to blog or not to blog?

that is the question..... I have resisted for so long, this whole “blogging” thing, never thinking my life was interesting enough for others to even care enough to read about. We are a typical family of 4, soon to be family of 5, living in the ‘burbs of Indianapolis. Nothing too exciting there. But what I have come to realize is, this is MY life, and I want to remember it. So I am taking the plunge....I realize this is 2010, soon to be 2011 and blogging is SOOO 2006 (ha!), but I'm always a bit behind on the trend. I am using this blog not as a tool to show off how incredibly smart and cute my kids are (and yes, they are! lol) but instead to journal our day to day lives, as a reference for me and our family to remember how young and innocent the kids once were, as well as to re live all the growing pains we experienced as a family. Since I've missed about 5 years or so since welcoming our first born into the world, I am going to attempt to do some backtracking and cover the 'highlights'. Welcome to the “miles life”!!!

celia's goodnight prayer

looking back, I wish I would have started a blog from day one of my childrens’ lives - they grow and change so much everyday, and though I try to keep up to date on journaling the usual first tooth, first word, first steps, etc, its those small day to day things that are so great, yet so easily forgotten as there really isn’t a spot for them in the aforementioned baby book. case in point, celia’s 1st prayer. age 3 1/2.

halloween: a monkey and a princess

halloween 2008 - drew was a great sport putting on his monkey costume (at 6 months old, you really don't know enough to be embarrassed, even when walking around with a squashed banana on your head!). celia could not wait to be a beautiful princess. this was the first year she was actually excited about putting on a costume. we trick or treated with all of her cousins in aunt jacki's neighborhood.

celia turns 3!

can't believe my baby girl is 3!  we had a typical little family party at our house with all of our cousins (which actually adds up to be quite a houseful!) celia was super excited of course, as the girl loves a party! she couldn't make up her mind what kind of a cake she wanted me to make this year, so we ended up with a butterfly. it turned out pretty cute :)

at the end of the night, as I was saying goodbye to everyone, Celia had snuck onto the kitchen island and, unbeknownst to me, began finishing off her birthday cake and stamping up her arms until she looked like a little tattooed woman.  so funny!

paci fairy

Celia turns 3 in a month - high time to get rid of the paci! We decided to write a letter to the 'paci fairy' and put all of her paci's in the mailbox for her to come and get for the new little babies who need them. Even though she is extremely fond of her paci's, Celia did surprisingly well. Had a great time gathering up all of her paci's from their hiding spots,

writing her letter,

and taking to the mailbox.  I was so proud of her! She only had one sad moment when she had to go back out to the mailbox and "see her paci's one more time" - then she leapt into daddy's arms and sobbed (drama!!).  I had a special slumber party with her that first night since I knew that's when she'd be missing her paci the most.

In the morning, she was so excited to run out to the mailbox and see what the fairy had left her (in this case, it was a spongebob balloon, make up kit and a stuffed dog she named 'jackpot').  There were a couple of rough patches after that, but all in all, not as bad as we had thought it would be. Goodbye, paci's!!!!

growing up so fast....

the next months flew. celia changed every day - you were hitting all your milestones and amazing us along the way. teeth, scooting, rolling over

, sitting up on your own, sleeping through the night (FINALLY at 6 months!),

eating cereal, baby food and your first steps at 11 months. You became a more easy going girl (or maybe we just relaxed a bit as parents) and we got into a routine. By the time you were a year old, you were walking around,

saying your first words (dada, kitty, uh-oh, no-no, mama), loved clapping and dancing to the wiggles and your favorite game was playing ring around the rosy (in which you would direct everyone in the room to join and throw a fit until they did!). Did we really have a life before you came into ours?? Couldn't even imagine.....

life with baby

wow - what have we gotten ourselves into??? that's what we were thinking for oh, about the first 3 months of our lives after bringing home little miss from the hospital. celia was a very very spirited infant - I had heard many people talk about how much the baby sleeps for the first few weeks, having to wake them up to eat and such. Not ours! She was awake and ready to go from the beginning!! What did I ever do with all the spare time I had before having a baby?? She also liked to test out those lungs, spending what felt like hours on end crying. Gradually we learned little tricks to calm her (vacuum cleaner, standing in front of the stove fan at 3am in the morning, running water) and got in our own groove, growing more confident in ourselves as parents.

We were lucky to have so much support around from my mom and Joe's mom, plus our siblings who were all more than willing to come over and take turns holding the baby when our arms (or eyes) needed the rest, as we weren't allowed to put you down very often!!

Even with the lack of sleep and frustrations of not being able to calm your needs, we were head over heels, smitten in love with you. You were a gorgeous little baby, and those little baby smiles made us forget that we had only gotten 8 hours of sleep combined over a course of 3 days. It was so worth it.