Addendum!*

* Whoops! I'm out of blogging practice already, apparently! Here are some additional pictures that I forgot to include in the post below, Worth a Thousand Words. If you haven't looked there, you should probably do that first! Enjoy and don't forget to vote!

Leo W. (Charlie's dad)

I don't have any baby pictures of him, otherwise I'd put those up too

Sophia about 5 months

Leo S. about 1 week

Leo S. 4 days old

Leo S. newborn

Sophia about 6 months

Sophia newborn

Sophia about a week old

Worth a Thousand Words...

So without a camera I really had to get creative! Actually, I've wanting to scan some pictures for a while now, but I'm more motivated without a camera to showcase new pictures! It did take me forever, once again, to get these pics in here and post-able (And they're only sort of post-able! In fact, if anyone can give me tips on how to scan pictures without the stupid little picture in a box look, I'd be really grateful. I fixed it the best I could but I still don't love it!) I picked out a few pictures that I think show similarities between family members.

I really think Leo looks like a true Jones. I look a lot like my dad and I think he will too. Also, I put a few pics of Charlie and me to compare to Sophia. Everyone says she looks exactly like Charlie, which she does, but I think it's amazing how much she looks like me as a kid too. How can this happen?? Genetics are a funny thing!

Leo's newborn picture

My cousin David's newborn picture
David is Ellyn's (dad's sister) son

Leo S.

Leo S.

Ellyn kissing Stephen R. (my dad!)

I loved this picture for many reasons...1. I think it looks just like Leo, 2. this reminds me so much of Sophia showering her own brother with love!

Stephen R.

Charlie

Tori

Sophia

Okay, this is an old picture of her, but I thought it looked so much like Charlie in the picture I included that I wanted to use it!

Please weigh in and let me know what you think....who do my children look like the most??? Inquiring minds want to know!

Oh the Horror!!

So, I really swear that I was going to do some uploading yesterday of some various activities we've done throughout the week, including my kiddos looking super cute in rugby stripes at Daddy's game yesterday, but wouldn't you know it...the camera finally died. I feel a great loss. It has been a bit on the fritz for the past month or so, but I figured it was still working pretty well. I've been wanting a new camera for about a year, but figured it just wasn't in our immediate future since this one did work, but I guess Christmas is coming early! ;) I looked on our computer to see if it had a little spot to insert the memory card so that I could at least get off the photos that were on there, but no dice. I'm not sure if there's any way to retrieve them except for printing them off at Walgreens and then scanning them into the computer (blech!).

Life here is trucking along. Sophia has reasserted her prerogative to not sleep. That's been fun. It has been better the last few days, but it makes for an even more tiring night when I'm up with both of them. I think a lot of it stems from a bit of jealousy. She wants mommy to herself and isn't inclined to share when she doesn't want to. She also came down with just a small cold and that could have had something to do with it too. Other than that, she continues to be just a hoot! She is making so many more connections, it absolutely amazes me. Right now she's really into mommies and their babies. She was rooting through her Halloween candy bowl and pulled out an orange Tootsie Pop (her fave by the way) and continued rooting. She then found a Mini Tootsie Pop, also orange, and exclaimed, "Oh! It's her baby!" Today after leaving church she told Charlie, Daddy you get in the seat and I'll drive. The other morning as I was in the bathroom she asked me, Mom, did you tinkle? Yes, Sophia. Good job, mom! Then she asked to flush and proceeded to sing "bye-bye tinkle, go down the hole!" over and over again. She loves her little brother and is happy to kiss him and hug him most of the time! She also likes to use the word "ok" as an emphasis on the end of her sentences. For example, I want some milk, Tori. Okay? or she'll tell her animals in her bed, I'm going to go check on Leo but you have to stay here, okay? Okay?? Okay, I'm going to go, ok??

Leo's cough seems to have mostly cleared up. He has really "woken up" the last week or two and is presenting us with some parenting challenges, oh joy! He is still pretty gassy and becoming fussier. I'm over my fear of the colic, but I do worry about his gas bouts. His fussy time seems to be around 8pm which is a HUGE bummer b/c as soon as I get Sophia to bed, I have to deal with his drama for another hour. He still sleeps a lot during the day and is awake a lot during the night. I have started putting him in his crib and he sleeps there for at least an hour every night! Baby steps! Sometimes it is a significant portion of the night, other times it isn't. He has started smiling and giggling, which is way cute and I look forward to more of that! Today we took him to church for his 40th day blessing and he did pretty well, Sophia is another story.

I continue to question my sanity when I take her to church. I am just at a loss. She isn't badly behaved, it's just that she isn't particularly well behaved either. She's loud, she doesn't get the concept of whisper at all, and she is very busy! I can deal more with busy than I can the loudness. Our church does have a cry room but it's just a room filled with toys. I basically refuse to take her into it because one, it's filthy, and two, I don't want to teach her that we come to church so that she can go upstairs and play with toys. However, I spend the entire time at church fussing and worrying and looking after her that I'm getting nothing out of it. I only listen to half the gospel reading and half his sermon so I think what's the point of being here??! I look around at other kids her age and they seem to be able to function, so what is it about us?? Part of me feels like if we get Leo going on this church thing starting now that he'll be able to do it because he'll have learned from the beginning. I can only hope. Along that same vein, I say that could happen with Sophia too, but part of me feels like we should already be to that point and moving past it.

We're just a happy little family of four now, looking forward to a holiday season full of thanks and joy surrounding it!

A Frightfully Good Time!

Hee-Haw!

a very unhappy giraffe

Sophia and the Little Bear Ballerinas

Sophia and Tinkerbell (Isabelle) are dancing to the music in downtown OP

Happy Birthday, Julie!

Mom and Leo cuddled while I gave out candy

Sophia enjoying her bounty

We began the evening by visiting the many trick-or-treat options in Downtown Overland Park. It was extremely busy but the kids had a good time. Sophia got a lot of walking in and even managed to do quite well while wearing her horse! There was a band playing in the Square and we took a short break there for the kids to bust-a-move! Charlie took Sophia out in our neighborhood for her first real trick-or-treating experience. They just went around our block and he said she really got the hang of things towards the end. At one point she left some one's house and screamed, "I LOVE candy, Daddy!" He said the other group of mothers ahead of him just died laughing. The only down side to this whole thing is we've spent the entire day doing the battle of the candy bucket! ARG! I'm tempted to just let her eat it all and then we're done with it! I really liked those days when she didn't know what candy was yet...I miss them!

Never a Dull Moment

As if Halloween weren't crazy enough, we decided to pay a visit to the Emergency Room too. It was Little Leo's first and probably not last, visit to Children's Mercy last night. I noticed that he began developing a little cough sometime yesterday evening and wasn't overly concerned as Sophia just got over a cold herself...but then Charlie thought he felt warm and took his temp. Well, this is where it got hairy. His underarm temp was 99.4. Many doctors and nurses recommend a rectal temp be taken when the baby has a temp over 99. And this is where things start going down hill...

I must admit that both Charlie and I are, how you say...inexperienced... in this area. We never faced this challenge with Sophia so we were both a bit freaked. I won't give you all the nitty-gritties but just imagine the possibilities with two grown adults, a tube of Vaseline and a very squirmy baby. Hmmm.

After this 30 minute ordeal we dialed up Ask-A-Nurse to give her the low-down and get some further advice. (I love this service by the way...ingenious!) She basically said, take him to the ER, he could have a fever and at his age any fever is serious. Okay, enough said...we loaded up the car and headed out.

We waited almost 3 hours, which didn't really bother me that much as I felt it was to be expected during flu season AND on Halloween, to finally see the doctor. Here is really where my irritation begins and ends...she was complete bitch. Essentially after asking us a bunch of questions she made us feel like idiots for bringing him in, implying that we were stupid not to know better because he was still eating and having wet diapers and then she had the gall to ask us if we just did this because we though he had Swine Flu. Um...HELLO!? He's FIVE WEEKS OLD!!!!! I would expect her to be understanding of such things and that if he did in fact have a fever (which he didn't by the way, once the experts took it rectally they got a better result!) he would need immediate medical treatment! Quite frankly I think we were justified in our visit. We were concerned parents of a very tiny baby AND we called to get a second opinion before just rushing to the hospital. Regardless of all these things, we went to the hospital for a service, not a lecture and she should have placated our fears not patronized us. She can talk about us behind our backs all she wants...vent to your fellow doctors about the over protective parents who brought in a healthy 5-week old all you want, but she should have made us feel better!

Just to spite her we stole two fancy bulb syringes for his nose...we're such rebels! After making it home just before 2 am, we are all exhausted but are continuing to monitor his situation. So far so good! Thank goodness for mothers though, because my mom came over at the drop of a hat last night to stay with Sophia (who thank heavens did not wake up b/c it would have been melt down city when she found out I wasn't home) and Charlie's mom who just picked up Sophia to take her to church and to visit Grandma B. Hopefully Charlie and I can catch up on some sleep and hopefully Leo's cough will clear up in a timely manner and this is the end of that ordeal!

An Outing

Sophia getting her dance on
Massimo joins Sophia in a very exuberant dance party

he's all skin and bones!

so serious!

Do you think mom minds if I use Brother as an arm rest?

This is more like it!

I'm trying to set some goals to get out more! Thanks to Julie we had a very fun outing/play date this morning. We went to see the Dino O'Dell concert at Pottery Barn Kids and then back to their house for lunch and play time. All the kids had fun, Leo slept through the entire ordeal, and I felt like a normal person for a few hours...woo hoo! We're looking forward to another busy day tomorrow! Stay tuned for more spooky (okay, maybe not so spooky) looks!

Pumpkin Carving

Whoa!
Sophia's Jack-o-Lantern

Charlie carving his masterpiece

the Frank-o-Lantern

It's so fun to start more new traditions! Sophia wasn't too into the whole process really, just the end product! We couldn't get her to touch the inside of the pumpkin at all! We asked her which shape she wanted the eyes and nose and whether or not the mouth should have teeth, how many, etc. This gave her some ownership over her pumpkin, but of course we didn't trust her with any sharp carving instruments just yet!

Here's what will greet Trick-or-Treaters at our door this weekend...