Aunt Courtney's Tutu

Show up at our home on any given day, and this is most likely how you'll find Jacey. Last year when we went home for Christmas, Jacey was in her 2nd year of dance and LOVED doing her ballerina moves all over Grandma's big kitchen. Grandma dug out Courtney's costume from when she was little and had the part of a pussywillow (i think?) in their recital. Aunt Courtney and Grandma said we could bring it back to Texas with us, and I thought the novelty of it would wear out after a few days. Nope! Almost a year later, she still wears it- almost daily! Most of the time she doesn't even go to the effort of taking off whatever normal clothes she's wearing. The tutu just goes over it! The funny thing is that I'm so used to it. People will knock on our door and laugh when they see Jacey, but it takes me a minute to figure out what they're laughing at. Just another example of how Jacey keeps my days fun!

Football season is here!

We love football season! No, we are not Dallas Cowboy fans. No, we don't follow local college football. (Although, we do check BYU scores quite often.) No, we are not die-hard Lewisville High School football fans. (But we did enjoy their homecoming game last week.) The thing we love about football season so much is Parker College Intermural Football! I always assumed that once we got to graduate school everyone would be mature and serious all of the time. I wondered what that would be like right before we moved, since I didn't think we were all that different than we were when we were first married or working on undergrad at BYU. Imagine my surprise when got here and everyone else acted just as young as we felt! (and I mean that as the highest compliment possible!) We love any excuse to go to the park on Saturday mornings and watch Daddy play football. It makes me laugh to see the inner-teenager come out in these guys as they play. Football season is serious stuff, and I'm proud of Dan for at least not getting involved to the point of trash-talking their opponents while they play. (At least as far as I know!) Jacey loves playing with the little girl of one of the other players, and I enjoy talking with her mom since we don't usually see them outside of school functions. Broden entertains himself with the simple things. Last time feeling the grass kept him busy during the whole game.

State Fair of Texas!

Jacey's new friend!
Stopping for a quick hug and kiss.
Flying high on the rides!
One of the many animals Jacey got to feed.
Happy boy, even though he sat in the stroller most of the time!

It's been awhile since last update! We had such a good time when Grandma and Grandpa Sillito came to visit. One of the fun things we did was the fair! Jacey was old enough to have fun going on the rides. She went on the little roller coaster (with mom sitting by her to make her feel a little braver). Then she went on the airplaines, the train, the swings, and ended with the "big kid" pirate ship that went way up in the air (with dad). She is still our friendly little Jacey. The train only had a couple kids on it, but instead of picking one of the empty seats she went and sat down right next to another little girl and had a new friend by the end of the ride. She also had her first (and very enjoyable!) experience with cotton candy. They had the best petting zoo I've ever seen, and Jacey enjoyed feeding all the animals. Broden was a good sport just sitting in the stroller watching his sister have a good time. It was a fun day, and made us feel a little better about missing the Puyallup fair up in Washington. We were very grateful that Grandma Sillito was such a good sport to walk around another fair just days after finishing the Puyallup!

Mom...she's in my bed again!

Tonight was a first- We went through a fairly uneventful bedtime routine with the kids. Stories, scriptures, prayers, songs, and of course just before we leave the room, "Mom, could you just tell me one story about Jesus?" (Smart girl, what Mom is going to say no to that one?) Then we left the room and heard the normal giggling for the next 30 minutes. I even commented to Dan how much I love that sound, even though they're supposed to be falling asleep. Even though he's only 8 months, it's obvious that Broden LOVES his big sister, and she loves him too. He can't get enough of being around her. Even when she's in another part of the room, I often catch him looking at her with a HUGE smile on his face. She's great with him too. Eventually, the giggling died down and it got silent. I assumed they were asleep, until Dan peeked in the room to check on them. Imagine our surprise when Jacey's bed was empty, and Broden's crib had both children and every stuffed animal they own in it! Dan took her out, put her in her bed, and managed to hold his laughter until he got out of their room. Then, a little while later we heard Broden start crying, and sure enough she was in there again! I think Broden was just on the verge of falling asleep that time, and was not very happy about the interupption (as you can tell in the pictures!) That time we were a little more serious with her, took her out, and put her in her bed again. Ten minutes later we peeked in again, and Jacey's bed was empty. We were ready to discipline her this time, and went to Broden's crib and saw them laying there cuddling with each other. How do you discipline for that? We couldn't. We took her out again, almost asleep, and I'm pretty sure she fell asleep soon after in her own bed. I'm so grateful that, at least at this young age, they love each other so much. We've been blessed that Broden has been a happy, easy, baby, and we couldn't as for a better big sister. As much as I can't wait for the days of at least 3 bedrooms, I love the cute little chatter that I get to hear every night as they put each other to sleep. I love being a mom!

Happy Birthday Jacey!

4 years old!!! I can't believe it! Sometimes when I'm taking care of Broden, I feel like Jacey was JUST there. Some parts of me are kind of glad that her birthday just misses the cutoff to start kindergarten next year. We're doing a preschool co-op with some friends this year, and she is loving it. I have to say though, that on the days she's not here I miss her! It's only 3 hours 2 times a week, but I've realized how much I really enjoy having her around. She's changed from being a little baby that I have to do everything for, to being my little daytime friend! I love that she can carry on a real (and at times, very entertaining) conversation with me; I love that I can always count on Jacey to tell me how pretty I look (even if it's a day when I know I don't); and I love that she will think we are the best parents in the world if we buy her something from the dollar store! I love how much she wants to please us, and how hard she (usually) tries to do the right thing. I even enjoy (to a certain extent) the humor that her little-girl drama can add to my day. OK- on to her birthday. We had SO much fun! On her actual birthday we were driving home from San Antonio, and the next weekend Dan was at a seminar in Houston, so we didn't have her party until last weekend, 2 weeks after her birthday. One day I was putting clothes away in her closet, and she came in there crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she replied, "it was my birthday and I didn't get to blow out candles". I thought she understood that we were having her party later, but apparently not. I felt very bad, but luckily she had a couple friends coming over later that day. So made a quick batch of brownies, stuck some candles in it, and we sang when the boys got here, and problem was solved. She REALLY wanted a princess birthday party this year, even though 1/2 of the guests were going to be boys. Luckily, they are all easy-going boys, and they didn't mind dressing up in the prince clothes that we had for them at the party, and the little girls all dressed up as princesses. It was her dream come true! We had fun. The wind kept things interesting at the park, but without it, it would've been way too hot. She had a great time, and the month-long birthday celebration is finally over. She is having fun telling everyone she is 4. Several times a day she will approach someone (hopefully someone we know) and say, "Tell me I'm 3 years old." When they say it she loves saying, "Nooooo..... I'm four!"

Seaworld

We LOVED Seaworld! We're trying to find a reason to go back next summer, but for 2 days instead of 1. There was so much more to see and do, 1 day wasn't enough. Some highlights of the day.... definately the Shamu show! It was incredible! Jacey now wants to be an animal trainer when she grows up, so she can work at Seaworld and swim with Shamu. I can't say I blame her. Watching the show and seeing the trainers doing tricks and swimming with her almost made me want to do that when I grow up too! Jacey's prized possession now is her Shamu stuffed animal, and she sleeps with it every night. We haven't had the heart to tell her Shamu's a killer whale, and I don't see any reason to. I think she thinks that she's just a REALLY big dolphin. Another highlight was feeding and petting the dolphins. Jacey loved it, and was very excited when she got to touch one. We saw some other good shows, and went on some rides. Jacey surprised us all when she wanted to go on "Journey to Atlantis" which is a pretty big ride similar to Splash Mountain at Disneyland. She was barely tall enough, and Jacey's pretty tall for her age. The very last stretch of the ride is a huge drop that goes down into the water. It was her 1st ride of the day, and I was afraid she would be scared of the rest of the rides after that, but she LOVED it! She's definatly braver than I was at 4 years old! Eventually we made our way over to the water park, where we hung out in the wave pool for awhile. Jacey had fun diving into the waves and pretending to be a mermaid. Then Dan took her down a waterslide with him, and she liked it so much she told him she wanted to go again. They waited in line all the way up to the slide, and when he sat down and got ready to put her on his lap again, she refused and said she wanted to go by herself. So she did, and loved that too! It was such a fun day! I know I'm forgetting lots of other details, but those were the highlights. We played hard that day, and left the park tired, hungry, and happy!

Vacation to San Antonio

A couple weeks ago, our family took a much-needed trip to San Antonio. It was probably the funnest thing we've done since moving to Dallas! We were celebrating having Dan back as a member of our family (he took his first set of National Board Exams the week before), and Jacey's birthday. Our good friends Dallas and Abi came with us, and we had SO much fun! We just went down for a long weekend. (Well, the guys kind of made their own "unoffical" long weekend, since they had just started a new trimester) Thursday we drove down, and stopped at an AMAZING outlet mall in San Marcos on the way. It's probably a good thing that we didn't get there until 8:00 and all the stores closed at 9:00, because we could have done WAY too much shopping! Friday morning we got up and explored the city. First we went to the Alamo, then to the Spanish Market where we had great gorditas and found an AMAZING Mexican bakery. Jacey was in heaven there when she heard a band playing outside and found a empty little stage just waiting for a 4-year-old dancer. She entertained us while we sat in a little food court area and ate our lunch, but was pretty disappointed when her stage time was over. Then we went to the riverwalk, which was so pretty. I've never seen a river run right into the bottom floor of a mall before. We took a little ferry ride down the river, which was a nice way to see it after walking all day. That night we met up with a friend of Dan's from high school who is living in San Antonio with his family. We ate at a really good Mexican restaraunt right on the riverwalk, and Jacey fell in love with their little girl, Lily. It's amazing to me how she could spend a day and a half with someone she's never met, and still be praying for her every night 2 weeks later. The next day we went to Seaworld (which will be a whole other entry by itself!) with Dean and his family for the day. The next day was Jacey's birthday, and we celebrated by driving back to Dallas. Poor girl... we did let her choose 1 present to bring from home, and Dallas and Abi brought her a gift to open in the hotel that morning as well. It was such a fun trip, and made it even more fun to be with friends! We love the Makins, and they were such good sports the whole weekend. Dan and I often talk about how different life is after you have kids (and how much we love it)! Vacations are definately a little more complicated though, and they just acted like it was no big deal any time we had to stop to feed a baby, change a blow-out (thankfully that only happened once!), find something to eat for a hungry 4-year-old, etc. Hopefully they enjoyed the weekend as much as we did!