Happy (35th) Birthday Daddy!!!

I'm not very good at birthdays.  

At least birthdays for anyone but my kids.  But, considering we had only 2-3 hours of preparation for it this little family party turned out pretty great but mostly because of the company!

 We had my fairly new trusty birthday chalkboard table cloth that came in handy for decorations.  

The kids got to personalize their own "placemat".  Here's Georgies' (with my help...requested by throwing a small tantrum).

 We had Daddy's favorite Dinner:

Garlic Chicken Teriyaki Pasta

 We had the last minute genius idea to put our "Why We Love Daddy" messages inside of 4 helium balloons.  We went outside and he started popping.

Brace yourselves kiddos!!

Isaacs message:  "I love Daddy because he's funny"

Georgies' message:  

Juliet's Message:  "Daddy, Isit, Geogie

My Message:  " 

 The deliciously decadent, very sinful, 

oh so yummy chocolate birthday cake that Daddy requested!

 Make a wish!

That cake stared back at us in the fridge for almost a week, dwindling, dwindling, sliver by sliver eaten mostly by moia!  And boy was it worth it;)

Happy Birthday, Joey!  I am glad that you're in the world and that you are mine!!

xoxo

Ash

Gaga Came To Town

Gaga came to town and stayed for 2 weeks.  What A TREAT!!
Mom put in a lot of time helping me on these dang shelves. 

 I worked her crazy!

 But we pay in snuggles!!

Here they are doing Juliets favorite Gaga past time:  

Dancing to the She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain You Tube video!

 It was sad to say good-bye.  

And although we look happy here, tears were shed in mourning.  Isaac cried himself to sleep, literally on the night that she left.  Gaga says she did the same.  Man, we hate how big the world is sometimes!!  

Thanks for coming Gaga!  We love you!!

xoxo

Ash

The Boy

That's some hair, isn't it.  Bed Head.  And Isaac has it every morning.  His pillow is one of the luckiest in the world.  It has so much to play with at night;)  

For the past couple of weeks I have become keenly aware of how grown up this boy is.  He goes for bike rides by himself in the neighborhood, likes to spend time alone in his room from time to time and hangs out with his friends for hours at a time in the front and back yard and could care less to hear from any of us during that time. Our house has kind of become the neighborhood hang out and all the boys and girls on the street are constantly running in and out of it.  Isaac, sometimes politely and sometimes agitatedly, asks them to help clean up before they go or to please play outside because he has things he needs to get done in his room!  But most of the time (95%) he plays with them.  They shoot guns, dress up in Ninja gear, fight with light sabers or swords and play with his somewhat large collection of Hero Factory guys.  ("Isit's guys" as Ju-B calls them).  He looks after his sister and if ever I need something done or some help with her I can ask him.  If it's something that doesn't involve helping with Juliet he often complains but despite his reluctance he always gets the job done.  

If he's not playing outside he has his nose in a book or has commandeered my Ipod touch and is sitting on the couch seat in his bedroom often with Georgie looking over his shoulder.  Sometimes he reads 6 chapter books in a week.  And sometimes he reads two.  We try not to make reading something of pressure.  He genuinely loves it.  

He and Juliet have a special bond.  There's a real selflessness to Isaacs love for his youngest sister.  She's far enough away to not be of any competition to him.  In every interaction it is obvious that he absolutely adores her.  He sees the humor in her baby-ness right along side me and we have a lot of fun laughing at her together.  He reads her stories at bedtime and she just sits there, contentedly nestled into his side.  Every time I have to cut those two off.  I think they would go on reading for hours.  It's cool to watch.    

The other day I began to notice how often Isaac wants to be a part of Joey and I's adult conversation.  We came home from being out and Georgie and Juliet took off to play.  Joey and I began talking about the people who were interested in buying our home and other uninteresting business stuff.  Isaac stayed around and just listened.  I watched  him get excited when we did, talking about selling the house and the benefits that we would see from that.  Last night he lingered at the dinner table longer than usual listening to us talk about the news or something similar to that.  He's curious.

He still snuggles, hugs, kisses and wants our attention, all of which I am very grateful.  In so many ways he is still such a little boy.  And in others he's very much grown up.  I think there's a fight in him to be both and he's still not exactly sure how to manage the controversy.  I see that fight in him. 

He'll be 8 years old in about a month.  And while it seems like ages ago that he was a baby it feels as if I haven't soaked it in enough...like so much of his growing up has slipped between my fingers.  He's our oldest so in so many ways we anticipate his aging, always looking forward to "next".  Because of that, maybe I've missed some of the "now".  For what it's worth and your reading this when you're 45 someday, know that we love you.  That you're a very sweet, thoughtful, complicated, intelligent little man with a very big heart.  You desire to be good, successful, happy, kind and loved.  I hope you know that you are!

xoxo

Ash/Mom 

Georgie

We were driving home from Houston yesterday, doing our road trip thing.  The kids were watching their movie, way in the back of our mini-van while I drove, always dangerously multi-tasking, in the drivers seat.  I heard Georgie from the back somewhat urgently say:

"Mom, I need to tell you something."
"What's up Georgie."
"I thought that I felt my 15 year molars in my mouth but I reached back there and it was just a goldfish."

"???" and after a few seconds of that, I laughed.  Georgie, you're so wierd!

xoxo
Mom

By the way, we're moving to Italy.....

I Know Perfect, And It Hurts

I have been feeling an intense amount of pain lately at the perfectness of my Juliet.  I love her so much that my heart literally hurts.  I believe I felt this before with Isaac and Georgie and I think I've heard others say it about their children but, now, right now and for several days in a row, I feel it.

A little about her:

Juliet has curly hair, and I'm talking ringlets, dozens of them.  In the back she has tight little ringlets that bounce when she runs.  On the top of her head she has big curls that rise up in big soft waves as much as 2 inches off the top of her head.  It's particularly poofy when she awakes from a nap or a good nights sleep.  I can't bring myself to wet them or matt them down so they usually stay that way all day long.  She reminds me of a miniature 1940's glam screen siren.  This hair adds so much to her charm and cuteness.

Maybe best of all is that Juliet will lay on my chest for as long as I let her before naptime or bedtime.  She just lays there, eyes open and blinking.  I can feel the brush of her long eyelashes on my chest from time to time, reminding me that she's awake and content to just be.  If only time could stand still and I had no other chores to do.  One of these days I will steal that luxury from time and I don't think I'll regret it later, no matter how chaotic the rest of the day becomes.  She also will lay on my shoulder for up to 5 minutes when she cries and when I ask her to "be a sweet baby" she obeys, lays her head on my shoulder and giggles.  I've tried several times to memorize the feeling of her curls pressed against my cheek or her warm breath directed toward my neck.  Only I can ever know how much I LOVE this.  Thank you, Juliet, Thank you.

Juliets speaks with such inflection.  Her voice rises and falls with every syllable showing immense expression of her excitement, anger, joy, anticipation or whatever it is that she is feeling.   Whenever she sees a puppy, a bird, or a kitty cat, her eyebrows instantly rise, her lips purse up, her finger points, her shoulders tighten and she screams outloud, "PU-ppy", usually while running to it...atleast 5 different tones being belted out in a two syllable word.  She was this way even before she could talk, so much inflection in her babbles.    She conveys so much when she says "Isit" (Isaac) and "Geogie" (Georgie) as well...you can hear how much she idolized them with her inflections and the excitement written all over her body.  She has a way of pursing her lips that makes you want to freeze her in just that way and frame it.  I tell Isaac that he needs to find me a stun gun so we can shoot her with it and freeze her at just this age.  He agrees that this is necessary.

And her button nose, oh that cute little nose.  I thought I was the only one that noticed its button-ness until her Uncle Robby said something to us about how cute it was.  And then in the last two days, 3 different people have commented to me in passing how cute her little nose is.

Juliet loves to be outside WITH her shoes on.  She waits desperately at the window much of the day saying, "ouside, ouside", running up to me saying "shoes on", "shoes on".  And if ever you take her shoes off, she cries, "shoes on, shoes on"!  Because she knows her outside moments are over.

She says "tank you" (thank you) always very softly, almost to herself whenever I hand her anything.  But for some reason, she rarely says it to strangers.

This age...oh this perfect little age...and this is where the pain comes in, I think.  Because I know that she's not always going to be like this.  I know that it's fleeting.  And that's has to be okay with me.  She grows up and I get to know more and more of who she really is but it doesn't change the fact that I know I'll always miss this time of her being content to just lay on my chest.  There's something sort of sickly wonderful about fully possessing a tiny little child.  Hopefully I outgrow that sickness at the same rate that she outgrows her adorableness;)  Much love to you my baby.  Because that you will always and forever be, my sweet baby Juliet.

Nicknames for Juliet:
#1. Ju-B   We almost never call her anything else
#2.  money, mini money, my money
#3. bunny

Lost a piece of Baby

Georgie bit into an apple last week and lost a piece of her childhood:

her first little baby tooth!

(It's hard to tell because the big tooth has already started coming in behind it.)

They have a history together, those two.  Together they've chewed mountains of goldfish, tons of salad (especially the croutons), gobs of chewing gum and loved candy of all stripes.  Georgie's natural inclination for foods is carbs and sweets but she redeems herself from time to time with her love of salad and broccoli, and her earnest attention toward "trying to be healthy" (her words).  We're hoping that this carby inclination is this tooths fault...and maybe it died off when he did;)  

The tooth fairly came and left her $5.00 for her first tooth.  She gave strict instructions that she was not to buy candy with it!!

xoxo

Mom

Pettey Family Reunion 2012

Disney Cruise 2012

We even had matching t-shirts!

    

On February 12th we all boarded the Disney Wonder Cruise ship in matching green T-shirts.  

The cruise started off right, with a dance party:

I feel pretty sure that our family owned the main dance floor!

 BIG kids on our shoulders (I took my turn.)

 Hands up, singing, hips moving!!

 And more kids on our shoulders.

 When the party was over we headed down to the kids club to check it out:

Disney knows what they're doing.  Lots of computers for lots of computer games.  

More to come!

xoxo

Ashley