Thankful Thursdays-3

This week has been pretty fantastic!

So here are some things I'm thankful for this week.

21. That Allison & Joel made it here safely.
22. That Max & Ella both got a clean bill of health from the doctor this week.
23. That Ella finally cut two teeth.
24. That I can still surprise my hubby sometimes. =) (We haven't been married too long but since we've known each other for so long it's hard to keep secrets).
25. How excited Max gets when I tell him I got him something from the store. (So cute!)
26. The Marine Base having tickets to theme parks for wayyy cheaper than at the gate or online! So cool!!!
27. The mail.
28. Bread makers.
29. My husband for holding Ella while she got her shots. (I HAD to do it for Max but now that I'm married I don't have to!)
30. Good food! 

So what are you thankful for?
Don't forget to head over to The Tarr Pit and link up!

Talk to you soon,
J

Gabriella is 7 months old today!!

So here's a few updates on baby Love! 

As of yesterday when we took her to her 7 month check up (where she had to get 5 shots) she weighs14.4 lbs and was 24 inches long. 

She is crawling allllll over the place!

She has 2 teeth (the bottom two) which I will get a picture of as soon as she actually lets me!

She has so many different faces!

She can make herself look different all the time!

She is FANTASTIC!

Happy 7 month birthday 

GABRIELLA CAITLIN EVETTE

We love you!

 7.28.10

 She's a little messy but she's so darn cute!

Talk to you soon,

J

Whatcha Eatin' Wednesday's-2

So here we go again! A look into the things my family likes to eat!!
So today was my first time trying out a bread maker! My very very good friends mom let me borrow her bread maker to try out before I go and buy one of my own and I LOVE IT!! I made a 1lb loaf of original white bread first and it was AMAZING! It was so much better than buying a loaf from the store.

I am all about making easy dinners right now. I don't have much time in the day to take too much time to put together a gourmet dinner...especially since my husband doesn't even get home until midnight. So the same friends mom who let me borrow her bread maker also brought over this frozen shrimp scampi dinner thing. All I had to do was to boil the bag in a pot of water until the shrimp was cooked and serve it up. So I did that and it turned out DELICIOUS! Max especially liked it (he's crazy about seafood).

So what did you cook today?
Talk to you soon,
J

To infinity and beyond!!

So Max LOVES anything and everything that has to do with Toy Story and especially Buzz Lightyear! So today a friend of our family (Scott) brought over a gift from my brother Hugo for Maximus...a Buzz Lightyear costume! He already has a pair of wings that he got from his Uncle Hugo last year for Christmas so he put on the costume and the wings and was transformed into  

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!! 

Gabriella had a good time playing with the box! 

Talk to you soon,

J

Just because it makes me smile. Number 2

Can my kids be any cuter together?

P.S. Do any of you know how to make baby's nose turn back to a normal color? The orange doesn't suit her very well LOL.

Talk to you soon,
J

Our Weekend in Pictures (mostly)

Let us just start with Max's choice of outfit. =) Enough said.

We spent most of the day Friday trying to stay cool (once again) in the house. With temperatures in the triple digits, I don't want to risk the kids getting heat sick or something by dragging them outside. So we stayed inside watching Charmed, (We're on season 6 now!) playing with toys, and sipping on sweet tea. Later on in the day my mom asked us to come over for dinner and to watch the movie The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. So we headed over there! The movie was pretty funny, I happen to love to LOOK AT Gereard Butler and LISTEN to Gerard Butler love his body and his accent! (Does anyone remember the movie 300??!! I mean HELLO!)

So we had some amazing Dominos Pizza and hung out with my family. (I tried the Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich and it was delicious!) On Saturday we just stayed inside all day too. Ryan and I caught up with Big Brother and other random shows we watch that have been piling up on the DVR. I made some pork chops for dinner with cheesy rice and broccoli and green beans (yummy). Our friends that have been stationed in Texas for the last year (give or take a month or two) came into town so we were excited to see them. Ryan and I played some Mario Party 8 on the Wii...and I got beat (no surprise there).

It was just another one of those weekends. Nice and relaxing. =)

Here's some more pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

Another picture taken by Max =)

Gabriella hanging out under her high chair.

again

Daddy and Gabriella at my moms house.

No pictures Mom!

Gabriella's first foray onto cement while crawling!

Both of the kids knocked out by the time we got home.

Maximus

Gabriella

Our Saturday night dinner. YUMMY!

And today Ryan has to go back to work (=/) so the kids and I will just be hanging out all day. Should be fun!!
Talk to you soon,
J

So what would you do...

With 8lbs of strawberries??!!

Today a semi carrying strawberries wrecked (no one was hurt as far as I know) so in order to still make some money they started selling them at 8lbs for $3.00!!!!!! WHAT!!??!! Who could resist that price!!??
So my mom went and got me some. (Ryan has the car on his work days) I decided to wash them all, cut off the tops, and freeze most of them (I'll be on the look out for some good recipes that call for strawberries!). But I also sliced a few apples, added some grapes, and mixed it with the strawberries and ended up with what I'm calling a "Red Salad". =) I split it into two so that Ryan could take some in his lunch on Sunday (if it lasts that long...he'll probably eat it tomorrow) and Max could snack on it whenever (I think I'll mix his with vanilla pudding...he'll LOVE it).
Meanwhile...I let Gabriella into the kitchen for the first time to explore my mess of a tupperware cabinet and while I was on the phone listening to my best friends story and handling the strawberries, Gabriella managed to crawl on over to one of my only two vases and pull it down. (Yeah bad mommy I know) So I scooped her up and set her on the other side of the safety gate and cleaned up the mess, said a quick goodbye to my favorite vase and threw it in the trash. That's what I get for getting too wrapped up in what I was doing. =/ At least baby didn't get hurt though, right?

 

Talk to you soon,
J

It only took me all day...

To figure out how to make my own FUNCTIONING blog button and scroll box for my fellow bloggers to grab it and put onto their pages!!




<center><a href=”http://www.thebeautifullifebyjacqui.blogspot.com/”><img border="0" src="http:// http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v714/princessjacqui/5-1-1.jpg" /></a></center>
I'll be redoing it with another photo pretty soon but this is perfect for now!! {It's a picture of my husband and I, minus our heads =)}

I feel so accomplished and smart. Maybe being a teacher isn't my calling...
Talk to you soon,
J

Thankful Thursdays-2

Lets talk about FRIENDS.
Friends are supposed to be there for you through everything.
Friends are supposed to be the people you can rely on for support in any situation.
Friends are supposed to see you at your worst and still remember who you are when you're at your best.
Friends should be there at your birthday, your wedding, your baby's birth, and your baby's birthdays.
Friends should also understand when you can't be at those events.
Friends should be there to help you move, help you get over a break up, or help you with anything else.
Friends should ask YOU how you are...and listen to what you have to say.
Friends shouldn't expect you to just say what they want to hear. You should be able to say what you really feel.

There are millions of expectations that people have of friends and that your friends have of you but I'm not going to list them all! That was just a little taste of what I think friendship is.

11.This week I am very very thankful for the few friends that I have. They have been friends of mine for 5 or more years, a few of them don't even live close anymore but I still talk to them regularly like they do. Those friends know who they are. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the very best friends I could ever have asked for.

Here are some other things I'm thankful for:
12. The moments of silence I get when the kids are both asleep in bed and my husband is at work.
13. The look on Gabriella's face when I walk over to her crib to take her out. Melts my heart every time to see that much happiness come out of someone so small.
14. State funded preschool.
15. A supportive husband.
16. A son that LOVES playing with his baby sister.
17. Our DVR.
18. The things that occupy my four year old long enough for me to take a breath.
19. Fans. (It's summertime, enough said.)
20. My sense of humor. If I didn't have it...I would've gone coo-coo by now.

What are you thankful for? Link up over at The Tarr Pit and tell us!
Talk to you soon,
J

Aa.Bb.Cc.Dd.Ee.Ff.Gg....

I have been trying to figure out a cheap and easy way to help Max learn the letters of the alphabet by sight and as we were coloring today it hit me! Make flash cards (kinda) with each of the letters of the alphabet capitalized and not and hang them on the dining room wall at his level. Then everyday we will go over them...(as many times as I can take) and hopefully he'll get the hang of it!
So I did just that!
I started with different colors of scrapbooking paper (always) and cut it into six rectangles.

I then painted a letter on each of them.

And then I taped them all to the wall in the dining room

Hopefully he will catch on quickly and I'll be able to take them down. They don't exactly go with my decor. =)

Talk to you soon,
J

Whatcha Eatin' Wednesday's-1

Tonight I made one of the hubby's favorites,  

sausage spaghetti!  

(Actually EVERYTHING is his favorite!)

I buy hot Italian sausage links (in bulk) and separate them into baggies (2 1/2 links per bag). 

I use one bag of links, a jar of spaghetti sauce, and a box of whatever noodles I choose, tonight I used thick spaghetti (Max likes fun noodles better than regular ol' spaghetti noddles).

I remove the meat from the casings and cook it just like ground beef I just sometimes have to add water to the pan if its cooking faster on the outside than the inside. I add the sauce, boil the noodles and serve it up! 

Its a super easy alternative to regular spaghetti. Since we don't eat beef anymore this sounded soooo good and I happen to like it so much more than the regular kind!

Talk to you soon,

J

Just because it makes me smile. Number 1

This is the outfit Max decided to wear today. It definitely made me smile. Luckily we aren't going anywhere.

Talk to you soon,
J

Max the photographer.

Max took a few pictures today and we were happy to be his models.

Talk to you soon,

J

So this is what letting go feels like?

I know I know. I'm supposed to keep my composure at all times and let these things roll off my back...cause as my husband lovingly tells me "They have to grow up sometime babe." After thinking about it and talking about it, we finally decided we would put Max into preschool. I know you're saying, "what the eff is there to think or talk about?!". But I struggled with this decision a little bit. I was hesitant to put him into a new environment, with new kids, and with different adults telling him what to do. (I think I might have some control issues when it comes to my kids...sue me) I was just thinking that since I stay at home anyways, whats the use of putting him into school just yet and starting his school career already? Well anyways, we finally just decided to do it because I was put into preschool and look how smart I am!! That's not the real reason but I had to throw it out there. Really we just figured it would do him some good to be exposed to the daily school routines now when it doesn't count as much as it does in kindergarten and it would help him adjust now to being around a bunch of kids. Something he's obviously not used to. He was in daycare temporarily and he LOVED it. So this shouldn't be too hard. I hope.

Soooo...this morning we enrolled him into a state funded preschool. (I wasn't okay with paying for something I hardly wanted to do) It's the same school program that my 16 & 17 year old brothers went to for preschool! We took the kids with us, and Max was more excited than I have seen him in a while when I told him we were going to his new school. That of course calmed my nerves a little bit.

As I was sitting there filling out paper after paper of questions about his short life I couldn't help but flashback to this day. When he was about a month old and I was still trying to figure out the whole mommy thing.

And then we came home and I was looking at my boy being his goofy self and I realized that time has flown by quicker than I ever thought it could and he has grown into this little man, with a future as bright as the sun. I'm sure when August 31st gets here and we are dropping him off for the first time I will feel even more like a piece of me is being ripped away...and I'll blog about it again. But until then I am going to enjoy the fact that I get 24 hours a day everyday with my firstborn.


Talk to you soon,
J

Happy Monday!!

These are just a few fun pictures from the last few days!!

Talk to you soon,

J

Remember those things called disposable cameras?

SOOOOOO....this weekend was FUN!
On Friday the husband, kids, and I hung out at home allllll day! His dad and step-mom came over and when they left they took Max with them to spend the night with them. (EXCITING!) Soon after they left Gabriella was asleep for the night so essentially we had a night to ourselves!! WOO HOO!! We just hung out watching Charmed of course. We got up on Saturday morning, got ready, and headed out to Victorville. We went straight to Juice It Up (my favorite smoothie place) then went and did some damage at Target (LOL). Surprisingly I didn't break the bank this trip (the hubby was grateful for that). While we were there I picked up an $8.00 disposable water resistant camera to try out. WOW...I haven't bought a disposable camera in at least two years. It was so weird to wind the film...and not to be able to see the picture right away!! So we headed over to Ryan's brothers house and swam the day away and enjoyed our last day with Ryan's dad, step-mom, and step-brother. I ended up handing the camera over to Max and I let him take most of the pictures (he's a budding photographer I think). So here's a few pictures from this weekend!


ENJOY!

She always thinks she can get something from the straw. =)

Another view.












And here's the pictures from the disposable. I think it gives the pictures some kind of "vintage" quality LOL. Not that I know much about photography...but I feel like they look oldish.

Look at that smile! Oh yeah! We bought her this floaty thing to try out. Of course she loved it!

Both of my kiddies! Max LOVES the life jacket. It gives him free reign of the pool.

Here he is jumping in =) he's a brave little boy!

Max sprinkling water on baby Love.

Hahahaha!











He's such a party pooper sometimes!

OMGahhhh!! Baby's face right here is hilarious!!

Our niece MichalAnn.=)

Another pouty face
from the big brother.

And this of course is how little sister ended up.

Mom and Dad
<3










I hope you had a good weekend as well!!
Talk to you soon,
J