Grizzly

Here is what happens when you let your 4 yr old borrow your camera. A picture of Dora and her foot.

















There has been alot of "playing house" recently. Maggie is normally the mom and the boys switch off playing the dad, baby and kid. Vincent is the dad and Gavin is the kid today. Becky and I have answered to "mom" so many times and the response is "not you". Becky also told me that she puts all the boys in bed and then does her workout while they sleep. :)









Sean got talked in to coming to Mag's preschool. I missed his talk to the class but I heard it went well with plenty of laughter from the teachers and parents. There are 5 firemen dads in this class so he said he needed to outdo them.














He also got to bring the SWAT vehicle which was cool. The boys loved it!


















Seanie and Roman got to come and they just loved hanging out inside.

I did it!!!!!

I finally figured out how to get pictures from our iphone onto the computer. It took me 3 months but I did it! Here are some random pics. For about 2 weeks my son took down these books off his sisters shelf. He even gave himself timeouts afterwards cause he knew he was in trouble.



















Family picture at a park in Dublin!


















Here are after and before (can't get everything right on this blog) shots of his 1st haircut in October. He had a racecar, Elmo on the TV, and a lollipop. He was so confused and very unhappy! The he went outside with his dad and fell, busted his lip open and Sean had to go across to Pete's coffee and get ice because the ladies at the haircut place ran around all panicked when they saw blood. They gave me a baby wipe and I politely told them that it will burn his cut. Glad they work with kids every day. :)

Sean's birthday

We've gotten used to celebrating holidays, birthdays and other events on different days. Sean had to work on his birthday this year so Maggie and I decided to make rice krispy treats for him (or as she likes to call them "rice kripskies"). Sean's favorite memory of childhood was that his mom would make him rice krispies every year for his birthday. He specifically asked if they could be chocolate this year. Happy 34th to a great husband, wonderful dad and hard worker!!!!





"To my favorite tooty. Daddy, love Maggie" translation from the card she wrote to him. :)

What's new with us? Seanie is talking up a storm and some new favorite things he says is when we are out and about in a store... he points to people and says, "Mommy who's that?" It can get a little embarassing. "Wheres the remote?" "Wheres the ipad?" "I want to eat chicken nuggets". "Where's Woody and Buzz?"

My kids were sick a couple of weeks ago. It lasted about a week each. Just fevers and bad coughs. Seanie was acting a little strange after being sick so after the 5th day I finally took him in and he had an ear infection. He got medicine and we went home. The 4th day of antibiotics we were heading up to the snow on a random trip but Seanie's ear seemed to still bug him. Sean took him in and got stronger medicine. Were on day 5 of the stronger medicine and he's still tugging on his ears. After day 10 he better be back to normal. I told Sean that he is like Superman with his special powers of fighting off antibiotics and his high pain tolerance.

February

Well, I wish I was more computer savvy but I'm always having problems posting pictures on this blog. My nice camera is broken and my little camera is filled with pics that I need to get printed. So we rely on Sean's iphone right now but I can't figure out how to download them on here.

Updates from The Poole Family:

Big Haircut:
Last Sunday Sean gave Seanie his 2nd haircut. His 1st haircut was in October and it is just soooo curly. My brothers were calling him Harpo Marx from the Marx Brothers. So Sean shaved it and I got teary eyed having regrets. But it actually looks really cute. It's still curly on top but shaved on the sides. My brothers now call him J.T. (Justin Timberlake) from the 2000's and sing "Bye, Bye, Bye" whenever they see him.

Kindergarten:
I can't believe Maggie will be 5 in a couple months and I have to register her for Kindergarten next month. It's a big step and she's very excited. She has also been playing soccer once a week and she is having lots of fun. She is always the first one to listen to the coach (well, most of the class is boys so what do you expect)? She shares the ball with all the other kids and I love that she is so nice but then the competitive side of me wants her to just kick butt and be the best!!!

Funny Stories:
Seanie is talking so much now and I just love all his funny sayings. He is in such a good spot right now and I'm really enjoying his sense of humor. He loves getting naked in bed at night and so he falls asleep on his stomach with his naked butt sticking straight up in the air. The first night he did it both Sean and I thought it was the funniest thing ever. We have pics but just text me and I'll send it to you :) He loves taking off his diaper during the day also and says he has to go potty about 20 times a day but never has.

My kids have been really hungry lately so dinner has been around 5:00 lately. Last night Seanie tells me hes hungry and he wants a "sammy". He sits at the table and usually talks me into a little appetizer while hes waiting. I noticed that he was really quiet looking at his naked knees (he was just in his diaper). I finally walk over and he's rubbing his right finger on his right knee and his left finger on his left knee. I said "What are you doing?" and he looks up and shows me his finger's. I said, "What are those?" He said "eeeewwww... boogers"! He was rolling boogers on his knees and playing with them. It was pretty gross and funny at the same time. So my son doesn't need any toys to play with he just makes his own out of boogers!!!!

Maggie, my laundry helper has been helping me fold clothes and put them away lately. She was putting away my clothes for me in the drawers and asking me which drawer they were in. "The first, the second?" She said, "Hey mom, where do your boobs go"? I said, "Do you mean my bra"? "Yes". "In the first drawer" "Ok"

I was changing Seanie's diaper when the ultimate question came up....
Maggie: Mom, why do boys have wee wee's and girls have pee pees?
Me: Well, thats what makes up boys and girls because of our different parts and girls have boobs too.
Maggie lifts up her shirt and says: I don't have boobs. Look!
Me: Your right but you'll get them when your a little older.
Maggie: Well, why does Daddy have boobs?
Me: ha ha ha ha ha good question... ask Daddy when he gets home.

Maggie and I play dollhouse a lot and her mom in her family was going to the store and the mom in my family asked her to get her a bunch of stuff from Target. Maggie's mom came back with 3 trampolines from Target (one for the babies, one for girls and one for the adults). My mom asked where all her stuff was that she asked for and her mom said, "Oh, I'm so sorry it wasn't on sale". hee hee hee

The last two Saturday's we've gone to the zoo. Last Saturday was the 1st time I went by myself with the kids and without the stroller. It was really fun and we had a talk about not running off and how we would get to see the baby giraffe named "Maggie". The giraffe was so cute. She galloped around trying to get the other giraffes to play with her. So we had so much fun that we went again yesterday and I invited my parents. We had a blast. The monkeys were in rare form. The chimpanzees were going crazy and kept banging against the glass with their feet. So we were standing there and one monkey came over to us and banged against the glass. Seanie started crying and Maggie jumped on my leg and I spilled my coffee. I thought it was awesome and now my kids are traumatized. Seanie wanted to go back and one of them was playing peek a boo with him. It was the coolest zoo trip ever!!

That's the latest and I'll try to get pictures up asap!

December Fun

Maggie and her daddy love egg nog and Seanie and I think its disgusting. Here is Maggie with her nightcap of egg nog cuddling with mommy as we watch a X-mas show. We loved Shrek the Halls, The Grinch Movie, and a few others. We tried to watch The Polar Express but Maggie cried and wondered why a boy would go on a train without his mom and dad. Then Tom Hanks was kind of mean to him on the train. Then the little boy was left behind, then the other little boy almost fell off the train trying to get a ticket. We turned the movie off before we traumatized her. I have trained her well with "Stranger Danger"


2 steps that your child is not ready for potty training:

#1 Putting on big boy undies hurts and he says "I want to get out".

#2 He still plays with Bailey's poo in the backyard so obviously it doesn't belong in the toilet yet. His butt is soooo cute in them though!

In the picture above... Nana sent Maggie princess jammies and she ironed on her name along with princess.. She was soooo excited that she wore them 3 nights in a row and wanted to wake up her dad to show him. :)

X-mas cookies with Erin. I was so happy when Erin came over (my friend for 20 years) and she obviously sucks at making sugar cookies too. It is a frustrating job if you want them to look nice. I love that Erin's present to Maggie was to let her "go for it" with the cookies. You can't see the profile of these cookies but the icing is piled high and the "prinkles" are piled even higher. She had a blast!




Thanks Erin! Just buy the ready-made pop them in the oven next time! Ha ha!










We went to Half Moon Bay this year to cut down our trees. We basically watched while Sean cut them down.











This is Sean's 2nd favorite thing to do for X-mas is to cut down our tree. His 1st thing is putting up our X-mas lights. It's like Clark Griswald around here

Thanksgiving (above)

For some reason I couldn't figure out how to write on that last post so I'm dong it down here. In the 1st picture, Maggie is handing out her cookies to everyone after our Thanksgiving dinner. She decorated them with my mom.

The next picture is the day after Thanksgiving and we were all about to get the stomach flu. It was so not awesome that I won't even discuss it. Maggie is reading a book to her brother. This is very rare so I had to capture the moment. So cute! I decided to go on a no-tv and no i-pad kick for 10 days. Seanie at first was having withdrawls cause it is like heroin for him. But we got him in a detox program and he's good now. He is a totally different kid and I've come to realize that Maggie doesn't have a TV/media addiction but my son does and I have to monitor the amount so he doesn't become "hooked" again. We are now on a limited amount a day and I swear he is a totally different kid. Lately I've been laying him down for bed first and then Maggie after. He now calls for me after and yells, "I wanna wok Mama" "I wanna wok Mama" wok=rock...But his new voice is not some sweet voice... I can only describe it as a lead singer to a heavy metal band yelling for his mommy. It's funny but very demanding! I've been rocking him to bed and he actually has fallen asleep in my arms. It's funny cause in old posts I had to hold him and rock him all the time and he rarely slept. I just wanted to put him down and now I have the opposite feeling where I just want to hold him.

Maggie has been really fun lately too! I've been spending a lot of intentional time with her lately because I get in these funks where I just want to be left alone and I want to clean, cook, go on the computer, watch TV, workout. I want to be by myself and this last week I just decided to play. We've had dance parties, dress up, tea, dollhouse, and "pretend" mommies. (She actually pretended she had 3 babies and it took a lot of processing for her to figure out that they weren't twins so she decided to call them troubles instead of triplets - I thought any mom of triplets would agree with that mistake). It's been so fun to see her use that imagination. It makes me miss teaching but then it also helps me realize that I can use those same teaching skills with my own kids. Maggie and I also went on a date to see the Nutcracker in Alameda where my friend Carrie helps run the show. She is a former ballerina and I used to watch her perform. Maggie had a blast and held on to the Nutcracker program the whole next day. The picture on the front is the main girl and guy. In the morning she was looking at it for a long time until she finally looks up at me and says, "Mom, why is his pee pee showing?" I think coffee almost came out of my nose and I thought to myself... my daughter is just like me... It brings me back to a time where my cousin Maureen and I went to the Nutcracker performance with our moms and me and her got the giggles cause this guy in white tights is just dancing around the stage with his wiener just sooooo out there. They should really wear black tights. Why am I so immature? It was a funny moment that day. By the way, we were teenagers at the time... it wasn't last year or anything. ha ha ha

Ok - 3rd picture... My mom called everyone to eat for Thanksgiving and we had 16 people. It took about 15 minutes to get everyone to the table (probably football). But I did notice 2 people who listened immediately. I think they were very hungry. Good job Vinnie and Dad! Your prize is to do the dishes... :)

The next picture is my mom and Maggie. Maggie got to help my mom with the sugar cookies which is something my Grandma always did with me. I think I usually ate all the dough (I hope that was helpful to her). Thanks mom for having the energy to carry on traditions with my kids.

The next picture is Seanie and his 2nd cousin Jake playing on the piano. You can imagine how beautiful it sounded. That also reminded me of my Grandma and Nonno cause theres a lot of pictures of me on that piano as a baby. Love it!

The next picture is a Gap commercial we were shooting! I'm the kids agent if you need to contact me.

Since I obviously have time to write, I decided to share this with the one person that reads this blog hee hee..... I've had a lot of struggles with how people view my kids (or my parenting skills). Over the last 2 years I feel like I've gotten a lot of looks of disaproval. It could be my son's tantrums in stores, throwing wine bottles out of carts, hitting, biting, screaming etc. Nothing too bad right? After the Nutcracker, Maggie and I met up with Sean and Seanie at a restaurant (we rarely go out to eat) and if we do 50% of the time we have to leave. There were twin 2 year olds next to us and they were so well-behaved. I watched as 2 older ladies went over to the mom and told them how cute they were and well-behaved. Then of course they passed us and deep down I wanted to be the one to get a compliment on how well-behaved my children are. But since mine was throwing crayons and hiding under the table and Maggie was singing X-mas carols we didn't get that lucky. But deep down, Sean and I laugh and have so much fun with our kids who are funny and full of personality. But for some reason that is my hold-up lately... my struggle. I think I viewed myself as such an expert with kids that maybe I was one of those old ladies who would monitor other kids behavior and blame their parents if they were misbehaving (before I had my own).

So I decided to go to church on Sunday night cause they were having a night of worship and X-mas songs and kids were invited. I knew it would be hard with Seanie but Maggie was so excited to go. We got there and stayed about 20 minutes. Behind me, I of course had "mean lady" who didn't appreciate Seanie playing peek-a-boo with her or grabbing her water bottle or dancing to slow songs. Then I have "nice old lady" across the aisle who thought Seanie was the greatest kid she's ever seen. He ran back and forth giving her high fives and hugs. Then danced in the middle of the aisle and clapped. All I could do was put on a fake smile. All the way home I could only think of "mean lady" and how angry I was. But I think God talked to me that night... He basically said..."Hey moron, I mean Jordan,(I don't think God calls people morons, well maybe if they need a wake up call) it's not about you... you don't know what that mean lady is going through... maybe she couldn't have kids, maybe she just lost someone close, maybe she just found out she has cancer, maybe she just lost her job, maybe she is sad, depressed, lonely, hurting... maybe this maybe that".... It actually brought tears to my eyes because it's not about me and how great of a parent I am. It's just about loving people. So instead of feeling sad, I prayed for both of the women that were there and also thought about another nice lady at church earlier that day who watched Seanie in Sunday school and said to me.... "Wow, your son is soooo much fun, he is so independent... You know what he is? He is a free spirit" Sooooo as I raise my free-spirited children at Christmas time, I can watch them kick the blow up Santa on the motorcycle in front of our house, fart at In-n-out Burger and laugh, not sit on Santa's lap and not care if they bring them presents... But then I can also watch Maggie shop for a 3 yr old girl who's is not getting very many presents this year. She was so excited to pick something out and wrap it with special Tinkerbell wrapping. It so far is one of my favorite moments during this Christmas season. My 4 yr old was not throwing a tantrum cause the baby doll crib wasn't for her. She got it! And I'm so proud!

That was a lot of writing but it felt good and I'm glad to share it with my family and friends who I love and respect as mom's so much! :) Are you drooling on your computers... well, maybe you needed a little nap...