Sing it Out!

It looks like both boys have inherited the singing gene. Josh learns songs at an incredible rate. The other day in the car he started singing "This Land is Your Land", which we didn't even know he knew. He said they learned it in school for the 4th of July parade they're having on Thursday. We were so impressed that he nailed every single word of the song, and even helped me remember the words to the second verse! Today he started belting out Yankee Doodle Dandy. He loves to sing. Gee, where did he ever get that??? =)

Ben has also discovered his little singing voice. He can sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider (complete with hand movements of course), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old MacDonald. Of course these are all Benny versions of these songs (meaning it's "mumble mumble mumble wipe spider out.... mumble mumble mumble eieio - pronounced as all one word), but we can easily decipher which song he is singing. And we always know when his song is finished because it ends with a resounding "YAY!" *clap clap clap*. One of his newest favorite songs is John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmit, and he can sing pretty much the whole darn thing. It goes something like this: "Joh... J-cob....Jingle... schmi... name too!! OUT! SHOUT! Joh... J-cob....Jingle... schmi...AHHHHHHHHH!!!"It's so funny to catch him during playtime just singing away to himself. Again I must ask... where could he have ever gotten that? Ha ha! We are working on trying to get some videos of our little maestro, so hopefully we can get a good one to post soon. It's too cute!

Daddy Go?

Ben has become very concerned about every member of our family's whereabouts. So much so that he could care less about who is actually in front of him! Every morning when I go in to get him up, I don't get a "good morning" or "hi mommy". No. I get "Daddy go?" Same thing if Andrew gets him up... "Mommy go?" As soon as anyone leaves the room, Ben must know where they went. It's so cute (although we sometimes have to remind ourselves how cute it is when it's the 18th time in the last five minutes we've been asked!).

Social Drinker

Ben is such a little social butterfly, he's even become a social drinker! Every night during dinner he asks... no, I'm sorry... demands that each of us drink with him. He points that chubby little finger "Mommy grink! Daddy grink! Joshua grink!" One thing is for sure... no one will ever go thirsty with Benny around!

Benny's Bruiser

Ben took a little spill at daycare yesterday and cut his lip on his top teeth. Poor little guy got a pretty good sized fat lip. The girls in the preschool office were nice enough to call me to let me know what had happened and also send me a picture so I could check out the damage.

They told me he stopped crying pretty quickly, and they gave him a yummy popsicle to try to bring the swelling down. By the time Andrew picked him up that afternoon the swelling was almost gone, and his cut was nicely scabbed over. Thankfully it hasn't seemed to bother him too much today, so he's well on the road to recovery.

My poor baby. It's always so sad to see your little guy hurt like that.

Soosy the Fish

As promised, here is our newest family member. Introducing Soosy!

With Age Comes Responsibility

I love the time around Joshua's birthday. As we get to make a big deal about how much of a big boy he's becoming, it also gives us the opportunity to give him more responsibility and to try new things that he has been afraid to do in the past.

Josh has never taken a shower. He has always been afraid of it, so has always taken baths. A few weeks ago he proclaimed that when he turned 4 he wanted to take a shower. So on his 4th birthday, we let him give it a try. He had so much fun, telling us that "it's not scary, it's like rain!" So we're working on teaching him how to do a good job washing himself so that he can take a shower without Mommy or Daddy in there with him (for now we're swim-suiting up and getting in with him). He's doing a great job and I think he'll be a fully self sufficient showerer in no time.

He has done such a good job over the last few months taking care of our garden. He has carefully watered it every day (or at least most days) and has been so gentle with the growing fruits and veggies so as not to knock them off the plant before they're ready. Since he has done such a good job, we decided to get him his very own pet for his birthday. So on Sunday we went out and got him his very own Beta fish. Of course he picked out a red one (his favorite color) and named him Soosy (not Sushi). =) Of course we'll be helping with taking care of Soosy, but primarily he will be Joshua's responsibility. He's doing great so far! I'll post pictures of Soosy soon!

The last thing we are starting with him now that he is a big 4 year old is working on learning to read. I have no idea how to teach anyone to read, but with the help of the internet, we're giving it a try. I'm not concerned with Joshua being the smartest or the best in his kindergarten class. But I do want to continue to challenge him and that seems like the next logical step. He can identify many letters, but isn't super confident with them, especially the lower case. So the other night I made him some flash cards with upper case on one side and lower case on the other. We've made a game out of it and he's doing great in identifying the letters. I hope that we can have him reading at least sometime over this next year. Wish us luck!

The Big Firetruck Birthday

Joshua informed us a while back that he was going to have a firetruck birthday party this year. Today was the big day, and what a great day it was! We had firetruck balloons

firemen cupcakes

and a firetruck cake (which took me about 2 hours to decorate this morning)

We had about 40 people here for the party, including all of Joshua's aunts, uncles and cousins. This was the first time in the long time that everyone has gotten together, and the first time since Baby Adria was born, so it was a truly blessed day for our family. The kids started the party with some water play out in the backyard, with the Slip n Slide and inflatable pool.

After eating some yummy hamburgers and hot dogs made by Grill Master Daddy, the kids got to take their best shots at the firetruck pinata.

We were hoping that the Chandler Fire Department would bring by a firetruck, but that didn't pan out. But Uncle Jonathon is a fireman in Las Vegas, and he brought all of his fire gear to the party, so we got to have a real fireman, which was such a treat for the kids!

Jonathon taught the children that, although a fireman might look scary, with his mask and suit on, he's not someone you should run away from. He's someone you run to because he's there to help you. It was so great to be able to incorporate that important lesson into all of the fun. Some of the kids were a little frightened, including Ben, but most were simply fascinated with him!

After blowing out his candles and opening his presents, it was time for our friends and family to say goodbye. Even though we didn't have a real firetruck like we'd hoped, I don't think Joshua could have been happier with his firetruck birthday party. It was a truly great day!

June 13, 2005

It was the day that would change our lives forever. On June 13, 2005 at 1:50 p.m. Joshua Andrew Maple was born, weighing 8 lbs 11 oz and measuring a whopping 23 inches long.

Joshua was due on June 5, 2005. But he decided to be a stubborn little guy and hang out an extra week. When he hadn't arrived by June 10, my doctor scheduled me to be induced on June 13th (which by the way, I had predicted would be his birthday months before). But Josh was going to come into the world in his own way, on his terms! I went into labor on June 12th, about mid day. When we realized what was going on, we did what any first time parent would do when they started having regular contractions.... we went to the mall! I knew that walking around was the best thing for me, and it was 105 degrees outside so that sounded like the best plan because we didn't want to go to the hospital any sooner than absolutely necessary. After walking through the mall for a hour or two we went and rented a couple movies. I was more comfortable standing up, so I made us a dinner of scrambled eggs and toast and we watched one of our movies. After cruising up and down the hallway while Andrew tried to get some sleep, we finally decided to go to the hospital at 1:00 a.m. Good thing, because I was 6 cm dilated and my water was going to break any minute.

Although I was progressing through labor quite nicely (with the help of an epidural of course!) Joshua was not dropping, so they were flipping me over like a pancake every half hour to try to coax him into position. Finally at 11:30 a.m. I started pushing. I pushed and pushed and was getting nowhere. It sounds bad, but really it was all pretty lighthearted and fun. We were joking with the nurses between contractions and just generally enjoying the experience. My doctor came in at 1:00 and broke up the party, saying that Josh just wasn't going to fit because, although he was head down, he was not facing the right direction. So we decided to go ahead with the c-section. I was sad that I couldn't have him the way we had planned, but at the end of the day, as long as I had a healthy baby boy, everything would be okay. At 1:50 he was born, and he was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. Right from birth he had those BIG beautiful eyes. They were one of the first things we noticed about him. I'll never forget his squeaky little cry from those first few days which earned him the nickname J-Bird (hence our blog address j-birdsnest).

Here we are, 4 years later. Looking at this big boy, it's hard to believe that he is the same little baby we brought home from the hospital those years ago. I can honestly say that Joshua is one of the coolest, most special people I have ever known. He has such a sweet and loving spirit about him. I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Happy birthday, Joshua. Mommy and Daddy love you so much, and we can't wait to see what this year brings for you!

It's a Small World After All

Last night I was bored and monkeying around on Facebook when I decided to flip through the pages of people I had graduted high school with to see if there were any other old friends out there that I hadn't been in contact with. In looking through the old familiar names, I ran across one that I recognized outside of high school. Her name is Danna, which jumped out to me because of the unusual spelling. I thought to myself, that's how Ben's preschool teacher spells her name. So I clicked on the page and discovered that I had in fact graduated with Ben's preschool teacher and have had no idea all year. We never had any classes together and didn't know each other, but it was so funny to see that we had attended high school together. That's what I love about Facebook. You just never know who you're going to find... or who will find you.

Sometimes however, Facebook seems to know a little TOO much. I was checking my page the other day and saw that Facebook was suggesting that I add a friend. Usually it does this if it sees that a couple of your friends knows the same person so they think you might know them too. But the person it was suggesting to me is an ex-boyfriend of mine from like 11 years ago. We didn't go to the same high school, we don't have any common friends, nothing on Facebook should link us together. But there he was under the People You May Know section. Makes me wonder what else it knows about me... Get out of my head, Facebook!

Good Morning, Sunshine!

What a morning! Our alarm went off an hour and a half late this morning! What I never want to see on a Monday morning is the clock reading 6:30 when it should say 5:00. So of course we flew out of bed and got ready in a rush so we could attempt to get everyone out of the house on time.

We probably would have been in some pretty lousy moods this morning, if it weren't for Joshua. When we went in his room to get him going, we found him fully dressed lying on his bed looking at a book. His alarm had gone off almost an hour before, and he had gotten himself up, used the potty and dressed himself and was just hanging out in there waiting for us to come and get him like we ask him to do on weekends when he rises with the sun. It was just too cute and too funny we couldn't be upset! He's such a good boy!

Thankfully, I had made lunches the night before, and was out the door exactly 18 minutes after waking up. That must be some kind of record! I had to try to get to work early this morning (of all mornings!) so I had to leave Andrew to get the kids ready. They got out a bit late, but not too bad. What a way to start the week!