Convos in the van 5

After picking up Em from school today, she proclaims, " It's time. I think I'm not gonna suck my thumb from now on."
Me: really?
Em: aren't you gonna say 'good job!'?
Me: oh ya, good job babe! I'm proud of you!

A couple of hours later at home...
Em: nevermind, I'm still gonna suck my thumb.

Smh. So close! LOL.

overheard during play time

Jay was born in 2006, Em in 2008...
Jay: Em! These scissors are really good! They cut better than the other ones. I think they were made in 1995!

LOL!

Money

We were going to a birthday party for a 6yo boy & Jenner got a Star Wars Lego toy as a gift for him. Jeremiah loves Star Wars & just recently started liking legos, so he asked his daddy how much it was. I guess it was $20, so then Jeremiah says, "Daddy, do you have a dollar with a 20 on it?" What a clever little bugger!

Hungry monkey!

When I picked up Emma from school her teacher pointed to a cupcake she made for the kids and told me that Em might not be hungry cause she had a cupcake earlier (they were pretty big too). J saw the cupcake on the bookcase and said, "I want a cupcake!", and the teacher said ok and gave it to him. Then here goes Emma, "I want a cupcake! I'm staaaarving!" I looked at her like 'are you crazy?!' And told her she already had one. Her teacher said she had more and I graciously told her no, then I mouthed 'she eats A LOT!' Lol. Oh, my hungry monkey! Hahaha!

Convos in the van 4

Earlier tonight Jeremiah had a Advent candle lighting service for school in the church.  It was really nice.  Each grade sang a song.  It was heartwarming to see these kids from preschool to eighth grade sharing what they learned about the Advent season and what it means.  I'm really proud of Jeremiah.  Sometimes he'll come home and tell me facts about saints that I didn't even know existed!  I'm so happy he's learning so much about the Catholic faith and I'm sad he & his sister will have to change schools next year.  Hopefully when I finally have a job, I will be able to send them back.  They actually expect that they will come back in the future.

Anyway, we were on our way to church during rush hour and there was some traffic at a stop light.  We were kind of in a rush because his class had to meet up before heading into church and it was only 15 minutes till the service started.  anyway, we were about 10 or so cars from the red stop light and Jeremiah let out a disappointing "oh!"-like we were gonna be late.  Then, the light changed to green and we didn't move, so then he says in an annoyed tone JUST like I would have, "why aren't the cars moving!"  I literally LOL'd!  Maybe I need to keep my mouth shut when I'm driving them around. hahaha

Beautiful

Today I attended a funeral for the father of my dear friends.  It was the most beautiful funeral mass I have ever been to.  I had the privilege of singing with the choir, but often got choked up because of how beautiful the choir sounded, especially with the piano, violin and harmonies.  I didn't know this, but Uncle was a great writer and a part of this poem was shared at the mass by his eldest daughter.  I wanted to share it here because it is beautiful.  From the stories shared, it sounded like he had a life full of laughs, creativity and love.  He leaves behind a great legacy in his family; a family that is so genuine and always so giving of their time & talents.  They are true friends and I am blessed to have them in my life and now they are blessed to have an angel to watch over them.

How can I say no to THAT face!

A while back, when Jeremiah started his germaphobe phase, he decided my phone was dirty and cleaned it under running water.  I was really upset, but his reasoning was valid and he truly was being sweet.  I thought I had lost my phone forever, but on a prayer, wish and hope I disassembled my phone and buried it in a tupperware of rice (brown, if that makes any difference).  I totally did not think it would ever work again, but the next day I assembled it and it worked!

Anyway, since this miracle from God, the kids have been banned from playing on our phones until we upgrade to new ones.  The other day Jeremiah asked to play on my phone.  I, of course, said no and his reply was, "Please mommy!!  What face can you not refuse?"  I just LOL'd and said, "oh babe, even if you gave me puppy dog eyes, you wouldn't be able to play on my phone! haha."  He's so silly, I don't even know where he heard that from.

our weekend

Jenner surprised us with an impromptu drive up to my sister's house for the weekend on Saturday.  We, the kids and I most especially, LOVE visiting my sis and her family since we don't get to see them often. 
Jenner and I woke up early on Sunday to watch the sunset together.  It was his idea.  I thought it was romantic, he thought otherwise, but still did it for me anyway. aww :) 

Anyway, we woke up to this and I just had to take a pic...

Then Jenner and I walked to the nearest park to watch the sunrise.  It was a beautiful chilly morning :) 

I loved my weekend.

Convos in the van 3

Em: mommy you have to take me to (special friend #2's) house today.
Me: what? Why?
Em: because he asked me to go to his house & I said yes.
Me: realllllly. He asked you?
Em: ya, he said, 'can you come to my house?' And I told him yes.
Me: hmm. Next time you have to ask me first, ok babe?

Em's field trip to the pumpkin patch & Convo's in the Van 2..

Emma was so excited to go to the Pumpkin Patch with her classmates today!  Good thing it stopped raining today otherwise it would've gotten cancelled.  When I picked her up (30 mins late btw! mommy fail right there.) she said, "It was sooooooo fun! and it was fun to go on the hay ride!"  She toured the patch with her bff, his dad and another little boy from the morning class.  Each student got to pick their own pumpkins and Emma named her pumpkin, Cutie!  She plans to decorate it when daddy is home from work tomorrow.  She said, "I love to surprise daddy!"

After I picked up Jeremiah from school, we stopped at Toys R Us to look for a costume for the school's Saints Parade on Friday.  He keeps changing his mind on what he wants to be.  First he said a cook, then it was St. Michael, then a scientist, now he wants to be a fisherman.  I forget which saint that is, but luckily, both grandpa's like to fish so maybe he can just borrow a fishing pole. lol.  Thank God we don't need to spend any money on his costume! We didn't leave empty handed though.  We picked up a couple Angry Bird erasers for Jeremiah and Emma in the gumball machine for 50 cents each :)  Jeremiah opened his on the way home and asked me, "Why is a lot of things in America made in China?" He caught me off guard and I didn't really have the energy to answer after almost 2 hours in the toy store, so I just told him that was a good question! I'll save that question for daddy to answer :)

convo's in the van are the best

convo on our way home from school today...

Em: mommy, ms bertha has a new book called 'Jonah & The Big Fish'

me: oh really? what is it about?

Em: Jonah gets eaten by a whale

me: what?! is he ok?

Em: ya, he got out because he prayed to God.

J: oh I remember that story Em.  mommy! today is the feast of St. Jude & someone else, but I forgot who.

me: oh! i didn't know that.  What did St. Jude do?

J: he had a FEAST!

starting over

so it's been a long loooong time since I last posted on my blog.  I decided to update some stuff on my blog to make it more relevant to how our family is now.  I changed the name from the jen's plus 2 mainly for the fact that now we have 3 kids.  the jen's plus 3 didn't really sound right to me so I picked "family hugs" since it's a thing that our little family of 5 like to do when we're all together.  I really love our family hugs especially since our kids are usually the ones to initiate them.

I named this post 'starting over' cause i'm gonna try to post more on here than my fb... i've said this before & i think i've tried this like 3 times already! haha, but hey, 3rd times the charm right? on my fb page, i often post little stories about our kids and funny things they say, but then i feel like some people get tired of hearing about stuff i post.  I really do it for personal reasons anyway (I tend to forget stuff & I wanna remember things my kids say cause it's usually hilarious).

so a little update on our family life.. our 3rd child, Nico, just turned 1 on Oct 19.  He is such a happy baby and sooo easy going.  I don't know if it's because he's the 3rd child and we're pros (yah right!) but it seems like all his milestones are coming so easy! (knock on wood)  He started sleeping through the night at 2-3 months old, sat on his own around 5-6 months, took his first steps around 9 months and started really walking at 10 months. Now he's practically running all over the house! haha.  Jeremiah is now 7 and in 1st grade and Emma is 5 and in preschool.  They are doing extremely well in school and love it. Well, Jeremiah likes it, but Emma loves it. I'm so amazed at how well they learn and how much they retain in their little brains!  To daddy's excitement, J & Em watched Star Wars this past year and have come to love it.  They often hum the songs and/or say lines from the movies.  For like a month we watched Star Wars episode IV every day.  They would never let me watch the next episodes so I would have to watch them when they went to sleep (& yes, I never watched Star Wars episode IV till this year.  I think I watched episode 3 in the movie theater, but I didn't really get it till this year. lol)  Anyway, this leads me to our new dog.  He was born on June 3rd this year to my sister's dog and Jenner surprisingly and finally said yes to the kids many requests of getting a dog!  We got him during the peak of kids Star Wars craze so they wanted to name him Jedi.  He's a cutie patootie, but sometimes his chewing on the furniture & pooping/peeing on my rugs makes me wanna ring his neck! haha.

till the next post! hopefully that'll be sometime this year :)