heard around the house...

This afternoon some funny statements occurred....right before nap time Jon was watching the Browns game on tv...Jack chose to watch a bit of the game with Jon before nap...he said "daddy, let's watch some Browns, then take a nap"...then he said "wait, wait, I gotta get a big silky, then we can watch the Browns together and I will share my silky with you daddy, you're my best friend". So cute!!

After nap time he woke up and when Jon asked him what he wanted for dinner he said "lobster", "let's go to the store and pick one out". He remembered that last week Jon had mentioned that we may do a lobster pot boil for Sunday night dinner...so off to the store they have gone to pick out our lobsters for dinner...I think we're in trouble with the food tastes he is displaying (most kids would have said chicken nuggets, ha) ours wants lobster, oh my. I told Jon to think about what he would say when they pick out LIVE lobsters and then we come home and cook them...I'm anticipating a flurry of questions about this. Jon decided he would tell Jack God made lobsters for us to cook and eat...not a bad answer, but I can only imagine the other questions that will come...stay tuned for THAT.

We've had a pretty good weekend! Yesterday I took Jack to a class at our local children's theater. The class was with a Dinosaur theme and was for 3 adn 4 year olds. We had stories, music, made dinosaur hats and most of all, he got to dance, roar, and stomp like a dinosaur (aka burn off energy)!! Last night Jon and I met one of his clients for dinner and so Jackson's favorite teacher, Miss Brandee stayed with them both here at the house. Today we went to the beach and played for a bit this morning (but it is still really hot) and other than that, we've just been doing lots of bike riding and hanging around the house getting ready for yet another busy week.

Aunt Megan was so kind to get them both Miami Redhawk gear...with the start of college football season, here they are to cheer on the Redhawks:) Maybe we'll have a Redhawk someday!!

Simply Been!!

If anyone is looking to purchase or customize their very own "mommy necklace" or "family necklace", or "grandparents necklace" or "cause necklace"...whatever your passion, check out this cool website, an internet hand stamped silver jewlery company run by two moms, their story in the "about us" section is a good one.

www.simplybeen.com


Now, I have to disclose that I found this website by paging through the worst magazine, US WEEKLY (I got a free subscription from unused airline points that were about to expire) and they had an ad in the back! You can save 5% on an order if you put in the coupon code: USWEEKLY at check out.

Happy shopping...I'm not getting paid for this free advertisement of this company, but their stuff looks really nice and of course I like the story of the two women who run the company. I had been searching for a little necklace to put both of my kid's names on and I designed a nice one on their site.

photos from the weekend

Here are some photos from this past week when Sarabeth had a really cute outfit on for school, and also from this weekend. Jack got a big boy bike last week and he LOVES to ride it all around our neighborhood...it is amazing the coordination of this child. I think he will have LOTS of bikes in his future at the rate he is going with this one. He is tearing up the training wheels he has ridden so much, he loves it!!

reading and tgif!!!

its been so long since I've read for pleasure...that I have to blog about it. Anyone that knows me even a little bit probably knows that I am a book worm, I love to read, if being a lawyer ever did not work out, I would love to own/manage a book store! SO........not that I have much free time, but I did recently finally see the movie The Help...very deep, very heavy, but good. Because I had wanted to read the book first (but did not get around to it) I bought the book anyways and now I am reading it despite the fact that I saw the movie first. It feels SO good to read for fun. I read all day at work...statutes, treatises, case law...legal documents...but that is NOT FUN. I'm only at the beginning of the book, but so far, it is good...I'm hoping to read a book a month (before I could read a book in a few hours...but I figure all total I may only get to read a few hours a month right now but that is better than nothing)...give me some ideas of good books you have all read recently (or heard about if you also don't have time to read) in your comments!! Someday when I am old, gray and retired...I'm starting a book club, mark my words.

In other news...TGIF. SERIOUSLY, TGIF. I am EXHAUSTED. I had a Hospital District board meeting last night to adopt our annual budget in excess of 13 million dollars in ad valorem taxes collected (pays to live in a community like this) and two of my trustees said how tired I looked last night (thank you, seriously, that is NOT a compliment and yes, I have a full time job, three year old and three month old...really I have two full time jobs, but we are making it)!!! Sheesh, and as busy as I am, I have been running on average 2.5 miles on my lunch hours at the gym to get the rest of my pregnancy weight off...its a busy life I lead these days.

Jon is headed to Miami tomorrow to attend the Miami v. Ohio State game with some friends so Jack and SB and I are just hanging out tomorrow and tomorrow night. We may go with some friends to The Moorings to swim and have lunch but that is about it. Happy weekend everyone!!!

milestone to mark!

Sarabeth has started sleeping completely through the night at not even 4 months! If I don't write this down I will forget......so here it is. Each night this week she has gone down between 8 and 8:30 pm, and I put her in the bed AWAKE, she puts herself to sleep...no fuss at all after a good feeding and bath. She wakes between 7-7:30 am and nurses a good feeding then and that is all there is to it.

I SO did not have this experience last time, so I'm counting my blessings. My body has not adjusted to this new schedule yet, so I'm still awaking in the wee hours of the morning when she used to be up for a feeding and its a bit uncomfortable for me between about 5-7am until she nurses, but I will adjust soon enough. She is still 100% breastfed so this is AMAZING. I love this little angel so much!!

3 month photo proofs

Here is the link and info. to see Sarabeth's 3 month photo proofs, we took these last week Friday!

go to www.collages.net
Username: Sarabeth Peshke
Password: 21893

***When you get in, on the left hand side, you have to click or select "three month" photos, her maternity, newborn and 3 month are listed there so select three month to see that set.

3 year old Classroom rules!

Here is Jack's three year old classroom rules, as I said in my other post, he is loving this new routine:



August 29, 2011

Dear Parents:

Welcome to the Three Year Old Class. I look forward to serving you and your children in the coming year.

In addition to our weekly theme activities, we will have a letter of the week. We will start with “A” and work through the alphabet. Weekly we will have a science experiment and use words such as Hypothesis. Math is a daily activity we will begin number recognition and work on aabbab patterns. You will notice our white board (above our sign-in sheet) that will keep you informed on all these weekly events.

Listed below are guidelines for our class. As we get to know each other, we appreciate your cooperation in assisting us with the implementation. This will allow for effective classroom management.

 We encourage that children arrive at school before 9:00 a.m. Our days are full of activities and this will allow everyone to participate in all the great things planned. Thank you.

 Throughout the year we will encourage more independence. A few of the things that we will start working on are children being responsible for putting up their nap blanket, putting on shoes and socks and throwing away their plates and cups after meals.

 Show & Tell day is every Friday. Show and Tell is an activity that helps boost your child’s self-esteem, confidence and group language skills.

A few suggestions for your child to bring to show and tell are: a book, objects or pictures related to the “Theme or Letter of the Week”. Please no animals and only ONE show and tell item.

 For the safety of your children, we ask that tennis shoes or enclosed shoes with socks be worn to school. There have been too many accidents involving toes and feet during outside time.

 The classrooms rules are simple and can be easy to follow. These rules are Eyes are for Looking, Ears are for Listening, Mouths are Quiet while teacher is teaching and helping hands in the classroom. These rules have been reviewed with the class and will be a daily reminder for the first few weeks.

 I do not like to use time out but if need be I have a “thinking wall” that we use. We will discuss the negative behavior and how to avoid this from happening in the future.

 Please leave one change of clothes at school in the event of accidents.

 As we begin a new year, it is a great time to start with new tooth brushes and a trail size toothpaste. Please bring a new toothbrush and toothpaste for your child by next Monday.

I look forward to getting to know your family. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.




Ms. Meredith



***I forgot to mention about the whole science experiment thing...one night last week I was preparing to give the baby a bath and when I came into the kid's bathroom, Jack had measuring cups and was scooping water from the toilet and pouring it into the sink.......of course I freaked out and was NOT happy to see this...when I asked him what in the world he was doing he said "a science experiment mommy"...naturally!!!!! They must have done an experiment at school that day. I told him great, but we don't use the potty as part of any experiment...except to go to the bathroom. I think we have LOTS of fun ahead of us with Mr. Jack and his "experiments".

show and tell and bubble gum bubble gum in a dish...

I've been meaning to post some things I want to remember about Jack's new school routine. I finally got the cute letter with his new classroom rules and his new "schedule" and then I lost it.......so I've asked the director to email me another one so I can post it, it is so cute!!

For now, I will tell you about the new big event of the week which happens on Friday afternoons after nap time.............SHOW AND TELL (a bit of a headache for me as I have to help him find something each week and then MAKE SURE it actually gets to the school on Fridays) but he loves it!!

In Jack's new class they do show and tell each Friday afternoon after nap time as part of an exercise to help build the children's self esteem and teach them to speak to a group. This is not just generic old show and tell though.........no sir-ee....it correlates with the letter of the week! So, each Thursday night now we try to remember which letter we are on and then we find an item that correlates with the letter of the week and which is acceptable to Jackson (not an easy task) to take for show and tell the next day! Then of course we have to make sure the item is not played with Thursday night and goes missing for Friday morning when we try to get everyone out the door...last week the items was mysteriously missing Friday morning and randomly as they were all running out the door I remembered that he needed his item and then Jack and I had to sweep the house until we found where he had put it after he moved it from where I had set it with the other things to go out the door the next morning, phew, this is a big project for me it seems!! Last week was "A"...they did "A" twice...not sure why...so this week will be of course "B". Last week we took an airplane and this week he is going to take his new green Disney "B"us. When he gets to school on Fridays he knows right away that the classroom rules are that we cannot play with the show and tell item, it must be deposited into the "show and tell box" and is not to be touched until show and tell time. He proudly told Jon this when Jon dropped him off on Friday...he's got the rules down pat!! When he gets home on Fridays Jack likes to tell us all about show and tell and what everyone else brought......such a simple concept is such a big hit with him!

Jack is also all about interactive games and learning tools these days. Each day in his class they have "circle time" where they do some sort of an interactive group activity. They have little tags on the floor with their names so they have to sit in the same spot each day for circle time (I don't know why this amuses me, but it does) and they do it!! One time Jack had a dentist appointment and we walked in in the middle of circle time and I could not believe the CONTROL the teacher had over 14 little ones...they were totally silent, sitting still, listening and captivated by the activity she was doing with them....amazing...I need to start putting tags on the floor at my house I guess when I want Jack to sit somewhere, ha!! Anways...back to circle time...this week they must have played the game "bubble gum bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish" as a counting exercise. Last night Jack was chanting this little rhyme. We have not taught him this so it of course had to have come from school. He would sing it and then stop and say "mommy", "daddy", "Jackson" and we had to say a number and he would "count" out the ficticious pieces of gum into our hands and he did a turn for himself too, so funny. Clearly this must have been the way the game went at school so we played along. He was also rattling off some song about the letter "A"......this is how we learn what he does all day...just sit back, listen, and observe and you will be amazed!!

visit with the Borruso family!

Today our friends Anthony & Jen and their boys Alex (4) and Evan (almost 1) came to visit. Anthony and Jon used to work together until Anthony and his family moved back to where their family is in Arizona last summer. They were in town for a few days and so we planned for them to visit this morning and through the lunch hour. Alex and Jack had a great time playing at the beach, surfing the waves, swimming in the pool, playing on the slip and slide, and of course playing with Jack's toys. Jack is now fast asleep for a late nap after playing so hard and I'm sure Alex will nap good too. Evan and SB just hung out and did their thing. It was great to visit with our friends and to hear about their new adventures in Arizona! Other than seeing our friends, we're not up to much this weekend, which is nice after the craziness of last weekend at Disney. We're hoping to go to an oceanside concert in our beachside downtown area tonight where we will meet with some other families and everyone brings a beach blanket, chairs, and a picnic basket to share but the weather is not looking great. This time of year it rains every day at some point late afternoon/early evening and it has already started today so we'll have to see if it is a major weather event like the past few days, or if it will just blow through.

Happy weekend everyone!!

3 months old!

Tonight we did a little photo shoot in Sarabeth's room for her three month photos...good thing I have our professional photographer taking "real" photos of her at the end of this week because I had Jackson yelling for me from the bath tub to "take him a bath"...lately he wants ME to do everything for him, not Jon...and once I had bathed SB and had her in her pretty white Ralph Lauren onesie from Grandma for her photos...all of the sudden she decided it was a good time to poop!! So, I snapped a few quick photos and then got her OUT of the nice white onesie before a blow out could occur!! This is the best that we could do tonight, hopefully a few of them came out good.

Three month milestones:

LOTS of talking.....she woke up this morning at 6:15 am and babbled quite loudly for almost an hour straight...too bad I have not been able to capture this on film yet...the second I get the camer out she gets a concerned look on her face like "what's that thing mom" and won't talk!! The teachers at school also say when she is not sleeping she is "talking" to everyone in sight...such a girl:)

Lots of smiles and cooing, and definitely recognition of her immediate family members, she will turn and smile when she hears any of us and get very animated and excited, bicycling and kicking her legs in excitement

Lots of excitement whenever Jackson is around, it is amazing to watch her follow him around a room with her eyes and move her body towards him and to watch her literally light up when he comes up to her


She has discovered that she can stick her fists into her mouth and half the time she gags herself sticking her fingers/fist in too far!!

She has started to drool just a bit from time to time

still lots of crazy dark wild hair...we're still not sure what is going on with the hair and so far the eyes are still quite blue...maybe we'll end up with dark blue/green/hazel eyes...only time will tell!!


She is still exclusively breat fed....I think she has had about 3 formula bottles in her life thus far, and most of that was when I had mastitis which is REALLY good since the last time I had to supplement almost immediately when Jackson started school. I just could not keep up with his appetite but she does not eat nearly as much as he was taking at this stage. I am only pumping twice a day at work and getting about 12 ounces or so total. She takes two 5 oz bottles during the day at school and nurses usually once in the night and once in the morning and quite a bit in the early evening hours after work and before bed time.

Bed time is by no later than 8:30, and most nights now she sleeps until about 5-5:30 am. She is a great little sleeper and also takes good naps during the day.....usually she will take a really good morning nap for about 3 hours shortly after she gets to school and then another 1.5-2 hour nap in the afternoon.

Happy 3 months Sarabeth...you are a wonderful presence in our lives and we cannot imagine our family without you:)

a few more photos

Here are a few more photos from our Labor Day weekend Disney trip!!

Labor day weekend at Disney

Sorry for the lag in blogging, but we had a short week last week because we took off on Friday morning early to get a jump start on the long weekend up at Disney World!! Since we did not really get a summer vacation this year due to the birth of our wonderful baby girl/sister, we decided to take advantage of the first long weekend, for a little family vacation....labor day weekend is always a great weekend for Florida residents at Walt Disney World because all of the Europeans, South Americans, and northern friends are all back into work/school mode so the parks and hotels move at a less frantic, less crazy pace (if that is possible for Disney).

This time we decided to go back to the Caribbean Beach Resort, a really nice mid-level hotel we stayed at once before to celebrate Jackson's 2nd birthday. This is a GREAT hotel for toddler/pre-school aged children and it is affordable, not the low end or the high end of the spectrum. Clean decent sized rooms, not all of the frills of the next level resort, but very nice and this place was our pick because it has a really great gated toddler/small child pool (not a baby pool though, perfect for Jack's age) and also it has a huge large pool with two big water slides, cannons shooting water, etc. The pool area is a pirate theme which is perfect for Jackson right now and the whole resort is set to resemble the caribbean islands. Each group of buildings is a different "island" with its own sugar white sand beaches, hammocks, etc. We were in "Martinique" this time near the big pool which we had requested but the whole resort is on a lake so people can rent boats, etc. You just have to check out their website to get what I am talking about.

The first day there we did Magic Kingdom (everyone's favorite). That night we hit Epcot for dinner and fireworks. Saturday we did Hollywood Studios where we saw Buzz and Woody and the new Disney Jr. playhouse show and then we spent the afternoon enjoying the resort and pools. Sunday we did Animal Kingdom and the pools and Monday we woke up and enjoyed the pools, and then headed over towards Sea World where about 20 of our friends from our town here in Florida were staying at a Hilton hotel with an amazing pool, cabana and lazy river. They had rented a pool side cabana so we had lunch with everyone and swam for a few more hours (Jackson also found a huge water slide at this pool and went down it no less than 25 times...he can do so much more all of the sudden on his own now that he is 3...amazing) and then we headed home. Both kids slept the WHOLE way in the car which was really nice and then the crazy work began for me when we got home.....4 days worth of laundry and unpacking and getting everyone ready for work/school tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of our time! Look for a 3 month post for Sarabeth in a few days...she turned 3 months on Friday of last week! We are enjoying her more and more each day as her personality emerges, she is such a happy, smiling, cheerful little presence in our daily lives and we all love her SO much:)