knew some words before, but now she's doing 'and', 'the', 'at', 'we', 'look', and other ones like that. We worked with some of the word cards she has and she learned a lot of words that way to. For example, one of them had the ending '-ay', so she learned say, play, pay, and stray. She's so smart!!!
• The pregnancy is going pretty well. No real nausea or anything. I do have a major pain in my hip/pelvic joint today though. Really making walking hard. I think I'm starting to feel the baby move, but not that much. I have an appointment on Thursday for a regular check-up. I'll be 18 weeks this week. Hopefully we can find out in 2 weeks what this baby is!!!
• Now for the last part of my post today. I really didn't want to talk about this just because it's been upsetting me so much, but Joe died yesterday. We still don't know exactly what happened (we shoudl find out later on today or tomorrow) but Noel found him in the bathroom at the farm yesterday. I guess what's bothering me the most is the fact that he was alone. No one was there to comfort him, to tell him they loved him, or that they'd miss him. He was just alone. And who knows for how long. And also, he's been pretty upset the last few weeks, and I feel bad that he left this world in a not happy state. I know he's gone to a better place and that he's much happier now, he's not crippled anymore, and all that, it just still makes me sad about how he spent his last few weeks. And I think about how if we had known, we would have spent more time with him. It's just sad for me.

So to end, here's a picture of Joe with Amya and Elena at the farm on Aug 20, 2005. The girls had wanted to show him something and he gladly went to the back with them. He always had candy for them when they came over, or he'd buy some for them if we were out together. He'd give them money to play games at the pizza place. He bought Old Yeller and Savage Sam for Amya when we were at Sam's because he heard her telling me that she wanted them. He really loved the girls, and they loved him. Especially Elena. She was always with him when we were at the farm. We're really going to miss him.